Some More about God and Men

From an earlier note, a week or so ago, that I made to myself.  Why I need to try to figure out all these metaphysical maybe's is attributable to Human Nature, and to the subject matter of my studies this term. 

Epicurus* asked:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not all-powerful.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?　 Then why call him God?　

 

God exists as something real – the micro-, macro- and astro-scopic Universe itself – huge, infinitely complex, beyond men’s ability to control or comprehend. This is "the Creation", whether it was something created or remains perpetual or whatever its ultimate nature may prove to be. This God can be seen, analyzed, and learned from. Whether it is, as the Stoics claimed, a"providential" one depends on your definition of 'providential', and then upon your experience and your bent in life.

God also exists – subsists, perhaps? – as a feeling, as the experiences of thinking and of conscience – whether these come from the otherwise fanciful pneuma deduced by the Stoics, or from some sort of organic neural feedback, or from whatever.  We (at least most of us) carry these and participate in them, and we get the feeling that – well – there's something going on that’s not just material.　 We can call it soul, pneuma, Daimon, Guardian Angel, Christ-in-us, Reason, moral sense, or even numina that lace the land about us.　 This God cannot be seen, cannot be proven to be material, remains both hard to pin down but also remains self-evident to us.

Whether you claim a Single God (combining all divine attributes), or Two Gods (as I have crudely laid out above), or Three Gods (as in the Christian Trinity, united as One), or a full Pantheon (as in the many and endlessly various Pagan traditions), what we do know is that we are, for the most part, dealing with an Idea whose manifestation is both our whole physical world – the "works" of God – and also our own inner selves.　 But there’s no other hard evidence, just "hearsay", as Thomas Paine put it.　 And this evidence that we do have available – that we and the world ARE -- does not have a simple, intelligible signature that quiets all controversy.　 It is much more complex than that.

The only honest notion about God or the Gods, I am convinced, is the Agnostic One – as in, "I don’t know, but I think … !"　 The actions of worship (on one hand) and reasoning (on the other) are both indications of God, in us, at work.　

===========================
*   The only authority for this being Epicurus's argument is Lactantius, the only ancient source to quote it.  He may have been wrong about having Epicure as the author; in fact, Epicurus's notions of the Gods seem to run counter to the notions inherent in the quote. 
　

Writer Os Guinness

Salvete, qui legentes - 

(My Latin is so much bullshit!  I'm enamoured of it but am so ill-studied.  But that is quite beside the point today....) 

I want to mention a very good author, one whom I hold in respect -- while also, at times, arguing with in my lonesome journal:  Os Guinness, a man of reason and responsibility, a Christian writer who can bridge the gap (at least for me) between what is decent in the moral (and so, intellectual and political) stances of the American Left and Right.  It probably helps that he's not from around these parts to begin with. 

Amazon's bio of him lists this:

OS GUINNESS (DPhil, Oxford University) is an author and social critic. Born in China, he was educated in England at the Universities of London and Oxford. He moved to the United States in 1984....

Whether he likes it or not, I count him a proper Humanist, concerned for both real people as well as traditions of wisdom, and keen to penetrate partisan dishonesty.  I've read only two of his many books and recommend them both. 

First,  

• The Case for Civility: And Why Our Future Depends on It

but especially this one,

• Unspeakable: Facing Up to Evil in an Age of Genocide and Terror .

Need more folk like him. 

Valete.

Metaphysics from Iohannes

Salve, si aliquis has legit !

I am, as affiliations go, a Stoic -- at least, these days.  Have been since 2006, a decade or so.  I'm currently taking a course from the College of Stoic Philosophers (not accredited, I don't believe) whose classes are done over the Internet, are affordable, and are not bound up in the toils of professional academia.  Professional philosophers may sniff at this College (collection of colleagues) but it fulfills a purpose that the unaffordable and scholarly-professional schools do not address -- common people living their lives. 

Enough about the College. I'm grateful they've been around.  But I'm currently finishing up a quarter in which we've read on Stoic Physics, which -- for the Stoics -- was also Stoic Theology.  We're at the last section, and the subject is Piety. 

