Appreciation

A. G. Maisey · 17th July 2010, 12:29 AM

Yes Rick, that's exactly where I'm going.

Trying to identify what goes on in our minds.

As I said, you suffer from the Conrad Syndrome. This quote is from Karain, isn't it?

I was born in 1941, in the middle of WWII, so in 1945 when it concluded, I would have been only four years old. My mother's cousin was an inmate of Changi prison camp during WWII, and at the conclusion of hostilities he chose not to return to Australia, but to go back into Malaya (as it was then) and live with a woman he had met before he became an inmate of Changi. Sometime after that, maybe one or two years, I really don't know how long, but I was still a little kid, he came back to Australia to visit his mother, before going back to Malaya again. I was present at the family meeting that celebrated his return, I heard the stories and they made a lasting impression.

During the time he was in Malaya he sent small gifts home to his mother. One of those gifts was a keris. This was the first keris that I handled, and I can still remember it, 60 odd years later.

A lot more experience and knowledge came after that, but my mother's cousin living in Malaya was the beginning, and the physical keris was originally the link to the imagined place from his stories, and the retold stories about him that I overheard from the adults around me.

A. G. Maisey · 17th July 2010, 12:58 AM

Rasdan, I doubt that I have ever read a better logical analysis of the motivation to collect.

If this is the result of your "quick thought " process, your "deep thought" process frightens me.

However, this is not really what interests me at the moment. I'm trying to go beyond the rational and logical to the emotional foundation.

Human beings can learn to be rational and logical, but the human nature is an emotional one that logic and rationality are grafted onto.

What I'm trying to do is identify that emotional level, the level which underlies the logical level.

What goes on in our minds to cause something else to happen?

I started this thread with reference to the work of Prof. Bloom, where he puts forward evidence to support the idea that we cannot appreciate art in a vacuum. The art is appreciated against a sub conscious background that has been constructed from our previous experience.

If this applies to art, and Prof. Bloom seems to have demonstrated that it does, then it probably applies to most other things within the human experience.

The appreciation of what we are concerned with here, that is, keris, is very close to, indeed overlaps, the appreciation of art.

What I am looking for are the emotional strands that underlie that appreciation.

Rick · 17th July 2010, 01:58 AM

I went for my first sail when I was 6 months .

Harrison Smith was my ancestor; we always had exotic pieces around the house .
http://www.pacsoa.org.au/places/Tahiti/tahitiB.html
He died before I was 1 .

I grew up on the Water .

I read The Pearl Lagoon .

Might as well blame NC Wyeth, Frank Schoonover. and others of the great Illustraters as well .

Stevenson; who can leave him out ?

Arthur Ransome was my first favorite author .
Peter Duck; now there's good kid's yarn .

Patrick O'Brian my last .
O'Brian was the frosting on the cake .

I believe all these experiences created the emotional strands for me .

I was set up !

Rick

A. G. Maisey · 17th July 2010, 02:41 AM

Thanks for the additions Rick.

That's exactly it. The formative influences that create a matrix in the sub conscious against which we measure things.When we get a hit, that triggers feelings, and these feelings motivate us.

How about 'The Coral Island', did that get a run? Kids stuff, yeah, but it made a mark in its day.

'Two Years Before the Mast'?

Rick · 17th July 2010, 03:02 AM

Ah Man, I was set up from birth, I'm afraid .

I think some of us lucky Westerners are .

For me the keris undoubtedly represents these feelings and emotions in a tangible form .

I just wish I had found the keris earlier in my life .

Those paragraphs from Conrad I quoted ?
They set me on fire .

