It doesn’t have to be wooden or ergonomic, as long as it’s sturdy, leans against the edge of the frame and leads somewhere higher, whatever that means. Of course, a ladder comes in very handy when we are just talking on the phone and our conversation is with someone, or something at a distance and promises to be exceptionally long. Abstractions formed on the ladder cannot be verified, ideas „talked about” on the ladder cannot be embodied – they remain interesting delusion. Delusions are very much needed by Homo sapiens as a natural habitat through which our species maintains its superiority over other primates.
Even more than for conversation, we need delusions that can be turned into an image, into a possibly simple, intuitively usable object or tool. Of course, both colour and tools can be brought on a ladder. But it might not be that simple. Especially if you want to climb the ladder engraved by Dürer – at the very beginning you have to do some exaggerated bending, crossing highly irregular, useless blocks in order to get your foot on the first rung.
Professor Kazimierz Dąbrowski has aptly described what can happen in the next moment.
„Let us now turn to the question of transcending one’s own mental type. Is such a transcendence even possible? We may think that not only is it possible, but that it is even a necessary developmental imperative, a necessary imperative to transcend psychic one-sidedness. To transcend the limitation of life attitudes. It is a mechanism for authentic understanding with oneself and with others, a basis for interdisciplinary and intra-disciplinary thinking. The uptight guy, the developmental type, which does not have the possibility of transcending, even partially, certain psychic qualities, will act in a schematic, automatic way”.
(quoted in K. Dabrowski, Positive Disintegration, Warsaw 2021, second edition, p. 102).
Don’t be those „uptight guys” and believe, that this is a simple instruction for using the old Dürer ladder. Fine, it is not as clear as the Ikea instructions, but it may be used. Confidence in the author is built by such risky (from a technical point of view) phrases as „We may think…”. We still keep thinking! To compensate, we like to think of ourselves as efficient mechanisms. Such thinking, at least since the mid-19th century, has paved the way for technology and engineering, which are happy to play the role of redeeming force in the global marketplace of unlimited possibilities.
Dabrowski’s use of authéntēs/αὐθέντης (ὁ αὐθέντης – a maker, a creator – one who does something with his own hands (and feet), does it by his own strength and will) and authomatos/αὐτόματοç (spontaneous, unplanned, accidental); Aristotle used this word when he wanted to make a clear distinction between the accidental kind of action and that which happens by free will, as ἀπό τέχνç i. e. according to the rules of the art.
There is no need to go too deeply into a given subject, because then it is very easy to take a nose-dive, from any level. And we want to get out of the news feed efficiently, without too much effort, „automatically”, in order to climb somewhere higher, where (surely, as Plato suggests) it is „clearer” and perhaps „better”.
The old, forgotten meaning of automaticity (automaton) as a random, unpredictable, alien force, opposed to our will and intentions (realised through artistry/art/ars/τέχνη), might serve us well in the face of the widely proclaimed imminent era of AI and machine learning domination.
Instead of falling into sadness and melancholy over such – specialised – predictions, try every day to boldly transcend the ostentatiously irregular. Even the irregular and „illogical”, like the clumsy lump in Dürer’s engraving, climb the slightly paradoxical ladder based on the edge of the frame.
Everything can be clarified, arranged in the next frame, in the moment when your head is already out of the here and now (hic et nunc).
Ladders, bridges, tools, mechanisms that allow us to transcend what limits us can be simple and yet effective. You just have to be willing to climb them with your own strength.
Is it worth it? Does it get scary?
Let us conclude by quoting a sentence from Richard Shusterman’s Aesthetic Experience and the Power of Possession, to lend credence to the usefulness of our efforts: „The atmosphere of a bright sunny day by the sea may produce an experiential mood or a feeling of contentment, but for the aesthetic experience of appreciating the beauty of a seascape bathed in sunlight to occur, it is necessary for the subject to become consciously aware of appreciating that beauty” (Krakow 2023).
Are you ready? Do we start automatically or authentically?
What matters that we are on the ladder!
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