Writing and Art in General

[M]

Re: #3788 in the haiku thread. Hmm. How to answer Paula’s questions stated or implied, and bring up some other things, as well . . .

Mediocre means average, ordinary, commonplace. Goodreads is a public forum. What’s public tends to be commonplace and average. To me, GR offers an interesting look into the mind of the public.

I think the way you write can reveal things about your temperamental predispositions and about the quality of your mind. Your writing reveals how quick your mind is, how clearly you think, for instance.

I don’t think it’s necessarily true that the more you write, the better you get at it. Otherwise, the best writers would be those who crank out truckloads of trashy novels. Your writing improves automatically as your mind improves. Your writing is sort of like a fingerprint of your mind. As your thinking becomes clearer, more concise, more organized, so does your writing.

I don’t think it’s necessarily true that reading good literature, or even studying good literature formally, makes you a good writer. Otherwise, English professors would be excellent writers, and often they’re very poor at it.

I don’t think you have to be able to analyze what you write to be good at writing. Conversely, I don’t that being able to analyze what you write necessarily makes you good at writing.

I think there are people who, through study, become adept at understanding literature. I don’t think you have to be capable of producing good literature in order to be good at analyzing it, however.

Who is the arbiter of good work? If you’re a relativist, you hold the unspoken conviction that only you know what’s good and what isn’t. The object is to have all standards of judgment declared invalid so that you can impose your own. If you aren’t a relativist, people who have spent their lives engaged in a formal study of literature seem likeliest to have the tools necessary for analyzing and judging it. Those people are usually academics.

The few artists I’ve known haven’t seemed very interested in approval. I’m not sure why. I’m sure there are those who are. Maybe a need for approval is an ego-related thing. Which do you put first, yourself or the art you practice?

It seems to me that if you confuse yourself with what you attempt to create, you reduce the art you’re involved in to something servile, a means to the end of defining yourself, of polishing your persona, of massaging your ego, or who knows what else?

From my perspective, a work of art, however it comes about, is something that exists in those moments when it’s being experienced. A poem exists when someone is reading it, a painting when someone is seeing it. At other times, art objects are merely artifacts, meaningless material things. In the encounter, the reader or viewer automatically interprets the object and, because of the visual or verbal cues it offers him, brings himself to it, and in that manner it comes alive for him. I would guess that the art that’s most loved is that which most effectively facilitates this.

[Guy]

This was the answer I created in the Haiku thread in response to Paula's query. M was correct that this kind of discussion is really out of place in a game thread. To see Paula's query, go to Paula wants to know what 'good' writing is.

Okay, now to pretend to be serious. Is analyzing one's own work worth a tinker's dam? Tough question. It depends to a great extent on what you mean by analyze. Jung argued that the artist was the least capable of 'analyzing' his/her own work because an artist's expression is a harbinger of a future or possible future that does not yet exist. And that 'false' or nascent reality, which is an expression from the collective unconscious, is unlikely to be readily comprehendible by the artist living in the present. So, a 'true' artist probably does not make a good candidate for self analysis unless s/he is capable of setting his/her ego pretty much fully aside. But if s/he is capable of that, then analysis of one's own work is likely not really necessary. Okay, that excludes about 95% of the artists, who like me, are at best hacks. The artist who is lured by the lure of the lucre instead of the unconscious's siren call, may well be popular and derive an excellent living. But their popularity is generally fleeting, being limited to a time and a place and unattached to the archetypal patterns moiling like a witches brew in the unconscious.

If the purpose of the analysis is to compare your writing to another to see what needs fixing, you will lose, because that is a no win game.

So, now what? Tough call. Without re-reading one's writing, one will miss the obvious writing failures typical of all writers, and a few quirky ones personal to you.

If the purpose of the writing is self-discovery, what then? Well, off the cuff, my thinking is that only time will tell if that narcissitic writing will translate into a superficial, i.e. transient popularity, or a lasting one, or neither. Jung observes that the artist is the least capable of making that kind assessment.

OMG! Does that mean writing is futile, useless and narcissistic? Well, quite likely yes! I like how Chuang-Tzu put it.

If words were satisfactory, we could speak the whole day and it would all be about the Way; but if words are unsatisfactory, we can speak the whole day and it will all be about things. The Way is the delimitation of things. Neither words nor silence are satisfactory for conveying it. Without words and without silence, our deliberations reach their utmost limits.

Chuang-Tse. Wandering on the Way: Early Taoist Tales and Parables of Chuang Tzu. Toronto: Bantam Books, 1994. Tr. by Victor Mair, p. 266.

For writing to be more than merely a diary, it needs to be read by someone other than yourself, and perhaps even someone who isn't in your family. That completes it, regardless of the longevity of the piece. And maybe that is, in the end, the 'real' purpose of writing: it is an expression of who we are, and the act of creating words is technically enough, but in the end is unsatisfactory. The reader completes the process.

Of course, what further complicates this is whether or not the written word has any real value! For example:

In Plato's Phaedrus Socrates reports a conversation between The Egyptian god Thoth, the inventor of letters, and the god Amon.

Amon says:
This discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth but only the semblance of truth; they will be bearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.

Socrates continues:
I cannot help feeling, Phaedrus, that writing is unfortunately like painting; for the creations of the painter have the attitude of life, and yet if you ask them a question, they preserve a solemn silence, and the same may be said of speeches. You would imagine that they had intelligence, but if you want to know anything and put a question to one of them, the speaker always gives one unvarying answer.

Plato. Phaedrus. Toronto: Penguin, 1973,p. 84. Cited in Mass Communication in Canada, 3rd Ed. by Lorimer and McNulty, Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 20.

And,

B) [Written] Language as a Prison

The Philippines did have a written language before the Spanish colonists arrived, contrary to what many of those colonists subsequently claimed. However, it was a language that some theorists believe was mainly used as a mnemonic device for epic poems. There was simply no need for a European-style written language in a decentralized land of small seaside fishing villages that were largely self-sufficient.

One theory regarding language is that it is primarily a useful tool born out of a need for control. In this theory written language was needed once top-down administration of small towns and villages came into being. Once there were bosses there arose a need for written language. The rise of the great metropolises of Ur and Babylon made a common written language an absolute necessity — but it was only a tool for the administrators. Administrators and rulers needed to keep records and know names — ho had rented which plot of land, how many crops did they sell, how many fish did they catch, how many children do they have, how many water buffalo? More important, how much then do they owe me? In this account of the rise of written language, naming and accounting seem to be language's primary "civilizing" function. Language and number are also handy for keeping track of the movement of heavenly bodies, crop yields, and flood cycles. Naturally, a version of local oral languages was eventually translated into symbols as well, and non-administrative words, the words of epic oral poets, sort of went along for the ride, according to this version.

What's amazing to me is that if we accept this idea, then what may have begun as an instrument of social and economic control has now been internalized by us as a mark of being civilized. As if being controlled were, by inference, seen as a good thing, and to proudly wear the badge of this agent of control—to be able to read and write—makes us better, superior, more advanced. We have turned an object of our own oppression into something we now think of as virtuous. Perfect! We accept written language as something so essential to how we live and get along in the world that we feel and recognize its presence as an exclusively positive thing, a sign of enlightenment. We've come to love the chains that bind us, that control us, for we believe that they are us (161-2).

