These are but a few of the books I adore for challenging assumptions and methods of thought. I recommend their contents to all who are interested in creating, beauty, knowledge, understanding, and fairness. An example of assumptions and peculiarities of thought: uncovering confusion and creating clarity between empathy and sympathy, particularly within the realm of internet writing. Improperly used concepts form treacherous holes in the pavement of our social well-being, slowly giving way to wash-outs and tragic malice. And so as I read and reread, chewing on the contents of these books, I begin to realize it is not our thoughts that form reality, but an assumed order formed by collectively chanting either falseness and undermining fair action, or the courage to chant truth and lay foundations for fairness. For example, the difference between empathy and sympathy is found in the results of those actions otherwise witnessed as that which is created and observable within the world. This is one example of thinking on Platonic Ideals I work with throughout my endeavours in reading.
On the topic of pain, Elaine Scarry articulates with great detail the examples and differences in bodily and emotional perception. In her method of focusing on the core of pain and subjectivity, psychological constructs are revealed. Her work makes clear distinctions, backed by an extensive bibliography of research, whereas the banality of run-of-the-mill advice columns conflate. Scarry’s work makes a clear, empathetic response to pain would not be to sympathise but instead to offer connection and tools for the body in the pain. Sympathy disables and disarms energy that would be used to reach out for support and transformation and serves in furthering pain and isolation. This distinction makes a clear pivot between what true and false empathy looks like. We can witness empathy as beauty, not vanity, but a feeling of beauty that does not beg for recognition but stands in a way of being learning to digest nuance in discernment. Beauty becomes known when it is felt as correct action that emanates positively (not destructively) outward, and the action is not served as a command, but as a reminder and enabling tool in situations soaked in pain. The world of living creatures knows great pain through not only a lack of kindness but assumptions about what is kind. These assumptions can serve to further reify the proselytised oppressive systems they claim to mitigate or transform. The unreasonable logic of mainstream thought leaders is challenged and readers are invited to their birthright of growth through thinking for themselves and inner trust. By tending to such work, the endless problem-solution-fix common in the addictive self-help genre is unlocked to embrace a perspective on a world that is not broken, but full of misconceptions that can be nurtured for a richer process of personal and relational growth.
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Title, Author
Sensitive Chaos, Theodore Schwenk
The Body in Pain, Elaine Scarry
On Beauty and Being Just, Elaine Scarry
Travels in Hyperreality, Umberto Eco
Chronicles of a Liquid Society, Uberto Eco
The Holographic Universe, Michael Talbot
The Painted Word, Tom Wolfe
A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle
Ways of Seeing, John Berger
The Alchemy of Air, Thomas Hager
Art and Culture: Critical Essays, Clement Greenberg
The Death of the Author, Roland Barthes
Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments, Theodor W. Adorno
The Eternal Moment, Estelle Jussim
The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media, Walter Benjamin
The Vision of the Anointed, Thomas Sowell
Einsteins Dreams, Alan Lightman
The Fatal Conceit, Friedrich Hayak
Utopia Is Creepy, Nicholas Carr
The Glass Cage, Nicholas Carr
The Laugh of Medusa, Helene Cixous
Selected Cronicas, Clarice Lispector
Formless: A User’s Guide, Yve-alain Bois and Rosalind E. Krauss
The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, Lydia Davis
Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Gilles Deleuze
Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Michel Foucault
The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present, Phillip Lopate
Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-77, Michel Foucault
Madness and Civilisation: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, Michel Foucault
Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit: A Commentary Based on the Preface and Introduction, Werner Marx
Subculture: The Meaning of Style, Richard Dick Hebdige
Why Your Five Year Old Could Not Have Done That: Modern Art Explained, Susie Hodge
The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety, Alan A. Watts
Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda
The Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord
Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, Walter Benjamin
Mythologies, Roland Barthes
Social Psychology, Saul Kassin
C.G. Jung and Hermann Hesse: A Book of Two Friendships, Miguel Serrano
A Short Course in Photography: An Introduction to Black and White Photographic Technique, Barbara London
Between Heaven and Earth: A Guide to Chinese Medicine, Harriet Beinfield
Siddhartha, Herman Hesse
Photography: A Cultural History, Mary Warner Marien
On Being Blue, William H. Gass
Through Another Lens: My Years with Edward Weston, Charis Wilson
Tao Te Ching, Lao Tsu
The Path of Least Resistance, Robert Fritz
Identity: Why it Doesn’t Matter What You Think About Yourself, Robert Fritz
The Celestine Prophecy, James Redfield
The Key Muscles of Hatha Yoga, Ray Long
Yoga for Transformation: Ancient Teachings and Practices for Healing the Body, Mind, and Heart, Gary Kraftsow
Classic Essays on Photography, Alan Trachtenberg
The Four Agreements, A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, Miguel Ruiz
Science of Breath, Swami Rama
The Crack in the Cosmic Egg: New Constructs of Mind and Reality, Joseph Chilton Pearce
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Daybooks of Edward Weston, Two Volumes in One: I. Mexico II. California, Edward Weston
I Ching: Book of Changes, Anonymous
The Will to Meaning: Foundations and Applications of Logotherapy, Viktor E. Frankl
Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, David Bayles
Awareness Through Movement: Easy-to-do Health Exercises to Improve Your Posture, Vision, Imagination, Personal Awareness, Moshe Feldenkrais
The Columbia Dictionary of Modern Literary and Cultural Criticism, Joseph W. Childers
Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Paralle; Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension
Meditations in and Emergency, Frank O’Hara
On Photography, Susan Sontag
Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, Roland Barthes
Manufactured Landscapes: The Photographs of Edward Burtynsky, Lori Pauli
Picnic Lightening, Billy Collins
Originality and the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths, Rosalind E. Krauss
Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant
The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture, Hal Foster
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
The End of Mr. Y, Scarlett Thomas
On the Road, Jack Kerouac
A Nietzsche Reader, Friedrich Nietzsche
The Book of Questions, Pablo Neruda
A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Rebecca Solnit
A Guide for the Perplexed, Ernst F. Schumacher
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
Franny and Zooey, J.D. Salinger
Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl
Wolfgang Tillmans: View from Above, Zdenek Felix
This is Your Brain on Joy: How the New Science of Happiness Can Help You Feel Good and Be Happy, Earl Henslin
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
The Price of Motherhood, Ann Crittenden
Women: Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype, Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Yoga Anatomy, Leslie Kaminoff
The Art of Happiness at Work, Dalai Lama XIV
The Birth of Tragedy/The Case of Wagner, Friedrich Nietzsche
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Aimee Bender
Manifesting Minds, A Review of Psychedelics in Science, Medicine, Sex, and Spirituality, Rick Doblin
What is an Author, Michel Foucault
The Flat Rabbit, Bardur Oskarsson
Hold Still, Sally Mann
The Turning Point, Fritjof Capra
Fear and Trembling, Repetition, Søren Kirkegaard
Mathematics and Art, Exploiring the Invisible Art Science Spiritual, Dreams 1900-2000, Madness in America, Lynn Grimwell
Many Lives Many Masters, Brian Weiss
The Fung Shui Handbook: How to Create a Healthier Living & Working Environment, Lam Kam Chuen
How to Love, Thich Nhat Hanh
The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary R Reward
The Red Book, Liber Novus by CG Jung
Watermark Documentary, movie, Jennifer Baichwal and Edward Burtynsky https://watchdocumentaries.com/watermark/
The World Cataclysm, Patrick Geryl
Prophecies, Gilbert & Cotterell
The Photographers Eye, Szarkowski
Mythologies, Roland Barthes
Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes
Something About Photography Theory, Victor Burgin
Burning With Desire: The Conception of Photography, Geoffrey Batchen
Classic Essays on Photography, Alan Trachtenberg
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Walter Benjamin
The Originality of the Avante-Garde and Other Modernist Myths, Rosalind Krauss
Selected Writings, Volume II, Walter Benjamin
Image, Music, Text, Roland Barthes/Stephen Heath
The Context of Meaning, Richard Bolton
Before Photography, Peter Galassi
Photography Against the Grain: Essays and Photo Works 1, Allan Sekula
The Book of Floating, Michael Hutchinson