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I am not a content creator. If anything, I’m a discontent creator.
I don’t mean that I create discontent. Although sometimes I do, and I’m very much capable of doing so. But what I mean is that in order to create, one has to have a vision of “something better,” and that in and of itself carries with it a discontentment with the present. If everything were truly perfect, nothing need be created, nor anything destroyed, so everything would come to a halt, a standstill. But nothing alive is ever completely still. Hence, perfection is death. Yet, artists still strive for it, as it is an ingrained impulse, driving us not towards death per se—at least not explicitly and consciously—but towards giving oneself away, sacrificing the Self and merging with the Infinite.
We strive to mimic the great Father, our Creator, and in doing so, we sow the seeds of our own death and destruction, which are coming anyway. We can never truly embody Him, for the part is not the whole—not without death and the letting go of everything and anything we consider “ours.”
In yoga, the final pose of a practice is often savasana—corpse pose. All of the practice before that pose can be considered a preparation for that, and if yoga is an analogy for life itself, which I believe it is, then the whole of life is also a preparation for death. The artist, the saint, and the savior intuitively know this, for they are inclined to give away as much of themselves as possible. They let go. They do not cling. They understand the transitory nature of life as well as the interconnectedness of everything. The fact that nothing can ever truly be gained, nor lost, for everything is us.
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Text: 22 November 2025, Estonia Photo: 7 April 2023, Cambodia
Absolutely, I feel this.
All we can do is strive for our best. Strive to make others see, feel, understand. If what we create is a net positive, it doesn't have to be perfect.
P.S. I have an aversion to creating 'content'. It's such a vague and meaningless general term for writing, art, video, or whatever medium you work with. There is no magic replacement, just when I hear the word 'content' it seems like digital gruel to me. Whatever you create, just make it valuable to you or others.
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Haha, yes, I feel the same about the word "content" TBH.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @adlai 24 Nov
yoga
This word is closer to "praxis" than "calisthenics"; you're probably referring specifically to Hatha, or one of the similar bodily exercise yogas... however please consider treading carefully when culturally appropriating yoga, because the mental disciplines are equally if not more important, although get much less airtime due to the popularity of Bikram, Pilates, etc.
I like including Wikipedia links when I can find an anchor that most closely serves as the starting point for further reading from something I mentioned in my comment; I've not found any section or article that matches what I wanted precisely, although the closest is probably Yoga#Scholarly_definitions
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Yes, in this context I was referring to the practice of asanas, meditation & breathwork. Since this text wasn't specifically about yoga, I didn't feel inclined to go further into details about the particularities of the word (although "an analogy for life" kind of eludes to the fact that it's much more than a physical practice).
I really like this excerpt:
"Yoga is a particularly polyvalent Sanskrit word, which, in ordinary usage, may signify joining or attaching, a means or method or way, profit or wealth, a trick or deceit, an undertaking or business, mixing, putting together or ordering, suitability, diligence or magic.” ― “Roots of Yoga” by James Mallinson and Mark Singleton
or this one...
“Be steadfast in the performance of your duty, abandoning attachment to success and failure. Such equanimity is called Yoga.” ― Bhagavad Gita
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