David Byrne. Bicycle Diaries. Toronto: Viking Press (Penguin Group), 2009. ISBN 978-0-670-02114-7.

Mediocrity cannot be measured today, so keep writing. Those enamoured of mediocrity may reject your writing if it is looking beyond superficial truths, while those living in the future are most likely nut bars and easily ignored.

So, is analyzing your own writing a worthwhile exercise or not? Well, if it allows you to continue to live happily in your delusion, then yes and no, I guess. Delusion can keep one happy until it doesn't. If writing allows you to wake up to who you are, then yes and no: knowing who you are will make you a rare creature on the planet, and you will be subject to being largely alone and frequently shunned.

[Jim]

this is very interesting. thanks, guys!

[Guy]

You're welcome. M and I frequently engage in these kinds of discussions, so keep your eyes peeled. And now with Ellis, someone else to partake. Excellent!

[Guy]

Paula, I see that you share a quirk with M; deleting your posts! I am curious what you found worthy of posting and deleting.

[Jim]

I thought I was the only one who noticed. :)

[M]

You mean somebody besides me gets to walk the plank?

[Stephanie]

Is that when the plank-walking takes place? I never knew.

[Guy]

Not the only warranted plank walking activity, but one of the main ones. At least it doesn't rate keel-hauling, which, honestly, has got to hurt.

[M]

I know every barnacle by name.

[Stephanie]

Lol. Barnacle and mermaid?

[M]

Stephanie! Why on earth would you say something like that? I’m very prim and proper. When I’m not scrubbing the decks or repairing the rigging, I’m in my cabin reading The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

[Stephanie]

I was under the impression the waters were full of mermaids and mermen. Ah, are there Roman ships at the bottom of the sea too?

[M]

No doubt, and probably loaded with wine.

[Stephanie]

Haha

[Paula Tohline]

Guy wrote: "Paula, I see that you share a quirk with M; deleting your posts! I am curious what you found worthy of posting and deleting."

SO SORRY! It actually was not ready to be posted in the first place, but my technology problems continue to multiply and do weird things. I was in the middle of the following LONG comment, and for some reason or other it decided I was done, when I wasn't, so I had to delete. Then the internet went down on me altogether and I am just now able to make at least some sort of reply to all the excellent support and answers to my age-old question. Anyway (thank God I saved it elsewhere, so I can copy/paste), here it is:

Oh, my! What a beautiful and most excellent can of worms. Worms perfect for catching the best and worst fish (and a few mediocre); and worms for aerating the soil in which they will live, write, read, paint, create, photograph, draw, or view.

In the end, is my question answered? Yes. Answers were given. Do the answers received (so far) relate to the initial question? Who knows? It does reaffirm my own self-analysis: I am obsessed with all things hermeneutic. I have come to the conclusion that hermeneutics is the axis upon which the entire universe of communication turns. There is no such thing as mutual understanding. In my mind (where else?) I can see the universe as one room, large enough for all who wish to satisfactorily share thoughts and feelings with one or more other beings, to comfortably roam and dwell (which means it would likely have to be quite large - no problem. I have a limitless imagination.)

The easiest way for me to initiate a conversation in our "room" is to imagine speaking with someone who has been blind since birth: "Which shade of red do you want the poinsettia we're donating to the church Christmas decorations to be?" Now, I recognize that this question is problematic in a lot of ways, but it is a very simple way to begin this discussion on mutual understanding. Person A is sighted. Person B is, and has always been, blind. (Let's forget the improbability that A & B would have a conversation of this sort in the first place, OK?)

B: Decorate?
A: Make the sanctuary pretty and appropriately arranged for the Christmas season.
B: Pretty?
A: Yes! It will be nice to look at, and help set the scene for Christmas meditation.
B: OK, Gotcha! Red? Shade? Poinsettia? Look at? (OK, OK, you get the idea and understand - HAH! - what I'm writing about, right?)

Now, if we are to imagine the same conversation between two sighted people, the way it sounds or reads might be a little different, but it would still be, ultimately, the same conversation. Because A's concept of red cannot help but be different from B's (let's just accept that as a given, because I refuse to let those worms out just yet). Language, whether spoken, written, or mimed, is completely subjective. Life is subjective. Since I conceive of life that way, it makes the conversation Guy quoted between Amon and Thoth among one of the greatest and most elemental ever to have taken place. It also leads me to speculate about a world without written language. If our history remained oral, what would the world be like today?

If the blind were not "required" to accommodate themselves to a sighted world (and vice-versa) what would be different about how humanity behaved toward each other? It is an odd thing that when written language was created, true communication and mutual understanding do not appear to have been the reason for their creation. One evidence of this is we seemed to have discovered a number of reasons to have to create secret code for various situations.

Now, granted, many of the same problems created by written language were present even without it - some to a greater and some to a lesser degree.

As biblical oral tradition goes, language was the first thing understood to exist (looking at it retrospectively). I say that because (long) after the written word was "invented," St. John opens his Gospel with "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God." Word, or the Greek "logos" goes beyond written or spoken language, it in my mind refers more to expression. Humans, (probably all species, I believe), have sought to communicate outside of themselves, even if only to express a desire or need that one feels the other can fill.

Guy's quotation from Byrne's "Bicycle Diaries" is really excellent, and to some degree I at least empathize with it if not completely agree, because I think the drive to create a written language was not motivated only by mercenary or controlling needs. (That was a lousy sentence - sorry, but I'm too tired to change it now, and as my hypothesis states somewhere in here, it wouldn't be understood the way I intended it anyway, so it's not important to change it.) As we are driven to procreate - the built-in drive to extend our lives - wouldn't written language - something "carved in stone" (so to speak) - be an effort to satisfy the same drive? To create something that outlasts oneself?

I had an incredibly frustrating conversation many years ago with an extended family member one afternoon the day before a wedding. We were standing in the lobby of the hotel where overnight guests were staying, and because my husband is a pastor, the person chose him to "preach" to about translating the Bible. He went on and on about how he was learning to read and write biblical Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic because those were the original words of the scriptures and anyone who calls him or herself a Christian would be committing a grievous sin by "changing a word" of the scriptures. Translating, in his mind means changing it substantively. I remember hearing him expound what was for him the only "truth," and said, "but what do you think reading is? Or listening, for that matter?" I went on to tell him - (very stupid thing on my part, as it was a waste of time and served no purpose, as my husband was wise enough to point out to me later) that everything we see, read, hear, speak, feel, taste - whatever - is filtered through our own individual experiences and is therefore a unique translation. It is IMPOSSIBLE - utterly (pun intended) - NOT to translate what we experience. Of course, any sort of discourse on discourse is by the nature of hermeneutics, never completely understood - even when we think we are understanding someone else or being understood by them. Sheesh! What a mouthful.

