Of Two Minds: A Narrative Fiction of Active Addiction and Mindful Sobriety

Peter Waldman

Of Two Minds

A Narrative Fiction of Active Addiction and Mindful Sobriety

In: Weaving Complementary Knowledge Systems and Mindfulness to Educate a Literate Citizenry for Sustainable and Healthy Lives

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Peter Waldman

Peter Waldman
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 235–252

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1007/9789463511827_016

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In this fictional narrative I represent two modes of human experience – active addiction and mindful sobriety – through the literary convention of alternating firstperson limited-omniscient narrators. Each narrator describes, interprets, and acts in the imaginary story from a singular point-of-view, with an omniscience limited to himself and the other narrator. Each narrator describes successive elements of a plot (muthos), or the causal chain of events set in motion by the imitation of human action (mimesis) (Aristotle, 1982). Each narrator also describes instances of distentio animi – literally, a spasm of mind (Augustine, 1961), or, the reflection that eludes and punctuates the imitated action of the plot upon which such reflections are based (Ricoeur, 1984). I represent active addiction as compulsive action sans reflection, excepting obsessive reflection over the objects of addiction. Mindful sobriety is represented as ethical and reflective action – a paradox in Ricoeur’s scheme, but a way of being which mindfulness and mindfulness-based practices intend toward. The literary style that animates the tale is to be taken both as a form of knowledge and as a way of doing – a methodology – that explicitly excludes the evaluative criteria of empiricism in favor of the valuative criteria of literature. Literary standards – for example, verisimilitude – privilege the attenuation of ontological and axiological distances (moral, ethical, aesthetic) that hover between readers and texts. Reading and writing fiction finds one both lost and found in a “possible world” (Ricoeur, 1979) – not the ideal locale for the newly sober addict. A brief reflection (distentio animi) follows the narrative.

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Weaving Complementary Knowledge Systems and Mindfulness to Educate a Literate Citizenry for Sustainable and Healthy Lives

Series: Bold Visions in Educational Research, Volume: 60

E-Book ISBN:: 9789463511827

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 01 Jan 2017

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Of Two Minds

A Narrative Fiction of Active Addiction and Mindful Sobriety

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Weaving Complementary Knowledge Systems and Mindfulness to Educate a Literate Citizenry for Sustainable and Healthy Lives

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