DISTILLING THE TIMES

DISTILLING THE TIMES

The artists of a century ago were in touch with the times in a way that eludes us today. They saw what was happening – war, excess, industrialization, mechanization, mass-migrations, urbanization – and instinctively knew it was time to bring everything down to basics – simple lines, curves, and mental spaces; to “distill” in a sense in order to understand the fundamental driving forces guiding us. It was the only way to see if they/we were heading toward blind self-destruction.

The geniuses of that era earned their reputation for a rare kind of clarity. Most notable was Picasso and his roommate, Georges Braque. In 1907 they turned not only the art world upside-down but the new science of human relations – psychology. Picasso said, “I saw that everything had been done. One had to break to make one’s revolution and start at zero. I made myself go towards the new movement.”

First, he knew that “everything had been done.” Second, he saw that as the perfect chemistry with which to “reset” everything and, as author Roger Lipsey put it, “measure our distance from ourselves by our distance from it.” This was about toying with concepts and structures not borrowed from sight but from insight. Interior realities that begged for their own geometric formulas. It included “the accident” to which later artists (like the Abstract Expressionist Jackson Pollock) would announce ”there is no such thing.”

It seems to me that human existence today is so convoluted that it doesn’t even know it. We think that everything is perfectly clear, straightforward, and on some levels even simple. Or, we delude ourselves on purpose because facing the truth is simply too awful to consider. Denial is a popular and convenient elixir. Even so-called “liberal” communities sport ideas couched in extremely limited, tightly woven, ideas and beliefs. There are “givens” (absolutes) that simply cannot be questioned lest everything would fall apart. We also treat complexities with simplistic solutions, as opposed to simple (rational) solutions, which are mere band-aids on monstrous wounds. Nature is the biggest victim of this, above all else.

We often use inductive reasoning while thinking we’re using deduction for answers. In other words, we approach problems piecemeal to ascertain an understanding of whole systems (deduction), but too often jump the gun prematurely to formulate absolutes (induction). Which then betrays whole paradigms. There is some merit to thinking about wholes inductively IF we agree not to formulate conclusions about them. Alas, it’s too tempting to do just that. The effect is akin to, for example, allopathic versus homeopathic medicine (one treats body parts, the other whole organisms/systems. This is finally turning around, but we still make assumptions too quickly. We “fix” things (hoping they won’t break again) instead of stepping back and listening to whole organisms – like the earth herself.

The consequence is that problems only mount and exacerbate. Then we have imbalances on top of imbalances (when an organ is surgically removed from the body, natural balance will never be established again). The urgencies of this bring about panic and just more quick fixes. We are perpetually behind the curve on every crisis – whether it be about humans dealing with humans, or humans dealing with nature. As for the former, depression, suicides, violence, incarcerations (recidivism), poor health, and lowering lifespans are the indicators. For the latter, everything in nature is simply dying. We’re delaying it, that’s all.

The biggest lie we’re beginning to tell ourselves is that, given the facts, just maybe we can be innovative enough to trick nature into working for us – by diverting water systems, planting crops where they don’t belong, using “organic” chemicals, forcing endangered species to hurriedly procreate, introducing artificial methods to reduce carbon emissions, pretending that yoga, behavioral modification techniques, and drugs will stop road rage, etc. (road rage is a microcosm of society-at-large).

Yes, we can argue that we must “start somewhere” and it’s “the best we can do.” But that doesn’t make our decisions the correct ones. In other words, it’s a “no win” dilemma. The only way around it is by resetting our general understanding of who we are in relation to each other and to nature. It calls for a Picasso-like archetype (from within or from without) to distill reality.

Nothing is closer to nature than abstract art. The problems we have with that assertion only measures the depths to which we misunderstand everything. The popular efforts to avoid abstraction at every level – to even call abstraction a symptom, something to avoid for mental/spiritual “clarity” – shows a direction we’re going.

Cubism was the first great aesthetic “deconstruction” of the twentieth century, the prototype of others to follow. Braque said, “I want to expose the Absolute.” But this did not refer to any “Absolute” as we choose to understand it. This is where religion (and spirituality) falls off the rails. In fact, there is no Absolute which can be measured (or attained). There is only the “noumenal” as Immanuel Kant called it. – Listen again to Cubist “geometry.”