All of this claptrap that I am writing now is being understood differently by every one of you who has decided to read it. I understand if you regret your choice.

I will draw this to a close because if I'm tired of writing, especially with a less than clear head, (at the moment - too tired to think clearly enough to write a decent sentence), then you must be EXHAUSTED trying to make heads or tails of it. The fact that we manage to make our thoughts at least partially known or understood by another is to me a miracle. Just think: Person A might have been color-blind! Which changes everything entirely. We might all be color-blind. We have reached some sort of consensus over the eons to call certain things red (which a really intelligent being would know is of course blue), and the mis-communication just keeps rolling along. . .

Please understand that I am writing all of this off the cuff, it is not edited except for typos (and I probably missed a bunch of those), and it should in no way be taken as an eloquent or elegant presentation. My father taught me to love words. Their etymology fascinates me - always will - and the juicy and/or chewy feel of vowels and consonants being kneaded into each other in my mouth is pure delight. What bread we bake when we speak - even such a simple word as "it." Just ask Bill Clinton! The biggest and loudest complaint about my writing has always been that it is too wordy. In addition, it tells far too much and shows far too little. Hermeneutically speaking, that seems an impossibility to me, because words show. I think I made some reference in a message to Guy recently that Anton Chekhov had it all wrong! "Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." Why NOT tell him the moon is shining? Just reading that and my mind fills up with unlimited pictures. In a story or poem, such a simple line can be beautiful and eminently expressive, just as other expressions that mean approximately the same thing can. Is my writing any good? Can I write decent poetry - poetry that will stand the test of time? Quite frankly I don't know now, nor will I ever, mainly because it is likely immaterial. I write because I want to, because I like it, and because it pleases me to do so, but I also write in order to be read by others - I seek my own kind of immortality. Yes, I write for myself - so that in some fashion or other I might live forever. But that life will only continue if my writing is read. I would love to be thought of as a great writer or poet. I am quite vain. But I can't tell you who the person is or persons are (the more the better!) that I want to think of me that way. There exist in the world audiences for any and every style of writing. Edgar Guest is still beloved, God bless him, and the word "trite" never enters the mind of those who love his rhymes. I want to be a better writer, a better poet, a better singer/composer/musician. Pragmatically, that would not be a hard thing to accomplish! But until I have found a way of communication that needs or requires no interpretation, I think I will make myself the "final arbiter" of (my own) taste. You all should be glad of that. I like or only "sort of like" a very small percentage of what I write - so you will seldom be exposed to what this arbiter thinks of as schlock unless meant in fun (which a lot of my crapola is).

Those last couple of sentences unfortunately refer only to my poetry and other "serious and studied" writing. Not, unfortunately, to the above diatribe. I will go ahead and click the "Post" button on this, and extend to you my apologies, because when I get some rest and then read this, then this "final arbiter" will likely realize she has made a huge misjudgment. In other words, this is probably schlock, but right now, I feel like a genius. I LOVE "delete" buttons!

Thanks so much for weighing in, and being willing to enter into the discussion. It would be a lot easier to "Skype" it than write it. Now there's an idea. . .conference Skyping!

[Guy]

Paula, not only are you a closet Taoist but you are a closet Jungian, too. Much of Jung's writing is about the problem of meaning and, more importantly, meaningfulness. If everything is meaningful, then nothing has meaning is a hermeneutic and Jungian problem.

Eastern philosophy has wrestled with this problem in a way distinctively different, and I think generally more effectively, than western thinkers have. That all language is subject to the individual is poorly accepted by many if not most western thinkers. That lack of acceptance shows itself in the endless streams of verbiage western philosophers use to finally and unequivocally resolve the problem of the subjectivity of the meaning of words. Laughable, and yet we still get books like Heidegger's Being and Time. In that book, the first 30 pages or so is his justification that the meaning of 'being' and 'time' is poorly enough defined to warrant another 1000 pages defining them. [Spontaneous gag reflex at recalling my struggles to fail reading that.]

On the other hand, in the east you get things like The Tao that can be named [given a worded definition] is not the true Tao. Also, Zen uses self-contradictory language to stimulate thought that moves behind the limits of worded understanding.

Thus it is that one of my epiphanies of yore on the problem of words can be poorly outlined with the following imprecise words: In the west tomes, in the East koans. As I write that, I laugh at myself, and the imprecision of words to convey understanding. (Does this problem exist with music?!)

M and I have, in our relatively recent past, had extended discussions with more than one member of the poetry group on the existence (or lack) of there being an absolute measure of 'good' and 'bad' writing. And in an even more recent past, I created some popcorn to answer the question 'What is a Taoist?' It has some relevant bits here.

Anyway, here is some muse-corn to answer the question, What is a Taoist?, which naturally by force of the limitation of language, includes a discussion on the meaning of words.