Looking over Erik the Scholarch's summation for this quarter, I find myself agreeing with most everything.  The one area where I can't agree with Erik and my mentor, Chris, is that of the Stoic God's Providence.  The Stoics had an interesting idea of God and of Providence:  They argued that while most of the universe is a system of causes (not a chain, not a domino effect), men are set apart, a section in them reserved for a minor sort of divine intelligence (all the universe being infused to greater or lesser degrees with a Cosmic Intelligence that orders things and creates movement and animation and consciousness).  What this does is set men (ie, people, humans, of both genders) apart as having a say-so in their own fates.  Fate rules all, and yet not finally, because men generally have the power to think and choose.  (Rather like Christianity, isn't it?  I'm sure there are endless parallels in other religions, too.) 

Where I part with Erik's and Chris's theistic notions is largely in this notion of Providence.  What does it mean?  I agree that God (as Universal Nature and as the divine Pneuma that pervades it) has provided for men and their survival as a species.  But I argue that that is about as far as it goes.  Erik and Chris might agree, but we part on the definition of Providence.  If the Stoic God (the divine Intelligence innate in the cosmos) were fully provident, we humans would have had a better nature to begin with; we would not be such a miserable, splintered, hostile, dissatisfied and ape-like species.  Erik's Providence goes only so far -- which is fine, actually, for Stoicism quite properly looks askance at most notions of Absolute Purity and Infinite this-and-that.  We have no Types, no Perfect God, no Perfect Other World; there is only what was, what is, and what comes to be. 

But then Erik quotes this, from our old drill instructor, Epictetus:

"For if we had any understanding, ought we not, both in public and in private, incessantly to sing and praise the Deity, and rehearse his benefits?" 

Well, yes and no.  We might, because we are small and insignificant, and incapable of the kind and degree of creation that Epictetus would have us thank God for.  But a question arises:  What's the purpose of this incessant praise?  Wasn't God doing what he is supposed to, that is, providing?  Moreover, isn't that Providence limited?  Yes, he's given us a bit for each, in terms of Intelligence, with which to affect Fate on our own; he's sort of 'deputized' us as Junior Gods, you might say.  But again, isn't that now our job, to be intelligent, to be good, to be so at the same time that we're being the particular kind of beasts that we (quite demonstrably) are?  God does his bit, and we do ours -- and that's the ticket.  God deserves praise only insofar as the entire World deserves praise, and most of the world is, to the Stoic, necessarily a thing Indifferent -- a world "not up to us" to control.  Moreover, indifference is the Stoic God's personal relation with us -- he's absent, except (again) as Universal Nature and as Our Individual Natures. 

Is this a big deal?  No, except that I can't join the Chorus of Theistic Stoics singing, "Praise God for this wonderful life!" when, no, it's not wonderful, but mixed and problematic.  Men and Women, Democrats and Republicans, Christians and Muslims?  War, serial killers, torture, disease, tooth-and-claw?  This may be a providence, a gift of animation, but it cannot be called "a wonderful life". 

"Thank you for the loan, God; I'll try to take care of it as I ought to, this Life, before you get it back from me."  I think that sums up the relationship quite well, "incessant praise" aside.   If you want God, read Thomas Paine and Camus and you will have a good beginning.  Stoicism is to be praised, I think, for putting all that -- earthly experience -- into perspective without resorting to either inflation of the Human Ego past its proper degree, or erecting Idols and demanding sacrificial victims, or simply sugar-coating the whole mess and ignoring evil.  Tie your shoelaces and save the drowning, as Thoreau advised; there's no need to get absurd in response to reality's absurdities. 

Vale, et aude sapere. 

Friday Blues: Not Too Unusual

Salvete qui legentes êstis -

Sometimes Friday is graced, not with Venus or Friya or Frigg, but with the proximity of freedom.  Not true freedom, for that is rare and has to do more with ability and virtue than with a lack of fetters, but the relative freedom of the coming weekend, Friday night, Saturday and Sunday, closing in a kind of eclipse on Sunday evening. 

But sometimes Friday is simply Fatigue-Day, Down-Day, Out-of-It-Day.  So today for me.  I am in a down cycle, emotionally, and trying to find fresh sources of oxygen (as it were).  What is to hand? 

First - Only what is "up to me", what I can do and control or affect.  This includes my mood, but not all of it, not my body or my neurology or my complement of good sleep.  Those things I can affect, but not command.  Even my state of mind, available to suggestion and even command from the "ruling faculty", can be an obstacle and a pitfall. 

