Comments on Self, Portrait by Scott Miller

@ fuster:
Easy for a tux-wearing frog to say, since one of your steps is like 10 times the length of your torso.

@ CK MacLeod:
I like the wording of that. It's an issue I've thought about but didn't have the words to express the ideas well. That helps.

@ CK MacLeod:
Well put. There's a line in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika (authored around 1500ce) that tells practitioners to find an older teacher without wrinkles or gray hair. It goes to your point I think. It's a troubling point, but one worth noting. Is there a difference between spiritualists who see authenticity in physical neglect, as opposed to physical care? What's the difference from an energetic standpoint (since there's concern either way) other than the fact that someone who cares for their physicality might be more comfortable during meditation?

I think it was Dostoevsky in Notes form the Underground that said a person better look like what they are. If you're a writer and you don't look like a writer, chances are you won't get published. If you're a baseball player and you want to be a catcher, you better look like one or the coach won't let you play there. In the yoga world, sadly, I think this is particularly true. There are exceptions, but for the most part, the serious yoga teachers who do well look something like yogis and the sexy yoga teachers do well, not just because they look sexy, but because they look like sexy yoga teachers. Of course, there are some sexy yoga teachers who other serious yoga teachers never take seriously even though they're smart just because of the way they look. And I know that the few teachers who do make it despite not looking the right way for the kind of yoga they teach are still negatively affected, and express that privately. They've told me how they wrestle with the pressure of having to overcome their appearance within a world where looks shouldn't matter and how annoying the whole thing gets. The Dostoevskian insight works no matte what, then, because it's just easier on a person if they look like what they are. In the painter world, again there are exceptions (that prove the rule), but you better look like Claus Kinsky or something. The boy next door look doesn't work because the boy next door can't be a genius and it's especially annoying if you're a painter because your self-portraits are so boring. I once painted a giant picture of myself wearing a diaper bag just to subvert this whole thing. Rembrandt never painted himself wearing a diaper bag. I think CK looks a bit like Rembrandt. Do you think we would still feel the same way about Tom Waits if he looked like the boy next door? The boy next door look is so conventionalizing. Nothing unconventional works for the boy next door looking guy. It just looks like you're the boy next door trying to be unconventional. The horror is that the boy next door can be the person who understands the prison of conventionality more than anyone else, but if he's sensitive to energy then he knows when something feels forced, so all he can do is do what everybody too scared to do anything outside of what's socially enforced on a level of fashion do no matter what. And because it shouldn't matter anyway, the whole thing is just one big annoyance. Where's my diaper bag?

@ fuster:
I think the Malibu Equine Rescue crew is closest to CK.

Having known this post was coming, I was still entertained. Smiled the whole time I was reading it, and couldn't be happier with the teaching. CK is a born teacher. He connects easily with Ishvara (The Primordial Teacher), and I feel that connection coming through his every word, even when he's trying to get in the way of it. Here, he's letting it really flow. Of course, he was right. I was getting over the whole self-portrait thing even as he was writing this (before he told me he was writing it). As my teacher, I'm sure he's still not sorry that he sacrificed himself. I particularly enjoyed how he appealed to his anti-vanity – it kinda growing on him, as he must have known it would, exposing his anti-vanity as another vain sham even as he fell possessively in love with himself… all over again… and again… for the countlessth time… So much so that it took him a day or two to get this post done. I understand. With dimples like that who wouldn't be in love with himself? He could sell burro rides that go down the cracks of his dimples. Remember when I was copying all of CK's writings and claiming them to be mine and claiming to be him or something. I don't have dimples.