I started this a couple weeks ago and didn't finish it. Didn't want to let it die forever in my draft folder...
My thoughts tonight have turned towards the destruction and delusion of the self. I consider this an evolution in my personal ethos born from the experience of the past several months. I think often lately about something I said in an extremely rare fit of massive over confidence; I was speaking to some friends and I blurted out with anger that I was ready to conduct professionally. I believed it at the time and in full disclosure I do experience these cycles of self confidence and self hatred which at the apex of the cycle lead me to the conclusion that I am one of the best conductors on the planet. Of course at the worst they lead me to the conclusion that my mere existence on the planet is a drag on the species and the most moral thing I could do with my life is stop living. Nonetheless the memory for me encapsulates a former version of myself which has been destroyed in the past few months.
The story as I tell it begins with the boring details of my own wallowing and bemoaning of the fact that I begged and prayed unsuccessfully for 10 years that an accomplished conductor would take an interest in me. Then suddenly beginning in mid-March of this year I had within a 3 week period of time validation from several conductors I respect highly. One of them even offered to teach me and so I made my way to him and what followed was the destruction of that previous self described previously in my memory.
This man is a marvelous musician with a powerful artistic voice which is simultaneously exhilarating, compelling, inspiring and terrifying. It makes you on the one hand want to drop to your knees and worship him while on the other hand leaves you feeling eviscerated and embarrassed. It just leaves no room for anyone else. And that's what a good conductor is supposed to do I think, to make you feel like their interpretation is the only possible correct one in the universe. What accompanied this feeling and magnified the terror aspect of it was an encyclopedic knowledge of the craft and most relevantly the score. Any score really. We talked through scores of works he was studying with his students, works he was conducting with his group, works I was planning to conduct which he had no problem reciting off hand as if he had just finished writing it. There was a breadth and depth to his knowledge that stripped my silly talent naked and then laughed at me.
But of course that way of looking at things is the problem isn't it? Rather than view it as some terrible process I should see the beauty and the purposefulness of it. Out of that destruction came a rebirth and I know that to be true. I appreciate it deeply and am grateful immensely to have experienced it. It was the first bit of genuine conducting training I've ever received and while it painfully revealed the scope of my ignorance it also left me for the first time feeling as though I know which direction to travel. What happened though is I think best described as a genuine destruction of self, or at least some part of my self. This person with confidence and a sense of being ready to conduct professionally was suddenly stopped cold and instead I became consumed with humility and awareness of the work to be done.
Then I saw a video of a man speaking about the fundamental human delusion being that of the self. Really I think he may have been speaking more about the narcissistic self which elevates our own fears, priorities, desires, opinions and values above all others.
Monday, June 10, 2013
letting my conscious mind tire itself out...
Some very rough thoughts emerging from reading Carl Jung's "Man and His Symbols".
1. The starting point for consciousness is that it became necessary to ensure that we are not overloaded with information. We select the important information for conscious thought and the rest remains in the unconscious. This is an evolutionary adaptation and it is a new phenomenon. Jung describes it almost like it's a beta version of the newest software. He says it's buggy and prone to malfunction. It's new and we're still getting used to it.
2. A friend was describing a computer hard drive he bought recently which is separated into two sections. One section is a higher quality storage system which is less prone to problems and the other is a more standard hard drive with moving parts that can break. The hard drive adapts to user patterns over time and stores the most commonly accessed information in the safer higher quality portion of the hard drive in order to protect it. This seems to me to be a crude form of consciousness. The machine is processing the information and the sorting it based on importance, as determined by usage.
3. When a composer writes a great piece of music they connect with something powerful in the unconscious. When a conductor conducts a great piece greatly they connect with that same powerful force in the unconscious. Therefore it seems possible to transmit and communicate the unconscious directly. What remains is a mystery is whether all the performers of a piece are connecting to the same unconscious force and the implications of that idea. Very confusing for me to think about at this point.
4. Is it that I believe my unconscious is smaller and less powerful than others or is it that I'm afraid to find out? Is there even a such thing as "my" unconscious or is it all the same thing? If it's just one big unconscious then the concept of universal identity doesn't seem so far fetched does it. If you strip the self away are we all the same consciousness and therefore all the same being, like cells making tissue or tissue making organs? Do cells and tissue and organs have consciousness then? Is that what the buddhists mean when they say the buddha resides everywhere?
1. The starting point for consciousness is that it became necessary to ensure that we are not overloaded with information. We select the important information for conscious thought and the rest remains in the unconscious. This is an evolutionary adaptation and it is a new phenomenon. Jung describes it almost like it's a beta version of the newest software. He says it's buggy and prone to malfunction. It's new and we're still getting used to it.
