On Ignorance as Bliss and Why We should not feel Recrimination For it.

On Ignorance as Bliss and Why We should not feel Recrimination For it.

 

Let me begin by making clear that the “Ignorance” that I am referring to, in this instance, is not the Ignorance that I had referred to previously as the Will to Ignorance. That use of the word Ignorance most precisely delineated a “will to perpetuate the Old”. This kind of Ignorance that I am about to discuss refers to a higher kind of Ignorance.

 

I was visiting the Rancho Bernardo High School Speech and Debate team as a volunteer, and I could not help noticing a bin full of newspapers in the classroom wherein the meeting was held. The newspapers were none other than the student newspaper, and I was drawn to an article in the “Opinions” section. Two students had written on one topic: Is Ignorance Really Bliss? The one writing in affirmation of this question wrote a very sentimental piece about the joys of being innocent and unaware of unpleasant facts that could create stress, et cetera. His opponent wrote, with harsh realism and even cynicism, about the necessity of coming to terms with the world maturely and responsibly, rather than staying on one end of a bridge, unable to cross over from naivete and childhood into the realisation of the grim “truths” of adulthood.

 

This had haunted me for some time, not because I did not know my opinion, but because I did not know how to answer. I was opposed to the latter boy, yet I could not explain precisely WHY I would ever be a proponent of Ignorance. I could not explain my sentiment in a way that was nearly as convincing as this gentleman had described it.

 

Yet now I can.

 

Clinging to an ideal is done, I think, not as a goal but as a symptom. The notion of Cognitive Dissonance would suggest to us that we perpetuate a dead or childish ideal for its own sake, or by virtue of a complex. In order to keep believing in something, one acts in such a way as to find corroboration for one’s belief. This is destructive fanaticism.

 

Yet this I do not believe to be the condition of the psyche at all.

 

In fact, I should say that acting with an ideal as a goal may be neurotic at any moment. I would like to postulate that ideals are not goals but symptoms. Ideals are also at once both truths and illusions.

 

When one is young, there is no such thing as a truth. There is only an experience. One has a number of impulses whose “reality” cannot be questioned, simply because they predate the socialisation which can call anything into question. When acted upon by an effort of will, certain impulses are Affirmed. They become Actions. The knowledge of having performed an action is retained as a memory. Repetition of such actions creates an increasingly complex system of memories. When one wishes to justify one’s present action according to these memories, either to oneself or to others, these memories become ideals.

 

When ideals are communicated, they are represented in language. If others which to express agreement with one’s self, regardless of the uniqueness of their circumstance, the ideals, which are now verbal instead of mental, become Truths.

 

Imagine the predicament of a Fascist state. The “Truth” therein is the ideology of the state. Anyone who is “ignorant” of this “truth” must thereby be “made aware of it”. In the process of being made aware of it, the possibility of living without this Absolute Truth is forgotten. Also is forgotten the fact that the Truth actually depends on people believing in it, or being aware of it, in order to function.

 

It is possible that all Truths are such constructs. No matter how civilised we become, however, there is always a reserve of the psyche which is free from the conditioning. Consider the problem of the Sinking House*, a situation I delineated previously. I may construct a Powerpoint with twenty slides. I may have slides 10 through 15 be blue. I could ask a person to count the number of blue slides. One would usually say “six”. Some people may err and say “five” by simply subtracting 10 from 15, ignoring that 10 itself was blue. Yet imagine that a person is an amnesiac. This person would be unable to discern, with the same sense of Certainty that the others employ, that there are six blue slides. This would be because the amnesiac, if he or she suffers from “severe” short-term memory loss, would be unable to know, by the end of counting the slides, where he or she started. This would be necessary to attain certainty, of course, that the count had not been a miscount.

 

This is not the case only with the amnesiac. People are daily capable of encountering this problem. One may suddenly find that one is not certain, but only dimly aware, of what one had been thinking of mere seconds before. We are so accustomed often to the notion of our world and of our minds as though these were fixed entities that we forget how fleeting thoughts are. If this happens several times within one moment whilst one is attempting a kind of computation, one is in the predicament of the Sinking House. One fears for one’s Sanity, when in fact a perfectly natural event is occuring.

The ego possesses memories and can arrange them in terms of a style of logic. The Unconscious, however, is not motivated by logic but by Meaning. It also happens to be in control of which memories are available to the ego. This is why one can remember a dream with sterling detail upon awaking but forget it within hours. It is not that one is going mad; the unconscious simply sees no need for the ego to remember. In the absence of such a memory working as a bridge, we are all possible amnesiacs at one point or another.

The ego determines whether or not something is true or a calculation is accurate according to what “makes sense” or “works”. The Unconscious is concerned with Meaning. If a calculation is meaningless, the Unconscious will not lend the ego the necessary affirmation it needs in order to function. All memories of past thoughts become apparently equal, for no inner compulsion can set the one apart from another. A miscalculation becomes impossible, but so does a proper calculation.

 

We are so accustomed the notion of a “right answer” existing for everything that we are almost pathologically (and in some cases actually pathologically) resistant to the idea that a “proper calculation” cannot exist if there is no one in the right mind to complete it. Yet this is, looked at more broadly, irrefutably the case. Being in the “wrong mind” to think something through does not render one mad; it simply means that one’s mind is not in the right place to think of such things. The Unconscious would not allow us to fritter our lives away by obsession with minute and inconsequential matters. It is not so much that it interferes as that it simply wants no part in it.

 

*This is a metaphor.

 

Dm.A.A.

On the Tragedy of a Loss of Literature.

On the Tragedy of a Loss of Literature.

In olden times, people read more than they watched. Literature, as an art form, is dying even amongst those who perpetuate it. What little an individual reads is usually confined to the technical and the stringently rational. People forget that Rationalism itself may be, at best, an aesthetic movement. As I have pointed out, its algebraic logic, its tendency to equate things prematurely, ensnares the mind in a system of symbols held together like one of those plastic toys that start out as small balls of zigzagging connections and can be expanded by simply pulling the ball from two ends. If I devise a sphere that can be expanded not be pulling two ends but by exhaling air into it, is the one superior to the other? I can be more perplexed and amused by the inflation of the one, but I can play kick-ball with the other. It depends on my preference which ball I enjoy more, and at which moment. By the same token, it is entirely dependent on my preference whether I choose to represent my experience, symbolically, in the form of Rationalism or in some more vague form. What matters is that I find a new way to represent it once the one form has become either broken or terminally deflated.

 

Literature is peculiar in that it is at once an aesthetic mode of experience and a logical mode. The manipulation of symbols in literature are done, by a proficient writer, with as much if not greater regard for the sound and texture of the phrases as for the explicit meaning.

 

The trouble with a psyche that has no reserve of literary knowledge is that it will tend towards a stringent Rationalism where Rationalism is destructive. One can abuse the words that another uses simply by drawing “logical conclusions” between statements that the other had not intended at all. To assert that one did not intend for these equations and parallels to be made may attract accusations of sophistry and manipulation as quickly as a light attracts moths in our modern day and age. One is branded a kind of Wormtongue whose intent is only to cleverly weave intricate patterns of words aimed to deceive. One is met with the dogmatism of a class of people who claim that Logic has uncovered one’s true intentions. The fallacy therein is of course that one is only Wormtongue if what one is saying does not refer to a truth, but to a lie. Yet if the injustice of others plagues one’s self and yet no deep shame rests upon one’s heart after they have faded not only from sight but from consideration (which is unlikely to happen if the accusations had planted darts of unmerited guilt within one’s heart and mind), one can be assured, even in the midst of this madness, that one was not simply weaving a tangled web to ensnare others. The symbols referred to something REAL. As with most REAL things of tremendous import, the instrument of logic never suffices by itself. Logic, being abstract, obstructs. Verbal equations made between words are often done in a sphere of life totally removed from the concrete reality that one wishes to depict. They take place in the abstract realm of algebra and monetary concerns, a realm divorced from the material and the personally consequential (however one’s well-being may depend upon the consequences of the abstract and its effect upon the mind and the body).

