THIS MUCH IS "TRUE"
In my
dream (of two nights ago) I ask Amy (my wife) a question requiring a “yes” or “no” answer. At that
very moment, I am literally awakened by her saying “Yes” loudly as she lay
sleeping right beside me. Amazed at what just happened, I check the time (7AM),
get up, relieve myself (as it were), and go back to bed and back
to sleep. In the dream that follows, again with her in it, she looks at me intently and says, “I
am the Queen. You think my thoughts.”
*
As time
progresses, or perhaps from the beginning, life becomes a bad habit.
*
The
“second wind” may come at great cost; the cure may in fact be worse than the
disease. But nevertheless one undertakes to breathe as best one can in the
circumstances. One hopes the blindness will pass, that they eyeballs will no
longer stick to the eyelids. One finds oneself praying for deliverance from the
bottom of the abyss which, by its nature, offers no way out, no escape, though
one can be rescued by God alone, but one must be able to find such a God, the
reality and presence of such a God. Otherwise one is held down by one’s own
weight, one’s own history, even simply gravity itself. Falling to the bottom
“knocks the wind out” of one. As one lies there unable to breathe, in that
interlude in which one sees oneself, a reckoning may be made. The next breath
comes, and then the next, and the next. But one must deliver oneself from such
darkness in which one finds oneself. And this is possibly but most difficult
because one purposely forgets and any “second winds” become fewer and much less
likely. I don’t know if one “climbs out of darkness” or some miraculous light
of power and agency intrudes into the prevalence and perhaps even preference of
darkness. No, I do know; one must climb out, holding oneself above oneself as
each rung is wrung from oneself. It is no different than this. There is no
“easy way out”; it happens in the smallest of increments. It is a discipline
requiring clear sight. And though very specific, it remains very enigmatic, for
we are shadows unto ourselves, opaque at best, and “through the glass, darkly.”
Innuendo and out the door.
*
The
Curse of Technology
Technology
moves us ever closer to the machine of ourselves, that is, to ourselves as
machines, albeit fleshy and organic ones, as beings to be fixed and repaired,
as cogs in a still greater technological framework. Technology moves us ever
further from the soul and the spirit of ourselves as human beings. In its
movement for control, which may be seen as improved and better physical and
perhaps mental function, technology leads away from the heart of ourselves.
Many might say that technology, like guns, is used as the possessor sees fit,
for better or for worse social function; that technology is innocent of any
blame by those Luddites who cannot fathom it. But this is not so true at all,
for loaded guns are not to be put in the hands of infants; not that they will
do evil with them, but that they might inadvertently pull the trigger and hurt
themselves or others. “Forgive them Father, for they know now what they do.”
But
that is not the essence of this conversation. Humans now have technology as a
great convenience and as an improvement in many fields, such a medicine and
statistics of all kinds. Technology “crunches numbers” far faster than any
human mind could do so in lifetimes. And it promotes both the notion while
creating the reality that we are human machines. But technology aims outward
and expands; it does not lead us inward in order to discover just who and what
we are in this order of human being. Worse than being loaded guns in the hands
of infants, it is a distraction from our discovery of ourselves, of ourselves
as far more inner (or greater) beings which we must find if we are ever to be
truly human and be able to live accordingly. Our inability to live accordingly
makes us as infants—with no understanding of our world or mastery or control of
ourselves. Humanity still lives in utter ignorance of itself, though now
possess the technological means to destroy itself. Technology wonderfully leads us away from
ourselves as human beings into a cyborg reality in which we are as machines.
*
That
which has been most important to me in the living of my life is that I am
“focused upon and engaged in that which is true, that which is real.” In so
many words, that I do not waste my life. How does one measure the “value” of
one’s self? I seem to think that a life spent in seclusion, “without
distraction,” as a focused spiritual being, is best. I did spend some time in a
Buddhist monastery as a Zen Buddhist monk and also spent much time at a
Benedictine hermitage in Big Sur once upon a time. I was not so impressed with
either. And I was especially not impressed with myself, for after a few days, I
was not “peaceful and focused” at all but absolutely distracted. I had to face
the fact that life itself, that living in itself, is distraction; that being in
a physical body that is meant to survive and having to survive in it is a
distraction; that thinking and thoughts and emotions are a distraction: a
distraction from the “higher being,” the “spiritual being” which is the essence
of life. I have often questioned my attitude towards existence in this body
here and now; it would seem that I think I’m “above it all” in some way. I do
somehow think this, however, I have also “made it in the world” by being
successful in business once and making enough money, taking care of my
familial and social responsibilities, and so on. While it may be true that I
was a bit of a sanyassin in my 20s, I did find success by my 30’s and retired
by 40 to take care of my children, one who was disabled and required active
caregiving. Now, in my 70s, I am again an active caregiver (to my wife) but
also see myself, appropriately, as a sanyassin, more or less, though I have to
wonder rather than wander. I am glad I have responsibilities that are other
than myself, for, to be honest, I am utterly boring and just about that bored
with myself.
I see my role as one of not only
“finding context” for myself, but also being able to convey such context to those
in need of it. “Knowing oneself” consists in knowing who you are, what you are,
where you are, and perhaps even why you are. Of course, such knowing is
probably impossible; we are as moving targets even as we ourselves move—there
is no nailing anything down at all. I think the most we can do is take all
these fragments and make some kind of interesting mosaic with them. We are an
undulating jigsaw puzzle with unlimited pieces of no particular shapes that do
not fit into each other. So we make these fragments into a fragmentary story of
ourselves as best we can—which seems fine and good in itself but is actually
detrimental to us because “our story” really isn’t like how we have put it
together. We have created something that has taken on its own life and is now
“me” as I see myself and believe myself to be. Upon death, all the pixels of
seeming solidity and reality, dissolve into something else. But, even while
alive, we do not quite live because we are only our (and our culture’s and our
society’s) version of ourselves and not really who we are. We just don’t know
who we are and, for the most part, would rather not know, instead using our
opposable thumbs to send tweets about what we had for lunch, and taking selfies
to prove to ourselves and others that we actually do exist and are not just
figments of our own imaginations (which are actually no longer our own since we
see only what we want to see and what is trending in the moment). Descartes
proclaimed, “I think, therefore I am.” But once we are no longer able to think
as ourselves, we no longer exist as ourselves but as units in the matrix, as it
were. People now prefer to be cyborgs. Living is much more convenient and
without real choices, much less consciousness.
*
Fragments, by their very nature, are problematic, for they do not "fit in" anywhere and are thus never "convenient" or able to be "pigeon-holed". Normally, it would seem that framents necessarily "fly by" without being noticed. But I notice them. Trying to "make sense of oneself" with them is rather impossible besides being absurd, but this is what we humans do.
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