2. A friend was describing a computer hard drive he bought recently which is separated into two sections. One section is a higher quality storage system which is less prone to problems and the other is a more standard hard drive with moving parts that can break. The hard drive adapts to user patterns over time and stores the most commonly accessed information in the safer higher quality portion of the hard drive in order to protect it. This seems to me to be a crude form of consciousness. The machine is processing the information and the sorting it based on importance, as determined by usage.
3. When a composer writes a great piece of music they connect with something powerful in the unconscious. When a conductor conducts a great piece greatly they connect with that same powerful force in the unconscious. Therefore it seems possible to transmit and communicate the unconscious directly. What remains is a mystery is whether all the performers of a piece are connecting to the same unconscious force and the implications of that idea. Very confusing for me to think about at this point.
4. Is it that I believe my unconscious is smaller and less powerful than others or is it that I'm afraid to find out? Is there even a such thing as "my" unconscious or is it all the same thing? If it's just one big unconscious then the concept of universal identity doesn't seem so far fetched does it. If you strip the self away are we all the same consciousness and therefore all the same being, like cells making tissue or tissue making organs? Do cells and tissue and organs have consciousness then? Is that what the buddhists mean when they say the buddha resides everywhere?
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Dr. Laura
So if you have not seen the show In Treatment my god are you missing out. HBO canceled it after 3 seasons because it didn't get very good ratings but it is one of the best things I've ever seen in my life. It is about a therapist named Paul and in the first season you pick up with him as he's just taken on 4 new patients (Alex, Sophie, and a couple that comes to therapy together Jake and Amy) and a year into therapy with a patient named Laura. Paul is a remarkable man, brilliant and perceptive and a great practitioner of awareness. He is insightful and cares deeply for his patients. His marriage however is falling apart and the first seasons (what I've seen so far at least) revolves around the destruction of his marriage, the corresponding difficulty in treating his patient Laura who is herself brilliant and has fallen in love with Paul, and Paul's attempt to sort it all out in his own therapy with Gina, a former supervisor with whom he has a complicated past. The show it absolutely genius and touches on so many universal themes that it positively captivates me.
One thought that has stuck with me is how deeply mindful and aware both Paul and Gina are in their sessions. The perceptiveness is so high, they are keenly aware of everything the patient does and try to expose the meaning and significance in every minute action, universally to the annoyance of the patients. On the one hand this is impressive and admirable and I see this behavior in Paul and Gina as admirable. On the other hand I find it interesting that their awareness if always confined to express itself as analysis. The thought occurred to me that perhaps the great tradition of western thinkers has been successful at enlightenment when it has been because of its practice of deep awareness and has fallen short it when has because of it's limited engagement with the present in its narrow focus on rational thought and analysis.
Furthermore as a hyper-analytical thinker myself I was moved deeply by the scene which I have transcribed below. Here Laura and Paul are talking and Laura is absolutely refusing to concede that her feelings for Paul are anything less than real and powerful and important. She is an amazing character. Unbelievably intelligent and persistent and emotionally confident and damaged and beautiful. It's better to see the episode for yourself and the actors are unbelievable, which adds several dimensions of beauty to the art but the transcript itself I think still contains sufficient thought provoking and moving substance so as to warrant consumption:
.........
Laura: I know that as a therapist you tell yourself that it's part of therapy to find out why I'm in love with you and how that's linked to my past and all that. But isn't that always the way it works Paul? Doesn't our past always determine who we fall in love with? So what if you can trace it back to the withholding mother, the narcissistic father, the parent who's missing in action, does that make our love any less real?
Paul: But sometimes circumstances are, let's say, less than ideal...
L:I know that. I know you can delude yourself into a thing. Only I am not deluded. Not about you. Not about how I feel about you. Why I feel it, there's always gonna be an explanation but that I feel it is irrefutable. I don't know how to convince you anymore Paul... I mean you think that I've idealized you, that I've convinced myself of some fairy tale, that I've idolized you. You think this is a case of a miserable patient sitting in front of her therapist imagining that you're my superman...perfect, savior, mentor, I don't see you that way at all.
P:How do you really see me?
L:I see you the way you are. Your imperfections. You're not at ease with your body, with your profession, with who you've become. I don't know much about your life, but I imagine you're not happy at home. Something in you is restless, damaged, there is a yearning there and I know it when I see it. And I want you just the way you are. Damaged and restless. Yearning, warts and all.
P:So you can fix me.
L:God you can be such a fucking prick when you wanna be you know that...
P:(interrupting) So I can fix you then?