 

A sort of elitism becomes necessary. One must shelter one’s self from the sophists and pseudointellectual Rationalists in an attempt to find clarity and acceptance with those who have a calm heart and a patient mind. One steadily finds that the justifications that one had required in the face of the prosecutors one does not need in the face of an understanding human being. The old red herrings are not slapped in one’s face, and an aethereal freedom emerges to express oneself without needing to make reference to a realm removed from one’s experiential reality. What had seemed mad now appears True in a way to surpass and predate mere brilliance of intellect. Steadily, one comes out into the upper half of the Sand-Clock, and the conversation, external and internal, is elevated like a feather in the wind to a place of blissful and heart-stopping sensitivity totally removed from the hostility and abuse of the earlier confrontations. Philosophy becomes artful and spiritual, and its responsibilities are now no longer towards the misguided whims of others but towards Truth. A new set of responsibilities which could not have probably thrived in the heated, intellectually arid climate, are now seen to be possible, and the old ways are obsolete in the presence of a new person free of pretense and prejudice. There is a receptivity which totally changes the quality of the secondary truth, and there emerges the possibility for both parties to more deeply understand the primary truth that the secondary truth sought to depict.

This depiction is seen to have been, from the outset, no mere technical depiction. Logic alone could not describe the primary truth. Logic could only refer to itself and its own rules and limitations. One cannot teach a computer how to write poetry, for however much it learns, poetry cannot be taught. The depiction was a literary depiction. One did not use words merely as direct, scientific references to obvious phenomena, but as paintings that employed both form AND COLOUR, both explicit meaning through the functionality of the words and implicit meaning through the aesthetics of their arrangement, to portray a condition that ultimately surpasses the reach of words and thoughts, if not consciousness entirely.

The allegations of the Rationalist are seen to have been merely cut corners and impatient shortcuts to understanding. They were equations made that had never been referred to either explicitly or implicitly in one’s original statements. Imagine that one had to walk every path in a labyrinthine neighbourhood to draw a map of the area, yet one chose instead to take shortcuts and only to arrive at the ultimate destination. If one had not known that, upon arrival at the ultimate destination, one would be asked to draw a map of one’s journey, one would see no reason not to cut these corners. And these are the corners that the Rationalist cuts. One fails to see, when one does this, that the equations that could so easily be made between different statements that one might think them obvious and self-evident paint an entirely different picture than the one that had been painted. They are a vandalism of the original mural, and it is no wonder that, after this vandalism had taken place, the true place that the mural was meant to depict was effaced from history.

 

Dm.A.A.

On Cedric and Harry: An Analysis.

On Cedric and Harry: An Analysis.

 

Recently, I had a falling-out with a close friend. This was met with near to no regret. He and I had “grown apart”, as the colloquialism suggests, yet really a more accurate description would be that the neuroses that had all ways served as dividers and stumbling blocks for us, since first meeting, had reached a fever pitch in our presence. Imagine a microphone put up next to an amplifier. Anyone who’s tried this will note the effect: Two instruments that had served a common purpose now create a disastrous sound that I would not even suggest that anyone try; it is a high-pitched squeal devoid of vibrato that may leave a noiseophile disappointed.

 

Having taken time to grow outside of his influence, I found a tremendous renewal of freedom and vigour which I might presume to be neutral. Yet in the wake of this came also an increased sensitivity to the degree to which I had been wronged. I texted him several days into our break and brought to his attention, with a level head, some gentle criticisms about the ways in which he had treated me. I drew parallels, very briefly, to other instances that I had felt myself wronged for the same reasons: A mutual acquaintance and a former romantic partner were two examples. Yet my at first eloquent and simple point, one that goes unnoticed and was predominantly drawn from the work of Jung, was met with what appeared to be sheer disorganized hostility. A squabble ensued wherein my intellectual rigour and existential passion fell on deaf ears (figuratively, since this was in text) and he allowed the exchange to degenerate into a totally unsubstantiated, neurotic denunciation of my character. All that I could discern from his insults, which met my valid arguments with blatant, explicit apathy and which twisted my words without any respect for their context, was the degree to which an extravert can cling to what appears “obvious” to him, however the introvert may try to delineate that irregularity which is the law of life. This fear that had so governed my earlier years of philosophical awareness, and even prior to my interest in philosophy in sixth grade, had now shown its source: Extraverted neurosis. I had lived in terror for years of this naive tendency that man has to again and again vilify the exception without any kind of sensible or merciful regard for the outcast and underdog. Oppressive obviousness, the illusion of a coherent world that could be taken to be Absolute, had been the work of innumerable years for me to defy, and this leitmotif of defiance was the leitmotif of my intellectual and personal life during these years.

 

What struck me was that everything that Kresten said was done with the simple underlying intent of denouncing me. He had no interest in intellectual examination or even consideration, so all of his arguments became aimed at an agenda whose goal was the perpetuation of his own neurosis: The inability to see beyond something that was “looking him straight in the face”. Extraverts are by no means the only people to suffer from this, though usually this problem occurs in insecure introverts who subordinate themselves to extraversion. In the absence of a well-integrated unconscious, one will be overwhelmingly tempted by the passions, and among those passions is the temptation towards an illusory promise of Certainty. At one point or another, the promises of our senses no longer suffice, and we see how what had seemed totally stable ground moments ago had turned out to be mere cloud.

 

Kresten is, at heart, motivated by popularity. His entire paradigm aims at context. He would probably be enraged to find that I had posted this to the internet, negligent of the fact that anyone could google for his name, and that people circulate stories about me with his permission amongst our old groups of acquaintences.

 

And I am reminded of Cedric Diggory from Harry Potter. Cedric’s death was the death of a popular man. He was also the apple of Cho’s eye, and Cho would ultimately prove to be more of a temptress to Harry than a Goddess. Yet there was more to his death and the time of his death than meets the casual eye. Cedric died at the hands of Lord Voldemort, or more specifically Wormtail. He died by the hands of the ego in service of the fear of death. It was Harry who bore witness to this. And it was because of the political unpopularity of Harry’s allegation, perpetuated by a tyrannical politician, that Harry was thought mad by the majority of the magical community, including, at one point, his best friend.

 

This story had never been unseeded from my heart. It is no mere coincidence or plot detail that Harry’s persecution began at the moment of Cedric’s death. Every character in Harry Potter is symbolic of an aspect of the individual psyche. When the possibility of popularity or its relevance dies in one’s life, one turns to the dark task of facing not only this tragic fate, looking back, but, looking forward, the looming terror of Voldemort: The Fear of Death. The popularity of the Harry Potter books in the popular culture may make this appear silly, yet it is only because Jo Rowling chose to write the books in a popular fashion; she knew the risks.

 

When one must confront the actual threat that the Fear of Death, resurrected by the sycophantic ego, portends, one must forsake the naivete of the past; it is outside of one’s control not to. One must recognize the absurdity of Cedric’s death, and one must see the absurdity of Cedric’s life. Popularity will not spare one. Popularity only dooms one’s self. Yet, with incredible luck and faith, the will to popularity is all that dies. Harry, because the series is a seven-part epic and not a four-part tragedy, survives the graveyard wherein Cedric is killed. The most important part of us – the true Hogwarts champion, one might say – goes on after the will to be liked and accepted is gone.

 

Dm.A.A.

On the Ethics of Presumption.

If we are to be civilised, one must presume that the other will not presume. If one presumes that the other will presume correctly, then the other is entitled to presuming incorrectly. If one presumes that the other will not presume, then the other is not entitled to presume incorrectly.

If I were to presume upon what others expect of me, I should limit them to those presumed expectations. This presumption creates a mold which is entirely personal and topical to me.

I cannot read their minds. The overwhelming illusion that I can would be mere participation mystique: Practical for tribal man, but wholly inappropriate for civilised man.

