Chapter 8- Engineering: Recommended, Part 1

Activities Recommended:

• Photography and photograph developing
• Horse-riding
• Food parcel packing for charity
• Tours of caves
• Effort to make peace with relatives
• Homoeopathic remedy for ‘tiredness’ of mind

Photography: Of the four elemental qualities, air, fire, water and earth, engineering predominantly features the condition of the ‘earth’ – of that fixedness examinable to the material existence.

In the photographic chronicles displaying this very fixedness we find that there is little or no quality of air (etherealness); no fire (life); no water (fluidity – ongoingness, mutability etc.).

The study of photography excites both the amateur and the professional in like regard with each new depiction. We are ever amazed at the virtue and the arrogance of this impressioning before us. If we are familiar with the subjects personally that have been isolated into that stationary moment, interestingly, we are immediately compelled to review our inner impressions alongside these eternal circumstances at the time we are recalling.

“How did it feel on that day?” will be the first question that springs from within. We shall mentally try to draw together much of what we can in a few moments to complete the ‘picture’ and add to its statement of existence.

Therefore this photo then becomes a springboard into more complex pictures held within our imaginative recall – the catalog of associations and deep memories which cannot of themselves, be comprehensively committed to a singular print.

As an activity we are asked to objectify the subjective experience and this is a useful example of contrast for the individual that has difficulty admitting the objective realities into his consciousness. This is not to say that the imaging in any given photograph is a wholesome or correct portrayal of a subject. However there is an inarguable element to it (providing it has not been altered from the original of course) – being witness to an aspect of a moment as it was at one time.

Horse-riding, once again, helps the rider to admit to certain immediate objective realities and also calls him to respond to them. There is a cooperation required between both man and big beast, and it is with this cooperative effort there comes a respect for the powerful animal, and a respect for the individual in common.

Dog training does not compare here, because one can impose their will all too easily upon a dog, so that the dog mimics the trainer, rather than independently interacts.

The learned responses from a dog can satisfy an individual in that the dog becomes much of an extension of himself and owners are known to equate their own self discipline with that of their adopted pet after a while. In this relationship the two almost become as one – the dog, being but the lesser model of the other.

However, with the horse and the dear donkey there may well be an amiable compliance, yet it is that it is the animal themselves deciding this congeniality – in riding, in cart pulling, in paddock tilling – the work horse, our gracious friend, deserves acknowledgment for that which he performs willingly. He does not have an ego developing as a man would have, but he does have the capacity to make decisions about his preferences and interactions. Such an animal as the horse would rather take sick and withdraw from life entirely than be forced to succumb to a master that is cruel and distempered.

Even those beloved of beasts who walk the grain stone-milling circuit – hour after hour – do so with a love for the human company around them. 

 

It is interesting to note that the more capable an animal is of deciding ‘yea’ or ‘neigh’ in that which it has its mind to, the more it can respond in loving kind to the people around it. A beast of the wild is too compelled by its carnal instincts to ‘decide’ its relationships accordingly, whilst the domesticated pet is too compelled by the will of the owner to ‘decide’ its mind in its present state of development.

We may learn to develop our choice making, our own ‘decisions’ as long as we are not treated like a dog and expected to perform to another’s will and bidding; or given to an aggressiveness which departs the conscious effort.

In taking this responsibility of choice – finding ourselves in relation to others and respecting the ‘I’ of the ‘am’ (of both us and of them) – then so more also do we become capable of loving as well. Only in freedom do we come to mutual cooperation and then further on to this love.
 

Kissing another person, mouth to mouth, and exposing each to the other’s breath as well as the fluids, is an extreme and deliberate test of tolerance and mutuality of egos. Having said that, we may all understand too readily that it is not by such kissing that we are enabled to meet with the bulk of humanity. In point of fact, as poignant a discovery as it may be, there are little or no folk we should wish to endeavor this ‘testing’ with comfortably. And so, one could say that even though the efficacy of this method is assured, it is not one in which we could share universally.

Such discriminatory processes can be over-keenly receptive and similar to us trying to appreciate the tuba’s playing with our ears held right up to the very opening. It is not to say that we do not share great and glorious affinities with those around us, but we do have perimeters to differences that co-exist amongst the splendid qualities shared that would speak too loudly at close range.

At the opposite to this ‘close range’ can be found the type of love and intimacy which is expressed to the fellow/s whom we do not ever even meet with. The type of charity as is expressed through the food parcel packing is one where we are not given the personal result or appreciation, and could not be further away from the other with which we are sharing a relationship.
 

The dynamic of this kindness of giving is swift and purposeful. There is nonetheless a true relationship between the charitable man and his receiver, even without the acknowledgment from either … and the parcel which is provided in this way, not only gives to the individual receiving, but the world as a whole as well.

Therefore, this is a different form of practicality we can come to in our understandings within the workings of the world, finding that the results of what we do, do not have to be realized by us for them to have a profound effect in many realms, in many ways. We can be both cautioned and encouraged in this. We can discover just how many ways we can enhance the physical conditions here anonymously and find satisfaction, most curiously.

Continued...