L:(long pause) You know um, next month I'll be thirty. And I've been thinking to myself, I've hated myself for thirty years. It's enough I don't want to anymore.
P:Why do you hate yourself?
L:You're surprised?
P: I've never heard you say it before.
L:Well I guess you save the best for last.
P:That's the best Laura? That you hate yourself?
L:I don't know Paul, I don't know. You're surprised? It's something people realize about me after an hour.
P:I didn't realize it after an hour. I didn't know it after a year. It's not easy for me to hear you say that.
L:Maybe you should try to find out why it's so hard for you. Maybe you should see someone.
P:Yea, been thinking about that. Seriously um I think the reason it's hard for me to hear it is because I know that you have so many reasons to love yourself. So many things to be really proud of yet you choose to ignore them why?
L:Haven't you ever hated yourself?
P:Yea. I guess I did. Once. When I was a kid, my mother she was in pretty bad shape and I took care of her. But uh I couldn't, I couldn't save her from herself you know. I guess I hated myself for that.
L:Was she sick?
P:She was in a difficult emotional state. I thought that I could pull her out of it. I used to cook her all these elaborate meals. She wouldn't eat them. I couldn't understand it. Like every kid I thought it was my fault. I thought it was something I had done, something I hadn't done. Maybe I could do something else.
L:But you know that's not true.
P:I know that now, yes.
L:Have you forgiven yourself.
P:I think so. It took a long time.
L:How does that feel? I mean, really I'm curious.
P:It feels like a relief to tell you the truth.To know that that burden is gone. The burden of blame. And to know deep down, that it never belonged there in the first place.
L:Hmm. Maybe that's why you became a psychologist. To help others with their burdens.
P:Yea. Maybe.
L:So you're a product of your past too. (long pause). So uh (smiling) will that be cash or check?
One thought that has stuck with me is how deeply mindful and aware both Paul and Gina are in their sessions. The perceptiveness is so high, they are keenly aware of everything the patient does and try to expose the meaning and significance in every minute action, universally to the annoyance of the patients. On the one hand this is impressive and admirable and I see this behavior in Paul and Gina as admirable. On the other hand I find it interesting that their awareness if always confined to express itself as analysis. The thought occurred to me that perhaps the great tradition of western thinkers has been successful at enlightenment when it has been because of its practice of deep awareness and has fallen short it when has because of it's limited engagement with the present in its narrow focus on rational thought and analysis.
Furthermore as a hyper-analytical thinker myself I was moved deeply by the scene which I have transcribed below. Here Laura and Paul are talking and Laura is absolutely refusing to concede that her feelings for Paul are anything less than real and powerful and important. She is an amazing character. Unbelievably intelligent and persistent and emotionally confident and damaged and beautiful. It's better to see the episode for yourself and the actors are unbelievable, which adds several dimensions of beauty to the art but the transcript itself I think still contains sufficient thought provoking and moving substance so as to warrant consumption:
.........
Laura: I know that as a therapist you tell yourself that it's part of therapy to find out why I'm in love with you and how that's linked to my past and all that. But isn't that always the way it works Paul? Doesn't our past always determine who we fall in love with? So what if you can trace it back to the withholding mother, the narcissistic father, the parent who's missing in action, does that make our love any less real?
Paul: But sometimes circumstances are, let's say, less than ideal...
L:I know that. I know you can delude yourself into a thing. Only I am not deluded. Not about you. Not about how I feel about you. Why I feel it, there's always gonna be an explanation but that I feel it is irrefutable. I don't know how to convince you anymore Paul... I mean you think that I've idealized you, that I've convinced myself of some fairy tale, that I've idolized you. You think this is a case of a miserable patient sitting in front of her therapist imagining that you're my superman...perfect, savior, mentor, I don't see you that way at all.
P:How do you really see me?
L:I see you the way you are. Your imperfections. You're not at ease with your body, with your profession, with who you've become. I don't know much about your life, but I imagine you're not happy at home. Something in you is restless, damaged, there is a yearning there and I know it when I see it. And I want you just the way you are. Damaged and restless. Yearning, warts and all.
P:So you can fix me.
L:God you can be such a fucking prick when you wanna be you know that...
P:(interrupting) So I can fix you then?
L:(long pause) You know um, next month I'll be thirty. And I've been thinking to myself, I've hated myself for thirty years. It's enough I don't want to anymore.
P:Why do you hate yourself?
L:You're surprised?
P: I've never heard you say it before.
L:Well I guess you save the best for last.
P:That's the best Laura? That you hate yourself?
L:I don't know Paul, I don't know. You're surprised? It's something people realize about me after an hour.