But here memory is important, and an internal vigilance: 

1. To recall that your emotions and mood are susceptible to your Reason, that Reason is our gift from the Gods or from the Creation, that Great Source of Turmoil, with which to deal with its debris on earth. 
2. I can keep a mental eye open for the self-defeating, the undeservedly-self-castigating, the either-or-despairing, and other fallacious tricks of the mind that -- quite automatically, in my case -- cripple my little self and urge it to self-destruction. 
3. I can patch up what I can in the outside world -- whether at work, with my co-workers, with my family, with my friends and acquaintances, with problems financial -- patch things up with whatever I have of good humor and sensitivity and diligence.
4. I can above all watch out for Fear, for the Habit of Dread that infects me and my family, and recognize its imprimatur on my thoughts, on my disposition, on my judgments, and pull myself back when I lean too far into it, or reverse my opinion when I see its fell influence on an opinion.
5. I can look to the 'Engine Room' -- fuel supply, body status, metabolism -- and, quite literally, feed myself with an eye to decent fueling, decent material and nutritional input.  I can even improve the 'Guest Quarters' upstairs with a bit of fun food or a glass of wine, some luxury for the weary fool. 
6. And, in terms of what's up to me, I can cut myself a little slack, remember that I'm just a beastie trying to emulate the Gods, a mortal, "only human" as Robocop once said, a multicelled macro-animal gifted with Reason, and that the world is -- above all -- IM-perfect, not made okay, not made safe or good or complete or glorious, but rather dirty and dangerous, uncaring and paltry: as a termite with some Divinity in him, I can rebel against defeat and decline and dismay. 

There!  I'm better already!  Improved thanks to Lore, Thought, Reason, thyroxine, caffeine, Ensure© and some sandwich from Subway©, and neither should I forget the affable conversation and amusement afforded us by my boss.  Now to the rest of the day, and on to the weekend. 

Omnibus, valete bene.

(When I was 58 ...)

[An old draft entry that I just checked for errors and then inadvertently published for the very first time.  58 would make this ca. 2013 or so.  So view it as something 'historical'.]

Salvete, qui legunt -

I am 58 years old at this point. Compared to many, I've never had a life - but that's to be judged from which point of view? My default (or automatic) point of view is that I've had a simply defective life; that others have had the laurels, the striving, the "bling" of it all. Why do I even reflect on that? I am not the others; I am not "normal". If I am polite, it comes of fear - the need to manage people to avoid negative face - blame, shame and anger. If I read, it is because I search for some Bling of Knowledge that will validate what I am and save me the expense of hardship and self-discipline. Or I read for pleasure, to escape work, work, work....

From a more reflective point of view, I've simply had MY life - personal, inconsiderable, and more or less unique.  In these later years, I'm still trying to come to terms with my own ignorance, and with my own tendency (seen above) to wallow in facile self-criticism. 

Valete.

Stereotypes

Salvete, qui legentes --

The stereotype of the Muslim Terrorist is omnipresent, and, of course, all the more so now after the November attacks in Paris. 

But I myself would like to know more about the people who de facto share the supposed traits of such a Terrorist and yet are NOT themselves supporters of terrorism.  This is because of my desire to answer a question: Why is there no appreciable voice coming out of the more-or-less Islamic world generally that repudiates or better yet denounces Muslim absolutism?  Are there people of a Mid-Eastern background, a Muslim background, an Arab background, and so on, who can or will solidly denounce Islamic Terror?  If there are, they appear to be invisible or at best, timid. 