Guy: [Walks in to Pandora's room during her open time. Neve is sitting there, trying to learn how to meditate, he imagines.] Excuse me. I hope you can help me out. I've managed to get myself into a little bit of an embarrassing circumstance.
Pandora: [Says nothing.]
Neve: [Shifts. Appears to be uncomfortable.]
Guy: Is that your answer? Or are you just ignoring me?
Pandora: [Says nothing.]
Guy: Is that some kind of code? This quiet?
Pandora: [Says nothing.]
Guy: Is this a test? [Guy is sounding increasingly agitated. He's beginning to think that committing to describing what a Taoist is will make him look like the ass he probably is.] Or is this you just putting me in my place?! A lesson on the vacuity of vanity? [fushigi*.] Of speaking without reflection?
Pandora: [Says nothing.]
Guy: [Sighs.] I was a bit abrupt to M. No I was actually quite rude when I wrote that he'd presented the pre-canned definition of a Taoist. And then I made a promise I thought would be … not easy. I hope I didn't think that describing what a Taoist is would be easy. [Sighs.] I did feel, I confess, that it wouldn't be too hard. But mostly I guess I felt that it would be fun. But… [He goes quiet. Pandora doesn't say anything.] Oh! I get it! 'He who knows does not speak/He who speaks does not know'!
Pandora: What is it that has been farting in my air space?! Quoting Lao-Tzu? You? Really?
Neve: [Laughs, but it feels a bit embarrassed.]
Guy: But I've got it! He who knows—
Pandora: [Laughs.] You've no more got it than the flea on the back of a gnat on the back of a rat riding the blue whale can say that the whale is under its control.
Neve: [Laughs.] Exactly! I got it.
Pandora: [Raises an eyebrow to show her scepticism.]
Neve: Let me explain. This began with Kat asking an ostensibly simple question: "What is a Taoist?" In typical western style ratio-centric empirical logic this infers the answer that a Taoist is someone who practices or 'follows' a book, or maybe a clutch, of so-called Taoist tenets. Hence M's quick, but mistaken, answer. Lao-Tzu's aphorisms aren't what Taoists follow: his book is a description of the ineffability of Life, meaning that Life is beyond the ability of words to describe, beyond what the mind is capable of comprehending. This is—
Pandora: Pause, Neve! Catch your breath. You do realize that you just finished citing Lao-Tzu's famous words about the real meaning of words? And here you are, babbling along like a girl after getting her first boy valentine.
Guy: [Laughs.] Yes! But that doesn't mean we don't use words to describe the limits of words.
Neve: Exactly!
Pandora: [Smiles. Then, half under her breath, adds.] In the east, koans. In the west, tomes.
Guy and Neve: What?
Pandora: Oh, never mind.
Neve: Please don't 'never mind' me! If you spoke your thought, it was for us to hear it. And, if to hear it, then please, let us hear it!
Pandora: [Looks at Neve with a smidgeon more interest than she normally has.] I see. Okay. Well, it was just something I realized when I tried reading Heidegger's argument about being in his just about unreadable and massive tome Being and Time. It struck me that Heidegger spent as many words as he possibly could to nail down the 'unwordable' aspect of life. I—
Guy: Excuse me. 'Unwordable? What the hell does that mean?
Pandora: [Laughs.] Yes. For anyone in a literate society, the awareness of there being life before and outside of words seems as foreign as walking on the moon. You think that because you can describe something that that description becomes the thing. Or at least is a good enough substitute for the real thing.
Guy: No. [But he sounds unsure.] We don't do that. Do we? [He looks at Neve, who shrugs her shoulders.]
Pandora: Yes, we do. We can't help it, in a way. A good example of the challenge that words bring to understanding things beyond words is dreams. A dream can be intensely meaningful, but as soon as we try to describe it verbally, the meaning falls away. To the extent that dreams are denigrated or pushed into irrelevancy by the society is a measure of how much religious faith we place in words to provide meaning. But dreams are our direct link to the pre-word / post-word existence from which we're born and into which whatever it is we think we are will return to the unworded state. I have, following my love of Billy Boy Shakes, neologized 'unwordable' to describe the process of capital 'L' Life which is extant and extends outside words.
Guy: [Coughs.] What has this got to do with Taoism? Seriously. You seem to have gone right off the deep end.
Pandora: [Laughs.] Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and tear you.
Neve: Excuse me, Pandora. I'm somewhat annoyed to be with Guy on this. Furthermore what, exactly, does citing that old Biblical saw have to do with defining Taoism?
Pandora: [Pauses.]
Neve: Well?
Pandora: You don't know what it means, then, I take it?
Neve: Of course I do! Gawd, you must think I'm stupid. It means don't waste your words on stupid people.
Pandora: [Pauses. Looks at Neve with her raised eyebrow. Then turns to Guy.] Guy?
Guy: [Hesitates. Looks at Pandora, hoping she isn't asking what he thinks she is.] Neve, what Pandora has said is that stupid people don't know they are stupid.
Neve: Yes, Guy, I got that.
Guy: No, Neve, you didn't.
Neve: Yeeeessssssss Guy, IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII did!
Guy: Noooooooooooooooooo, Neve you—
Pandora: Stop it, you two!
Guy and Neve: Huh!? What?!
Pandora: [Sighs. She pauses, obviously thinking about how to proceed. As she was thinking, Neve suddenly sits very erect, turns to Guy.]
Neve: Hey! You insulted me! [And she punched him in the shoulder.]
Professor: [Approaches Pandora's door, which is open. He sees that she's busy, and waits.]
Guy: Ow!
Pandora: Stop it! You wanted to know what I meant when I muttered "In the East koans, in the West tomes."
Guy: Actually, I wanted you to help me define, or maybe describe, what a Taoist is.
Professor: [Steps into Pandora's room.] Excuse me. I think I can help with that.
Pandora: Really? Then please, go ahead.
Professor: A Taoist is someone who has an irrational belief that life is comprised of an energy that cannot be defined. Furthermore, and more to the point, perhaps, a Taoist believes that the purpose of life is to align oneself with that energy, because if you do not then you are using your life energy to fight against the energy of life. And that is a fight you cannot win because life is way bigger than you.

Continued below

[Guy]