Coral Island .
I'll look it up .

drdavid · 17th July 2010, 09:52 AM

I think I have a handle on what you are getting at now Alan.
As you know I am a keen collector of Japanese art and I have explored my emotional links to this but until you asked the question I had not really thought about my emotional links to the keris.
They seem to stem from my family which is not because of Javanese connections, I am fifth generation australian, with Irish and English on both sides. My family does not follow a pattern of occupations, we have tradesmen, professionals, farmers, public servants, priests, artists and a few eccentrics including my grandfather's brother and his son. Both sadly deceased, both fascinating gents.
Stan my great uncle owned a private museum at Kurnell south of Sydney. Kurnell is famous in Australia as the place where Captain Cook first set foot on mainland Australia. It was full of exotic things, jaws of great white sharks, old divers suits, steam cars, convict chains, settlers gear and also some old weaponary. And now that I think back I'm sure that was the first place I ever saw a keris. Stan told me some of his collection came from the East Indies, which was as exotic a place as a kid could think of in Australia in the early 1960's.
His son Roy was a dealer in second hand stuff, not antiques just second hand anything. His shop was in Sutherland which I know was not far from where you grew up. He accumulated personal collections of all sorts of things, I remember his shaving mug collection particularly. Roy gave me my first edged weapon, an old Martini Henry bayonet, and whenever something else turned up he would let me know. I collected knives and swords and bayonets for quite a long time but eventually they all got put away and forgotton about.........Until somewhere 40 years or more down the track keris turned up in my life again and it immediately became necessary to collect them. Those 2 relatives have a lot to answer for. I remember them fondly

rasdan · 17th July 2010, 11:44 AM

G'day Alan,

A bit of a correction. It's not really a quick thought, it had been in my mind for quite sometime, i just recalled it back and put it in some organisation.

Well it seems that my mind is working at the obvious surface level. I gotta change my mindset from an engineer to an architect.

As for me, my interest in keris probably came from old movies. Sensing my interest, my grandfather made me a wooden keris when i was 6 years old. I played with it everyday. In the same year my second uncle (which is younger than me) and i sneaked into his father's room, opened the closet to handle my great grandfather's keris.

Probably it is not really interest in keris, but in weapons actually- because i also liked other daggers/machettes and if i can i would also like to play with my great grandfather's shotgun, but that one is kept by another relative.

I can't forget that day. That's the first time i have the thought - One day I'm gonna get a keris for me!!

VANDOO · 21st July 2010, 04:51 AM

I CAN'T BREAK ANY NEW GROUND HERE BUT WILL TRY AND EXPLAIN MY PERSONEL ATTRACTION AND INTREST AND MY REASONS FOR IT. THE PERSONALITY I WAS BORN WITH HAS ALWAYS BEEN ONE INTERESTED IN MOST EVERYTHING AND I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN VERY OBSERVANT. I STARTED WITH BUGS AND HAD A COLLECTION OF SORTS WHEN I WAS TWO YEARS OLD.
MY INTREST IS DRAWN BY CURIOSITY OF ANYTHING NEW, DIFFERENT OR UNUSUAL. ANY NEW THING IS NEVER ORDINARY UNTIL YOU ARE AROUND MANY FOR A LONG TIME AND SOME THINGS SUCH AS THE KERIS NEVER BECOME ORDINARY. MY INTRESTS ARE MANY AND I AM LIKE A BUTTERFLY GOING QUICKLY FROM ONE FLOWER TO THE NEXT. MY INTRESTS IN SUCH THINGS AS KERIS REMAIN BUT TIME AND OTHER THINGS TAKE ME AWAY UNTIL I RETURN AGAIN.
THERE IS A MUCH GREATER LIKELYHOOD OF CHILDREN RAISED IN A KERIS CULTURE BECOMING INTERESTED IN THEM. BUT I THINK THE NORM IN THAT CULTURE IS TO FOLLOW THE TRADITIONAL USES AND CEREMONIES RELATED TO THE KERIS. TO COLLECT LOTS OF KERIS BECAUSE YOU LIKE THEM WOULD PROBABLY BE UNUSUAL IN THEIR SOCIETY AND OF COURSE ONLY THE WEALTHY COULD AFFORD TO COLLECT MANY.
I READ SOME ADVENTURE BOOKS WHERE THE KERIS WAS MENTIONED WHEN I WAS A YOUNG BOY AND SAW MY FIRST KERIS IN THE 1960'S. IT WAS SOMETHING NEW AND EXOTIC AND THE PRICE WAS FIVE DOLLARS SO I BOUGHT IT. IT WAS NOT A GREAT SPECIMIN BUT THE PATTERNS IN THE BLADE AND THE BELIEF THAT ALL KERIS BLADES WERE MADE FROM METEOR IRON MADE IT VERY INTERESTING AND ATTRACTIVE TO ME.
THIS MADE ME LOOK FOR INFORMATION AND I FOUND A LIMITED AMOUNT AT THE LIBRARY BUT LEARNED MORE FROM AN OLD COLLECTOR AND DEALER WHO HAD ACTUALLY TRAVELED THE WORLD AND FOUGHT IN THE WAR. HE HAD A LOT OF KNOWLEGE AND TOLD GREAT STORIES EVEN THOUGH WHAT HE HAD FOR SALE WAS WAY OUT OF MY PRICE RANGE AT THE TIME. I ALWAYS LOOKED FORWARD TO VISITING WITH HIM TWICE A YEAR AT THE LOCAL GUN SHOW.
I PREFER A WEAPON THAT HAS BEEN OWNED AND USED BY A PERSON IN THE CULTURE FROM WHICH IT COMES. THESE KERIS HAVE A HISTORY AND STORY THAT GOES WITH THEM EVEN THOUGH WE MAY NOT KNOW IT. I LOOK AT THE WEAR AND PATINA AND PONDER THE STORY AND HISTORY, I ALSO APPRECIATE THE WORKMANSHIP AND THE PATTERNS AND BEAUTY IN THE BLADE AND THE WOOD. I CAN STAND AND LOOK AT THE PATTERNS IN A GOOD VAN GOUGH PAINTING AND CAN DO THE SAME WITH A COMPLICATED SWIRLING PATTERN IN A KERIS BLADE.
PERHAPS WE ALL HAVE A NEED TO STUDY AND LEARN WHICH LEADS US TO OUR VARIED INTRESTS. WHILE SOME MAY ONLY COLLECT THE KNOWLEGE OTHERS OF US NEED THE ACTUAL OBJECTS TO STRENGTHEN AND ENRICH THE LEARNING PROCESS. SOME OF US GET ENJOYMENT SHAREING WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED AND OTHERS GAURD THEIR KNOWLEGE JELOUSLY. EACH TO HIS OWN