Cubism is about handling space & time. It doesn’t mirror nature. It only engages in an exploration of human perception. It examines how we assemble details into whole patterns. It says we must be ready to ask what anything really means while not expecting answers – as long as they’re derived at through the senses or intellect (the usual channels). Cubism chooses the image because images (like words) are just vehicles of consciousness. They allow us to examine visually. — Where did the image come from? A feeling, a sense, an instinct which preceded a thought or an idea? It bypasses filters. It’s a convergence of consciousness with archetypes.

There’s a deliberate ambiguity built into Cubism. It’s about getting lost and found again through labyrinths and planes of irrationality in relation to paradigms (wholes) which must again instantly evaporate. Everything is temporary. There are always parts, but never wholes. We can only imagine them (but then they’re not wholes anymore). Hence the mistake of using parts to find greater meanings and the even greater transgression of doing the opposite (inductively). Quoting Lipsey, “The geometries of Cubism… play with disorder and do not aspire to regularity or lucidity…. Cubism skewed the ancient norm of the whole and its tributary parts.”

And so, what does this imply as we superimpose this “deconstructionist” mindset onto the world today? It re-calibrates everything and puts us in a position of “measuring our distance from ourselves.” The conundrum of knowing evaporates along with the effort to know. “One cannot know the self which tries to know.”

Without waxing so far into the depths of meditation, Cubism stops short of that to simply remind us of the “sacred geometries” in nature — to which we belong (as mere angles, curves, circles and squares). What falls to the wayside then are all the impertinences s of meaning, purpose, ambition, and desire which only alienate us.

And here’s the paradox: Abstraction is an alienation from alienation. It is clarity through (presumed) clarity. It reminds us that the problem is not “out there” but in our presumed meanings. This alone sets religion on its ear.

Cubism was dangerous. It angered everyone, and Picasso and Braque were pariahs in the European art community for years after Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907), Ma Jolie (1911-12), and Chateau at La Rouche–Guyon (1909). But it reset the collective consciousness and made society extremely self-conscious. The world has been “self-conscious” ever since, not ever sure of itself. But the difference between then and now is that “they” faced it head-on (hence the trajectory into modern and postmodern art) at a time when the fin de siecle didn’t know what was going on. Today we don’t know what’s going on either, but we choose to flounder instead and look for ways to “trick” ourselves out of it. We pursue evasion and escape.

In such times it “becomes time” to rein in ourselves (all the extensions of ourselves) and begin listening to the subtlest sounds and images which have rendered meaning to us. They are the filters of who we are. From that would come a renewed sense of where we are, where we’re going, and where we need to go, both technologically and existentially. Both converge in the end, because in the end there is only the beginning again.

In retrospect, I have to say that this has been a theme so done over, so thoroughly wrung out, that I wonder why it keeps returning. I’ve been reconnoitering the subject one way or another more times than I can count. But no matter. It must be important. The fact is, there is nothing else. It’s as if the world is just a speedbump in between eternities.

And what of this speedbump of space & time? Recall that Cubism was about surveying the dimensions (angles) of space & time while entertaining deliberate ambiguities and never expecting answers. With that we end with Huxley:

“Time destroys all that it creates, and the end of every temporal sequence is… some form of death. Death is wholly transcended only when time is transcended; immortality is for the consciousness that has broken through the temporal into the timeless.” – Eureka, this was Braque’s “Absolute” and Kant’s “noumenon.”

© 2022 Richard Hiatt

ATTRACTIONS

ATTRACTIONS

There’s something tragically seductive about a woman who is not endowed with physical beauty. There’s always something intangible, inexplicable, elusive, intensely guarded, yet drawing about someone for whom physical beauty is not an initial identifier. From my point of view, it remains inaccessible for two reasons: one, because men find those traits basically uninteresting; and two, it’s all they have with which to protect themselves – concerning their self-esteem. It’s an extremely sensitive zone.

It brings on an interesting phenomenon. Contrary to popular opinion, in my experience anyway, it is this less attractive woman who will turn down a man’s romantic overtures more than an obviously attractive woman. Why is this? The more attractive woman is typically less inhibited (with men) and is generally less afraid of rejection, as a rule. Physical beauty also unfortunately brings with it the “expectation” of risking more. She presumably has less to protect and is thus less inhibited about saying “yes” to the overture. She knows that she’s in control of the dating experience and will “call the shots” – which also means she can say “no” if/when she desires.