I see multiple possible reasons for the silence.
(a)  News is made by violence and extremism, and not by being reasonable. Tales of terrorism and its horrors sell more commercial spots than reason or decency would. 
(b)  The voices might be there, but have simply been ignored by the media as not news-worthy! 
(c)  The voices might be there, but the speakers lacking mutual knowledge, organization or motivation by which to amplify their arguments.
(d)  People who are not maniacs are often absorbed by living their lives, rather than debating foreign policy or inviting trouble. 
(e)  Where poverty and testosterone are prevalent, they strongly inform popular opinion.  This leads to manias and brutally simplistic -- even "Final" -- solutions.  This "legitimizes" violence for a lot of people. 
(f)  In popular opinion in all cultures, blame is assigned first to foreigners (e.g., "Mexicans are thieves", etc.) or to fellow-citizens of an opposite political bent (e.g., "Liberals are traitors", etc.).  Detachment and reason are not to be expected in popular culture, and blame will automatically be assigned to "the usual suspects", "THOSE people".  Many people, in other words, don't know any better. 
(g)  In the modern cultural environment of the Middle East and quite probably in the world diaspora of Middle-Easterners, the anti-Western terrorists are often seen as heroes: to decry them would invite not only verbal retribution against the speaker but also physical assault and murder.  In a word, popular repression silences those who might speak up.
(h)  As in most cultures, "If you're not with us, then you're against us!" is very likely the political rule-of-thumb of many in Middle Eastern and Islamic communities.  This amplifies (e), (f) and (g) above; see also (i), following.
(i)  Any criticism of Arab or Muslim extremism will, following the fallacy in (h) above, be received popularly as support for Israel, and as disloyalty to the Palestinian cause.  This could be a problem not only of outward coercion, but of inward conscience as well. 
(j)  In Islamic culture generally, there has perhaps never been much of a dividing line between God, religion and the state.  As a basic and popular idea, then, law may mean religion more than society, and when push-comes-to-shove in debate, religion becomes (mentally, automatically) the constitutional foundation.  As a result, absolutism lies ever-ready in the mind, and God is already installed as the ultimate magistrate of things earthly.  This is a strait-jacket on the mind and not limited to Islamic culture, by any means.
(k)  Tit-for-tat:  It is believed that foreign soldiers and American drones are routinely killing the innocent along with the guilty all over the Middle East, and therefore that every massacre of Westerners (or even other Middle-Easterners) may be seen as justified on a kind of eye-for-an-eye basis. 

Given that some or all of this is accurate -- I do NOT know that it is, I hasten to say, but some of it seems most likely to an outsider like myself -- then it would be no wonder to me if Muslims tended to fall in line in silent support of terror, and to ignore their own consciences in favor of their over-zealous "heroes" out on the prowl, who have bagged yet more infidel victims. 

Vobis voluntatis bonae omnibus, bene valete.  To you of goodwill, all, be ye well. 

Ah, Give Me the Cold War ...

In the 1960s, poised beneath the uncertain nuclear stalemate between the USA and USSR, there continued to be hope for universal peace -- the hoped-for product of World War II.  The First World War's "never again!" notion had gone to hell with the rise of Bolshevism, the world-wide Depression, and the subsequent rise of Fascism in various formats the world over.  World War II made a monstrous desert of much of the earth and a pause ensued -- a hostile one, which began to be amended in the 60s and 70s.

At my age, I long for the age of nuclear standoff, when there was still a hope in Hell that Russians and Americans might figure out how to get along.  I have to remind myself that to be fond of such a time is to be unfair to those who had suffered in the Gulag and otherwise behind the Iron Curtain. Still, what fond hopes.

But this is life, and friction governs.  Universally, the molecules and animals are all itchy and will not be patient, fair or just.  Reason goes far to make weapons, only a small way to create peace.  Mao Tse-Tung (the fat old spider) ran China into the ground; Pol Pot arose in Cambodia to patriotically murder and destroy his own people; old Russian fascism (Bolshevism, Stalinism, etc.) got its comeuppance in Afghanistan (little did Americans supporting Muslim resistance realize who they were abetting in their covert operations).  No, not freedom but new fascisms reveal themselves everywhere, and nowhere so well as in their various forms in the Middle East.  Even Israel, child of Jews, a whole people homeless and abused for centuries, succumbed to the Rule of Brutality, and in defending itself became a conqueror and colonizer of others' lands, aping the success of their own Nazi persecutors and the bile and xenophobia of their racist Arab opponents.

What a world.

Contrary Old Nature Consuming Me

Salvete, quicumque legātis -

The one thing we know the Universe likes is friction. Collisions, mutations, heat, stress, movement of life, consumption of life by life - it seems to me the broad essential link is movement and conflict, whether it's at the sub-microscopic levels of nuclear particles, or among the rude little multicellular animals in a scummy pool, or between technologically endowed nations or movements throwing terror at each other, or in the collisions of asteroids, or in the super-nuclear super-heating of ineffably massive stars. Even light, as a body, collides and warms.

Speaking of mutation: According to my doctors, I've been visited by a nasty variety of it - squamous cell cancer. I have just turned 60 and now - bang - Nature plays the cancer card. More to come in terms of medical imaging and medical guesswork and treatment. The timing, of course, is less than ideal. A very bad way to begin Lunar New Year.