If I should presume upon these expectations consistently, affirming my own mold ten times out of ten, and even if I may be right nine times out of ten, I would be wrong the tenth time. If this tenth time were insubstantial, my presumption would be wholly justified. Yet if that one time out of ten that I am wrong I have missed the fleeting opportunity of a fate that dramatically surpasses the other nine fates and that would have laid memory of them to waste, it is understandable that a crippling depression should follow once I have inevitably failed to break my own mold at the moment of Exception.

Even if others expect something from me that I may identify, I could only have faith in such an expectation by tribal reasoning. I would know it not by immediate experience so much as by memory of past events, which would know nothing of the possibility of change.

Here, a single line of dichotomy may be drawn between two distinct attitudes: That of the Adolescent* and that of the Adult.

The Adolescent presumes upon the expectations of others, following them consistently with the inevitability of being wrong the tenth time.

The Adult defies this presumption and in fact pretension. He or she breaks out of his or her mold, taking full responsibility for his or her own presumptions and their probable fallacy.

The Adolescent perpetuates his or herself by pleasing others. The Adult daily reinvents his or herself by taking chances. When one defies the expectations of others, the Adult recognises, one may run the risk of disappointment, yet usually not only this risk but most importantly this fate is marginal. The risk of being "wrong" pales in comparison to the rewards of being "right", for one so surpasses the expectations of others that, should they be receptive, which may be a matter of their personal discipline, they would feel themselves to be a part of a Greater Good, enriched.

The task of the Adult is more difficult because it is much like a game of hot-potato. Once one has broken out of one's own mold, the responsibility is passed to the other. The other can then choose how to respond to the unexpected change. In some cases, it will, as I have aforementioned, be a matter of exercising the personal discipline necessary to adapt to an advantageous and progressive change. Yet in situations wherein, either by choice or by destiny, one is in disfavour of the unexpected outcome, the responsibility still rests in Expressing this dissatisfaction to the original Adult. This game of hot-potato, wherein at any instant someone is responsible and at any instant one may be faced with a responsibility, is the essence of the Adult life. It is absent in the relative comfort of the Adolescent Life, which is therefore markedly anti-social and conformist by that token.

The potato is thereby thrown back to the original Adult who broke out of his or her mold. One is confronted with the dissatisfaction of the Other. One can then decide, usually according to how much one cares for the Other, (although this is not always such a simple criterion for decision, and a just decision may be based on more subtle and complex criteria) whether or not to yield to the Other's preference. This preference is now an object of knowledge and not of presumption.

One is reminded of two quotes. One is the popular saying: "It is better to ask for forgiveness than for permission." Asking for permission is the essence of the Adolescent attitude. Asking for forgiveness is more usually the Adult fate.

The other quote is by Alan Wilson Watts: "You cannot have a free society that is at the same time a nursery." The free society, of course, is the life of the Adult. The nursery is an apt metaphor for the life of the Adolescent.

Jung and Woodman, amidst others, including Campbell, warn of the tremendous dangers of PERPETUAL ADOLESCENCE in contemporary society, whose trends have changed significantly but not substantially in the time since those mentors spoke to us.



* This has nearly nothing to do with age. One may be an Adult even at the age of fourteen. It is entirely a description of character in this instance.

dm.A.A.

On Complexes, Art, and Detail.

On Complexes, Art, and Detail.

 

When one is possessed of a mother- or father-complex, for instance, or any of a number of conventional psychic ailments of the modern man, the effects will be pronounced, but the majority of the problem will go unnoticed by not only oneself but those around one. They may appear, for the artist, however, in minute situations.

 

I have all ready delineated the incredible importance of subtlety and attention to detail for the Artist. Since this is an aesthetic consideration, and because aesthetics may lie outside of their own box in life, as they do for a man like Nietzsche, one can never merely marginalise attention to detail as neurotic. It is, on the contrary, symptomatic of a mind that is incredibly astute and in accord with an integrated unconscious. Besides, the process of Art may alleviate suffering for one who can take the opportunity to detect slight tendencies to submit to a complex.

 

Imagine a blade of grass sticking out from a crack in the cement. You tread on it, and your friend reproaches you for it. You see no reason for why he should suddenly pay particular heed to your minute infraction. All of a sudden, to your horror, the crack opens up, the ground inflates to the proportion of a hill, the cement ruptures, and what had appeared to have been a mere blade of grass had turned out to be one of a multitude of hairs on the back of a tremendous subterranean beast.

 

This is the predicament of the psyche. All that walks the surface of consciousness is naive in respect to what lies underneath. An artist may find his self confronted with the issue of whether or not to punctuate a given verse at the end of a poem, for instance. This seems entirely arbitrary, but yet it seems at the same time imperative that one change the punctuation. One seeks to conform to a pattern that is one’s preconceived notion of what “good structure” is. Yet this egoic attitude, whilst appearing entirely sensible, is completely at odds with one’s own artistic inclination. In the construction of a poem, a period at the end may be the defining point that entirely determines the character of the poem, yet this subtlety may be so surpassingly beautiful that the emotionally stunted neurotic may either neglect its beauty or presume it to be merely symptomatic of some unperishable “divine” beauty that was not the product of careful, meticulous practice in the stylistic manipulation of punctuation. What works against the heart of the artist is the mind of the scientist, who insists on stringent adherence to Order by nature; the scientific method is precisely this process of imposing order on conscious experience.

My father is a biochemist. My father-complex is at work, beneath the threshold of consciousness, when I choose to sacrifice the subtlety of this minute detail for the “clarity” of a kind of classicism. This would appear, again, arbitrary for an “objective” standpoint. Yet the temptation to impose a kind of “classical” order onto the poem is overwhelming, and this would suggest that, in fact, a beast does dwell beneath the surface, and this is no mere blade of grass I am treading on. I may try to convince myself that the period is inconsequential and symptomatic of some neurotic attention to detail, but then I should make such an absurd statement as: “It doesn’t matter at all, but it ABSOLUTELY MUST be this way and not that way.” The complex rears its head. If the ego wishes to perpetuate itself and get the Artistic to yield, it will inflate this to obsessive proportions. All sorts of allegations of injustice will follow, beginning with the relatively adolescent assertions of pretension, moving to accusations of one-sidedness, justifying the latter by first tempting me towards “trying something new” and then equating this temptation with the nobility of the scientific method, and with empiricism. By this process, the simple matter becomes not a question of what aesthetic form FEELS BEST, but it has been inflated to political proportions. Only after I have sufficiently resisted long enough to be able to negate all of the neurotic ego’s arguments can I return to the original, relatively sane consideration of what is at work: The question is simply a matter of whether or not I can break out of an existing pattern and try something new aesthetically. The ego tries to imitate this attitude by promising me something new as well, but this proves to be merely a subtle process by which the OLD is perpetuated. If I have sufficiently recognized the father-complex, however, I can immediately see it at work in the construction of the poem, and, if I have sufficiently assuaged it, I do not have to yield to it. My work becomes symptomatic of a healthy psyche and, in itself, as far as I can presume, in its prime.

 

Dm.A.A.

On the Three Principles of Good Grammar.

I will postulate three Principles (a word I prefer to "Rules") for what a grammatically correct sentence or phrase should have. They are, to paraphrase a pirate from Disney's "Pirates of the Carribean", more akin to guidelines than official rules.

As we know, from time to time someone we know will use a particular arrangement of words that, either owing to the speaker/writer's cleverness or his negligence, calls into question its meaning, because we are unaccustomed to the grammatical geometry of it. Sometimes, we even venture into a semantic discussion as to whether or not that particular grammatical form "makes sense".

The way that one usually makes the arbiting statement is by declaring that the phrase was grammatically incorrect. Yet this may not always be so. If the speaker/writer is from another culture, he/she may be trying to impress upon us a concept that can be understood only in the grammatical context of his/her native tongue. These nuances then appear necessary to examine.

