"…or as Virginia Woolf memorably put it in Orlando, 'It is probable that the human spirit has its place in time assigned to it.'" That very assigning must be scrutinized. What most restricts us is often what looms over us, the roles assigned to us by "the powers that be."
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S. Ramón y Cajal does some assigning of his own. Maria Popova summarizes: "Considering the all too pervasive paradox of creative people 'who are wonderfully talented and full of energy and initiative [but] who never produce any original work and almost never write anything'…"
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"…Cajal divides them into six classes according to the 'diseases of the will' afflicting them—contemplators, bibliophiles and polyglots, megalomaniacs, instrument addicts, misfits, and theorists." How many diseases of the will are the byproducts/symptoms of diseases of society?
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Ramón y Cajal writes: "[Contemplators] love the study of nature but only for its aesthetic qualities—the sublime spectacles, the beautiful forms, the splendid colors, and the graceful structures." Was he some variety of contemplator himself? See Recollections of My Life excerpt
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"Like the entomologist in search of colorful butterflies, my attention has chased in the gardens of the grey matter cells with delicate and elegant shapes, the mysterious butterflies of the soul, whose beating of wings may one day reveal to us the secrets of the mind."pic.twitter.com/dh3Ie5nVTF
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Popova observes: "With an eye to his own chosen field of histology, which he revolutionized by using beauty to illuminate the workings of the brain..."
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"...Cajal notes that a contemplator will master the finest artistic techniques 'without ever feeling the slightest temptation to apply them to a new problem, or to the solution of a hotly contested issue.'" The armchair philosopher, armchair artist, armchair neuroscientist.
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Perhaps Santiago Ramón y Cajal is even referring to the armchair (or meditation cushion) contemplative. This sort of "contemplator," however, ideally brings this aesthetic appreciation with them beyond the cushion and puts their art, their discoveries, into practice.
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The issue that Santiago Ramón y Cajal takes with this scholarly type is also his impracticality. Whether contemplative or intellectual, practical application is key. Spiritual matters are best put into practice for their liberating effects, not merely studied theoretically.pic.twitter.com/6RuIK3gR0x
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"No one would deny the fact that he who knows and acts is the one who counts, not he who knows and falls asleep." Santiago Ramón y Cajal
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