Once again - just as when I went to pieces in 2006, and then when someone near and dear to us ruined our finances that same year - events are crowding us out. My kids are still trying to find their niches in the new Republican slave economy, trying to become self-sufficient! I'm not expecting, at this point, that I will ever see my grandchildren. My 85-year-old mother (God keep her!) will quite possibly outlast me!

Still, what can you do? Death will come; it will take each down to dissolution. I have no particular fear of death, but I do have a lurking horror of the pain and suffering that may precede it. The final suffering will most likely be horribly intense and lonely, but I shan't dwell on that. That's all in the future, and beyond my control. (After all, I can hardly conjure up my death throes and tell them, "No; not that way! I won't have it!")

What is, after all, our one sure goal in life? Not conscious, not chosen, but entirely assured? Our death. Each man's arc of life ends up there, sooner or later, but assuredly. It's as natural as our facility of movement, our impulses, as universal as germination and birth.

Couple of Quotes

A couple of quotes from browsing today: 

This quote is one that we should all bear in mind - especially 'believers' who have not yet gone hardcore.  This is what we're seeing (along with a bloody sort of political theatre) with ISIS/ISIL in Iraq:

"... religious violence seldom limits itself to one target and expands to reach the maximum number of available victims."

(from 'The First Victims of the First Crusade', Feb 13, 2015 - by Susan Jacoby (New York Times)   http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/opinion/sunday/the-first-victims-of-the-first-crusade.html


On other topics, from Orson Welles:

"We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone."
 
And another:

"If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story." 

Valete. 

Lawsuit over Support of Terrorism

Terrorism Trial, NY Times, 2015-Feb-24
　
NY Times: "The Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization were found liable on Monday by a jury in Manhattan for their role in knowingly supporting six terrorist attacks in Israel between 2002 and 2004 in which Americans were killed and injured.
"The damages are to be $655.5 million, under a special terrorism law that provides for tripling the $218.5 million awarded by the jury in Federal District Court.
"The verdict ended a decade-long legal battle to hold the Palestinian organizations responsible for the terrorist acts, an effort that encompassed fights over jurisdiction, merit and even practicality: History has shown that it is difficult for victims of international terrorism to bring their civil cases to trial, let alone to recover damages."
"Money is oxygen for terrorism," said plaintiffs' attorney Kent A. Yalowitz.  Can't disagree there.  And the deservedly bitter hatred arising from the endless carnage of Israeli retaliations and the popular Arab Fascist bigotry towards Israel and the West both together provide endless fuel for the terrorist engines.  
"... citing testimony, payroll records and other documents, the plaintiffs showed that many of those involved in the planning and carrying out of the attacks had been employees of the Palestinian Authority [had been, at the time of their terror work?], and that the Authority had paid salaries to terrorists imprisoned in Israel [ooops] and had made martyr payments to the families of suicide bombers."  Ooops again. But perhaps these politically expedient gestures were necessary for the Authority to survive, since it has to try to maintain some kind of "good image" amid the hate-filled Arab & Palestinian mainstream.
Dr. Mahmoud Khalifa, the Palestinian Authority’s deputy minister of information, reportedly said:
"This case is just the latest attempt by hardline anti-peace factions in Israel to use and abuse the U.S. legal system to advance their narrow political and ideological agenda."

Disagree with the characterization; he's trying to shift blame.  Such Israelis may well be behind these suits, but don't these suits stand on their merits?  Were not violent crimes committed?  (Sadly, there is no one to prosecute the United States or the Russian Federation or Israel for their criminal acts.)  That the Palestinians supported and fostered Hamas and its ilk to begin with is simply criminal.  

Moreover, if you want to talk about a "narrow political and ideological agenda", then let's talk about Hamas and Islamic Fascism generally.
Khalifa also called the decision "a tragic disservice to the millions of Palestinians who have invested in the democratic process and the rule of law in order to seek justice and redress their grievances."