P:I didn't realize it after an hour. I didn't know it after a year. It's not easy for me to hear you say that.
L:Maybe you should try to find out why it's so hard for you. Maybe you should see someone.
P:Yea, been thinking about that. Seriously um I think the reason it's hard for me to hear it is because I know that you have so many reasons to love yourself. So many things to be really proud of yet you choose to ignore them why?
L:Haven't you ever hated yourself?
P:Yea. I guess I did. Once. When I was a kid, my mother she was in pretty bad shape and I took care of her. But uh I couldn't, I couldn't save her from herself you know. I guess I hated myself for that.
L:Was she sick?
P:She was in a difficult emotional state. I thought that I could pull her out of it. I used to cook her all these elaborate meals. She wouldn't eat them. I couldn't understand it. Like every kid I thought it was my fault. I thought it was something I had done, something I hadn't done. Maybe I could do something else.
L:But you know that's not true.
P:I know that now, yes.
L:Have you forgiven yourself.
P:I think so. It took a long time.
L:How does that feel? I mean, really I'm curious.
P:It feels like a relief to tell you the truth.To know that that burden is gone. The burden of blame. And to know deep down, that it never belonged there in the first place.
L:Hmm. Maybe that's why you became a psychologist. To help others with their burdens.
P:Yea. Maybe.
L:So you're a product of your past too. (long pause). So uh (smiling) will that be cash or check?
Thursday, May 30, 2013
The Social Contract
I am a thinker. I am so apologetically and with much embarrassment, but even with the weight of that understanding I remain a thinker. I often counsel people searching for their life's purpose to pay attention to that which they do when they have nothing to do. If you find yourself singing your life needs to contain much singing, if you find yourself dancing or reading or taking care of people or telling jokes then you fill your life with that. I think...constantly, neurotically and obsessively; I think about thinking and how I feel about my thinking. I try to feel about thinking but inevitably find myself thinking about my attempt to feel about thinking and then correspondingly feel guilty having spoiled my attempt at feeling with thought. I have this whole stand up routine I deliver to friends when I am attempting to convey the intensity of my neurotic thoughts. I really should create a flowchart that begins with "Any topic of conversation", passes through several incidental intermediary stages like "Impending collision of the Andromeda galaxy with the Milky Way" and ends with "You (me speaking to me) are worthless and a failure and generally a drain on the human species".
It's funnier in person.
Just now though a thought appeared which I trust because it was accompanied by a feeling of rightness. Perhaps, the thought goes, the pervasive anxiety and epidemic of neurotic thinking I am experiencing is symptomatic of not applying my proclivity towards thought in a productive manner. You see I have made my life in the world of music which is a world deeply distrustful of analysis. I often feel like an impostor trying to evade detection by the "real" musicians. Analytic thought is truly my greatest talent. The creative lifestyle has come much more difficulty for me. I've had to learn it piece by piece. I love it though. I love it wildly and passionately and with a profound sense of purpose and meaning. Analysis mostly makes me feel dirty and whorish, like I'm selling myself. This I think is largely due to an internal dichotomy as to prospective career choices. My feeling self very much wants to continue on with music and to grow my creative powers to their full potential. My thinking self, which is nothing less than a little bastard, advocates towards a profession in the law. The choice then presents itself to me as being between happiness and material comfort.
But what if I've created a straw man here. What if the problem is not analytic thought in totality but this singular material manifestation of it in my contemplation of a career in law. After all there are plenty of miserable, unexpressive, wonderfully talented musicians out there drudging away day after day for money. That's just as terrible an existence isn't it? What if I need to be applying my reluctant talent towards more wholesome pursuits. What if by doing so my brain turned its attention away from the neurotic, obsessive and anxious and towards the love of knowledge, which is what philosophy is supposed to be.
So then we begin where I began my love affair with knowledge, in the arena of political philosophy. I first entered the minds of the great thinkers of western society at the invitation of my 11th grade AP US History teacher. An amazing man and amazing teacher. He would indulge my rebellious but intellectual tirades and challenge my thinking, which was refreshing in that it was not dismissive. He began nudging me towards this book or that and I ate them up voraciously. I was a huge consumer of enlightenment works which influenced the American founders: Locke, Montesquieu, of course Jefferson and eventually I found my way to Rousseau.
Rousseau was fascinating to me for several reasons, firstly he was a musician. I was not particularly moved by his music but knowing he lived in that world spoke to my own struggle at the time between my analytical and musical selves. Secondly he just wrote differently than most other philosophers. If you've ever had the displeasure of reading Aristotle than you understand how tedious and monotonous these people can be. Now don't get me wrong I appreciate the mental dexterity and the enlightened minds but on a fundamental level, reading philosophy is often boring as shit. Rousseau isn't though. He is brash and emotive and has a keen flair for the dramatic. Let me show you some of what I mean by taking you through just the very beginning of his Social Contract.