The less attractive woman hasn’t those luxuries, and dating endangers what self-esteem she has. She is more vulnerable and exposed. She will therefore train herself to respond with a “no” more promptly. She’s much more on guard, even when not showing it.

The less attractive woman will therefore also ponder the question (of dating) more deeply and with more concentration. She has more at stake. And whether she says yes or no, the reasons will be thought out and deep, even if those reasons are not shared. In fact, again in my experience, they are kept secret unless addressed directly.

Another reason why this woman is more seductive and interesting actually has nothing to do with her at all. It has everything to do with her date’s own insecurities. Most unattractive men protect the very same invisible traits which form his own small carriage of self-esteem. This is why “attractive” woman are eliminated and why dating itself becomes a quest to share things not generally shared with attractive women. In other words, a wounded man will gravitate to a wounded woman, for better or worse. One easily recognizes the other. The stakes are high, and though rejection of one by the other is devastating, the rewards of mutual recognition are proportionately high.

There’s an old saying in psychotherapy that if you plant two equally needy (codependent) strangers in a room with a hundred others, they will find each other – through body-language, words, topics, eye contact, with whom they choose to chat, etc. We are all constantly (albeit unconsciously) seeking out those with whom we can share our deepest secrets – not that we always do.

The first date is uniquely different from a date shared between two “attractive” people. The shear substance of conversation is different. They are not preoccupied with facades, mystery, and physical seduction. They get down to “questions” – ideas, beliefs, fears, experiences, and ambitions. Important details which will either support and validate, or not. On the surface, conversation may appear topical, trivial, digressive, and banterish. But it’s a serious pursuit for answers.

There’s tremendous forbearance and abstention with the sexual impulse and a desire to share everything all at once. There’s too much at stake in terms of what each can lose, since self-esteem is already teetering on a precipice. But those walls slowly crumble as each question and answer gets exchanged. – A “three-way” dialectic is going on: between self, other, and a middle-ground phenomenon called the “relationship” (thesis, antithesis, synthesis). This third piece is handled with kid-gloves.

By the way, all this came up in my mind as I was reading about, of all people, Eleanor Roosevelt. An incredible woman, putting it mildly. She was described by all who knew her as a “nervous glissade of giggles,” an “ugly little thing, keenly conscious of her deficiencies.” She had no intellectual stimulus early on and suffered from what she thought was an “ungainly appearance.” She was socially liked but presented the appearance of a chambermaid or kitchenhand. As Franklin himself put it, “You know, the sort of person you wouldn’t ask to dinner, but afterward.” When married she was nicknamed “Granny,” and the marriage itself was called a “fine comedy.” She knew she was a “good catch” for a politician only because she was also a politician’s niece. She was politically expedient.

Eleanor did not like sex (consciously), though Franklin did (before his polio and after). While going to a voice-coach to lower her high-pitched sounds (which tended to get out of control), Franklin was having his affair with the young Lucy Mercer, his secretary. The whole of Washington knew about it except Eleanor herself (again, at least consciously), who only learned about it through in-house gossip and when handling his mail. Yet she still kept an equipoise befitting a politician’s wife. She buried herself in her work. Also, only to further fuel her “ugly duckling” appearance and crippling self-esteem, she would stay up all night long, sitting on a stoop, waiting for Franklin to come home. It must have been humiliating.

To the chagrin of the paparazzi and political right-wing, each thirsty for scandal, she herself never had an affair with anyone. Ergo, their need to fabricate one. They dreamt up a lesbian relationship with someone she knew while traveling. It wasn’t true of course, but even that must have laid heavy on her already low self-image.

Franklin was often cold and cruel towards her. He hurt her privately and at the dinner table with guests. Several times she said “I fled from the table in tears.” One can just imagine the kind of turmoil that rang through her mind year-after-year, hearing messages of shame and disgust which she got so used to that she expected it. At the same time however, she did the only thing someone in her position could have done: She kept a “room of her own” (in the Virginia Woolf sense) which was inviolable, sacred, and intensely private. In that mental space grew a clarity, wisdom, and integrity that took seed.

At the age of fourteen she wrote about how “different” people, even intelligent ones, “are nearly always despised and laughed at by lesser souls who could not do as well….” She perfected her French, learned Italian and German, and decided to learn.