Agree. As the Palestinian state struggles to realize itself, badgered by Israel and entirely infiltrated by Hamas and so on, it is a damned sad thing to find US Courts kicking it while it's down.
But this brings us to another point:   Logically, Israel should be SUPPORTING a Palestinian state, as Israel's only hope of any sort of peace.   As Khalifa points out, only the Palestinian Authority represents the rule of law, at least in principle; plainly the PLO and Hamas never have. 
Moreover, since the Israeli people and governments had in years gone by utterly failed to even TRY to integrate the Palestinians into what is now Israel, that avenue has lapsed.  They will have to make peace (if peace is even on Netanyahu's Putin-esque agenda) in some other way.  But this way, and without realizing what they're doing, intransigent retaliatory Israel is actually bowing to the will of Hamas, forging ahead with endless war - adding yet more fuel to the well-oxygenated flame of Mid-Eastern Fasicsm. 
 

Felix est quem ....

Participating in our present age's revival of Stoicism, I have often had occasion to ask myself: How in the world can I, arguably an abject slave of pleasure and indolence, a rattle-headed, timid, and puerile old do-nothing, how can I of all people call myself a Stoic? For many is the time that my own native scrupulousness has argued that I was a hypocrite to do so while I remained so full of petty defects and so short on decisive willpower; and many is the time that I've been tempted to just jump ship and go native, to simply devote myself to whatever overpowering pleasure I can find.

Well, I haven't jumped ship. In fact, you might say that I'm still aboard, swabbing the deck. I haven't given up because I remember (a) that Nature is anything but simple, anything but black and white - that almost nothing is perfect or absolute; (b) that half a man is better than none, and an educated half-a-man may well be better still; and (c) that God has given me a certain problem to work on (i.e., myself), unknown to others, and that therein I have my work cut out for me.

And there's another rationalization that I think has substantial weight to it: (d) that "Felix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum" (which I read as: "Happy is he whom other people's dangers make cautious"). In other words, why not improve oneself?  Moreover, even if I am not living a Cynic's life, homeless on the street, even if am neither Saintly nor Sagely, even if I cannot BE perfect, I can at least participate in the transmission of this most useful philosophy and way of life. Helping others to learn and understand how to live, in the course of living my own transient, microscopic little life, this benefits them, myself, and the world at large.

We are all aliens and strangers, and each comprises a little hidden world of his or her own. If we recuse absolutism and fanaticism and set about living decent lives, in toleration if not in real harmony, then the good of one can rub off on the good of another.  In fact, the more that people are decent -- or better yet, virtuous -- the more lives and souls can be spared violence or the guilt of violence. Apply your Stoicism, apply your virtues, and try to live well. It's what we're meant to do.

Emerson - my Introduction

When I wandered into the library the other day and perused the philosophy section (as I am wont to do when I can catch the reduced-hours library still open), I found a book on "Transcendentalism in America", by Koster. The very first page is a three-photo splash of Thoreau, Emerson and Whitman. Perhaps, I thought, this book will explain just what these folks were all about, what the thread of Transcendentalism was, and most important in satisfying my ignorance, what Emerson was all about, he the most famous of the three and the least accessible to me. 

So, I am reading. 

Was Emerson a philosopher?  He thought so, I guess.  And the quotes from him in this book tend to cover ground seemingly Neo-Platonic and even, perhaps, Stoic: 

"A man is fed, not that he may be fed, but that he may work."

"A leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time, is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole.  Each particle is a microcosm, and faithfully renders the likeness of the world." 

"What we are, that only can we see." 

"As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg."

But what remains most apparent is that Emerson's cart always seems to be hitched neither to stolid horses nor to hard men, but to clouds of mystic supposition.  I read Koster's remarks on him and I say, Yes, our pertinent time IS indeed the "everlasting now", "the present, which is all there is" (as Koster puts it - for there is no past, except in its forming of  "Now", and no future, except in its becoming "Now").  Or I say, Yes, we see things not as they are, but as we are (quoting Anais Nin, I believe).  But then at other times Emerson loses me:

"Empirical science is apt to cloud the sight, and by the very knowledge of functions and processes to bereave the student of the manly contemplation of the whole." 

"Nature is not fixed but fluid. Spirit alters, moulds, makes it....  Every spirit builds itself a house, and beyond its house a world, and beyond its world a heaven."

"No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature.... the only right is what is after my constitution; the only wrong what is against it."

"Who shall define to me an Individual?; I behold with awe and delight many illustrations of the One Universal Mind; I see my being imbedded in it....  I can even with a mountainous aspiring say, I am God, by transferring my Me out of the flimsy and unclean precincts of my body, my fortunes, my private will, and meekly retiring upon the holy austerities of the Just and the Loving - upon the secret fountains of Nature."