If one wishes to assert that a certain phrase is grammatically incorrect when it is "in fact" only grammatically unusual, one typically posits a more conventional, familiar arrangement of more or less the same words, delineating the same intended meaning. This could be misleading if the original meaning was not sufficiently ascertained, out of negligence on the part of the prosecutor or a refusal to acknowledge the vagueness of the notion that the speaker tries to express.

Most often, one loses, in this process, the CONCISE quality of the original expression.

If we are to use formal reasoning to use this hypothetical scenario as the basis for our self-appointed "rules" for grammatical linguistic behaviour, we must conclude that "grammatically" correct speech is defined by three chief variables:

1. GRAMMAR. In the usual sense. The set of formal rules of grammar that we learn from books, in classrooms, and by virtue of our environment. Since these three contexts in which we learn grammar are innately disparate in almost every case, we must presume from the outset that no DEFINITELY "grammatically correct" way of saying something exists, as though as a Platonic form.

2. COHERENCE. This would have more or less been the prosecutor's argument. The "grammatically incorrect" form of the sentence would have been inferior to the "grammatically correct" form not so much because one of them "broke the rules", but because one was more familiar and therefore more COHERENT to the listener.

Again, a disparateness of circumstance challenges the possibility of any kind of dogmatic authority being leant to this criterion. What may be incoherent to a layperson, for instance, may be totally coherent to a man of letters, simply because the person of letters has read more text and been exposed a more exotic palate of language.

3. CONCISION. What is most concise is most applicable in the critical circumstances of emergency or any other situation wherein careful consideration for traditionally "well-constructed" grammar would be stifling, such as in the instance of tremendous emotional or otherwise physical involvement in a task.

If the prosecutor wishes to accuse the defendant of an absence of clarity, the defendant can assert that clarity is subjective. This would not be mere sophistry; in fact, it would reflect an attempt to appeal to the authority of an intellectually refined and perhaps rigorous class. It also shows a zeal to express a difficult or subtle concept which may at first appear alien to the conscious psyche.

If the prosecutor asserts, furthermore, that a phrase is "grammatically incorrect" simply because the prosecutor can call into consideration a "more coherent" permutation of the same phrase, the underlying logic rests in the presumption that "THAT is incorrect because THIS is better."

If the second statement has a surpassing coherence, however, what it usually lacks is concision.

Yet usually, as I have pointed out, coherence is subjective, and any serious evaluation of a given work, be it literary or otherwise, except perhaps in strictly technical matters that are not however suited for emergencies, will yield the conclusion that one way of saying things is no more or less coherent than the other. The first just seems to "appear" less coherent, AT FIRST.

This being the case, the defendant has a sudden advantage. If his phrase does not technically break the formal rules of grammar, which are of course vague and "iffy" often, then he actually meets all three criteria: Grammar, Coherence, and Concision. He is no worse than his opponent in respect to the first two criteria, and he actually SURPASSES the alternative in terms of the third; the speaker's way of saying things is more CONCISE.

If the grammatical correctness of a statement depends, as I have pointed out, upon the SUPERIORITY of one statement to another, then that actually renders, by the definitions implied by the prosecutor's allegations, that the original statement was and is actually MORE grammatically correct than the prosecutor's revision.

dm.A.A.

On Jung’s Thoughts Pertaining to the Relationship Between Introvert and Extravert: A metaphor.

On Jung’s Thoughts Pertaining to the Relationship Between Introvert and Extravert: A metaphor.

 

The Introvert stands upon a feeble string, one cast over a cobblestone city street fifty stories down between two office buildings. He arrives almost at his destination on the other building when he is met with the extravert. The extravert thinks the introvert mad, and he warns him not to fall, so loudly that the introvert remembers his own height.

The extravert too aspires to reach the opposite roof, yet his is a different path. He must descend one stairwell, navigate the busy street, and climb the other stairwell. To him, the introvert’s insanity is mere hubris in search of a shortcut.

What he fails to recognize is that both paths are equally dangerous. Each stairwell is abounding with doors that may yield to a security guard. The streets are populated with criminals, and traffic is only made more chaotic by the attempts made to regulate it.

The introvert has nearly arrived at his destination, but he wavers at the last moment and often falls in the face of the extravert. If by some miracle his fall should be softened by a roof of cloth and a cart of fruit, he may choose to never endeavour the tightrope again. What he forgets is that his path, however feeble, requires the greatest degree of personal discipline from him, where the extravert needs not subtlety but perseverance and cleverness.

What is most important amidst what he has forgotten upon impact is that he had nearly reached the very goal that the extravert himself aspired towards. What was the extravert doing standing in his path? However feeble the introvert may appear in the face of the extravert’s judgement, it is always his discipline and the natural charge of his task that lends him such a feebleness. Even a word of self-justification, prior to arrival at the coveted haven of the opposite roof, would be just enough breath to knock the introvert off balance and into oblivion. Yet what dweller upon the street can ever begin to understand the mind of the tightrope walker? They from the street call him mad, yet here they are like a crowd that runs up and down the angular stairwell trying to grab a delicate string that hangs from the ceiling and runs down the core of the stairwell. They cannot grab it without attempting the jump across the chasm at the core of the stairwell, and in so doing they would risk a fall that none of their peers could or would try to assuage or forestall.

 

Dm.A.A.

On Autism and Art.

On Autism and Art.

 

So long as one is creating a work of Art, one is autistic until the moment that that Art has an audience. Writing may be so as well. Yet people are afraid to be autistic, and so most are not Artists.

 

Dm.A.A.

On the Semantics of the Expression “Making Sense”.

On the Semantics of the Expression “Making Sense”.

 

When we say that something or another “makes sense”, we are referring to Verbal Logic. When we say that something “works”, we are usually referring to a kind of Visual Logic.

This misnomer of attributing the expression “makes sense” to an instance wherein only Visual Logic renders a coherent mental image opens the possibility of a red herring. If one is a post-modernist, for instance, one immediately senses a fallacy. One can then “fall through the cracks” in trying to ascertain whether or not a certain mental construct really, in fact, “makes sense”.

 

If an image is constructed from a text, one then goes to the text in an attempt to interpret the explicit meaning of the text, employing Rationalism to form a coherent picture. In this process, however, one represses the faculty that INTERPRETS language in order to construct an image according to the presumed or extrapolated dictates of the language. One is only concerned with the post-modern deconstruction of sentences, the ultimate fate of trying to employ Verbal Reasoning in such a situation.

1.       One begins by applying Verbal Reasoning to see if a set of sentences “make sense”. (Rationalism.)

2.       One settles upon the AESTHETIC of the coherent verbal reasoning. (Post-modernism.)

3.       One tries to compare this aesthetic to the Mental Construct of the interpretation of this text. (Essentially Dogmatism.)

For this reason, I would say that things need not always to “make sense”, but only to Work.

 

Dm.A.A.

On the Impending Irrelevance of War and how it will pose a Threat to Our Sanity.

As of yet, it may appear as though my chief contention was that Sanity is entirely relative. It would appear as though, as in the instance wherein I mentioned the inevitability of all conceptions being misconceptions*, I am postulating that it is impossible to distinguish Sanity from Insanity, and that either the latter does not exist or the former does not, if not both. Yet I do draw a line somewhere: Insanity is the naiive clinging to a set of conscious values, a method of logic, and a map of the world, once those values have all ready run their course and serve no further purpose.

We are confronted, if we are, as a species, in a process of Growth and Progress, with the immanent irrelevance of War. War will become no longer a necessity.

 

I have defined Insanity as that condition whereby a process, method, or style of reasoning that has become obsolete is perpetuated in spite of the NEW, born out of a Will to Ignorance and the perpetuation of the Old.

 

In Hindu yoga, it is believed that the source of any Will to Power or Aggression rests in the third chakra. The goal of certain schools of yoga is to unite the third chakra with the fifth chakra, which is concerned with Self-Expression and Abstraction. In this process, the Will to Power is no longer directed outwards, in its physical manifestation, but it is directed inwards. The individual “conquers one’s self”, as it were. This is not to be confused with the situation Nietzsche describes as the condition of the Bad Conscience.

