The endless cycle of idea and action,Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to God.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
–T.S. Eliot, excerpted from Choruses from 'The Rock'
After I left college, I lived alone for a year in a cabin on a mountain. It was a simple, lovely little place, completely rustic save for some basic electricity and running water. There was a very passive solar-heated outhouse; a Jötul woodstove, a screened porch. During winter I would park my car at the base of a nearby ski area and hike in along cross-country ski trails. The rest of the year I could park some 700 feet downhill on an old logging road and make my way along a grassy and rock-strewn path.
At night, when I would arrive at my woodland parking spot, I'd give a whistle to let Chinook – a German Shepherd I'd inherited – know that I was home. Most nights I'd simply feel my way up the path, listening for the crunch of leaves or the snap of twigs, indicators that I had wandered astray. At the top of the path, Chinook would greet me, tail whapping things in the night.
I never felt more alive than when I would wend my way along that path, or any path, in darkness. That familiar path homeward was, of course, one that I would memorize. But there were nights – when the moon was new and the fog deep – that I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. Strange how much life, power and even bliss can be had in that sort of blindness, temporary and voluntary as it was. And often, when I would arrive home, I'd keep the lights off, or use only a candle for reading, wildly aware of the dangers of an open flame.
What I loved most about the time in that cabin is that mere living was an adventure. In other words, adventures were not something I enjoyed as recreation or holiday distraction. My very life was an adventure, dusk to dawn. I miss that.
Perhaps that is why last night, again with the new moon hidden behind the earth's shoulder, I went out into the dark and hit a golf ball with my sand wedge. The air was cool, the sky was utterly clear, and drifting about my body was a star-lit fog, hanging a few feet over the dampening grass. I had no lamp with me, and there were no streetlights or floodlights anywhere nearby. And I was amazed, not solely that I could see the ball at my feet, though dimly, but I could hear the ball's flight: I could hear it drop, and I could even find it, all so I could hit it again. The stillness of the night was an astounding backdrop for me to enjoy the power of my own senses, with the very power of consciousness faintly ringing in my ears.
Strange, though, that the only thing I could think about while I walked through my misty yard was this essay.
You see, this is post 111, one of more than 100 of my posts which is a complete essay, and not a mere musing of my daily actions (like some diarists post on their blogs). And I have reached a point where I need to make myself a bit more transparent to you, my loyal reader.
I have some deep reservations about the Internet as a tool, a resource, or as a medium for building community. OK. That is not much of a statement. Why then would I say it? Well, I say it because there is for most of us a casual acceptance of the Internet's presence in our lives; we take it as a thing of mere utility, a tool that can be used for good or ill.
To me, the Internet is becoming, rapidly, the digitized collective consciousness of humanity. Of course, this also means that it is the digitized subconsciousness of humanity, replete with all the things repressed and suppressed, rightly or wrongly. If I think about my own soul – my own mind, spirit, or whatever one might call it – I recognize there is a whole mix of things, some good, some bad, some very bad, that dwelleth therein. There are all sorts of things in my heart (and I know that they are the sorts of things in my neighbor's mind) that ought never see the light of day. Sometimes I have shockingly pornographic thoughts that seem to emerge ex nihilo in my mind; as do images of violence, deception, thievery, lust, power.
Two hundred years ago, had I lived then, there was no place I could go to find mirror images of the darkest, and the brightest, thoughts and images passing through my mind. But now I can. I can click on-line and find deeply moving religious confessions, or reports of truly sublime acts of kindness. I can find breathtaking prose and poetry, or photographic images that push me toward praise. Or, I can find images and thoughts and ruminations and celebrations of all sorts of perversity – moral, sexual and intellectual perversities. I can find heinous sexual images. I can find scatological images, or images of abuse, or essays on how to build bombs. I can watch a beheading if I so choose. I can find conspiracies, and conspiracy-theorists; I can find injustice and hate and paranoia and depression. In short, I can find everything that is right and wrong with my soul amplified beyond measure. And I can bring it all right into my house.
***At night, when I would arrive at my woodland parking spot, I'd give a whistle to let Chinook – a German Shepherd I'd inherited – know that I was home. Most nights I'd simply feel my way up the path, listening for the crunch of leaves or the snap of twigs, indicators that I had wandered astray. At the top of the path, Chinook would greet me, tail whapping things in the night.
I never felt more alive than when I would wend my way along that path, or any path, in darkness. That familiar path homeward was, of course, one that I would memorize. But there were nights – when the moon was new and the fog deep – that I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. Strange how much life, power and even bliss can be had in that sort of blindness, temporary and voluntary as it was. And often, when I would arrive home, I'd keep the lights off, or use only a candle for reading, wildly aware of the dangers of an open flame.