Watch how he begins with this odd statement of humility (rare among philosophical types):
"This little treatise is part of a larger work which I undertook many years ago without thinking of the limitations of my powers, and have long since abandoned."
...So two words in he is self deprecating, this little treatise, which he then follows with a recognition of his mortality. Continuing on...
"...Of the various fragments that might have been taken from what I wrote, this is the most considerable, and the one I think the least unworthy of being offered to the public. The rest no longer exists."
That's his introduction to his work. "Uh hey um, I wrote this stupid thing and it was part of a bigger thing but I was too stupid to finish it so this is the least shitty part of what I was trying to do before. I burned the rest". Refreshingly human I think. One of the most irritating parts of reading philosophy for me was the prevailing sense of having intellectually conquered nature or the universe or the subject of their little treatise. It always felt like a newer more pathetic manifestation of the same obsolete male impulses towards screaming and thumping one's chest at having killed something. Humility is generally lacking in philosophy but Rousseau intrigued me with this little opening. Continuing on...
"My purpose is to consider if, in political society, there can be any legitimate and sure principle of government, taking men as they are and laws as they might be."
That is a pretty god damned succinct thesis statement. My 9th grade English teacher would be proud. The efficiency of it is artistic. He is writing about political right, whether or not government is a justifiable human phenomenon on moral or utilitarian grounds and he manages to describe that subject in an incredibly efficient, plain and complete manner in just 30 words which average maybe four letters each. (It could almost be a fucking tweet!) It is beautiful and again refreshing. So much different than most philosophers. Continuing on a little ways later, the famous line...
"Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains."
Talk about a flair for the dramatic. What a gripping thing to say. It pulls you right forward doesn't it? This again is succinct and plain spoken and direct in a powerful way. It becomes the central point of the work; that man is in a sense de-volving, getting worse over time as a result of society. He'll argue everything from moral impurity to freaking prevalence of disease have increased over time as a result of man inventing societies.
I can't only praise him though. I just thought I'd begin by explaining why he is fascinating to me. He is still at his heart a westerner with an unhealthy love of the rational mode, like a stalker in a tree with binoculars. Yea it's good he is passionate about something but there's a fine line between endearing persistence and restraining order, you know what I mean? Consider the following...
"The oldest of all societies, and the only natural one, is that of the family; yet children remain tied to their father by nature only so long as they need him for their preservation. As soon as this need ends, the natural bond is dissolved. Once the children are freed from the obedience they owe their father, and the father is freed from his responsibilities towards them, both parties equally regain their independence."
Now before dissecting this with the rational scalpel, doesn't it just feel wrong? I mean doesn't it get down in your stomach and swirl around, kicking up nauseousness and leaving you feeling uneasy? I know as a male I feel the impulse to sometimes act brutish and coldly in vulgar indulgence of the desire to procreate as often as possible before death but that feeling even in its most intense form is accompanied by a sense of wrongness or numbness, which one comes to understand as the willful ignorance of wrongness. It is natural to want to protect your children, to see them grow strong and wise and happy. It is natural to preserve the family unit and to be kind and loving. At least I feel that way.
Anyways you can see the cold blooded approach of the rational surgeon (philosophers) whereby emotion is relegated to a vastly subservient position in the hierarchy of truth seeking and silly conclusions such as the one above are suddenly and easily arrived at. It is interesting though to note that even the most rational of formulations must begin with an emotional premise and it is not irrelevant I think to consider the fact that Rousseau himself abandoned his children after being abandoned himself by his father. Perhaps this shaded his conclusion above in convincing himself to simultaneously forgive his father and absolve himself of his own sins.
Such is the game we play when we try successively to place the ideas of philosophers in the box of psychology and then vice versa. At least it seems more fun to me than the all too familiar neurotic arm wrestling in my brain. We'll see how this goes. Maybe we'll continue one with Mr. Jean-Jacques and his inquiry into the principles of political right. Maybe someone out there will engage in a substantive discussion of his flamboyant and irregular treatise. That would just hit the spot.
Good Times
It's funnier in person.