continued from above

Pandora: [Looks at him with real surprise. Then laughs.]
Professor: What?
Pandora: I confess that you have surprised me. A pedestrian, but ultimately accurate definition!
Professor: To my great annoyance I found that I needed to learn it to talk with students who came to me after having read books like The Tao of Physics and Zen in the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Of course it's all poppy cock, the basest of philosophical quibbling.
Pandora: I see. [Turns to Guy and Neve.] What do you think about his definition?
Guy: Well, the English is certainly clearer than what you were saying.
Neve: [Turns to the Professor.] But I don't see why you think it is all 'poppy cock.'
Professor: Because it avers that there is a purpose in life. That doesn't make sense at all, of course, because life is dead, being just the random mishap of molecular chaos.
Neve: But that doesn't make any sense to me. How can order arise out of chaos? Doesn't that violate one of the fundamental entropy laws of physics?
Professor: In small systems, it would appear so. But when you get a big enough system, then no. Philosophically and mathematically, an order can arise out of chaos if energy exists to reverse the entropy law.
Pandora: [Laughs very loudly.]
Professor: What are you laughing at? I didn't say anything funny.
Pandora: Yes, actually you did. Guy, did you catch what he said that was funny?
Guy: Well, I think you are referring to his description of the need for energy to create life. In his case, he has described life as a kind of energized organization of inert matter. What is funny is that his definition of Taoism infers basically the same thing, which is that life is an ordered expression of energy.
Professor: I did not say that!
Guy: Yes, you did. Although I think that Taoism, as I understand it and even as you have tersely defined it, puts far less of a pejorative on matter, and life, actually, than Western science has.
Professor: I did not! Western science does not put 'pejoratives' on anything. It is the study of matter, without the mumbo jumbo of religious beliefs.
Pandora: But on what do you base your belief that the only thing worth measuring is matter?
Professor: But that's not a belief! We can touch matter. That is what makes it real, and beyond belief.
Pandora: But then have I mis-understood my physics: aren't atoms 99.9% nothing? And aren't the protons and other particles simply an energy that exists in a probability that you cannot 'touch', as you have so quaintly put it?
Professor: Yes, but that doesn't mean it isn't real!
[Pandora, Neve and Guy all laugh.]
Professor: What's so funny? [They laugh harder.]
Pandora: And, in a way, the Professor has complemented what I was saying about the 'problem of words.'
Professor: What do you mean by 'the problem of words'? Without words there cannot be understanding.
Pandora: Spoken like someone completely enamoured in Western philosophy. You believe that the value of words exceeds the value of things beyond word's reach.
Professor: What you just said is ridiculous. There is nothing beyond the reach of words. As soon as something is discovered, then we give it name. It's as easy as that.
Pandora: True enough, but naming things does not properly let alone adequately define their meaning.
Professor: But there isn't 'meaning,' as you so quaintly put it.
Pandora: That's just what you believe.
Professor: No, it isn't!
Pandora: What do you mean it isn't? That's just what you said!
Professor: No, what I mean is that it isn't a belief. It's reality. I know it is hard to swallow, the meaningless of life, but that's just the way it is.
Pandora: And that irrational argument takes me back to my Heidegger enlightenment. I began reading that massive book, Being and Time, and was surprised to see that the first 30 or so pages was on the failure of the word 'being' to have been properly rigorously defined in its history. He was arguing, basically, that up until him all the other words that had been used to nail down the meaning of 'being' had been inadequate. The next 1000 pages, or whatever, of 8 pt font text, was him rigorously pinning down the meaning of being. And that was my enlightenment, while breaking my arms reading a heavy Western philosophical tome: western philosophers, unlike the Professor here, who have understood that the problem with words is that their meaning cannot be pinned down rigorously have written enough words to drown the ocean trying to pin down the meaning of words. A fruitless task, and undoubtedly a sign of severe psychological trauma.
Professor: That's not true.
Pandora: Really? Have you read Being and Time?
Professor: [He looks embarrassed.] I tried. It was, boring.
Pandora: And it surely was. Eastern philosophers approached the problem of words by writing koans and other philosophical problems that confounded the meaning of words. These were short and, often, amusing. Humour, as it turns out, is an important element of being a Taoist because humour only works because of the existence of meaning.
Professor: But that's ridiculous! Humour has nothing to do with the importance of science or philosophy.
Pandora: [Turns to Neve and Guy.] And once again, the professor has revealed a belief.
Professor: Hey! Don't talk like I'm not here in the room! And the meaninglessness of humour is not a belief! It is a scientific fact I'll have you. You can't measure humour, despite the wishful imaginations of people who make silly movies like Monsters, Inc..
Neve: But surely there have been philosophers in the west who don't write tomes?
Pandora: Yes, there are. And perhaps the best known is William Shakespeare. He's the west's most famous Taoist thinker and writer. And like the Eastern philosophers, he recognized that the best way to write about the meaning of life, and the limitation of words, was in parable form. In his case, he wrote plays. Plays that almost always have an element of questioning the efficacy of words to provide proper understanding. He literally played with words and their meanings.
Professor: But that's ridiculous! He didn't know anything about Taosim when he wrote! How could he?!
Pandora: But that goes to my point, which is that Taoism is beyond words. He didn't need to know the word 'Tao' to write of the Tao. All that was required was a clear enough eye to see how the energy of life expresses itself.
Professor: So, seriously, you are trying to argue that the man who invented more words than anyone else, who had the greatest vocabulary of any living or dead writer, was in reality pointing out the limitation of words to provide understanding?
Pandora: Yes. Shakespeare in almost all his plays included some element, usually humorous, that was directly or indirectly about the inability of words to fully describe or cope with a situation. That the meaning of the words was too small to capture the fuller meanings behind the words, which is the meaning of Life. That is what makes him a Taoist.
Professor: Preposterous. You'd be thrown out of University for teaching such twaddle.
Pandora: Yes, I imagine that you are correct. But what does that tell you about the quality of western education? Actually, it is probably more telling that this 'reality' of his writing isn't well known, if discussed at all. [Pauses.] Did that answer your question, Guy?
Guy: [Shakes his head, and begins to ruefully laugh.] I don't know!
Pandora: Excellent! If it had, I would have failed in teaching you.
Professor: How did you get to be the head of this place, saying bullshit like that? A teacher is, by definition, here to give students answers!
Pandora: Sadly, that is what most teachers believe. And, in a rather sad way that is exactly what is necessary to create a working population who will remain content with the pabulum they are being spoon fed. But the real teacher is the one who can awake in his or her student not just the desire to question what is, but also the ability. Power does not like people who question, which is why most universities are designed as factories, providing pre-packaged learning modules to create a modulated workforce of people unable to question because they don't know that they don't question.
Professor: Hey! That's not true! I went to university and I assure you that I was taught to question everything!
Pandora: Really?
Professor: Yes. Really.
Pandora: Then I guess it also taught you not to listen to yourself, too. [Starts laughing, softly at first, but it quickly went viral, and soon Guy and Neve were laughing hysterically, too. The professor may have felt his lips twitch upwards, but before that could become laughter, he left the room.]
Neve: So, what is a Taoist? I'm confused.
Pandora: Well, to rephrase an old Ojibway saying, a Taoist is someone who recognizes that s/he is being carried on great winds across the sky and so does not feel need to go about pitying him or herself. And, to help you out, consider that 'wind' is a metaphor for 'spirit' and 'sky' for 'universe'.
Neve: That doesn't help!
Pandora: [Smiles.] Well, one day it might.

[fushigi @ 9pm, when I began writing this, Laurie Brown on CBC R2 'The Signal' introduced the problem of asking others for help. Then she spun the song 'Strings' by AC Newman.]

[M]

I like Neve! I just rolled when she said, “Of course I do! Gawd, you must think I’m stupid. It means don’t waste your words on stupid people.”

In my experience, at least ordinarily people don’t make up their minds to remain unconscious in various ways. In the dialog in #18, Guy says, “Neve, what Pandora has said is that stupid people don’t know they are stupid.” That seems the case to me, as well. People don’t intend to be stupid. That’s a big part of the problem I have in dealing with obstinacy. Often, there’s no motive.

A disquieting thing about the situation is that now and then the events of daily living offer me clues that I, in my own fashion, suffer the same stupidity, ways in which I remain unconscious, as though I were asleep.

[Guy]

LoL! Yes, that is my challenge too, to become aware of where I have been deluding myself. Maybe the hardest thing to do, is to become aware of your own delusions, and then to accept them as the means to move past them.

[Paula Tohline]

Thank you all! And my regards especially to Guy, Pandora, Neve, The Professor, and MaryAnn - here on "Goodreads Isle." Actually, it occurred to me that on further reflection, Gilligan's Island serves as a great metaphor for the literary (!) life. You have a bunch of people who have isolated themselves in a remote place. They have with them all the tools necessary to take them wherever they want to go, but consistently find themselves either spinning their wheels, not using any of the available tools to accomplish their desires, or using the tools completely inappropriately for the situation.

Before I wax on eloquently, I want to apologize for taking so long to reply, again*, to the most excellent comments offered here. It has been a lot of fun and educational too, to read the thoughts of such wonderfully open, erudite, and exploring minds. None of you shall die young. You are already old - in the very best sense of the word: Old means that you have learned that you will never know everything, that you know you are never quite as dumb as when you think you are being smart, and having all the answers ain't what it's cracked up to be. Was it Oscar Wilde who said, "I'm not young enough to know everything."? Whatever, and without a trace of tongue-in-cheek, I am beholden to you, and in awe of you all! Now, back to the topic of the age. Whoops! One more thing, this directed more specifically to Guy: Honey if I have ever been in a closet of any sort, then whatever closet it was has never had any doors. I have always tended - partially because I am so lazy - to order my thoughts along my own track - rather than spend a lot of time reading before I have arrived at my own ideas. Then, I will read to see if anyone may or may not agree with me, but I will often alter some of my ideas to more closely align with another's. None of this on a conscious level, of course! :-D But these days I am seldom on a conscious level. . . (BTW - in reference to message #21: After becoming aware of your own delusions, and accepting them as the means to move on - what do you move on to? New and better, or just different, delusions? Har!)