There is a very credible theory that when Franklin contracted polio she decided to come “into her own.” That is, she no long had to face his infidelities. So she focused her time and got down to work. She joined committees, had her own radio show, wrote syndicated columns, and gave press conferences. She cared deeply about the poor and disadvantaged — what the political “right” of course called “socialism.” It’s said that she never had a personal life after Franklin’s polio, always on the go, even in widowhood. In my view she was a prototype of the personage that became Lady Diana.

In her later years, if Eleanor didn’t like what she was hearing, instead of confronting the person openly, she would remove her glasses containing a hearing aid, and just pleasantly nod. Lady Diana was the same way though without the hearing aid and glasses. It shows that not all “physically (stunningly) beautiful” women are different from those like Eleanor. They face the same inhibitions, shame, angst, and “no-win” double-standards in marriage. They too are cheated on, mocked, and taken for granted. Diana’s first love (like Eleanor’s) was helping the underprivileged and sick which went against the grain of royal status and pedigree. She didn’t care.

Such a woman as Eleanor had to be so incredibly complex, yet filled with a wisdom that distilled everything down to simple truths. The incredible burning of shame and regret finally morphed into a baptism of fire, which became a kind of Damascus moment. She saw her circumstances and ran with them, rose above them. – Dignity is defined as a “state of worthiness,” while integrity is defined as “soundness” and “incorruptibility.” It’s more than clear that the lion’s share of both weighed heavily in Eleanor’s (and Diane’s) favor. And this made both tragically seductive – and beautiful.

On another level entirely, Eleanor is the poster child of goddess-energy fallen into the abyss. She’s the archetype of feminine power availing itself through the narrow channels of male dominion and stiflingly (male) standards of beauty. Aside from her humanitarian and political achievements, this was what she was really about.

It brings up another point. In her earliest years Eleanor was just as alive and vibrant as any other child. She was just as physically endowed and beautiful. All children are this way – starting on a level playing field, as it were. What fascinates me about this is just how beauty is then either nurtured or completely crushed. Given the right nurturing at the right time, the otherwise “ugly duckling” blossoms into something uniquely alluring, with or without men. They shine with self-approval. It can’t be held back. She metamorphoses, a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.

Reversely, the “perfect” child receiving negative messages about her “deficiencies,” becomes exactly what she’s told she is. Something vital wilts and dies inside. It suffocates. It’s actually like a public execution (recall Eleanor running from the dinner table). – With this I have in mind Marilyn Monroe. Her natural beauty would have never happened. While every indication of plainness and unsightliness would have surfaced instead, becoming “who she was.” As Norma Jean, she would have become exactly what had collected in her room of self-knowing.

Granted, this is a phenomenon that applies both to men and women. But a flower is more vulnerable than a tree. A tree has stronger roots (and lives among other trees). The flower is exposed and weak. Every woman has a “room of her own” but needs validation from something “outer” in order to come out of it – I would say more than men do. She needs hearing that she is in fact “okay” just as she is. The flower thirsts for water. It seeks shelter before it can face the sun.

There’s an immediate response to validation that fills her up, because it’s what she needs more than anything. – This is where “I” come into the picture: As a man willing to deliver that message, it may sound surprising that I choose not to go too far, too fast, lest I stumble over myself. The tree also crashes down under the right conditions. The kind of woman I find most alluring is more likely to say “no,” and the fear of rejection goes both ways. We can only take so much rejection. I rationalize to myself that I can handle rejection – we all do at first. But I’m lying to myself. Inwardly it’s crushing and I’m terrified. Eventually, I can’t lie about it anymore.

So, we both play this very delicate pas de deux, as improvised, impromptu, and subtle as it is, men and women both. Sometimes a dance is all that’s needed. A simple look, a pheromonic sharing, a remark about her hair, her eyes, her wardrobe, her intelligence. And already, knowing it or not, the tree gives shade to the flower, and the flower blooms.

© 2022 Richard Hiatt

CATMAN-DU

CATMAN-DU

The feline species seems to have a hold on me. I can’t shake the form or the scent. I live with five cats and a sixth “feral-outside” cousin. That aside, the subject of cats follows me everywhere, as if I was carrying catnip and fresh fish in my pocket. The fragrance must permeate the literary ethers as much as the air in my house.

Case in point: First it was my writing about Picasso which led me to Montmartre, which lead me to the cabaret Le Chat Noir (“The Black Cat”), which also lead me to the famous poster by Rodolphe Salis, Tournee du Chat Noir – which still decorates my wall.