Just now though a thought appeared which I trust because it was accompanied by a feeling of rightness. Perhaps, the thought goes, the pervasive anxiety and epidemic of neurotic thinking I am experiencing is symptomatic of not applying my proclivity towards thought in a productive manner. You see I have made my life in the world of music which is a world deeply distrustful of analysis. I often feel like an impostor trying to evade detection by the "real" musicians. Analytic thought is truly my greatest talent. The creative lifestyle has come much more difficulty for me. I've had to learn it piece by piece. I love it though. I love it wildly and passionately and with a profound sense of purpose and meaning. Analysis mostly makes me feel dirty and whorish, like I'm selling myself. This I think is largely due to an internal dichotomy as to prospective career choices. My feeling self very much wants to continue on with music and to grow my creative powers to their full potential. My thinking self, which is nothing less than a little bastard, advocates towards a profession in the law. The choice then presents itself to me as being between happiness and material comfort.
But what if I've created a straw man here. What if the problem is not analytic thought in totality but this singular material manifestation of it in my contemplation of a career in law. After all there are plenty of miserable, unexpressive, wonderfully talented musicians out there drudging away day after day for money. That's just as terrible an existence isn't it? What if I need to be applying my reluctant talent towards more wholesome pursuits. What if by doing so my brain turned its attention away from the neurotic, obsessive and anxious and towards the love of knowledge, which is what philosophy is supposed to be.
So then we begin where I began my love affair with knowledge, in the arena of political philosophy. I first entered the minds of the great thinkers of western society at the invitation of my 11th grade AP US History teacher. An amazing man and amazing teacher. He would indulge my rebellious but intellectual tirades and challenge my thinking, which was refreshing in that it was not dismissive. He began nudging me towards this book or that and I ate them up voraciously. I was a huge consumer of enlightenment works which influenced the American founders: Locke, Montesquieu, of course Jefferson and eventually I found my way to Rousseau.
Rousseau was fascinating to me for several reasons, firstly he was a musician. I was not particularly moved by his music but knowing he lived in that world spoke to my own struggle at the time between my analytical and musical selves. Secondly he just wrote differently than most other philosophers. If you've ever had the displeasure of reading Aristotle than you understand how tedious and monotonous these people can be. Now don't get me wrong I appreciate the mental dexterity and the enlightened minds but on a fundamental level, reading philosophy is often boring as shit. Rousseau isn't though. He is brash and emotive and has a keen flair for the dramatic. Let me show you some of what I mean by taking you through just the very beginning of his Social Contract.
Watch how he begins with this odd statement of humility (rare among philosophical types):
"This little treatise is part of a larger work which I undertook many years ago without thinking of the limitations of my powers, and have long since abandoned."
...So two words in he is self deprecating, this little treatise, which he then follows with a recognition of his mortality. Continuing on...
"...Of the various fragments that might have been taken from what I wrote, this is the most considerable, and the one I think the least unworthy of being offered to the public. The rest no longer exists."
That's his introduction to his work. "Uh hey um, I wrote this stupid thing and it was part of a bigger thing but I was too stupid to finish it so this is the least shitty part of what I was trying to do before. I burned the rest". Refreshingly human I think. One of the most irritating parts of reading philosophy for me was the prevailing sense of having intellectually conquered nature or the universe or the subject of their little treatise. It always felt like a newer more pathetic manifestation of the same obsolete male impulses towards screaming and thumping one's chest at having killed something. Humility is generally lacking in philosophy but Rousseau intrigued me with this little opening. Continuing on...
"My purpose is to consider if, in political society, there can be any legitimate and sure principle of government, taking men as they are and laws as they might be."
That is a pretty god damned succinct thesis statement. My 9th grade English teacher would be proud. The efficiency of it is artistic. He is writing about political right, whether or not government is a justifiable human phenomenon on moral or utilitarian grounds and he manages to describe that subject in an incredibly efficient, plain and complete manner in just 30 words which average maybe four letters each. (It could almost be a fucking tweet!) It is beautiful and again refreshing. So much different than most philosophers. Continuing on a little ways later, the famous line...
"Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains."
Talk about a flair for the dramatic. What a gripping thing to say. It pulls you right forward doesn't it? This again is succinct and plain spoken and direct in a powerful way. It becomes the central point of the work; that man is in a sense de-volving, getting worse over time as a result of society. He'll argue everything from moral impurity to freaking prevalence of disease have increased over time as a result of man inventing societies.
I can't only praise him though. I just thought I'd begin by explaining why he is fascinating to me. He is still at his heart a westerner with an unhealthy love of the rational mode, like a stalker in a tree with binoculars. Yea it's good he is passionate about something but there's a fine line between endearing persistence and restraining order, you know what I mean? Consider the following...
