Of late I read a good (?) portion of Wings of the Dove by Henry James. I found it to be a bit of a verbal vortex, leading further and further inward as well as spiraling outward and away. The closer I got to understanding anything, I started noticing that I was further away. At first I thought this might be some kind of use of irony and read along in that kind of mind, only to realize that it wasn't irony at all: it was purposeful obfuscation! Initially I liked the way it was written; it was somewhat similar to the way I think and even to the way I write at times. Then I began that James's writing was a literal avoidance of actually writing anything that might be understood. I came to see that whatever was "understood" would be of my own doing and not the author's. This had been my second attempt to "get into" Henry James's style and emplotment. I realized that his writing is a ploy to entrap and to otherwise trick his readers. In becoming aware of what seemed to me pure insincerity and nasty manipulation of his readers, I chose to no longer be one, and put the book in a box for Grey Bears, thinking nothing more of the book or its author. Then I happened to read Sexual Personae by Camille Paglia, who had pretty much the exact same take that I had of Henry James, which I found to be very perceptive coming for Paglia, for whom I have much respect for what I see as her deep insight into literature, art and the history of each.
But I did notice how James seemingly sincerely prefers or perhaps needs to obfuscate, which is to say, avoids saying what is actually to be said, realizing that this is also very much my own "style," as it were. What comes to mind is Wittgenstein's statement in which he comments on his own book, noting that what is to be most understood is what he did not say, rather than what he did. For it is what we do not say, rather than what we do say, that is most telling and most true. Irony or paradox may have a place in such telling, though not necessarily at all.
For many years I practiced Zen Buddhism, even to the point of being a Zen monk in a Zen monastery. I observed my own thinking closely for a good forty years and learned that it is what I don't say that has the most importance and reality to me, which is to say that my own conversation, as well as the thoughts that drive it, is primarily an obfuscation. So I found James to be intriguing in the sense of the seeming mystery he presented, until it became clear that it was avoidance and not really mystery that was involved. I realized that I too avoid and that, generally speaking, most "meaningful" speech is pure avoidance. Speaking may have nuance, but doing does not. Being, having no intention in itself, has no nuance. Nuance implies guessing. Action too, I realize, may be false, insincere, but only to a point.
I have been quite concrete here, even focused, which is not usual for me. Usually I get quite relative rather quickly. For being of any particular mind instantly awakens its opposites, of which there are strangely a ricocheting myriad. I quickly choose sides by choosing none or by at least seeing all, which is never really the case anyway. I present endless considerations and even more questions, though acting without thought, perhaps on instinct, is another avenue for me.
What is called "Buddhist mind" can intervene for me, though I also question it as well. It moves from "self" to "no-self" to "no no-self," which can be seen as "Self," from a Jungian and other perspectives. Too much "no self" creates a "vanished self" which is too passive and, in my estimation, "lost" in our Western culture of "self." Still, I do value this "obfuscation" since it is closer to my own notion that I do not "know myself," since there is no "myself" as such to know. At best I may come to be somewhat familiar with a good number of "myselves." In most respects or perhaps in all, I am a figment of my own imagination. Are not we all such? So obfuscation may be our most pragmatic and wisest choice, though on the other hands, we may be destined to learn only from our mis-takes.
