EdCone.com
Ed Cone give a tender and moving portrayal of innocence and experience, over at his blog today. The DVD of his family trip to Jamiaca when Ed was only 9, and probably Eddie, or Edward, brought back memories of innocent joy. And yet for Ed's mother, who could see the wider view of experience, but who may have lost some of the magic of innocence, saw it as a horrible time, as her husband, Ed's dear father, would soon meet an untimely death.
We are reminded of Blake's "Songs of Innocence and Experience", where he talks of the same things, only at one time, from the eye of innocence, and another, from the eye of experience. Both have their validities, and both their blind spots.
I am also reminded, when thinking of Ed, and the tender moments he shares with his readers, of a chapter in a book by Chogyam Trungpa called "The Tender Heart of Sadness". Many people want to avoid sadness, some even "at all costs". But sadness is one of the most beautiful experiences one can have while alive. The tenderness, the rawness...is immersion in Life.
And as Kundera, and others, have witnessed: No sadness, no joy. Sadness is form, Joy, content. Joy fills the empty space hollowed out by the depths of your sadness.
Dostoevsky is supposed to have said: "Suffering is the sole origin of consciousness." Is this why Gautama, Siddhartha changed so radically when first lighting upon an unclean and miserable "forgotten man"?
We, at Anonymoses, want to thank Ed for sharing the myriad colors and flavors of his life and experience. And invite those of you who may not know him or his work, to venture on over and introduce yourself.