Truly, folks, I have become so fully engaged a passenger on this train of thought, that I have not spent any time looking at the currently rather messy scenery outside the train. Thanks for the wonderful ride!

Tao, Jung, Freud (YIKES!), Heidegger, Shakespeare, Eastern, Western, Christian, Hindu, Zen, Jewish, et. al. - I'm not really sure it makes a whole heck of a lot of difference - once you accept the hermeneutic perspective on thought and language, as well as the other expressions of thought. The written word, the more I think on it, was perhaps brought about by the inborn desire in humans to be fully understood, and to fully understand another person. Of course, it doesn't work - but apparently we all (as humans) keep taking whacks at getting it right!

There was a wonderful 20th century theologian, J. B. Phillips, who wrote what I believe in its own way is one of the finest treatises on the Christian life as it was perhaps originally intended, what it has become for far too many, (I'm taking it as a given that readers of this will understand that I am presenting it all as my current humble opinion, and not as a lesson in how or what to believe!) and what it can still be, or be again. The little book is entitled "Your God is Too Small." Since I was quite young I have held firmly to the belief that if I could understand the God I believe in, then that god would not be God! The very nature of the God of Being, of Creation, the Logos, is that S/He must be beyond my comprehension, or S/He is not God - "it" would just be some convenient little reference point to confirm myself as the center of the universe. What's so great about a God that I can define? I want God to define me! Since the discussion did not begin as a necessarily "religious" (hate that word - it's always used incorrectly :-D ), nor even faith-based one, I don't want this to sound like I am suddenly throwing a new wrench in among the monkeys. I should probably clarify from my own POV (who else?) that my faith is at the center of my life - it is my life as much as I allow it to be - therefore I cannot discuss language, expression, art, words, etc. without it being a part of - if not the entire - conversation. So. What really wows me tonight is that I attended (sang in the choir) a worship service held at the church I am a part of, for which the speaker/teacher/preacher was Dr. Leonard Sweet. Fascinating man - brilliant, in fact, and quite well-known in religious/faith circles - author of a number of books and studies aimed at reinvigorating the tired church. Look him up - you might be surprised at what he has to say. Anyway, his topic tonight was partly about "preaching to the 11-year-old" in each of us. The best way to do that in this day and age especially, is to learn and use the same language (uh-oh!); basically, he feels that most people today use metaphor as the basis of all communication, and that the metaphors change with each new generation (Duh!). So the Creation Story of Genesis, (actually there are two accounts in Genesis, the second one, the "micro" story, appears later in the book than the "In the beginning, God" one that most refer to - the second one was likely written first. It starts essentially as a story of the Creator making mud pies - playing - in and with the mud. I will not try and tell you the whole of his lesson tonight, suffice it to say that I was really amazed that I was once again confronted by the whole concept of language, understanding, meaning, life, etc. - and from a different perspective. All I can think is that this must be something really important for me right now, because it keeps coming at me from a bunch of different angles. Gives me goosebumps!

My mind is still too scattered right now with what is going on in some of the nitty-gritty details of living on planet earth, to be able to do as good a job at making a good tight argument. I'm so glad you all seem to be plugged in and doing so well. Keep at it - it stimulates my mind, and gets my mind on more of the important stuff of life, on the "things that are above." I'm going to quit for now - really - but I want to close with a little poem, the writer's name is unknown to me, that for as long as I can remember, my Mom kept attached to the refrigerator door. The words are burned into my mind, and they are so apropos to our subject:

"Isn't it strange that princes and kings,
and clowns who caper in sawdust rings,
and common people, like you and me,
are builders for eternity?
Each is given a bag of tools,
a shapeless mass, a book of rules,
and each must build, ere life has flown,
a stumbling block,
or a stepping stone."

Sometimes it seems to me like many of the citizens of Goodreads Island spend a great deal of time building stumbling blocks. . .but some of them are really beautiful to behold. I know I've built some doozies in my time. Maybe I am finally going to get around to building a stepping stone or two - but I guess that will all depend on what waters my "readers" are trying to cross, whether I am considered good at it by them. So, the decision has to be made. I will now consider myself at least partially successful as a writer if I have managed to take at least one step across the sea that I have chosen to traverse. In other words, I will be my own best and worst critic, and the devil take the hindmost! But I will also stop occasionally to inspect the stepping stones that others are building for themselves - and try to pick up some good construction tips here and there along the way - even if it's only the way to more delusions, at least they will be bigger and better ones - I am absolutely determined!

Can't wait to read the Poetry Stuffage for this week. You might get lucky, and read something of mine, if I can get myself put back together in time! Thanks again - all of you - for the very interesting - and very FUN time.

Paula

*More computer/broadband problems. . .

[Ryan]

Wow...

[Guy]

LoL, Ryan. I've begun a reply comprised of a few more words than one, but now will be delayed. It's late here, and I'll be teaching a course on Thursday night, so have prep work to do tomorrow night.

[Paula Tohline]

Guy wrote: "LoL, Ryan. I've begun a reply comprised of a few more words than one, but now will be delayed. It's late here, and I'll be teaching a course on Thursday night, so have prep work to do tomorrow night."

@Guy: I am looking forward to it!. @Ryan - I can infer a bunch of different meanings from your "Wow," - and am wondering if it is a response to Guy's great essay - which deserves a big WOW - or to my discombobulated discourse, which could also in its own way elicit a number of different "Wows!"

[Ryan]

Hello, Paula. My wow was an all-encompassing wow. A wow for each of the alive and questing minds who have posted such interesting comments in this thread. Wow! :)

[Paula Tohline]

Ryan wrote: "Hello, Paula. My wow was an all-encompassing wow. A wow for each of the alive and questing minds who have posted such interesting comments in this thread. Wow! :)"

It has been quite a ride, hasn't it? Thanks, Ryan!

[Guy]

Thank you Paula and Ryan and Ellis for your kind words. I am amassing even more words, as proof positive of my hypocrisy, on this 'problem' of words to convey meaning, which I expect to complete it in the next few days between what is a busy few days.

[Guy]

I just finished re-reading this thread. It is a great deal of fun. I laughed again at Paula's ramblings. And, regarding my pending words, busy doesn't quite describe it. I haven't forgotten about this thread and will finish my musings at some time. What a fun re-read!

[Paula Tohline]

You keep talking, I keep reading, Guy, and nothing happens. Now that is the best example of metaphoric hermeneutic commenting I've read or thought about in some time. If you continue to write these little "teasers" then I shall be forced to write another multi-volume tome, which of course the rest of the gang will feel obligated to read because they feel so sorry for me. You do all feel sorry for me don't you? I mean - not one single person voted for my exquisite poem "Burning Tears. . ." I'm not sure I shall ever get over the shame. Even now, I feel the oncoming sting of lacrymous liquid beginning to ignite the skin of my (facial) cheeks.

[Guy]

LoL!

[M]

I didn’t get a single vote that week, either, Paula. I still haven’t gotten over it.