Now comes the unlikely connection to a romance between Walter Benjamin and a thirty-two-year-old “revolutionary” from Germany, who was “one of the most brilliant women I have ever met.” Her name was Asja Lacis. He met her in a cafe in Capri. She was a member of the Russian avant-garde scene, an actress and director. Benjamin was transformed, but not because they saw eye-to-eye on things. It was more like a mutual initiation into foreign territory, as Lacis’ views on theory, art and politics were precisely opposite his.

From Capri they made their way to Naples which had a hypnotic effect on both of them. But where Lacis saw revolutionary potential in the streets and in the faces of people, Benjamin saw symbolism and mystery plays. She was visceral; he was contained and cerebral. But each saw the world through the other’s eyes. The result was the writing of Naples which was a portrait of the city written jointly. Together they introduced a neologistic meaning to the term porosity which attempted to reveal the nature of the city They wrote about caves and grottoes.

Faint light and thin music rise up from there in the evening… As porous as those stones is the architecture. Buildings and action merge in courtyards, arcades, and staircases. The space is preserved to act as a stage for new and unforeseen configurations. What is avoided is the definitive, the fully formed. No situation appears as it is, intended forever, no form asserts itself its ‘thus and not otherwise’ … Because nothing is finished and concluded. Porosity results not only from the indolence of the southern craftsman but above all from the passion for improvisation. For that space and opportunity must be preserved at all costs. Buildings are used as a popular stage. They are divided into innumerable theaters, animated simultaneously. All share innumerable stages, brought to life simultaneously. Balcony, forecourt, window, gateway, staircase, roof are at once stage and theater box. Even the most miserable wretch is sovereign in his dim, twofold awareness of contributing, however deprived he may be, to one of the images of the Neapolitan street that will never return and, in his poverty, the leisure of enjoying the grand panorama. What is played out on the stairs is the highest school in theatrical direction. The stairs, never entirely revealed, but closed off in the dull northern house-box, protrude in places from the houses, make an angular turn, and disappear before reemerging.

And to bring the point home: What animated this portrayal of the urban scene was the ambiance which drew Benjamin to Lacis in the first place, in 1924. It was the Zum Kter Hiddigeigei, or the Tomcat Hiddigeigei Cafe (in German pronounced “hidegygy”) in Capri – who’s name came from a late 19^th century German author and poet, Joseph Victor von Scheffel – who happened to write about a “tomcat” by that name. The poem goes like this (first stanza):

When through valley o’er mountain

Howls the storm at dead of night,

Clambering over roof and chimney,

Hiddigergei seeks the height.

Spectre-like aloft he stands there,

Fairer than he ever seems;

From his eyes the fire-flame sparkles,

From his bristling hair it streams.

And he lifts his voice, and wildly

Sings an old cat-battle song,

That, like far-off thunder rolling,

Sweeps the storm-vexed night along.

Never a child of man can hear it –

Each sleeps heedless in his house;

But, deep down in darkest cellar,

Hears, and paling, quakes the mouse.

Well she knows the greybeard’s war-cry,

Knows the cry she trembles at,

Feels how fearful in his fury

Is the grand old hero-cat.

The tomcat was Scheffel’s alter ego. It was the voice of contention, political satire, profiling, and dark humor aimed at everything and everyone in the political and social spheres. He was loved and hated. His poems won fanfare in some circles, in others not. The cartoon depiction of the chosen feline is all-black (least favorite when it comes to adoptions), roughen and “alley-like.” – Not unlike my feral friend who adopted me not long ago.

So, once again, we come full circle with the subject of cats. I’m inundated with them, literally and figuratively. They seem to be converging on my very nature. Dogs are “out” for the moment. I don’t know why. I “love” dogs, have always had one (or several). But dogs have mysteriously not shown up, either for adoption or at my door, as have cats. It seems clear that the cosmic forces in charge of bringing human and animal together have a specific plan in mind. Not unlike how Benjamin and Lacis had no choice but to “absorb” each other’s souls when and where they did.

A favorite old song (and amazing album cover) comes to mind — Al Stewart’s (1976 classic) Year of the Cat. My home deserves an official anthem to which such a masterpiece has waited to avail itself. It’s wonderfully mysterious how things meet up in the end, not to mention people and animals.

© 2022 Richard Hiatt

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MARGINALIA

MARGINALIA

A term to which I immediately gravitate. There are some words that reach deeply and latch onto a hidden fact about ourselves. This one qualifies. It’s a noun, a verb, an adjective, and a metaphor for a particular genetic predisposition that singles me out.

