The Saunterer

Are you the cryonics type?

    Cryonics is the modern version of mummification. You die; but not to worry, you’ve had your body frozen in hopes it can someday be technologically resurrected. Sauntering through lists of people expressing interest in the cryonics movement, we notice that practically all are males. Any good guesses why? (To see one of the lists, click here). And any good guesses for why in the history of inventors of religions, women are out of the picture? How do your two sets of guesses compare?
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    If successful cryonics ever comes, will it bring religious problems? At death the soul supposedly leaves the body. When the body is made sound again, will it be soulless? Or will the soul return from where it’s been? For some, cryonics may offer a way out of hell.
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    What started these Saunterings was thinking of Ishi, the last surviving member of the Yahi Indian tribe, who strayed into our civilization from the mountains near Mount Lassen, California, August of 1911. Like Ishi, perhaps those cryonically returning to life after hundreds of years will find themselves in a culture they would rather not be in. Will there be returnees who suicide?
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    We practice the intent of cryonics in this weblog. Long buried in old essays and books are worthwhile ideas, and we copy them and give them worldwide airing. It further gratifies us to give their dead authors a live channel of expression to an audience they didn’t have when they were alive. If we may coin a word, bibliocryonics - and weblogs make it possible.
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    To learn something of Ishi, click here. For photos of Ishi, click  here.

Mary Wollstonecraft’s idea on what makes strong and original minds

    Everyone knows that the senses act as a stimulus to the imagination. But less well understood is that the imagination can act as a stimulus to the senses. Mary Wollstonecraft, in a letter to a friend, put her idea this way:

Ah! my friend, you know not the ineffable delight, the exquisite pleasure, which arises from a unison of affection and desire, when the whole soul and senses are abandoned to a lively imagination, that renders every emotion delicate and rapturous. . . . These emotions, more or less strong, appear to me to be the distinctive characteristic of genius, the foundation of taste, and of that exquisite relish for the beauties of nature, of which the common herd of eaters and drinkers and child-begeters certainly have no idea. You will smile at an observation that has just occurred to me: - I consider those minds as the most strong and original, whose imagination acts as the stimulus to their senses. (Quoted in The Life of the Creative Spirit, p. 199.)

    Strong and original minds, do you think they can be cultivated? By what means? For what areas of work is it a plus to have such a mind? For what areas is it a minus?
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For a short biography of Mary Wollstonecraft, click here.

Georgia O’Keeffe on why artists should conserve their emotions

    Georgia O’Keeffe believed that artists should conserve their emotions for creating the big things in life rather than dissipating them on the little things. Her idea is true beyond artists to universal artists: all of us who create in the universe of vocations and avocations:

Don’t you think we need to conserve our energies - emotions and feelings for what we are going to make the big things in life instead of letting so much run away on the little things every day. Self-control is a wonderful thing. I think we must even keep ourselves from feeling too much - often - if we are going to keep sane and see with a clear unprejudiced vision. (Quoted in The Life of the Creative Spirit, p. 281.)
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    For a brief biography of Georgia O’Keeffe, click here.

Paul Halmos on the need to be a dedicated human being

It is important to me to have something big and external, not inside myself, that I can devote my life to. Gauss and Goya and Shakespeare and Paganini are excellent, their excellence gives me pleasure, and I admire and envy them. They were also dedicated human beings. Excellence is for the few but dedication is something everybody can have - should have - and without it life is not worth living. (Quoted in The Life of the Creative Spirit, p. 184.)

     For a brief biography of Paul Halmos, click here.