What I loved most about the time in that cabin is that mere living was an adventure. In other words, adventures were not something I enjoyed as recreation or holiday distraction. My very life was an adventure, dusk to dawn. I miss that.
Perhaps that is why last night, again with the new moon hidden behind the earth's shoulder, I went out into the dark and hit a golf ball with my sand wedge. The air was cool, the sky was utterly clear, and drifting about my body was a star-lit fog, hanging a few feet over the dampening grass. I had no lamp with me, and there were no streetlights or floodlights anywhere nearby. And I was amazed, not solely that I could see the ball at my feet, though dimly, but I could hear the ball's flight: I could hear it drop, and I could even find it, all so I could hit it again. The stillness of the night was an astounding backdrop for me to enjoy the power of my own senses, with the very power of consciousness faintly ringing in my ears.
Strange, though, that the only thing I could think about while I walked through my misty yard was this essay.
You see, this is post 111, one of more than 100 of my posts which is a complete essay, and not a mere musing of my daily actions (like some diarists post on their blogs). And I have reached a point where I need to make myself a bit more transparent to you, my loyal reader.
I have some deep reservations about the Internet as a tool, a resource, or as a medium for building community. OK. That is not much of a statement. Why then would I say it? Well, I say it because there is for most of us a casual acceptance of the Internet's presence in our lives; we take it as a thing of mere utility, a tool that can be used for good or ill.
To me, the Internet is becoming, rapidly, the digitized collective consciousness of humanity. Of course, this also means that it is the digitized subconsciousness of humanity, replete with all the things repressed and suppressed, rightly or wrongly. If I think about my own soul – my own mind, spirit, or whatever one might call it – I recognize there is a whole mix of things, some good, some bad, some very bad, that dwelleth therein. There are all sorts of things in my heart (and I know that they are the sorts of things in my neighbor's mind) that ought never see the light of day. Sometimes I have shockingly pornographic thoughts that seem to emerge ex nihilo in my mind; as do images of violence, deception, thievery, lust, power.
Two hundred years ago, had I lived then, there was no place I could go to find mirror images of the darkest, and the brightest, thoughts and images passing through my mind. But now I can. I can click on-line and find deeply moving religious confessions, or reports of truly sublime acts of kindness. I can find breathtaking prose and poetry, or photographic images that push me toward praise. Or, I can find images and thoughts and ruminations and celebrations of all sorts of perversity – moral, sexual and intellectual perversities. I can find heinous sexual images. I can find scatological images, or images of abuse, or essays on how to build bombs. I can watch a beheading if I so choose. I can find conspiracies, and conspiracy-theorists; I can find injustice and hate and paranoia and depression. In short, I can find everything that is right and wrong with my soul amplified beyond measure. And I can bring it all right into my house.
There is something awesome about going into a store and choosing from a pile of tomatoes the very tomatoes I would like to eat. But there is a strange distance, an estrangement really, about purchasing and eating food the growing and harvesting of which I had no direct involvement. There is the lack of adventure; there is little thrill or risk in going to market. But there is adventure in tilling land and sowing seeds for myself, and there is risk abundant in growing my own food.
Something, somewhere seems lost in the simplicity of even an electric light switch. The electric light switch is now used to illuminate our future: we take the surprise and adventure out of walking up the stairs to our bedrooms. A hundred years ago, if you lived then, a candle was lighted, and you carried it around from one scene to the next, illuminating your present in a small, dangerous circle of illumination. The candle would light the desk at which you worked, and only that desk. The candle would light your path up to the loft, and only that path. And the light was never thrown ahead of you to chase out the darkness and the adventure from every corner of your room.
But the electric lamp does indeed chase out the darkness ahead of us. It expells the darkness even before we get there: It lights up our future so that our arrival there will be easier. Thus, the adventure is cast out; it is banished. As a result, those who permit adventure in their lives do so solely on their own terms, purchased in package deals of white-water rafting trips or heli-ski getaways.
There is a loss in knowledge.
Do you know that there are children alive today who have never slept in complete, natural darkness? There are perhaps even older children who have never seen the night sky without the constant blare of city lights. And there are children who have never, nay, there are also adults who have never heard a natural silence: They've always heard the din of motors and engines and the hum of electric generators. In fact, there are flowering plants and trees in cities all over America (for example) that have never experienced a truly dark night. Plants, animals, men and women --- millions of living things that live in a perpetual mercury vapor twilight.
Why am I saying all this?