The war becomes internalized as an intellectual struggle for refinement, taking place entirely within the individual psyche.

 

It is easy to draw a parallel between the Militarism of the Soldier and the Intellectual Rigour and Zeal of the Philosopher. Each individual may feel as though he has been fighting to defend the layperson, either in the instance of the civilian or the anti-intellectual.

The anti-intellectual may make the claim that he or she has the “right” to be anti-intellectual. Yet there may very well be a fallacy therein.

The entire NOTION of a “right” is a social construct. It exists by virtue of its relevance and the presence of people who acknowledge it. Its conception was by virtue of a group of philosophers and intellectuals.

Suppose that the anti-intellectual is approached by a Fascist. The fascist, having been very well-read, makes the assertion that, in fact, the anti-intellectual does NOT have ANY human rights.

The anti-intellectual may make the ASSERTION or claim that he or she has rights. Yet in the absence of a sharpened intellect, the anti-intellectual would be unable to pose a winning ARGUMENT. The fascist, by his or her surpassing wit, may change the course of history and thereby abolish any semblance of “individual rights”. This would prove the anti-intellectual’s original assertion false. The fascist may DICTATE, in such a position of power, that everyone be educated to become an intellectual.

The only way to prevent this threat is to take responsibility for one’s intellect. It is philosophy that can even postulate the notion of a “right”. In order to prevent the spread of Fascism and other forms of Totalitarianism wherein everyone is compelled to think THE SAME WAY, one must compel oneself to THINK in a UNIQUE WAY.

I sometimes feel that, as a philosopher, I may have some semblance of understanding what the experience of the Vietnam War Veterans was. My intellectualism is condemned by the people whose freedom I try to defend.

 

If physical War becomes obsolete, the challenge will become for Humanity to direct its aggression towards the refinement of its intellect. This will be no longer a collective process but a widespread individual phenomenon. It will be unlike any kind of Totalitarianism, Communism, or Hive-mind, although words may make it appear to be that way. What we will have is a large trend of people individuating and self-actualising: The exact opposite of the effects of Totalitarianism, et cetera.

Yet if we continue to wage physical war once there is no longer a necessity for it, this will be an Insane act. The people waging War will be crazy simply because they decide to do so.

Do we really want maniacs and lunatics to have access to the most advanced armaments? Do we want this to happen in the midst of Mankind’s greatest achievements?

 

*This condition, that of all conceptions being misconceptions, refers only to a particular set of instances I have delineated as the Sinking House problem.

 

Dm.A.A.

On the Fallacy and Fallibility of Rationalism.

The conscious mind may represent its selective experience in terms of logic. In this case, a map is constructed towards which the mind is directed. Sensory input is filtered through this set of conscious values which are permitted.

The values are determined by the manipulation of symbols represented by words. These symbols may be subject to the same limitations of expression that the words are subject to. The grammatical rules governing one's language determine the scope of what our language is capable of describing or expressing. For instance, it is difficult in English, if one adheres to coherent speech, to convey the phenomenon of a certain item being a part of a whole and the whole at the same time. One may even be compelled to condemn such an allegation as lunacy, yet such condemnation is always symptomatic of an excessive dependency upon language to delineate what makes sense.

The problem with empiricism I have all ready thoroughly attacked, and in the process I have dispossessed myself of such a handicap. Now I will address the problems with Rationalism.

Rationalism is entirely verbal. The world as represented to the stringent Rationalist is entirely confined to the limits of a consciousness that subtly overvalues itself. Its map of Reality has become presumed to BE the Reality, for in the absence of a coherent Rational argument for why a Reality should rest OUTSIDE of that map, the Rational feels entitled to a one-pointed fanaticism.

Intuition does not suffice for the Rationalist as a Source of Authority. One begins with what makes Sense verbally, from the standpoint of Directed Thinking, and only then, according to what may be permitted, as though the mind were the wall of a plant cell, one can allow Intuition to manifest.

As was once said to me a psychiatrist, in the midst of a wholly unjust and abusive conversation wherein I was treated as a Scapegoat because of what would be later found to have been a misdiagnosis of Bipolar Disorder, one "bases one's intuition upon one's logic." Yet this is wholly absurd. Intuition is independent of Reason, and it is not subject to its laws.

Were I to live a life of Pure Reason, I should be inclined to never leave the computer. I would be afraid to go outside, for every innocent remark made by passerby would appear to warrant an Analysis. If Analysis is necessary at all, it must be necessary in all situations EXCEPT WHERE, by VIRTUE OF ANALYSIS, I can prove that I ought not to become distracted.

Obviously, if I am walking my dog, puzzling over a difficult problem, and a woman asks me, gregariously, if my dog is tired, I can choose to answer politely, to ignore her, to lash out at her, or a number of other retorts. I might become so infuriated that she interrupted the train of my thoughts that I would direct that train at her, as though to run her over. I should say, "And now, because of that bitch, I have to analyse what she said." I would conclude, upon admittedly limited grounds, that she was most probably a moral adolescent who sought to perpetuate her own comfortable anti-intellectual worldview by appealing to Kantian Intersubjectivity. The basis for her conjecture was a kind of misinformed anthropomorphism, a kind of participation mystique that had been the natural outcome of her unquestioning empiricism.

Yet that would be in itself, however apparently precise and brilliant, one-sided. I should be reminded of the Prince of the Fire Nation from "Avatar: The Last Airbender", and then I should have to think of his character foil, Uncle Iroh. Whereas the former is the archetypal anti-villain who has a righteous haughteur and an ambitious intellectual rigour, the latter would be what the psychologists refer to as an example of "Emotional Intelligence": E.Q. versus I.Q. This is probably the same dichotomy that could be drawn between Severus Snape and Rubeus Hagrid, although, in the instance of Snape and Hagrid, the two appear less often in the same scene.

Yet obviously this appears as somewhat of a caricature of the Rationalist. Obviously, most Rationalists would probably care little for condemning a passerby in the streets, choosing to shelter themselves further in their "Important" thoughts instead. Yet what I am asserting is that, to value Reason over Intuition is to either live at this absurd extreme or to be a hypocrite, for one uses Intuition always to surmount these situations. One knows intuitively that certain paths may be a "waste of time", even if one does not have sufficient resources available in consciousness by which one might explain this Intuition and thereby justify acting according to it. Intuition is always at work, predominantly beneath the threshold of consciousness, regardless of whether or not it is expressed verbally.

Enter why the Sinking House problem is a phenomenon. The map that Rationalism ensnares one in is drawn according to the rules of what is Rational. Certain experiences are taken note of, and they are presumed Real from the outset. This premise is the beginning of a logical construction. Experiences are represented in words, and to the degree that such an arrangement of words makes coherent sense, carrying the aesthetics of Reason and following the principles of not only logic but grammar (since the two are inextricable from one another), to that degree something is said to be "True".

The Rationalist becomes ensnared in his or her own map, as consciousness tapers to only include those experiences which "make sense". The other vague experiences are ignored as hallucinations.

If the map, however, is of no use, the Unconscious will refuse it. Intuition enters. The Unconscious interferes with Consciousness. Non-directed Thinking, which is irrational, intrudes upon Directed Thinking. The individual, from the perspective of the ego, feels his or herself to be going mad when, suddenly, he or she is faced with the Sinking House. What he or she fails to recognise is that the source of MEANING does not have its locus in Consciousness. Meaning arises from the Unconscious.