SOMETHING NEW AND UNUSUAL WILL ATTRACT MORE INTEREST THAN SOMETHING COMMON AND ORDINARY.

WAYS AND REASONS TO COLLECT.
1. A GREAT EMPU HAS PASSED AWAY AND THEREFORE NO MORE KERIS OR FITTINGS WILL BE MADE BY HIM. THIS WILL MAKE IT ATTRACTIVE AS AN INVESTMENT FOR SOME AND OTHERS WILL WISH TO HAVE ONE FOR SENIMENTAL REASONS OR PERHAPS SPIRITUAL REASONS AS THE KERIS WOULD HAVE THE SPECIAL POWERS THAT EMPU WAS KNOWN TO PUT INTO HIS WORK.
2. THE MYSTIQUE OR POWER ASSOCIATED WITH THE MAKER OR THE FAMOUS OWNERS OR FAMILY OR PERHAPS OF SOME GREAT BATTLE OR DEED. A KERIS CAN NOT GAIN FAME WITHOUT THE GREAT DEEDS OF THE OWNER.
3. SOME MAY START COLLECTING BECAUSE THEY SEE SOMEONES COLLECTION. IT MAY BE BECAUSE THEY WISH TO COMPETE WITH THEM AND OUT DO THEM OR JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE FACINATED BY THE KERIS AND THE STORIES.

I DON'T COLLECT BECAUSE OF FADS AND HAVE ALWAYS BEEN INDEPENDENT AND WENT MY OWN WAY WEATHER IT WAS POPULAR OR NOT. THIS HAS SERVED ME WELL AGAINST SALES AND PROMOTION AS I BUY WHAT I LIKE NOT WHAT THEY SAY I SHOULD BUY. AND I WILL JUST AS QUICKLY BUY A NEW KERIS IF THE QUALITY AND PRICE ARE GOOD AS I WILL BUY AN OLD ONE.