The term itself goes back 300 years and splits in two directions. The first simply refers to something which is not of central importance. It also means occupying a kind of “borderland” and/or existing “outside the mainstream” of a society, group, or school of thought. It may also refer to a limitation of what is accepted, qualified, or of something’s functionality – barely exceeding minimum requirements. – My life could easily be summed up in just those definitions. The first two meanings I can relate to with a patina of pride. The third meaning however bring back painful memories, of barely making the grade.

The second direction marginalia takes is economic. It warns against people making broad, categorical “all or nothing” decisions instead of seeing things in contexts. For example, one could broadly ask why diamonds are worth more than water, since water costs nothing to make and it just happens to be essential to human life. A marginalist would say the question is absurd, and one needs to see them in their own “margins.” Things “made” need to be measured in terms of cost and labor; natural things do not. The experts on this of course are Smith, Ricardo, and Marx. We need not go any further in this direction.

What fascinates me are people like John Adams who was, once could say, America’s first famous marginalist. To pick up a book in his library of 2,800 books, you’ll find chicken-scratched notations so thick that many said there was more writing in the margins than were words in the book. The point was that Adams argued with everyone. He personalized everything, laid it out, examined it, wore it deeply in his mind, and returned with his own gutsy responses. He let nothing off the hook. It’s what made him a good lawyer.

There’s a point at which things reverse. The recorded margins in life become the body of one’s life, and what was the formal entry of his life loses its brio and leaves center-stage. A new generation of ideas attacks from the periphery of consciousness and works its way inward, replacing word-with-word, then sentence-with-sentence, then paragraph-with-paragraph. At first it makes no noticeable overture, just occasional observations. But observations turn into remarks. They begin making comments directly to the author. Then before you know it, they’re addressing the author head-on like a steamroller. The author cannot talk back and defend himself. He’s at the mercy of the margin. Eventually, the margin bleed into the center and become the text. The text becomes the margin.

Put another way, the margin and corpus perform their own cycles of life and death. The margin almost doesn’t have to do anything to gain momentum. Neither does the body. The body simply gets old. While the margin “doodles” and preoccupies itself with extreme nonsense. Eventually the nonsense morphs into its own logic, a Rorschach impression of what it’s reading. We read, and we doodle descriptive pictograms which are unconscious responses to the words. The doodle then becomes a word, a phrase, and then a sentence. The sentence attaches itself to other sentences. Then a “statement” surfaces with its own energy and momentum. And again, the margin becomes its own book. The book becomes jealous. It tries to bring the reader back itself. But it’s futile. His time is up. It’s time to step aside.

Tomorrow’s book is yesterday’s marginalia. Fresh and full of itself, it blazes its own trail with clarity and insight. In the beginning, when the book is new, there’s no room for marginal notations. The empty borders are simply there to listen and support, like loyal children. They are a tabla rasa that hold together the sentences they contain. They are the walls of an important space filled with fresh information. The old saying is: “What are four walls? They are what they contain.”

And thus the endless generations of books growing centripetally, from the outside-in. And each generation is interconnected like links to a chain. But something else is happening as well. The chain has no beginning and no end. It is linked front-to-back, back-to-front. What that means is that the wisdom found going forward is rediscovered in the most ancient texts, and our teachers become the first teachers that wrote the first books.

Therein lies the hope of the dedicated marginalist. The knowing that his doodles will find themselves in the same scratchings laid down by those long ago. Circles are circles, French curves are French curves. And that their meaning will eventually point to the same insights that survive through the generations. In the end, as one steps back from the stacks of books written over time, it all becomes one book. And as John Dunne wrote:

All mankind is one volume. When one man dies, one chapter is torn out of the book and translated into a better language. And every chapter must be so translated. God employs several translators. Some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice. But God’s hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to another.

Books are the easy metaphor. There are others as well to describe the marginalist’s life and lifestyle. Just stand to the margins of anything parading by, watch it pass, take notes, and you’re a club-member. What separates some from others is simply how much time one spends there, and how seriously he identifies with what he scribbles. I, for one, had no choice but to write things down in my own words. Life as dictated has made little sense otherwise. I must be “slow on the uptake” in many cases, because too many times the words (as written) have never match the deeds, and visa versa. I have to step aside and translate events to myself. Only then do they made sense – often not without some dark humor in a footnote. When the humor goes, we die.