All of a sudden, in trying to complete an order of Rational operations, I find that I cannot be CERTAIN that I am reading a text without skipping sentences, for instance. I try to ASCERTAIN that I am not doing so, yet this is impossible. I think that I am going crazy. In FACT, I need only admit to myself that I am striving for CERTAINTY, an impossible state of perfection, in the absence of a NECESSITY to perform the operation. I am NEVER truly certain of anything in Life. I may be 99.99% certain, but I am never 100% certain. I can only be ASSURED, and I WILL only be Assured insofar as Consciousness and the Unconscious are in accord. Otherwise, the Unconscious offers me no reassurance that what I am doing is sensible, but not because it is ILLOGICAL (from the standpoint of Rationality), but because it is MEANINGLESS (from the locus of Meaning). Therefore, Intuition shows through the fabricated net of Reason, which disintegrates. My map is seen to be obsolete, and I cease, with luck and my cooperation, to REPRESENT Reality according to that map. I have to wait to take more variables into consideration by virtue of which I can expand my frame of reference in regards to "what is Real".

dm.A.A.

Conclusion regarding Reason and Intuition.

Conclusion regarding Reason and Intuition

We always lose track of any logic that serves no purpose, invariably confronted with the Sinking House, because the part of our minds that is concerned with Reason (The Directed) has become disconnected from the part that is concerned with Meaning and Purpose (The non-directed).

We can build a house on dry land, and our confidence in this venture becomes our Sanity.

The moment that we try this enterprise over a swamp, a mire without meaning, a foundation without substance, that Sanity is a ghost. Sanity entails that logic be abandoned. Our maps have nothing to do with our territory, and a miscalculation is equal to a calculation*. All thought of a proper calculation disappears when all calculations become miscalculations. The numbers we use to count things begin to refer to nothing at all related to the material world, and, as entities of abstraction devoid of meaning, they all become equal to zero. The maps we draw degenerate into scrawls not as indicative of any substantial, noteworthy ugliness. Their ugliness is merely the ugliness of a confused mind.

Our thoughts become this mire, and any sense of Reason is a passing wavelet. Any attempt to construct Reason finds us holding a handful of quicksand seeping from betwixt our fingertips to dissolve again into a surface that remains, on the whole, flat, only interrupted by a momentary Hope.

We admit to this futility and exit the marsh before we are consumed. We build our house on an unprecedented terrain, prepared to accept what the Divine Will that beats our hearts offers next as Sanity.

 

*This phrase, I am aware, appears absurd. It would make sense if I were to say that “a miscalculation is equal to a proper calculation. Yet this presupposes that a proper calculation could exist. The closest thing in our grammatical common sense to what I am trying to say would be “a calculation equals a miscalculation” or “every calculation is a miscalculation.” Yet should I have written it thus, the aesthetic I am trying to render would be missed.

Dm.A.A.

On the Similarity Between Thoughts and Sweat.

On the Similarity Between Thoughts and Sweat.

 

Thoughts, abstractions, and systems of symbols by which we make “coherent, logical sense” of our experience are like fluid in the body. Once a thought has run its course and served its purpose, it is excreted like sweat. One would be hard-pressed to make use of it again, or even to hoard it. The Unconscious, which is the spontaneous activity of the entire organism, physical and psychic, would not allow it, however we may feel it to be driving us insane by calling into question logic that had just served us moments ago. We experience no sense of MEANING in such hoarding of thoughts, such futile attempts to fight the stream of the Tao, and so are driven mad trying to preserve what had been, moments ago, basically Sane. That is so until we cease to exhaust our energy in fighting the stream.

 

Dm.A.A.

On Nietzsche’s Description of the Nihilistic Void that exists beyond all Possibility of Meaning.

On Nietzsche’s Description of the Nihilistic Void that exists beyond all Possibility of Meaning.

 

I recall a lecture given on Nietzsche wherein the professor described Nietzsche’s journey past all Created Meaning and his confrontation with the Void that lies beyond existentialism: Nihilism. The professor remarked, with a subtle grin, that Nietzsche seemed to have conceded to the nihilists that ultimately the world is without meaning.

 

I was reminded of one of the most dearly held tokens of meaning in my life: the video game Spyro the Dragon. The majority of the dreams that I can recall from childhood took place in this mythic universe, its worlds created by my Unconscious, surpassing the finitude of the original game.

 

I imagined this game, too, becoming Meaningless to me. How could I forsake the almost Human texture of the infinite blue skies, presumed infinite because I could never fly past them, in the floating castles of Wizard’s Peak? And what entered my mind was a vivid image, the nostalgia clinging to my mind as though it clung for dear life over the abyss of its annihiliation. I remembered Spyro, having run to the peak of a slope and jumped through a circular window-pane in a mountain cave, soaring out of the mountain with the flame of friction blistering behind him, prepared to glide to the tiny isle floating against the backdrop of the sky, its conical base pointed at a deep blue void.

 

I realized that, were Nietzsche right, I would be at peace, for the zeal of that leap would always rest in the fear, though not so much the fear as the refusal, to merely plummet into the Void below or to miss the isle in flight.

 

I returned to the computer to write an entry on the very revelation that had felt so much like such a tragic arc.

 

It was at that point that I landed upon the isle, feeling as though I would never disappear into the Void without another chance, and the Void itself seemed to disappear.

 

Dm.A.A.

On Miscommunication.

On Miscommunication.

 

If I have miscommunicated something, I know this fact that I have failed to communicate it only for an instant. The instant arises by virtue of Non-directed Thinking. It may be merely a ghost of a hunch at first, something in the background of my consciousness. It may only have run its course once I have taken the appropriate action in order to bridge the gap in language.

Writing an e-mail is not exempt from the psychological predicament that I would find myself in when I speak conversationally; it only abounds with more illusory complications and red herrings that could only ensnare a perpetually adolescent mind.

Once the e-mail has been sent, one can always return to it and ask what would have happened had it been worded differently. Yet to test this has all ready become superfluous; it may have BEEN superfluous from the moment that one had all ready devised a more coherent mode of self-expression. The alternative wording, having been found, appears, and with its appearance disappears the Will to find one. That will disappears into the abyss. The sense of something needing to be corrected arguably dissolves prior to the sending of the e-mail.

 

The empiricist returns to the text to see if the first wording might have been, in fact, coherent. Yet the empiricist knows the intended meaning, and so his or her evaluation is flawed. The empirical method is always the work of the ego. The habit of Revision, the finding of an alternative wording and the settling upon it, belongs to the Self, which does not repeat itself, or if it does, it must always go unnoticed.

 

The empiricist reverts to the original wording and asks if the recipient would really have become confused. Yet this question had all ready been asked by the ego, and it was all ready answered by the Self. The Self does not answer twice. The question becomes a red herring. No matter how much the empiricist tries, he or she should admit that there is no way of knowing with CERTAINTY that the recipient would or would not have made the right guess in the face of the incoherent version of the message. It is precisely this CERTAINTY which the empiricist seeks, whether he or she knows that he or she does or not. Yet the ASSUREDNESS has all ready been attained and affirmed.

 

Dm.A.A.

A Tentative Parallel between Kohlberg's Stages and Certain Philosophical Movements.

1. Anti-intellectualism.

2. Objectivism.

3. Christianity.

4. Rationalism.

5. Post-modernism.

6. Existentialism.

dm.A.A.

On the Tendency to Self-Incriminate, and On the Crawling Out of the Sand Clock.

Imagine a giant Sand-Clock, like that in Aladdin.

One finds oneself at the bottom of it. One wishes that one could lie at the base forever, but alas, Sand is pouring down upon oneself, and one risks drowning.

One has the ability to overcome the sand and actually to rise with it towards the center of the Sand-Clock. Thankfully, the hole is large enough for one to slip through. It is merely an arduous struggle to pass through, and an even more arduous one ensues when one must rise through the sand in the upper half to reach the Surface.

Finally, one arrives at the Surface. Now, this Sand-Clock does not turn over, except once in a long time. One finds that, in the upper half of the Sand-Clock, one can see the Sun, and one glimpses a luxurious world of ineffable Beauty beyond.

One is happy here, yet one has to constantly wade in the Sand to avoid descending into the lower half. Yet this becomes an exciting routine. One maintains this routine until the Sand has run its course. One can then wait at the bottom of the bowl, until the Sand-Clock turns, and one is at the base again.