[Guy]

OMG! Cry me a storm! I've been no-voted so many times that your lachrymose lamenting is more laughable than laudable. LoL!

[M]

I once was merely
lachrymose. Now I've improved
and am quite verbose.

[Guy]

LoL!

[Guy]

I was once verbose.
But now mostly remain mute
to be lachrymose.

[M]

I can’t see to write
this story because it’s so
lachrymatory.

[Guy]

I have lost my will,
and my fingers are now ash
in the crematory.

[Paula Tohline]

Say "Hello!" to us
Guy - my fingers and M's eyes.
Crying alone sucks.

Perhaps your reply
Should you decide to write it
Would be best kuhai.

Writing in reverse
would be no harder for me
using my orcurs.

lexicdyS ingbe
is not tering a mat laugh
lessun it's when me.

[Guy]

Paula, very creative!


esrever ni gnidaer
ssensseltroffe yltsom si
.lufesu yrev dna

be To dyslexic
is ingbe half a pets from
two back alfh asswords.

[Paula Tohline]

So you say
Say so you
You so, I say
So?

[Guy]

So say I so what
and to what you say you say
I so say so so.
So there?

[Guy]

Paula, no apology for a very quick response to a rather overly corpulent body of words! And my apology for having teased you with a reply, which was very slow to come. Life has been super busy, and my ability to write in the evenings curtailed by various distractions and tiredness. But, now, here goes more words on the futility of words — and some other stuff, too.

And thank you, for the big Wow. I love writing this kind of philosophical clap-trap, and to have an audience too!?! Oh frabjous day, callooh callay! (Caution: Spam alert! Paula, if you enjoyed the muse-corn, a long time ago I wrote a one act play called Why are you false? in response to a Raymond Smullyan play called Why are you truthful? You may enjoy them. It was in that play that I introduced the characters Neve and the Professor, although I called him 'the Statistician' at that time.)

As to what do I do when I see a new delusion? My first thought is usually the deluded 'Ah hah! "Free at last, free at Last. Thank God almighty, I'm free at last."' That is the premature ejaculatory/elation stage in the process of acquiring what one hopes could one day appear to the unwise as true wisdom — whatever that is. That cacophonous crowing has been inevitably followed shortly thereafter by a head plant when once again I come to realize that I've been suckered yet again by my ego's hubris. My ego will, bruised and battered, struggle back onto its spavined and flea infested steed to emulate his hero Quixote and his windmill attacks. Somewhere, up beyond the sky so high a feeling will kind of recognize that even now, in the face of even this most recent disabuse of personal delusion, I will again attack the next one as if it were the first one. This strikes me as a kind of dance of delusion in point, counterpoint and three part harm-onies. (I am currently reading an interesting book by a Jungian analyst who compares this kind of chaotic yet patterned behaviour as an example of the theories of chaos and strange attractors and the butterfly effect applied to the lived life. He is making an interesting and I think compelling argument. Check out Archetypes and Strange Attractors: The Chaotic World of Symbols by John R. Van Eenwyk.)

As to the written word, from the limited reading I've done on oral cultures, primarily from a 2nd year Mass Communications course, and reading Walter Ong's 'must-read' book, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word and Chomsky on linguistics, oral truths move with the culture. There is no need to seek the 'real' truth in life or in others because oral truths quickly reflect the immediate experience.

Harold Innes, in his seminal work, The Bias of Communication makes a similar argument from an unusual perspective. [Hmmmmm. Now that I'm older and have read and questioned more, it is time to re-read that book.] In it Innes argues that the nature of communication, and of understanding itself, is defined/delimited by the technology of the written word because of how it both fixes the past in memory in a way that doesn't happen in oral cultures, and in how quickly or slowly new truths are disseminated and how difficult or easy the old ones are able to be discarded. In other words, with the written word 'truth' became 'fixed' and what were once fluid truths become inert. Innes linked this rigidity and longevity to the technology used to create the printed word. So, for example, cuneiform impressed in clay lived VERY long and was slow to be disseminated and the truths it carried lived long. Innes links that with the survivability of a culture. His observations lead to some very curious speculations about what this e.communication world we live in means for its survivability. The arguments are fascinating. Unfortunately I haven't the knowledge of either communications or history to adequately address their 'truths'. Regardless, Innes absolutely changed how I perceive history and the mechanics of language transmission. (In a private communication with David F. Noble, who wrote the interesting book The Religion of Technology: The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention, I commented that it was when The Bible became vulgate, that printing of the guide to 'true' Christian religious experience all but stopped Christianity from evolving as it had been until then as a primarily oral Christian experience for the majority. He agreed, and suggested that I write a book about that. I confessed to him that I was inadequate to do that.)

It is quite likely that fixated truths are also a concomitant with the written word. In other words, religious fundamentalism is less likely with oral cultures, or at least less likely to be fixated on the value of the 'true' words written in a vibrant past that no longer exists. There is a kind of inferred proof of this, but with a curious caution, that I read in Ong's book (I think). He discusses how quickly an oral culture's origin myths change, unlike in the written ones such as in the Zoroastrian-Judeao-Christian-Moslem that have changed very little in several thousand years. There is a caution though, because while an oral culture's origin myth is in vogue it is held on to very tightly and questioning it is taboo. However, when it no longer adequately explains the present being experienced that myth unconsciously changes to fit the present. And if an outsider were to tell them that their origin myth had changed they would deny it because to them the present origin myth is the only one. The past has not been anchored so history expressed the myth of the present.

In contrast, in the literate religions huge amounts of words, oral and other, are expended to clarify, articulate, criticize, denounce, and elevate the words of the past that may or may not have adequately described that beginning in the first place. In our age we have the near perfect living example of that dynamic: science versus faith in the Bible. Of course science disputes the Bible's origin myth with a myth of its own. Fundamentalists reject the present experience that science is averring in order to anchor themselves on their particular written truth. (Of course, scientists have done the same thing in their history, as one or another new truth threatens a past truth.)

You may have noticed that this sounds a lot like current practices in the dissemination of political propaganda? Orwell recognized this problem of the written word to hang on to old unwanted truths in his great satire, Nineteen Eight-Four. And a friend of mine gave to me one of the best cartoons I've ever seen, which got printed around the time of major American economic propaganda under W. It shows Rove sitting at the feet of Plato, where he avers 'But surely you agree that truth can be created by the repetition of a lie.' (Here's the link to the cartoon: Karl Rove and Plato.)

I suspect that you have mistaken cause and effect as it pertains to the 'purpose' of the development of written language and the search for the 'truth,' the heart and soul of each other. It may even be an interesting example of the propter hoc ego hoc logical fallacy. And now here I'll meander down a curious origin myth. The practice of archeology and sociology have been working away with great diligence to root back to the beginnings of language, and the evidence is unequivocal: the origin of written language began as books of account, literarily, books of debt. Written language has its origin in the tracking and justification of power and control. That it has come to be used as a tool to express feelings, philosophical bemusements, historical 'truth' and present day propaganda is a huge testament to the creative power of the human animal to turn anything into something it wasn't designed to do. If you can, read Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber. His research on the history of debt coincides with the history of the written language. The list of references in this book are dozens of pages. (I consider this one of a handful of 'must-read-before-death-happens' books, because it helps reveal the great wizard behind the machinery of social management.)

