Introduction
This reflection shows the capability of the reflected act. It starts with doubts about the idea that perceiving the world somehow brings it into existence, or at least gives it form, and ends with a sense of certainty about being—an assertion about what it is. This reflections shows how we can move towards wisdom by opening up our ideas, being critical or doubtful of them, and pushing on to alternatives or replacements which do not suffer from the same failures. It is an experiment in a continuous critical review of ideas as they occur and build.
Reflection
What is it to inhabit a world that comes into being because it is perceived? Such a world is a world unavailable; it is not the world of living – the everyday. In this way of seeing things, there are two worlds: the world that might be what we think it might be – the world we allow to be, the world we bring about by perception; and the world in which we are, which may not be as it seems, but nevertheless is—the world as it is perceived and experienced. The world of everyday is affected by what we suppose the world beyond the world of everyday to be. If the world beyond the world of everyday is rational, coherent, serial, dependable, then we are part of an environment which is rational, coherent, serial, and dependable. Knowing there is, or even might be, such a world, makes the irrational and inconsistent lives we lead feel less troublesome—a little.
What does this world of everyday bring? Sensuality, perception, awareness, exposure certainly, novelty, a lot of un-wiseness, naïvety, failure, point-missing, looking one way at times when looking another way would have been better, not-learning and more not-learning, failing to grasp the point, repeating previously recognised errors, falling into previously discovered traps, loving into emptiness sometimes, loving into loving sometimes, realising occasionally, realising more but only seldom, feeling like a leaf in the wind, feeling afraid of not being even though being is confusing and disheartening, feeling afraid of not being even though it is clear that not being cannot be a harm, wishing for more than is available, hoping, realising how capricious is the fortune of life and living, recognising inconsistency of self and not learning from it, not learning, getting nowhere, feeling elated—absorbed in another, wishing to feel elated—absorbed in another, trembling, missing, seeing dark where there is light, feeling darkness when darkness cannot be felt, going backwards against the flow of time, losing track, having no sight, sometimes seeing only beauty, sometimes seeing nothing, recognising the good in others and knowing it is unattainable for oneself, recognising the bad in others and realising how close it lies to oneself, striving and failing, failing, being satisfied with doing the best one can and being dissatisfied with only being able to do the best one can, hoping to discover an answer to unaskable questions, not knowing the question, having to accept, having to tolerate not being able to change the world, being part of change, feeling in flux, knowing inconsistency, knowing pointlessness, being aware, being fearful, feeling exposed, not being sure.
If it is any, or all of these things, then wishing so much for truth, a single truth, something which can be known as true, and yet sensing despair for there is no truth to be had, only exposure to that which is. And am I happy with this—the very antithesis of the creation of a manageable world? How I wish it were manageable—but do I? Would manageability solve anything? What do I yearn for? To be in love more—it is the only remedy to the exposure.
What is my experience? A jumble—a mix-up, beginning to end—a mix-up. Love is the only place where we belong and this is the most unmanageable place of all. I believe the world we perceive is rational—it is coherent with the B-series, the series of before and after, but we inhabit an unusual part of the world. In a way, we make the world by being conscious of it and, somehow, we learn to pay for that. Life is a mix-up, it is not ‘pure’ anything. We can conceive ‘pure something’ but it does not make it be. I would like things to last—and I can conceive of lastingness—but they do not. I hanker after the ‘pure something’ which is not available. Even though I know it is not available, I still wish for it to be. I yearn for things to last, even though I know they are all corrupted by change. That’s mix-up, and that seems like life. But I am not content for life to be simply a way of coping with what it seems to be.
Actuality and anticipation. There is something here that I wonder about. For example, much of sex is an anticipation, the actuality of which prompts more anticipation, and so it is with love and all things. I am wondering about the connection between anticipation and actuality and appearance and reality. Could it be that reality is simply the occurrence, the actuality, and appearance the condition simply of the anticipation of occurrence?
When the world seems a dead end. At the moment, I am wondering about what can possibly be meaningful. I am skulking at a dead end and what I say reflects that. Its misery and messiness reflect my search.
Words for things. We have so many words for things—what am I seeking: clarity, wisdom, transformation, insight, enlightenment, reality, knowledge? Do I want to be: at one, easy, loving, comfortable, unafraid, optimistic? I really do not know what I want. I never have. I love being behind the eyes of another, but that is probably a psychological flaw, or an over-emphasis on sensuality, or a mistake, or an imagined creation, or an optical illusion.
When I read a recent letter from Ran Lahav, I feel the intention of what he says and that has impact. Yet also I read the words, because I like words, and they have impact on me to. I read ‘deep experience’ and I want ‘deep experience’, and I worry that I do not have it. I read ‘the eyes of my soul could not penetrate the vagueness’, and I am captured by the phrase, but I suspect the meaning of ‘soul’ and ‘penetrate’ and ‘vagueness’. Then I think that when I see behind the eyes of another I have penetrated the vagueness—of isolation, of appearance, of mistakenness—but is this true? Am I grasping at a straw that gives me a sense of something which is simply different, more sensational? I read ‘transparent moment’ and I think this captures so much, and I think ‘moment of transparency’ and I wonder what that is, what is this moment, and how can it be transparent? And I see ‘embodied understanding’ and that seems dense, it does not seem so frail, and its very density confuses me and I wonder what it can possibly mean. I repeat it to myself: ‘embodied understanding’, but this does not make its meaning apparent to me. Would it be possible for me, I wonder, for anyone, to have an understanding so deeply imbedded in self that it was embodied? And if it was, what would it be to live with such an embodiment? Could I survive it? Would the world of everyday still be available to me? Would I have to live in the desert to be in a state of ‘embodied understanding’? Or would I suffocate, even in the desert? Do I really want such a thing anyway? Surely I delight in my naivety, my fragility, my exposure, my pain, my inefficiency. Then I see this word ‘shewing’, and I have seen it before, and I vaguely know what it means, and then I see your description which includes ‘the understanding of something beyond itself’ and ‘understanding of an experience and an experience of an understanding’ and I am set thinking more. And I feel despaired because these things are evading me. And I can tell stories about what I have felt in a busy café but I am not there now and my understanding has not stayed with me. It has not transformed me. Now, I am not me plus what happened to me then. Or am I? Or is that thought the sort of thought I cannot tolerate? Is that just pointless analysis?