17th July 2010, 01:58 AM	#3
Rick Vikingsword Staff Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 6,376	Personal Strands I went for my first sail when I was 6 months . Harrison Smith was my ancestor; we always had exotic pieces around the house . http://www.pacsoa.org.au/places/Tahiti/tahitiB.html He died before I was 1 . I grew up on the Water . I read The Pearl Lagoon . Might as well blame NC Wyeth, Frank Schoonover. and others of the great Illustraters as well . Stevenson; who can leave him out ? Arthur Ransome was my first favorite author . Peter Duck; now there's good kid's yarn . Patrick O'Brian my last . O'Brian was the frosting on the cake . I believe all these experiences created the emotional strands for me . I was set up ! Rick Last edited by Rick; 17th July 2010 at 03:24 AM.

17th July 2010, 03:02 AM	#5
Rick Vikingsword Staff Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 6,376	Ah Man, I was set up from birth, I'm afraid . I think some of us lucky Westerners are . For me the keris undoubtedly represents these feelings and emotions in a tangible form . I just wish I had found the keris earlier in my life . Those paragraphs from Conrad I quoted ? They set me on fire . Coral Island . I'll look it up . Last edited by Rick; 17th July 2010 at 03:31 AM.

17th July 2010, 12:29 AM	#1
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 7,085	Yes Rick, that's exactly where I'm going. Trying to identify what goes on in our minds. As I said, you suffer from the Conrad Syndrome. This quote is from Karain, isn't it? I was born in 1941, in the middle of WWII, so in 1945 when it concluded, I would have been only four years old. My mother's cousin was an inmate of Changi prison camp during WWII, and at the conclusion of hostilities he chose not to return to Australia, but to go back into Malaya (as it was then) and live with a woman he had met before he became an inmate of Changi. Sometime after that, maybe one or two years, I really don't know how long, but I was still a little kid, he came back to Australia to visit his mother, before going back to Malaya again. I was present at the family meeting that celebrated his return, I heard the stories and they made a lasting impression. During the time he was in Malaya he sent small gifts home to his mother. One of those gifts was a keris. This was the first keris that I handled, and I can still remember it, 60 odd years later. A lot more experience and knowledge came after that, but my mother's cousin living in Malaya was the beginning, and the physical keris was originally the link to the imagined place from his stories, and the retold stories about him that I overheard from the adults around me.

17th July 2010, 12:58 AM	#2
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 7,085	Rasdan, I doubt that I have ever read a better logical analysis of the motivation to collect. If this is the result of your "quick thought " process, your "deep thought" process frightens me. However, this is not really what interests me at the moment. I'm trying to go beyond the rational and logical to the emotional foundation. Human beings can learn to be rational and logical, but the human nature is an emotional one that logic and rationality are grafted onto. What I'm trying to do is identify that emotional level, the level which underlies the logical level. What goes on in our minds to cause something else to happen? I started this thread with reference to the work of Prof. Bloom, where he puts forward evidence to support the idea that we cannot appreciate art in a vacuum. The art is appreciated against a sub conscious background that has been constructed from our previous experience. If this applies to art, and Prof. Bloom seems to have demonstrated that it does, then it probably applies to most other things within the human experience. The appreciation of what we are concerned with here, that is, keris, is very close to, indeed overlaps, the appreciation of art. What I am looking for are the emotional strands that underlie that appreciation.

17th July 2010, 02:41 AM	#4
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 7,085	Thanks for the additions Rick. That's exactly it. The formative influences that create a matrix in the sub conscious against which we measure things.When we get a hit, that triggers feelings, and these feelings motivate us. How about 'The Coral Island', did that get a run? Kids stuff, yeah, but it made a mark in its day. 'Two Years Before the Mast'?