Hence, my love for used books. To open to a page that’s been visited previously by someone else, then scribbled in, tells me I’ve found a lost relative. I confess to feeling like an interloper at first, being in someone’s personal space that maybe was a private moment. Initially it’s uncomfortable. But then I read the margin and find myself marginalizing his margin. I comment on the comment. I read what he read and talk to him directly. I follow the arrows, astericks, French curves, and abbreviated words on the left, right, above and below. I circle the page just as he did once upon a time. It’s like following a map that commits me to the page and tells me I’ve signed in to a fraternal order. Someday another kindred soul will find my own signature markings, will agree or disagree, add and subtract. The page is a palimpsest of time and learning.

But long before that ever happens, there are my own margins in my own books acquired years ago. These are the most difficult to read because they expose myself to myself – as I once was. It’s most always embarrassing, and my first impulse is to cross them out or to change them – hoping no one has read them. Sometimes I don’t even know what I was saying. It’s like reading the words of a stranger. Which simply shows how much we change.

I often look at myself and I think of Borges library. Stacks upon stacks of read (and unread) material to myself. Written by myself but also by countless others. The stacks go as far back as time itself, stretching higher than any ladder can reach. Then I step back and wonder if the whole library is in the margins of a page belonging to another library found in “one volume… a chapter… translated into a better language.”

Meanwhile, all I can do is keep writing in the margins. It’s where everything is.

© 2022 Richard Hiatt

WHEN SERPENT TAILS MEET

WHEN SERPENT TAILS MEET

When I watch all the new technology being sent up into space and the (soon to be launched) unmanned trip back to the moon (“a steppingstone to Mars”) – in addition to the new powerful telescopes planted in space able to see as far back in time as 380,000 after the Big Bang – I don’t look “up there” as so many do. I look “in here.” And I look “in here” even more when I hear “finally” that there was indeed “something” before the Big Bang. Nothing could ever come from nothing, except nothing.

What does looking “in here” mean? The pivotal point that takes us before the Big Bang is (to me) the same monumental moment that happened in Davos, Switzerland, in 1929 – a place ironically known for, of all things, its sanatorium. It was a colloquium that brought scholars together to discuss (what was called) the “crisis of the age.” It was the debate that basically separated an old way of thinking from a new 20^th century approach to existential philosophy. The two dominant contenders who arrived to debate the subject shared high praise for another 18^th century philosopher on whose principles the conversation was based. They disagreed profusely and were as different as night and day in temperament and personalities. But what was most shocking of all was the outcome.

Enter Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger – and their mutual 18th century hero, Immanuel Kant. Kant bridged the two theories of rationalism and empiricism when it came to the problem, “What it means to be human?” The rationalists said the answers were found in deduction and reason. The empiricists said the answer lies in sensory experience. Kant came along and said pure reason has its place, but it only understands objects “out there.” True knowledge and intuition cannot be reached by reason alone. In the end, he said that knowledge does yield to facts constructed by reason. But real knowledge is a different thing altogether.

What that meant for Kant was that certain kinds of knowledge were attainable, others not. Not all knowledge is objective, relative, or even subjective. Ethical and scientific knowledge is attainable, but in the deepest regions of Being it is not. Three times five may equal fifteen, and triangles may exist, but not in nature. Such relational truths offer no substantive knowledge whether coming from reason or sensory awareness.

Heidegger was on the same plane as Wittgenstein who said that philosophy has nothing to do with grasping the meaning of anything. All Wittgenstein ended up with was a feeling: “[T]he problems of life have still not been touched at all. Of course there is then no question left, and … this is the answer.” From that revelation he gave up philosophy altogether and became a public school teacher.

Cassirer and Heidegger both drew from Kant’s propositions, and both agreed, but also disagreed. Cassirer was a French Jew, and many thought he would be the “progressive” side of the argument. Heidegger by contrast was a German anti-Semite who drew to the idea of power/dominion being the final arbiter of these issues (might makes right). Being right or wrong was irrelevant.

From that distinction alone, one would assume that the progressive (20^th century) side to the argument would be taken up by Cassirer, the old-school side (empirical science) taken up by Heidegger. But the reverse is what happened. Cassirer went with the old school of reason’s ability to transcend itself, see beyond itself. Science was the modern way into the future. It’s job was to shape the world by form projected through the mind “in an orderly manner.”