This metaphor illustrates my view of the Life of an individual. Like most existentialist metaphors, it may appear entirely depressing. Yet I use it to stress, on the contrary, one of the most rewarding experiences of human life: The overcoming of unhappiness and adversity. The Upper Half, though it requires that we establish a pattern of rigorous discipline, is immensely preferable to the Lower. Yet that discipline which one establishes in the upper half will become, eventually and inevitably, obsolete, and the cycle will begin again. Yet I take this to mean that I do not feel recrimination against myself for when I find myself suddenly at rock bottom. I know that all my self-loathing, my excessive self-criticism, my tendency to find my work or anything else to be "objectively" bad, et cetera et al, will pass once I have laboured through the guilt which is not the product of my failure but its own force of gravity. I have faith in that, once I have squeezed through the narrow hole of my own individuality, I will have the opportunity to see all of yesterday's "failures" as, again, Successes, or otherwise I shall feel absolutely no recrimination or attachment to my Failures, and, in either case, no will to Self-Destruction. I Have faith in that, whenever I break through to the Surface, the world will amaze me.

Maybe we are not constantly in the Sand-Clock. Yet, if we are, then we may be better off, for then we should never feel compeled to Regret it.

dm.A.A.

On the Importance of Little Things, reprised.

A focus upon little things will allow one, as in the instance of a game or a work of fiction, to resolve crises of personality in a relatively consequence-free environment. Therein is the magic of attributing the qualities of Life-Changing Drama to details which, in the imagined lens of "social approval", in the city that rests above the Underworld of the individual's Passions, would appear to the (actually entirely superficial) Audience to be absurdly inconsequential to a pathological degree.

dm.A.A.

On the Problems of Psychology where it does not Recognise Existentialism.

It appears that the great myth of the modern Psychological Practice is that one can "lead a horse to water, but cannot make the horse drink it."

The existentialists would negate. They assert that one cannot "lead a horse to water", because only the horse can determine, for its self, where the water is.

Jung's philosophy of "unprejudiced objectivity" was predicated upon the knowledge that he did not KNOW, at least not consciously, where a patient would or could find water. He was proficient in helping other horses like himself to find their own water (and their own path towards that water), but he seemed rarely to be certain that he stood at one end of a bridge, as it were, and had "exhausted every available resource", hoping that it had not been in vain, so that his patient would simply have the humility to cross.

For all that we know, the patient would be better off falling off the cliff and landing upon another bridge, part of the way down, that the doctor could not have possibly seen.

dm.A.A.

On the Will to Ignorance, Familiarity, and the Temptation to Submerge the Novel.

On the Will to Ignorance, Familiarity, and the Temptation to Submerge the Novel.

I was writing a poem with four stanzas. The last flourish of detail that I embellished the poem with was actually the defining point (literally) of the poem: A period at the end of it.

This, coupled with the period at the end of the first stanza, created an effect so unprecedented in its subtle Awe in my poetry that I felt immediately compelled to shrink away from it. The voice of the Familiar tried to seduce me: I should move the period to the end of the third stanza, where it would fall into the neat pattern of the conventional rhyme scheme: A.B.A.B.

The Familiar appeared, as had the devil to Christ, in the form of three temptations:

1.       That of the Sciencist. (The follower of Scientism).

2.       That of the Empiricist.

3.       That of Common Sense and Practicality.

The Sciencist spoke first. He said that I could only know, for certain, where the period belonged by testing both forms, and then choosing the one that felt best. Yet this stands in contradiction to the Scientific Method. I will use two Scientific studies to prove this thesis.

The first is Carl Jung’s study of the Two Types of Thinking. The second is Daniel Gilbert’s theory of the Two Types of Happiness. I will delineate the latter, having thoroughly all ready depicted the former.

Daniel Gilbert said that human beings, having been proven to do so by studies he had conducted in Harvard, experience two distinct types of happiness that he could identify. The one was what he called Natural Happiness. The other was called Synthesised Happiness.

The former (Natural Happiness) is experienced when one “gets what one wants”. The mentality of seeking to repeat what had been satisfactory hitherto takes places predominantly in the frontal lobe. The frontal lobe, Daniel Gilbert asserts, is capable of projecting an outcome onto the future based upon the experiences of the past that had been identified as good and which had made one ostensibly happy. When individuals seek a desired outcome, they act according to the extrapolations of the past onto the future that the frontal lobe is responsible for. However, there are problems inherent in this. When an individual seeks a desired outcome, he or she limits his or her own capacity for experiencing new phenomena.  For this reason, Daniel Gilbert says that the ability to choose between variables, whilst it is in service of Natural Happiness, is the opponent of Synthesised Happiness.

Synthesised Happiness is what occurs when one does not get what one wants, but one adapts to an unexpected situation. This is no mere alternative or saving grace in the event of failure. It is essential in the process of breaking out of old habits.

Yet there are situations wherein the freedom to choose is constructive. The artist may render a poem or other work in one fashion and then return to it and change it without any ghost of recrimination or frustration. This is because what is at work is not the will towards Natural Happiness but that which is the source of Synthesised Happiness: The Unconscious.

Jung's dichotomy of Directed Thinking and Non-directed thinking becomes important at this point. He attributes Directed Thinking to Consciousness and the ego, and he attributes Non-directed thinking to the Unconscious. One might say that Daniel Gilbert's Natural Happiness is analogous to Directed Thinking, to Consciousness, and to the ego. On the other hand, Non-directed thinking would correlate more accurately to the process of Intuition which is at work in the Synthesis of Happiness.

One is reminded of a quote oft attributed to Albert Einstein: "The intuitive mind is a rare gift. The rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a culture that honors the servant and forgets the gift." A further algebraic parallel could be drawn to the dichotomy of Neville and Malfoy. Neville Longbottom, judging by his name, is the modern personification of the Intuitive hind-brain as it had been understood by the medieval alchemists. He is representative of the Medulla Oblongata. Draco Malfoy, on the opposite hand, is representative of the Rational fore-brain. This is why his surname mmeans "Bad Faith". Neville is obviously analogous to the capacity for Synthesised Happiness. He is clumsy and does not strive for his own end. Yet Malfoy is representative of the very Bad Faith that Daniel Gilbert warns us against. It is also because of the symbolism of Malfoy's character that he is depicted in the films as having a large forehead.

Here I will extend this dichotomy of Rational and Intuitive to the realm of Artistic creation. Where the superior form of my poem (the one that ended with a period) was the product of the Unconscious, of the Intuitive mind, and Non-directed Thinking, I might say that what was in effect was the process of INSPIRATION. On the other hand, when I saw tempted to preserve a style which was more generic or orthodox, what was at work was the ego, the Rational mind, Directed thinking, and therefore what I will define as CONTRIVANCE.

A CONTRIVED emotion is always of an inferior quality to an INSPIRED one. This can be seen simply because both Non-directed thinking and Directed thinking can be experienced at the same moment. This allows, in one singular point in time, for one to make a comparison between the two functions and to discern that the former is inferior to the latter -- what wells up from the Unconscious is always Superior to what is created by the process of MANIPULATION.

In comes the Empiricist. The Sciencist taps out, and the Empiricist takes up the Sciencist's mantle. The Empiricist asserts that, even if I am totally convinced that the Inspired form is collosally, if not astronomically Superior to the Contrived, I must give each an equal audience. If I had settled upon the former and allowed it several days to take root in my psyche and to "sit on my desk", as it were, I should also forsake it for its "brother" and now seek, to the best of my ability and device, to apportion the same degree of time and impartial objectivity to the Contrived form. Only then, when I have approached it with as little bias as possible, could I make the assertion that one is superior or inferior to the other. I may, he also would say, find that the Contrived is the Superior.