Do I experience, then understand, then experience the understanding of the experience, and then the understanding of the understanding of the experience? Is this really what lies ahead of me in my search: tight cycles of confusion which cause me to be in awe simply because they are confusing? I become very doubtful about all this. What am I seeking? I do not know?
I am not a philosopher. I am the child my parents had, a grown up now, a hopeless case, a searcher, a failure. I am embodied uncertainty. And I suffocate in my uncertainty. Even in the biggest of spaces I suffocate.
I have always found my philosophy more in The Outsider than in essays on alienation. I have always shared Socrates’ concerns about a good place to lie on the grass more than I have bothered to follow his arguments in favour, or otherwise, of this or that. For me, Plato was the philosopher, Socrates was the man. Plato was the abstract, the refined, the clever; Socrates was the human, the everyday, the pain. Plato believed in appearance, Socrates lived in it. In the Phaedrus, Socrates, always barefooted, will have no trouble wading through the stream ‘which is especially delightful at this hour of a summer’s day’—and the ‘crowning delight’, the thick grass and the gentle slope to rest his head on. This means so much to me. Why? Is it because I have never really understood philosophy? Is because all I can understand about philosophy is where it talks about finding a good place to lie down on the grass?
What is it I want to understand anyway? Why do I think I want to be wise, enlightened, clear? Answer: I do not know. And whatever it is, why do I want to understand it? Will understanding it do me good, make me happy, give me peace? Answer: I do not know.
Philosophy is just not going to help me here because I need answers. Philosophy is not a method of answers—it asks and concludes from givens, that is all. I might look for a word instead—but it would be more its shape than its meaning that attracts me. Like lying on the grass attracts me more than wondering about virtue. Instead, I might feel myself disappearing into another—but I know I cannot stay there. I am simply alone, passing, a visitor, hungry sometimes, happy sometimes, on course, off course. I am never going to be enlightened—I simply do not believe in enlightenment—belief is inaccessible to me—I am suspicious of all belief—I am an outsider with the potential at any time to commit a random act—for me life will go sideways, skew, fail. There is no coherence to aim for. My life is not coherent.
No, philosophy will only help occasionally, silence will not help, noise will kick up something, trust is misplaced, belief is a trick, lastingness is false, permanence is a traitor. And hope? For death? For an end? For love? Maybe, but the appearance of love could just as much be a disguise to cover up its absence. I can only ask questions. Is this all that philosophy has taught me? To ask questions no matter how badly framed or misdirected. The ask questions even though I know there will be no answers. This is not self-deceit, it is pointless.
What am I chasing? Some magical world where everything is right and answered? Too much? Then perhaps where most things are right and answered? Too much? Then some things? Who knows? That’s it though, isn’t it? It’s a mixture: some good, some bad, some illuminating and exciting, some dull, some vapid. We have some control, we can elect to do some actions, control some outcomes, but not all. It’s hopeless really—absurd. Live with the absurdity? But we are constrained by culture, heritage, society, politics, economics. But these are only external influences. We can still be internally free. But what use is that? What use is private freedom to anarchy? What use is inner calm to the clamour of action? But should I satisfy my wishes? Only some? Only the ones I am told are the ones I should satisfy? Am I told I should not be enlightened? And if I found the answer, what would I do with it? Would I keep it to myself or share it? Would I start a movement? Would I sell the prescription? Would I profess a link to God? And would I be right? Would any answer be true? The true answer? And if I found the answer, where would I go? What direction would I take? What would I search for? How would I find relief from my self satisfaction? I would have completed my task, and it would all be over. There is no completion that is true. There is no balance of good and bad. There is no ... I do not know. There is a next day as long as there is a next day. There is death as long as there is life. There is a task as long as there is no result. There is something as long as there is something.
I write. What do I do? I start with nothing, throw 75,000 words at it, and end up with something—something coherent. I am worried that I am doing that at the moment, but about something more serious, less trashy. And yet my life is filled with words, and I like words—they convey.
Revelation—the ‘Saul feeling’—a time when the world we inhabit, and so us, are transformed. Is its worth merely in its rarity? If Saul had twenty revelations a day would they lose their revelationary flavour? And what would he do with these revelations? How would he cash in on twenty revelations a day? How would he use them? How? Is there someone who has twenty revelations a day who can tell me?
Yes, we are a multiplicity, and it is an unyielding one. We are a complex entity filled with variety and unity, the unexpected, the unhappy, the light, the dark.
Comments
A sense of something certain can sometimes come from doubt. Descartes used a system of doubt to eliminate the uncertain. This path led him increasingly to those things which he could doubt less or indeed believe irrefutable. Certainties, however, do not necessarily have to eliminate other possibilities—the world is not black or white, good or bad, real or unreal. Accepting that we are both black and white in part, and accepting that we have the capacity to change from one to another or live comfortably being both at the same time, is an important recognition. Acceptance of this mixture as part of ourself is crucial. The process of life encompasses all possibilities.