"The oldest of all societies, and the only natural one, is that of the family; yet children remain tied to their father by nature only so long as they need him for their preservation. As soon as this need ends, the natural bond is dissolved. Once the children are freed from the obedience they owe their father, and the father is freed from his responsibilities towards them, both parties equally regain their independence."
Now before dissecting this with the rational scalpel, doesn't it just feel wrong? I mean doesn't it get down in your stomach and swirl around, kicking up nauseousness and leaving you feeling uneasy? I know as a male I feel the impulse to sometimes act brutish and coldly in vulgar indulgence of the desire to procreate as often as possible before death but that feeling even in its most intense form is accompanied by a sense of wrongness or numbness, which one comes to understand as the willful ignorance of wrongness. It is natural to want to protect your children, to see them grow strong and wise and happy. It is natural to preserve the family unit and to be kind and loving. At least I feel that way.
Anyways you can see the cold blooded approach of the rational surgeon (philosophers) whereby emotion is relegated to a vastly subservient position in the hierarchy of truth seeking and silly conclusions such as the one above are suddenly and easily arrived at. It is interesting though to note that even the most rational of formulations must begin with an emotional premise and it is not irrelevant I think to consider the fact that Rousseau himself abandoned his children after being abandoned himself by his father. Perhaps this shaded his conclusion above in convincing himself to simultaneously forgive his father and absolve himself of his own sins.
Such is the game we play when we try successively to place the ideas of philosophers in the box of psychology and then vice versa. At least it seems more fun to me than the all too familiar neurotic arm wrestling in my brain. We'll see how this goes. Maybe we'll continue one with Mr. Jean-Jacques and his inquiry into the principles of political right. Maybe someone out there will engage in a substantive discussion of his flamboyant and irregular treatise. That would just hit the spot.
Good Times
Friday, May 10, 2013
You and I
If you'd have me, I'd love to take you to the cliff's edge. When the sky is dark and cloudy and the waves crash softly, in humble restraint of their power. We would study the stars, sand collecting in our hair. I would hold you close and tuck the hair behind your ear. Our lips would meet gently with our eyes closed tight and the music of the ocean leading a long overdue first unrestrained dance.
If you'd have me.
If you'd have me.
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Breathe
As I breathe in I sense the anxiety beginning.
As I breathe out I embrace it.
I am writing this way and not that, which makes me feel
regret and disappointment. I embrace the regret and the disappointment and turn
myself to writing this way now.
I sometimes wonder if they understand the unique plight of
poverty. I think in the end it’s irrelevant but it means more hurdles to pass
and less margin for error. I can see that I must focus all my energies on deep
awareness as any other energy is wasted. One of the profound thoughts he left
me with is the simple idea of being present in the moment. Fear and anxiety he
said, are anticipations of possible futures which may or may not happen. The
pain and anger I carry are remnants of the past. My task is to be in the
present. To prepare my body and mind to be fully engaged in the now and then to
simply do it. I told him last night after he offered to share his home with me
and filled me with love and acceptance; after he spoke of family and told me he
was proud of me for what I had accomplished…after he said these things and told
me I had everything one needed to be a powerful conductor, a musical mind,
intelligence and an ability to conduct, after all that I told him that I was
always struck by his ability to say to me and people I’ve seen him speak with,
precisely what we are prepared to understand and to hear at any given moment.
Before this trip I considered that quality to be some mystical talent possessed
by a higher being. I think now that perhaps it is the result of a good deal of
practice at being present in the moment. He is communicating so precisely with
us because he is practicing deep awareness.
The thought that wants to surface now is an immense
expression of gratitude. I am shy actually and I think I make him uncomfortable
when I say it but I know he has saved my life. I find myself wanting to speak
the words “how many times can a person be saved”. I love that man so very much.
I need to listen to myself more. I think that is an
important step to take at this time. The suppression of my inner voice feels to
be the cause of many of my problems. I must embrace these feelings and not run
any longer.
As I breathe in, I sense the beginning of pain.
As I breathe out, I embrace the pain.
Thank You
Monday, February 11, 2013
snapshots of thought
I feel the gravitational pull of the law. In the past couple weeks I've had the cautiously satisfying experience of sparring with two lawyers on their home turf. I am conflicted because on the one hand I have been given a great talent for rational thought. It comes easily to me and when I indulge myself I feel a sort of lawyers high from the experience of prolonged expulsion of rational thought. I just can't decide if it's more of a runner's high kind of thing or more of a meth addict kind of thing. It often leaves me feeling dirty.
