Faced with dilemma of my despair and confusion in the midst of a government imposed lockdown without any referendum of its people, I felt I was powerless to control my destiny. The COV-19 Pandemic establishment, fueled by the pied piper of the CDC, had determined that all I had worked for during my lifetime, and all that I was currently engaged in, was not worthwhile in light of a new virus launched by surprise on an unsuspecting global population.
As I fought through the brain fog of isolation and shutdown, I began to understand that I was allowing myself to be victimized by the circumstances of confinement. I needed to find my way out of this pandemic maze that had totally shredded the mechanisms of routines in my life that had imbued each day with structure and purpose.
Everything seemed to collapse and merge to the problem, (blackhole) of
TIME.
Ah, Time...the dilemma of life, of science, of the universe...the focus of Einstein... the relativity of the absolute. Hadn't I always grappled with this... remembering my attraction to and obsession with Martin Heiddeger's
BEING AND TIME?
Remembering my romance with phenomenology and ontology, that began when I went to NYU after completing my doctorate at Columbia. That romance began because of an encounter with my colleague in the Art Department, David Ecker, an astonishing phenomenologist who, at first seemed to be talking nonsense, when suddenly heuncovered the landmines of objective reality---and he was opening a new world of wonderment, clear vision and understanding of method. Later, I stumbled across Heidegger's
TIME AND BEING, written near the end of his career as an experiment in philosophy and education.
Ecker focused on the process of the phenomenological method, using language as a tool of inquiry to uncover layers of meaning. While I had read of Heidegger in my philosophy studies, I had not fully understood phenomenological use of language as a tool of inquiry, moving through layers of meaning from phenomenological description to meta-critical observations and conclusions. So as I came across Heidegger's reversal in the twilight of his career:
On Time and Being, I was delighted that this was drawn from lectures for a select group of students in which he declares that he has no idea what his lectures will be about, but that they will discover the content of the lectures as it emerges from the class as a platform for inquiry. I identified with this approach as it has been foundational to my classes and workshops.
As much as what I am writing here might seem a diversion from focusing on my dilemma of the COV-19 shutdown, it is extremely on point.
My own dilemma within the context of the COV-19 lockdown was that I was paralyzed from the shock of isolation and the tangible cultural support that had served as a source of inspiration. The cultural context had served to structure my time as well as define the strategies I needed in order to create new work. You may object by pointing out the vast cultural resources of the Internet. But the energy is different. In the screen before me, I sometimes seem to be staring back at myself.
I realized that I needed to rethink Time in the context of the lockdown. The idea of the schedules of artists and scientists (creators of new knowledge) has long been of interest of researchers. For example,
Beethoven's regimine was as follows:
His approach was very disciplined. At breakfast he counted the number of beans for coffee: exactly 60 were needed to make the perfect cup. The breakout came at 4:45 p.m. when he would take long walks while sketching out ideas.
Mozart's schedule was somewhat more frenetic:
Mozart had to build his creative life around employment to serve as the musician and teacher of the court and attend to music for various occasions, some very formidable in terms of large scale music events for which he composed music and led ensembles from the keyboard.
In my teens, I strongly identified with Mozart (I composed a safety opera in the fourth grade), as well as George Gershwin, who fulfilled my fantasies of New York. Both died at 35 years of age, and I based most of my life on the assumption that I would also die at that age. For that reason, I never planned to retire.
Looking at the schedules of creative people led me to research
Daily Rituals by Mason Currey, an impressive collection of how creative and innovative people structured their daily routines... great bedside reading. Then I came across a reflection on the creative process by the noted choreographer
Twyla Tharp,
THE CREATIVE HABIT: Learn It and Use It for Life. In this book she stressed the importance of beginning with Ritual, and her discussion of how it set the tone for the day deeply impressed me.
I realized that within the isolation of this Pandemic Shutdown, I needed to find my own way out by discovering a regimen that would help me out of the despair that was weighing me down. I loved the circle graph that defined Mozart's schedule. As I read the lives of various innovators, I started to imagine how my day should be structured. The circle graph connects to the earth, to time, to the face of a clock.
So now began my quest to find a way out of my depression by discovering how to re-imagine my typical day. I also realized that this structuring of Time was a dimension of Being. I recalled the improvisations of our class EXPANDED MUSIC that explored Time, Manifestation, and Being through open-ended improvisations in THE PROVINCETOWN PLAYHOUSE. Somehow this Pandemic was opening the pathway to energies of the past that now populate the present.