Emerson finds it important "to feel after the evidence of things not seen"; and then, in the same breath and in supposed apposition, explain that one does that "to explain the mazes of mortal things."  The first I mistrust; the second (quite rightly a task for men, whether philosophers, laborers or businessmen) I must think can be explained only (if at all) with reference to concrete things.  For the Emerson-inclined, how can he or she escape the wishful thinking that "feeling after" the misty "evidence" of still mistier "things not seen" only too easily leads to?  How can one avoid a merely personal, pseudo-mystical cloud?  How can one get a grip, EXCEPT by the corroboration and criticism provided by example and hard proof? 

Notion vs. Ignorance vs. Facts vs. Blather.  These are the four corners, you might say, of any serious discussion.  Will or an idea or a need urges us a Notion, our Ignorance shapes it, then the visible or provable Facts re-shape it, and we repeat the re-shaping, continuing to trim away the mere Blather.  Emerson went through this but, perhaps, either got stuck venerating the Blather, or simply dismissed as unimportant the facts available to refer to. 

Sharing a Blogger’s Resentment, Worry and Despair – and My Comments (Which I Think are Worthwhile)

I just finished posting a long, long comment on a fellow blogger’s site (his site is well-named as “Help, They Want Me to Socialize!”).

He was worrying about his future, and so much of what he was rehearsing was exactly the kinds of things that I’ve had to cope with and only slowly learned to understand over 59 years of less-than-ideal life. In any event, I see my comment as a sort of manifesto or wake-up-call for people with depression, and am sharing it here.

You can follow this link to the site and my comments:

The Musical Clue

A clue.

Lenin was seen weeping upon listening to one of Beethoven's quartets - and yet he was as ruthless and detached a despot as any we've seen.

A clue - to what? That no man is free of emotion, of opinions seeded into him at birth and baked in the chaos of life and learning. We can modify what we think, but we cannot escape being inherently emotional - in both the senses, of (a) spontaneous reactions (First Movements) and (b) Opinions and Passions.

Just now myself, falling asleep at work, helpless to stem that all-conquering middle-aged somnolescence that comes upon me when sitting, I pulled out my smartphone and plugged in my earphones and dialed up Lang-Lang playing Beethoven's Emperor Concerto (Piano Concerto No. 5). With volume set to a realistic but ear-damaging level, the Beet' roused me - transported me - to the heroic realms that I shall never find upon the Earth. (And I'm supposedly an adherent of Stoicism. Hah!) And so I successfully completed my work.

To see a semi-spastic creature such as myself reacting to the bold Beethovenian tutti must be a sight. But I have to reflect: The discrete blows of the piano's felt hammer on its tone-cables ring true, here in my physical self, in my very motor-neurology of jerky-motion-bolting-missed-try-again-bolting-closer-jerkily-hit-it-now-phewwww. Beethoven is here percussive in a grander-than-life sense; his orchestra does not strum out tones, but belts out thunder, ego, gaiety, lightning, contemplation, orgasm, marching and frolic and dance. Nor Bach, nor Mozart, nor Chopin, nor Brahms can do this, in this sort, in all these modes and movements, nor with such an intensity - none but the Beet'.

Listen to it yourself.

The Fudged Edges of Office Work Information

Petty rant: about Normal People, office management, and the craziness that mid-managers arrive at:

Long ago I learned that while it was a heinous sin at work to be inaccurate on your timesheet, it was even worse to be accurate. "Oh, my God!" the accounting poeple used to say - "I don't care if you were in at 8:01 or at 7:56! Just put 8 am, for God's sake! We can't handle your fractions!" So a timesheet it turned out was NOT a record of time spent at work, but rather a fiction of a sort useful as paper justification for a payroll system.

And, well, I just had another such moment - some 38 years or so later - but about a "Travel Schedule Notice" system. It's the automated way my company keeps track of whether employees and domini are in their prime offices or not. But - once again - I have been operating under a misapprehension, thinking that the Notices were relevant to our whereabouts and out-of-office status. Nope, that's not it, apparently. I just confounded my poor supervisor, leaving him flummoxed and at a loss, because I posted - in simple honesty - that I'd PROBABLY be out tomorrow at Jury Duty.
He told me that that was wrong; I was out of line. He couldn't believe that I would actually say I was going to be out if I thought - merely expected - to be out. Keeping people informed did not extend to actually telling about something.