The American psychologist Sheldon B. Kopp wrote one of the most interesting critiques of the power of the written word to subvert one's personal meaning.

I hate having wasted more than twenty years going to school. Formal education left me little of personal value other than elementary language skills and professional credentials. Much of what was taught cluttered my mind with irrelevant information. Arbitrary injunctions inhibited my imagination in efforts to learn anything new and different.

Even a Stone Can Be a Teacher. Los Angeles: J.P. Tarcher, Inc., 1985. ISBN 0874773415.

And, as well as the ancient Greek philosophers, the ancient Taoist philosopher also cautioned against reliance on the written word frequently. Here's an example:

The Way cannot be held to exist, nor can it be held to be nonexistant. 'The Way' as a name operates as a supposition which is premised. Contingent causation and nonfacticity are but one corner of things. What have they to do with the great method [which governs all that is and is not]? If words were satisfactory, we could speak the whole day and it would all be about the Way; but if words are unsatisfactory, we can speak the whole day and it will all be about things. The Way is the delimitation of things. Neither words nor silence are satisfactory for conveying it. Without words and without silence, our deliberations reach their utmost limits (266).

Chuang Tzu. Wandering on the Way: Early Taoist Tales and Parables of Chuang Tzu. Toronto: Bantam Books, 1994. Translated by Victor H. Mair.

And in your theological discussion about the nature of God, I agree. And, most interesting, is that you are making a very Taoist argument. They phrased the problem of knowing 'all' a little differently, but the same: 'The Tao that can be named is not the true Tao,' for example.

I enjoyed your mother's little aphorism. As to the stumbling blocks, they are the tools by which the physical human animal learns. They are like the games we like to play at, arbitrary constructed so as to give us the opportunity to learn to be creative within arbitrariness. And, possibly, without them, we would be nothing more than a forgotten mote in the eye of God.

[Guy]

Paula, in a weird kind of fushigi, I came across reference to an ancient Christian group who made similar conclusions about the 'problem' of words being a tool used to express power. It is a reference to a Thomas Merton book called The Wisdom of the Desert: Sayings from the Desert Fathers of the Fourth Century. I think you may find this amusing.


Thomas Merton: transcendence as chaotic

... Thomas Merton wrote about one group of believers who centered their lives on [one's personal relationship to God]. Beginning in the third century, the Desert Fathers removed themselves from Christian culture because they could not accept its division into oppressors and oppressed ("those who were successful, and imposed their will on others, and those who had to give in and be imposed upon").59 Believing that a life in the spirit was linked to individuality and freedom, they fled into the wilderness. They ate simply, lived in rudimentary dwellings, and accepted whatever life brought them. But they never followed a rule of monastic life, for that would have imposed a common definition on something that varied from individual to individual. Relationship with God, they believed, was deeply personal.

Their goal was quies, or rest (quiescence). To that end, they refused even to discuss quiescence, as that would tempt them to objectify something that was by its very nature a subjective experience. Merton describes the Desert Fathers as

quiet, sensible people, with a deep knowledge of human nature and enough understanding of the things of God to realize that they knew very little about Him. Hence, they were not much disposed to make long speeches about the divine essence, or even to declaim on the mystical meaning of Scripture. If these men say little about God, it is because they know that when one has been somewhere close to his dwelling, silence makes more sense than a lot of words.60

In [Paul] Tillich's sense, the monks allowed themselves to be drawn into the symbolic life. Wherever symbols might take them was where they wanted to go. Consequently, the essence of the symbolic life was to utilize the images of symbols—as found in Scripture, for example—to transcend the content and merge with the form. Merton emphasized that quiescence, or rest,

was a kind of simple nowhereness and no-mindedness that had lost all pre- occupation with a false or limited "self." At peace in the possession of a sublime "Nothing" the spirit laid hold, in secret, upon the "All"—without trying to know what it possessed.61

At first sight, Merton's description of the pursuit of a closer relationship with God conforms to views of transcendence that see it as essentially rising above the chaos of the times. Quiescence certainly has a pastoral appeal. But when Merton speaks of nothingness and conscious ignorance of object, he is well aware of the turbulence that characterizes such an experience.

... To follow in the footsteps of the Desert Fathers, said Merton, one must make "a clean break with a conventional, accepted context in order to swim for one's life into an apparently irrational void."62

The experience of transcendence is, for Merton, deeply unsettling and requires a great deal of commitment to the goal. For in between committing to the journey and arriving at the destination lies a period of trial that demands we divest ourselves of the desire to objectify our experience. That is, we must forego our attempts to make something tangible out of our experience, for that only dilutes its meaning. But then what are we left with? If we can't pin it down, how do we know what it is? That, said Merton, is the essence of the void. Being wrested from our points of view is sufficiently disturbing as to make the attempt—for many of us, at least—impossible. Yet, in the void is more than meets the eye. Consider parables, for example (73-4).

Footnotes:
59 Merton, [Thomas] The Wisdom of the Desert, p. 4.
60 Ibid., p. 14.
61 Ibid., p. 8.
62 Ibid., p. 9.

John R. Van Eenwyk. Archetypes & Strange Attractors: The Chaotic World of Symbols. Toronto: Inner City Books, 1997. ISBN 0919123767.

[Guy]

Well, be sure to hand write it, then, so you don't forget it.

And my 'ramble' was enough to kill the thread. Sigh. I tend to go on sometimes. Sorry about that. But oh I love the fushigis.

[Ryan]

Rest assured, your ramblings are part of the caulk that holds it all together, Guy...

Happy 2014!

[Guy]

Thank you Ryan!
And a vey happy 2014 to you.

I had forgotten about this thread. Thank you Alex for bringing it back. It is an interesting read, actually.

[M]

I read the Incelbordination chapter Garrison posted in the contest this week. I intensely dislike what I consider coarse language and content, but I wanted to say something about the character of the writing. Garrison’s chapters are intriguing to read because there’s so much life in them. The writing exudes energy. The reader is swept along as if by a flood. The goings-on in these chapters exhibit a dynamic quality as remarkable as that of the writing itself. The writing puts the reader right there, in the middle of the action. The scenes play effortlessly in the reader’s head, as if they were a movie on the big screen. It seems to me that, in fiction, this is a quality that can hardly be overrated. I don’t often show my support in the polls for these chapters, but I want to relate my impression that the writing is unusual, is compelling, and has tremendous potential.

[Garrison]

Thank you so much for the wonderful analysis, M! I kept secretly wondering if my chapters had any effect on my readers and now I have an answer. I totally understand if you don't like the R-rated content of some of the chapters, but I'm glad you stuck through them long enough to give the awesome analysis. Again, thank you so much for the support. :)

[M]

Keep writing!

[Garrison]

Will do. :)