17th July 2010, 09:52 AM	#6
drdavid Member Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Australia Posts: 372	I think I have a handle on what you are getting at now Alan. As you know I am a keen collector of Japanese art and I have explored my emotional links to this but until you asked the question I had not really thought about my emotional links to the keris. They seem to stem from my family which is not because of Javanese connections, I am fifth generation australian, with Irish and English on both sides. My family does not follow a pattern of occupations, we have tradesmen, professionals, farmers, public servants, priests, artists and a few eccentrics including my grandfather's brother and his son. Both sadly deceased, both fascinating gents. Stan my great uncle owned a private museum at Kurnell south of Sydney. Kurnell is famous in Australia as the place where Captain Cook first set foot on mainland Australia. It was full of exotic things, jaws of great white sharks, old divers suits, steam cars, convict chains, settlers gear and also some old weaponary. And now that I think back I'm sure that was the first place I ever saw a keris. Stan told me some of his collection came from the East Indies, which was as exotic a place as a kid could think of in Australia in the early 1960's. His son Roy was a dealer in second hand stuff, not antiques just second hand anything. His shop was in Sutherland which I know was not far from where you grew up. He accumulated personal collections of all sorts of things, I remember his shaving mug collection particularly. Roy gave me my first edged weapon, an old Martini Henry bayonet, and whenever something else turned up he would let me know. I collected knives and swords and bayonets for quite a long time but eventually they all got put away and forgotton about.........Until somewhere 40 years or more down the track keris turned up in my life again and it immediately became necessary to collect them. Those 2 relatives have a lot to answer for. I remember them fondly

17th July 2010, 11:44 AM	#7
rasdan Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Kuala Lumpur Posts: 369	G'day Alan, A bit of a correction. It's not really a quick thought, it had been in my mind for quite sometime, i just recalled it back and put it in some organisation. Well it seems that my mind is working at the obvious surface level. I gotta change my mindset from an engineer to an architect. As for me, my interest in keris probably came from old movies. Sensing my interest, my grandfather made me a wooden keris when i was 6 years old. I played with it everyday. In the same year my second uncle (which is younger than me) and i sneaked into his father's room, opened the closet to handle my great grandfather's keris. Probably it is not really interest in keris, but in weapons actually- because i also liked other daggers/machettes and if i can i would also like to play with my great grandfather's shotgun, but that one is kept by another relative. I can't forget that day. That's the first time i have the thought - One day I'm gonna get a keris for me!!