Once again, here was a system with some ulterior purpose that I had thwarted. And I'm not exactly sure what it was. Apparently, if there's ANY conditionality to the absence-to-be (in this case, the condition was if, after checking the night before as to whether my Group will in fact be called to the Hall of Justice, they will have said yea or nay, something I have no control over but will certainly keep me away from work in the case of a "yea") then we have to treat it as a non-possibility until the actual day of Jury Duty, when we'll treat it either as nothing (I go to work, I'm not needed for Duty) or as a sudden case of an illness (I planned to come to work - even though I knew I might well not - but I can't come to work, I'm out with a case of Jury Duty). Despite that fact that I've been forewarned AND WAS REQUIRED to forewarn my company that I had a Jury Duty date coming up.

I will commit this caveat to my work-notes on Jury Duty (notes already needed because of the whole confusing and explicitly conditional business of Jury Duty):

JURY DUTY REMAINS A NON-EVENT DESPITE FOREKNOWLEDGE UNTIL YOU ARE DEFINITELY CALLED - AT THAT POINT YOU MUST INFORM YOUR SUPERIOR THAT YOU HAVE A BAD CASE OF THE "JURY DUTY" AND CAN'T COME TO WORK ON TIME THE NEXT DAY.

Sheesh. Apparently, the Notices we send using this system do not amount to notices of information, but amount to official declarations of intent that have the weight of fact, despite being merely predictions or plans. Phew.

Not a big deal, but it's more of that "You had better do this!!!" followed, once you've done your bit, by unexpected bursts of "Don't do that!!!" Such as: "Work hard all the time, don't steal time from your employer!" followed by "My God, don't overwork yourself!" Or: "Take your vacation, it's yours, it's healthy - be sure to take it!" followed by "I don't know - you've been using a lot of vacation time lately; this is not going to look good on your record..."

In other words, any publishing of info on one's future work whereabouts is subject to a 95-percent-sure rule: If you're not 95% sure that X is happening, then ignore the indications that it is going to happen and treat the outcome as an unexpected case of food poisoning - sudden, pertinent, immutable, decisive. Conditional futures have no place in informing co-workers - at least, not in the formal systems.

Okay. We'll try that. And I expect that all organizations tend to be crazy, once organized - ideological party, church hierarchy, group of friends, modern business - it'll always be whacked and out of order.... And not a big deal, in any event.

HOWARD AGAIN

Found an inexpensive copy of Conquering Sword of Conan - third book of the tales, as published by Ballantine/Del Rey.

Took it up at bed last night, chose to re-read "Black Stranger".

I feel a little clunkiness in the writing, but only a little. In general once again, Howard evokes, engages, focuses, realizes his characters so very well. And all the way through I mused on my youthful fascination with these manifestos of the manly, the muscular, the violent - these testosterone-driven ideals.

"Ideals" is the wrong word; "Mores Maiorum" would be better, or perhaps "Struggles". It's the whole idea of struggle against death, against murderers, against the deceivers and manipulators. But no, "ideals" IS the right word - Conan's selfish life is a fantasy of a powerful, healthy, independent, endangered, irresistably strong being. It is the Fascist/Nietschean fantasy of The Will, which inevitably appeals to young men - at least, young men like me. The more so since I'm none of that. If Plato had been right, I'd be built on a Type like that.

But, back to the book tonight - we've got Picts to worry about....

OUTBURST

I know, I know. I'm relatively feeble; I'm too sensitive, and not too sharp.

AND - worst of all! - I'm spoiled; I've "had it too easy". That is all I ever hear from Right-wingers, Left-wingers, hot-shots, malcontents, as well as my OWN conscience.

"You're not extreme! You're not courageous!"

But I am near 60 years old and NOT likely to improve a whole lot in this area.

Besides, I'm one hundred percent MORE courageous and able to get by than I was at age 16 or 20. That counts, even if it doesn't make me into a war hero or a brilliant, hard-nosed academic.

Just needed to say that.

And also: Down with Hitler, up with Léon Blum! Atque etiam Carthago retinenda est....

"The Muse: Love Profaned..." [Very good blog-entry by Mike Hoffman, March 28, 2013]

Mike Hoffman, March 28, 2013:



The Muse: Love Profaned...:   There are dangers inherent in living in the Technosphere.  Right now, the Technosphere involves three things: people (you), Money and Machin...