"Those who believe in existence are stupid like cattle, but those who believe in non-existence are even worse." The Royal Songs of Seraha, Tibet 12thc.
My friend. In no form of any of these universes we suggest back and forth across the wires between us is isolation a thing one can bless as a home for the other. From this here to that there I suppose any cheap "Please... No." is a delight of hand blessing from the cake eater school of be "Be warmed and filled". Yet here is that please....I think this darking of all imaginal lights beyond those of peer-certifiable wattage is most easily done in that silence we call loneliness I suspect the spell and the effect to be in a relationship that isn't exactly "seeing" anything clear as it is a dampening of the only senses that have access to the counter word. Which I mean as a voicing of a suspicion born in (I think) a topography that matches well enough to claim continental drift rather than a species boundary to explain the undeniable distance that might otherwise mark this as a useless remark from without. In the flare light, with a sea between, a wish over a well and a glass raised to all senses rising against any dampening that isn't called for.
The love is inversely proportional to the clarity in those sentences. It was a rushed moment on the road here but what matters is clear. To be continued. Home tomorrow.
One key thing I wasn't clear about in this piece is that I very much am a materialist in the sense of 'New Materialism', which welcomes indigenous frameworks, sacred naturalisms, theological discourses, and so on. I am a materialist in that I love matter, *am* matter, do not seek to escape matter. I am anti-gnostic or anti-platonic in that sense (though the Platonic is usefully infused into sacramental construals of existence). Matter matters. It's whether matter *more-than-matters* that I'm sometimes struggling to see, though my heart wants it to be so. There are times where I just can't see the sacred or sacramental dimension of existence. I.e. it truly looks like a randomly flung chain of physical cause and effect and nothing more--as many 'official', contemporary, 'scientific' frameworks more or less openly aver.
Just google meaning/purpose of life and Psychology Today to see a slew of professionals stating that basically life just likes living (evolution is hellbent on evolving) and nobody can know if it has meaning or not (though *not* is usually implicit or explicit) but hey ho at least we can choose to make our own meaning out of the meaninglessness, which has always been existentialist cold comfort to me. I understand it's probably the best we can do if this is really all there is, so I get it. I've just always felt it should push us a LOT harder to investigate whether it really all is a beautiful, strange, pointless fluke. (Indigenous views say NO. It is not that. Indigenous views say it is sacred and purposeful, if nevertheless mysterious and precarious. This should SERIOUSLY give us pause. And we should be honest. Don't act like decolonising matters if you are deeply, doubly committed to the Enlightenment view, that is, to the coloniser view--and don't think that post-structuralism automatically gets you out of that E-view. You can say you want to be 'fair' to the colonised, but state forthrightly that you fundamentally disbelieve their deep and abiding metaphysical position and have no intellectual resources by which to countenance it.)
And for those who think I'm caricaturing the matter-is-all-there-is and/or (atheist) existentialist view: you break it down to its simplest components in the simplest language and then honestly interpret that statement with perspicuity and let me know what you get--I'm completely open.
Your writing are as insightful and delightful to read Daniel as your situation is painful to hear.....
Thank you, Donald. I hope I can keep threading more and more delight into the pain. What more can anyone hope for in this world?
"Those who believe in existence are stupid like cattle, but those who believe in non-existence are even worse." The Royal Songs of Seraha, Tibet 12thc.
My friend. In no form of any of these universes we suggest back and forth across the wires between us is isolation a thing one can bless as a home for the other. From this here to that there I suppose any cheap "Please... No." is a delight of hand blessing from the cake eater school of be "Be warmed and filled". Yet here is that please....I think this darking of all imaginal lights beyond those of peer-certifiable wattage is most easily done in that silence we call loneliness I suspect the spell and the effect to be in a relationship that isn't exactly "seeing" anything clear as it is a dampening of the only senses that have access to the counter word. Which I mean as a voicing of a suspicion born in (I think) a topography that matches well enough to claim continental drift rather than a species boundary to explain the undeniable distance that might otherwise mark this as a useless remark from without. In the flare light, with a sea between, a wish over a well and a glass raised to all senses rising against any dampening that isn't called for.
This means a lot, Andrew. I salute you back across the flarelight.
The love is inversely proportional to the clarity in those sentences. It was a rushed moment on the road here but what matters is clear. To be continued. Home tomorrow.
Well, I've come to appreciate the necessity of slowing down and picking out my path through your labyrinthine syntax and symbology.
One key thing I wasn't clear about in this piece is that I very much am a materialist in the sense of 'New Materialism', which welcomes indigenous frameworks, sacred naturalisms, theological discourses, and so on. I am a materialist in that I love matter, *am* matter, do not seek to escape matter. I am anti-gnostic or anti-platonic in that sense (though the Platonic is usefully infused into sacramental construals of existence). Matter matters. It's whether matter *more-than-matters* that I'm sometimes struggling to see, though my heart wants it to be so. There are times where I just can't see the sacred or sacramental dimension of existence. I.e. it truly looks like a randomly flung chain of physical cause and effect and nothing more--as many 'official', contemporary, 'scientific' frameworks more or less openly aver.
Just google meaning/purpose of life and Psychology Today to see a slew of professionals stating that basically life just likes living (evolution is hellbent on evolving) and nobody can know if it has meaning or not (though *not* is usually implicit or explicit) but hey ho at least we can choose to make our own meaning out of the meaninglessness, which has always been existentialist cold comfort to me. I understand it's probably the best we can do if this is really all there is, so I get it. I've just always felt it should push us a LOT harder to investigate whether it really all is a beautiful, strange, pointless fluke. (Indigenous views say NO. It is not that. Indigenous views say it is sacred and purposeful, if nevertheless mysterious and precarious. This should SERIOUSLY give us pause. And we should be honest. Don't act like decolonising matters if you are deeply, doubly committed to the Enlightenment view, that is, to the coloniser view--and don't think that post-structuralism automatically gets you out of that E-view. You can say you want to be 'fair' to the colonised, but state forthrightly that you fundamentally disbelieve their deep and abiding metaphysical position and have no intellectual resources by which to countenance it.)
And for those who think I'm caricaturing the matter-is-all-there-is and/or (atheist) existentialist view: you break it down to its simplest components in the simplest language and then honestly interpret that statement with perspicuity and let me know what you get--I'm completely open.