Yet again there is a fallacy in this, which is more subtle. One problem is that what the empricist is tempting me towards is egoic inflation. He is, as it were, tempting me to paint the tree red to prove that it is red. Yet I will assert that his greatest fallacy is in presuming that I should find "something better" by this method. I will now coin the term "The Fallacy of the Unprecedented Joy". This fallacy we commit when we make statement "I am happier now than I had ever been before in my entire Life". Although it is a moving pathos, it is fundamentally illogical, and not only illogical but misleading, a probable outcome of our own inflation. The truth is that, no matter how moving a present passion is, one can never fairly say that it is of a superior or inferior quality to one that has all ready run its course. Since passions arise from the Unconscious, they are a product of Non-directed Thinking. This means that they cannot be controlled, cannot be repeated (although we may entertain the illusion that we are in control of them, such as in the temptation of romantic infatuation), and therefore pass the capacity for analysis. Even if another, a second, passion should well up in the process of experimentation, which is what the Empiricist insists upon, and even if the ego were possessed, by virtue of this passion and in response to its seduction, of the illusion that this passion is "greater" than the one that appeared at the conception of the poem and which came to fruition and acceptance with time, this would be a fallacy because there IS NO WAY TO PROVE IT. Since we cannot control the passions that well up from the Unconscious, we have no rightful authority in saying that one is Superior or Inferior to another.

And here enters the voice of Common Sense in its attempts to assuage me. It argues that, if what I had just asserted were true, then I should have no way of knowing that the second passion is INFERIOR to the first, and there rests no reason for me not to test it. Yet the reason that I would not perform the Empiricist's experiment would be that I would, from the moment I consented to that temptation, be guilty to affirming a value which was Old and effacing a value that was New. There may very well BE a moving passion to do this, and with it would come inflation, yet I would be sacrificing the capacity to love this Inspired form of the poem (the one that ends with a period). What I KNOW is not that this Inspiration is SUPERIOR to any form of Inspiration that might ensue, but that it is NOVEL. Though my opponent may argue that to resist the temptation to experiment is to resist the novel and that of finding something new, what I argue is that even if what I were to find WERE new, I should have no way of knowing that it is better or worse than the prior experience, and yet I have every reason to suspect that it would not be new at all but would merely APPEAR new by virtue of egoic inflation.

dm.A.A.

On the Problem of Excessive Self-Doubt.

On the Problem of Excessive Self-Doubt.

 

The popular conception of Humility seems to depend on the presumption that one “knows that one does not know.” Yet this may be a fallacy. The presence of a Second Subject means that it is impossible to “know that one does not know” because that presupposes that the Unconscious does not Know.

 

In many cases, the tendency to second-guess one’s self may be a subtle method by which one perpetuates an Inferiority/Superiority Complex. It has long been known in Jungian psychology that the two are the same: The Inferiority Complex and the Superiority complex. I will now delineate why this is so.

 

To Question Oneself depends upon the existence of two fictional characters: The Questioner and the Questioned. When one “questions one’s self”, one acts out both roles on the stage of one’s mind, and this play takes place largely in words (i.e. Directed Thinking).

 

In the presence of the two characters, a Knower is entirely effaced from consideration. Neither the Questioner nor the Questioned, definitionally, KNOWS. The Questioned cannot know. The moment that he doubts, he or she renounces Knowledge. The Questioner does not know, and for that reason he or she places the burden of proof upon the Questioned.

 

The Questioned and the Questioner depend upon one another for their supposed existence. They also depend upon the absence of Knowledge; the moment that Knowledge appears, both disappear entirely.

 

The Questioner embodies the Superiority Complex; The Questioned embodies the Inferiority Complex. This is why the two conditions (that of Superiority and Inferiority) arise mutually.

 

For this reason, it appears absurd to develop a philosophy of sheep wherein one constantly doubts oneself. It would be more practical, sensible, and appropriate to one’s well-being to forego self-doubt, in many cases, and to persist in the enacting of a working hypothesis until the method has run its course and a new one has taken its place. One should not be reprimanded for one’s self-c onfidence in this regard.

 

The origin of the Questioner-Questioned relationship arguably originated in Christian Society. The original conception was probably between God and Soul. God was the Questioner, yet he never revealed His knowledge, always putting the burden of proof on the Questioned. It was also conceivable that He gave the Questioned Free Will, allowing for God to be Ignorant of certain things of which the Questioned was aware because those things fell outside of His jurisdiction. The Soul of the individual was always the Questioned, because he did not Know God’s Plan, yet he had to answer for himself.

 

This illusion was perpetuated in pre-critical Christian Society through the relationship between members of the community. Christians, not one of them Knowing God’s Plan and largely claiming not to, had to make the chief topic of conversation in almost every discussion that of What God Wanted them to do. They developed a habit of formalizing the past, of analyzing memories, and of asking ONE ANOTHER for insight, rather than themselves. When one asks another for approval, corroboration, or insight, one enters into the negotiating position of the Questioned, and the other becomes the Questioner, passing judgement.

 

Dm.A.A.

On the Importance of Focus and Why the Contemporary Man Lacks it.

 On the Importance of Focus and Why the Contemporary Man Lacks it.

 

When Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa, it is unlikely that he was contemplating politics at the same time. Even if his genius were so that he could be involved in the artistic process whilst multitasking and doing all sorts of mental gymnastics, it is probable that he would have preferred to just focus on his Art.

 

The student of poetry knows the breathtaking impact of a few uninterchangeable words. The composer never underestimates or marginalizes the importance of the right notes, even if they appear as a mere flourish on the staff. The monk loves the subtle balance of stones. A child recognizes the subtle grooves in wood.

 

Yet our modern attitude towards detail has become perverted. Details are treated as necessary evils, and they are almost entirely abstractions, most of which only refer to other abstractions in a post-modern fashion. Practicality has taken precedence over the Person. The Individual ceases to exist where minute distinctions disappear. It is these that cease to appear Real to most Others that the individual encounters. For this reason, we RELATE, but we do not CONVERSE. CONVERSATION is that act of two uniVERSEs CONvening. One rarely impresses upon another something NOVEL, because of the incredible unlikelihood that this stranger would even notice it when it makes its appearance. It has become too easy to marginalise Revelation because we are so fixated upon that kind of thought which we feel we can simply “return to later”.

 

Consider the mind of a da Vinci. The consciousness, in the act of painting, must be intensely focused on the subtle strokes of the brush that draw hairs from the aether. The great fallacy of the conventional contemporary person, however, is that he or she identifies his or herself entirely with his or her consciousness. It is rarely thought that what really MATTERS, if anything does, lies beneath the threshold of awareness entirely.

 

In a world of perpetual distractions and diversions, symbols occupy more attention than FACTS, as facts are understood to be ineffable experiences of consciousness. When we have the pretense that things like the Stock Market, the News, and the Future are more important than the subtle grooves in a tree or the proper word in a poem, we commit a hideous fallacy. We forget that these “things” are mere “thoughts”. The thought of a word is not as important as the use of this thought in the production of a poem. Yet when we allow a number of these abstractions to become inflated, we begin to behave in such a way that we attribute meaning to them, AS THOUGH THEY WERE THE OBJECTS OF IMPORTANCE. Obviously, if we were to treat human beings as though they were the abstractions that we used to describe them, we should be entirely divorced from Reality. The abstractions may be of use to us, but the maps are not the territories. In this way, the consciousness of the conventional contemporary person is almost constantly crowded with useless abstractions to which he or she reacts with obsession. The perceived necessity of REACTING to these symbols, either in the act of thinking about them or speaking about them, takes precedence over the possibility of FOCUS. This is because the ego is excessively identified with the “well-rounded” consideration of “Important Matters”, as opposed to having the humility to dispossess itself of the illusion of an “Important Thing” or thought and to acknowledge its rightful role as the focus of attention on minute details. This essential Focus may bring us to a true understanding of what is IMPORTANT and what our condition is, but not by virtue of the illusory authority of the ego but by that of the Creative Unconscious.

 

Dm.A.A.