In protest, Heidegger said that man was the “lieutenant of nothing.” “Finitude” was our most lasting attribute. “We are so finite that we cannot even bring ourselves originally before the nothing through our own decision….” He said the ground of “nothingness” is beyond the reach of reason because reason cannot even fathom “nothing.” – This was not a nihilistic position.

Heidegger said that Kant saw into the abyss far enough to see beyond our finiteness. The imagination (what he called the “third faculty”) sat between sensibility and reason. It bridged both and transcended both. This view was not instantly received in the early 20^th century. It took some years to win favor. But it became a new launching-point of “what it means to be human.”

Heidegger went lots further too. He said human beings are the only living things that ask these questions — of I and Thou, of otherness. Everything exists as it is only because we ask. Everything is questionable. But then that implies that there’s also a reality a priori of the questions asked, before they dissect and carve it into preconceived models. We might say before the Big Bang.

What transpired was called “the most famous debate on the modern era.” It demarcated the line between the belief in the human ability to expand and transcend, and the other – that to transcend means surrendering those pieces of “mind” that are trying – dying into unknown spaces a priori to the questions. It means leaving behind our models. The second view also sees the mind/ego as the “cause” of what stops us from what we’re striving for in the first place. In the 20^th century it opened up a whole new exploration into the linkage between science and existential psychology (spirituality).

From there it really became (in my view) a matter of semantics. Indeed, if “being human” also means going beyond our humanity (our normal identifiers of corporeality, tangibility, empirical observation), then the tails of both arguments meet in the end. Where do we die in order to be renewed? Where does spirituality leave off and science begin, and visa versa?

The newest debates are the oldest. And I see this even bleeding into Raphael’s School of Athens – Plato pointing up the the cosmos, Aristotle pointing downward, and all those favoring Plato’s views standing to his right, all those for Aristotle to his left. While those in front, sitting down, like Diogenes (crazy philosopher-stuntman, voluntary beggar like Wittgenstein) seems to be wondering that these two thinkers are reaching for the same thing.

Another example of two things becoming the same thing is the argument between free will and predestination – something over which religions actually (unbelievably) fought wars over. When in fact a Diogenes would say that both are true. In fact one doesn’t exist without the other. If I pick up a pencil I can say that was “free will.” But it was also (arguably) predetermined. Why” Because I picked it up!! And now we venture into a foolish logic. As Christopher Hitchens said (jokingly): “We definitely have free will, because we have no choice about it.”

Interestingly, Kant just happened to address free will as well in his own way. Regardless if experience is derived rationally or empirically, he said there is the “phenomenal world” (experienced) and the “noumenal world” (independent of experience); that is, which can never be experienced but which is known to exist. The noumenal may or may not even involve space & time. So “knowledge” is as much as feature of us as it is a representation of the world. And “free will” is only a construct of reason. Beyond reason, beyond the senses, there is both and neither.

Flash forward to the present. What science and religion (and space travel) are pursuing are parallel universes beyond space-time; hence, also the whole problem of free will vs. predestination again becomes relative. Both are true. Both are not true. So was the debate in Devos over “what it means to be human.” The language by which science and spirituality will finally merge is headed for a bewildering oxymoronic a-logic, where a “third faculty” takes over.

Enter the domains of string theory, quantum mechanics, astronomy, and all the rest. Science and spirituality are both playing with “constructs” of time & space like never before. Science is a vehicle which is essentially leading us beyond science. While spirituality is a vehicle leading us into regions beyond spirituality. – Kant was right, and so were our two Davos antagonists.

There’s an interesting quote from Huxley:

“Mind… is nothing but a food-gathering mechanism; controlled by unconscious forces, either aggressive or sexual; the product of social and economic pressures; a bundle of conditioned reflexes….

[I]f mind is only some kind of nothing-but, none of its affirmations can make any claim to a general validity. But all nothing-but philosophies actually make such claims. Therefore they cannot be true; for it they were true, that would be the proof that they were false. Thought is the slave of life – yes, undoubtedly.”

Technology, computers, telescopes, space stations, missions to Mars – is science trying ultimately to “be done” with itself. To “reach for the stars” is an unbelievably loaded phrase. So loaded that those reaching for it are hardly aware of what it means. Not even the fact that reaching “out there” is really about reaching “in here.”

© 2022 Richard Hiatt