The first person was a woman I've never met, who has never met me but who by reading snippets of postings on the internet has decided I'm harming indigent children (exact language). She filed a 5 page email complaint against me to our district alleging I was "using and exploiting children" through various policies of our department. She insinuated several times that I was benefiting from fundraising and explicitly said several times that I was discriminating against and harming poor children. Luckily I believe I possess the ideal skill set for responding to such claims. I am a fanatic, dionysian musician possessed with a natural gift for the law who also happens to best express his thoughts in writing. Add to that the rhetorical skills I've refined over the years in the practice of writing and I delivered what I think was a rather effective response.
The second person is my former landlord who seems to be an overall terrible person. Lawyer, personal injury lawyer turned bankruptcy lawyer who represents banks turned foreclosure specialist who starts a debt collection agency that files thousands of law suits a year against people who owe a few hundred dollars on credit cards who then gets judgments against these people and when they can't pay he brags about his innovative foreclosure unit which takes people's houses away from them. All around class act. Trying to dick me out of my security deposit. Much less noble response to this one but I did spend a bit of time reading the california civil code and a supreme court ruling.
The movie 3:10 to Yuma also has been in my thoughts. The choice that Christan Bale's character makes at the end has had me thinking about purpose. This is a newly birthed thought and doesn't have the legs it needs yet but it really does strike me that purpose is choice. In the case of that character it was that time, that place, the series of events in his life that led him up to that moment which made his choice powerful and filled him with purpose. It at first strikes me as a silly obsolete male impulse on the surface but upon further inspection it seems to me a moving instance of genuine purpose. Maybe that thought will mature in the days to come.
The pain continues. I read two articles about anxiety today that were more illuminating than anything I've ever read about it before. Both were by people with anxiety who wished only to share their experiences. One of the articles talked about the selfish nature of a panic attack in that you are consumed with thoughts about yourself. This rang quite true for me and opened some new doors of thought that I hope to be helpful. I think I moved a bit today. I felt the loosening of rock surrounding the mind which accompanies mental movement.
I have been starving for human contact these past few weeks. Genuine interaction, conversation, understanding, revelation, spontaneity, touch, comfort, shared pain. I have been so fixated on these things that I only just realized how much I really need to make other people feel good. I liked filling the void and raising self esteem. I liked guiding people through their own journey of self discovery and sacrificing parts of myself to do it. I need it. I feel incomplete without it. These are the toughest things.
Good Times
The first person was a woman I've never met, who has never met me but who by reading snippets of postings on the internet has decided I'm harming indigent children (exact language). She filed a 5 page email complaint against me to our district alleging I was "using and exploiting children" through various policies of our department. She insinuated several times that I was benefiting from fundraising and explicitly said several times that I was discriminating against and harming poor children. Luckily I believe I possess the ideal skill set for responding to such claims. I am a fanatic, dionysian musician possessed with a natural gift for the law who also happens to best express his thoughts in writing. Add to that the rhetorical skills I've refined over the years in the practice of writing and I delivered what I think was a rather effective response.
The second person is my former landlord who seems to be an overall terrible person. Lawyer, personal injury lawyer turned bankruptcy lawyer who represents banks turned foreclosure specialist who starts a debt collection agency that files thousands of law suits a year against people who owe a few hundred dollars on credit cards who then gets judgments against these people and when they can't pay he brags about his innovative foreclosure unit which takes people's houses away from them. All around class act. Trying to dick me out of my security deposit. Much less noble response to this one but I did spend a bit of time reading the california civil code and a supreme court ruling.
The movie 3:10 to Yuma also has been in my thoughts. The choice that Christan Bale's character makes at the end has had me thinking about purpose. This is a newly birthed thought and doesn't have the legs it needs yet but it really does strike me that purpose is choice. In the case of that character it was that time, that place, the series of events in his life that led him up to that moment which made his choice powerful and filled him with purpose. It at first strikes me as a silly obsolete male impulse on the surface but upon further inspection it seems to me a moving instance of genuine purpose. Maybe that thought will mature in the days to come.
The pain continues. I read two articles about anxiety today that were more illuminating than anything I've ever read about it before. Both were by people with anxiety who wished only to share their experiences. One of the articles talked about the selfish nature of a panic attack in that you are consumed with thoughts about yourself. This rang quite true for me and opened some new doors of thought that I hope to be helpful. I think I moved a bit today. I felt the loosening of rock surrounding the mind which accompanies mental movement.
I have been starving for human contact these past few weeks. Genuine interaction, conversation, understanding, revelation, spontaneity, touch, comfort, shared pain. I have been so fixated on these things that I only just realized how much I really need to make other people feel good. I liked filling the void and raising self esteem. I liked guiding people through their own journey of self discovery and sacrificing parts of myself to do it. I need it. I feel incomplete without it. These are the toughest things.
Good Times
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