21st July 2010, 04:51 AM	#8
VANDOO (deceased) Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: OKLAHOMA, USA Posts: 3,138	I CAN'T BREAK ANY NEW GROUND HERE BUT WILL TRY AND EXPLAIN MY PERSONEL ATTRACTION AND INTREST AND MY REASONS FOR IT. THE PERSONALITY I WAS BORN WITH HAS ALWAYS BEEN ONE INTERESTED IN MOST EVERYTHING AND I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN VERY OBSERVANT. I STARTED WITH BUGS AND HAD A COLLECTION OF SORTS WHEN I WAS TWO YEARS OLD. MY INTREST IS DRAWN BY CURIOSITY OF ANYTHING NEW, DIFFERENT OR UNUSUAL. ANY NEW THING IS NEVER ORDINARY UNTIL YOU ARE AROUND MANY FOR A LONG TIME AND SOME THINGS SUCH AS THE KERIS NEVER BECOME ORDINARY. MY INTRESTS ARE MANY AND I AM LIKE A BUTTERFLY GOING QUICKLY FROM ONE FLOWER TO THE NEXT. MY INTRESTS IN SUCH THINGS AS KERIS REMAIN BUT TIME AND OTHER THINGS TAKE ME AWAY UNTIL I RETURN AGAIN. THERE IS A MUCH GREATER LIKELYHOOD OF CHILDREN RAISED IN A KERIS CULTURE BECOMING INTERESTED IN THEM. BUT I THINK THE NORM IN THAT CULTURE IS TO FOLLOW THE TRADITIONAL USES AND CEREMONIES RELATED TO THE KERIS. TO COLLECT LOTS OF KERIS BECAUSE YOU LIKE THEM WOULD PROBABLY BE UNUSUAL IN THEIR SOCIETY AND OF COURSE ONLY THE WEALTHY COULD AFFORD TO COLLECT MANY. I READ SOME ADVENTURE BOOKS WHERE THE KERIS WAS MENTIONED WHEN I WAS A YOUNG BOY AND SAW MY FIRST KERIS IN THE 1960'S. IT WAS SOMETHING NEW AND EXOTIC AND THE PRICE WAS FIVE DOLLARS SO I BOUGHT IT. IT WAS NOT A GREAT SPECIMIN BUT THE PATTERNS IN THE BLADE AND THE BELIEF THAT ALL KERIS BLADES WERE MADE FROM METEOR IRON MADE IT VERY INTERESTING AND ATTRACTIVE TO ME. THIS MADE ME LOOK FOR INFORMATION AND I FOUND A LIMITED AMOUNT AT THE LIBRARY BUT LEARNED MORE FROM AN OLD COLLECTOR AND DEALER WHO HAD ACTUALLY TRAVELED THE WORLD AND FOUGHT IN THE WAR. HE HAD A LOT OF KNOWLEGE AND TOLD GREAT STORIES EVEN THOUGH WHAT HE HAD FOR SALE WAS WAY OUT OF MY PRICE RANGE AT THE TIME. I ALWAYS LOOKED FORWARD TO VISITING WITH HIM TWICE A YEAR AT THE LOCAL GUN SHOW. I PREFER A WEAPON THAT HAS BEEN OWNED AND USED BY A PERSON IN THE CULTURE FROM WHICH IT COMES. THESE KERIS HAVE A HISTORY AND STORY THAT GOES WITH THEM EVEN THOUGH WE MAY NOT KNOW IT. I LOOK AT THE WEAR AND PATINA AND PONDER THE STORY AND HISTORY, I ALSO APPRECIATE THE WORKMANSHIP AND THE PATTERNS AND BEAUTY IN THE BLADE AND THE WOOD. I CAN STAND AND LOOK AT THE PATTERNS IN A GOOD VAN GOUGH PAINTING AND CAN DO THE SAME WITH A COMPLICATED SWIRLING PATTERN IN A KERIS BLADE. PERHAPS WE ALL HAVE A NEED TO STUDY AND LEARN WHICH LEADS US TO OUR VARIED INTRESTS. WHILE SOME MAY ONLY COLLECT THE KNOWLEGE OTHERS OF US NEED THE ACTUAL OBJECTS TO STRENGTHEN AND ENRICH THE LEARNING PROCESS. SOME OF US GET ENJOYMENT SHAREING WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED AND OTHERS GAURD THEIR KNOWLEGE JELOUSLY. EACH TO HIS OWN SOMETHING NEW AND UNUSUAL WILL ATTRACT MORE INTEREST THAN SOMETHING COMMON AND ORDINARY. WAYS AND REASONS TO COLLECT. 1. A GREAT EMPU HAS PASSED AWAY AND THEREFORE NO MORE KERIS OR FITTINGS WILL BE MADE BY HIM. THIS WILL MAKE IT ATTRACTIVE AS AN INVESTMENT FOR SOME AND OTHERS WILL WISH TO HAVE ONE FOR SENIMENTAL REASONS OR PERHAPS SPIRITUAL REASONS AS THE KERIS WOULD HAVE THE SPECIAL POWERS THAT EMPU WAS KNOWN TO PUT INTO HIS WORK. 2. THE MYSTIQUE OR POWER ASSOCIATED WITH THE MAKER OR THE FAMOUS OWNERS OR FAMILY OR PERHAPS OF SOME GREAT BATTLE OR DEED. A KERIS CAN NOT GAIN FAME WITHOUT THE GREAT DEEDS OF THE OWNER. 3. SOME MAY START COLLECTING BECAUSE THEY SEE SOMEONES COLLECTION. IT MAY BE BECAUSE THEY WISH TO COMPETE WITH THEM AND OUT DO THEM OR JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE FACINATED BY THE KERIS AND THE STORIES. I DON'T COLLECT BECAUSE OF FADS AND HAVE ALWAYS BEEN INDEPENDENT AND WENT MY OWN WAY WEATHER IT WAS POPULAR OR NOT. THIS HAS SERVED ME WELL AGAINST SALES AND PROMOTION AS I BUY WHAT I LIKE NOT WHAT THEY SAY I SHOULD BUY. AND I WILL JUST AS QUICKLY BUY A NEW KERIS IF THE QUALITY AND PRICE ARE GOOD AS I WILL BUY AN OLD ONE.