My blogging is a participation in a medium I fundamentally oppose. I do not think that the Web, aka the 'Net (just think of these terms!), is ultimately a good thing for living organisms, namely the organisms who click and read and download and chat and blog. Moreover, I am acutely aware that I am one of too many voices vying for your attention, your notice, even your praise. In fact, I am aware all too well of the human vainglory perhaps inherent in every blog: notice me! remember me! let me impress you! I am reminded of something utterly brilliant once penned by my favorite writer, G. K. Chesterton: I never said a thing because I thought it funny; I thought it funny because I said it. Chesterton's quip cuts to the heart of my own conceit, my own pride, the vanity that assails me and against which I feebly fight. There is vainglory in the most altruistic of my acts, I sadly confess.
Related to this is my clear understanding that I am a voice crying in the wilderness: there are so many bloggers doing what I do that there seems no sense in being superfluous. I am largely a redundancy. And I feel a bit like Hosea, the prophet who married a woman who had had many lovers before him: What, in heaven's name, can I give you that you've not gotten already? What can I give you that is not available elsewhere? What can we enjoy that is a surprise, singular, and not dried up in the excesses which breed boredom, despair, depression?
And where is the adventure here, when there is so much that is more interesting, more lovely and beautiful scurrying about our own front yards, or floating across the very surface of our eyes?
Yesterday I visited a couple of websites where I did battle against the arrogance of presumption, if I can call it that. One battle was against those who think they have all the answers from a supposedly superior scientific framework; another was with a theological critique disguised beneath the veneer of a scientific document. I did battle with those who believe in the primacy of reason, blind as they are that they use reason to prove reason's superiority, thus committing the fallacy of circular reasoning: the premise is the conclusion. But my visits and battles have made me feel less human, less alive, than when I am hitting a golf ball in the dark, or striking a match in a cabin. For there is futility in the enterprises in which I engage, bearing no fruit other than alienation from what IS.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
I will continue to do this, for as long as I can. I am wary of drawing people into the Web, distracting them from the abundant life that is outside the realms of electricity, gasoline, technology. My role, perhaps, is to help people caught in the 'Net escape its sticky temptations. But that will be hard if I am caught in the 'Net too. And I am.
Once, while I was about to sing a solo in a church, I sat in the front of the sanctuary and noticed something: there were electric cords everywhere. The church, it seemed, had lost its capacity to worship God without electricity and amplification. How did humanity ever worship before electricity was harnessed? Needless to say, I never sang in that church again. Similarly, I am tempted to silence myself here, solely because I do not want to give the impression that I think that the Internet is a good thing, in total, in the long run.
Peace to you all,
Bill Gnade
©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes
[Yesterday I should not have titled my post "Aborting Bill Bennett." It was too subtle and perhaps too clever, or not subtle at all and rather stupid. Whichever, it should not have been posted with one of my favorite photos, the birth of a child. It distracts too much from the beauty, no matter how jarring I wanted the juxtaposition to be between birth and the word "Abortion."]
Today's photo is of curled ferns damaged by a killing frost. It was taken in my own backyard. Click on it for a larger view.
3 comments:
Hi Bill,
This is Luke's friend Tsultrim(he lives on my couch). I am not going to give this post the well deserved dialogue it asks, but I would like to say that I am impressed with your writing, the depth of thought and also your photographs. I spent 5 days last autumn around this very time in a cabin half mile in the woods from any human presence, completely alone. I was there specifically to practice meditation, but I found that I didn't need to, that the inherent simplicity of living without electricity, running water or for that matter a front wall gave way to a very deep sense of settling. I have to say unlike you I found the dark was no adventure, it did and does scare me to be alone in the woods in the darkness. All of the detritus of my fears of dying or having pain or fear inflicted upon me were amplified. From the simplest things as leaves falling on the roof to the choruses of coyotes far off (which sounded like a detuned transister radio at a very loud decibel count) scared the living scat out of me.
Something has been lost.
I often think of Rilke's poem about the caged panther as a sort of metaphor for the modern state of man. Though it is through loss that we feel a yearning for what is true again. Without a home we only know the search for one. So I believe a new time (no pun intended) is coming. That is if technology becomes ecologically sound before killing us all. I think the pull people find towards religion now is the pull to home, for better or worse.
The Panther
His gaze has grown so tired from the bars
passing, it can't hold anything anymore.
It is as if there were a thosuand bars
and behind a thousand bars nothing.
The soft gait of powerful supple strides,
which turns in the smallest of all circles,
is like a dance of strength around a center
where an imperious will stands stunned.
Only at times the curtain of the pupils
silently opens---. Then an image enters,
passes through the taut stillness of the limbs---
and in the heart ceases to be.
My dear Tsultrim,
Powerful, moving poem. It breaks my heart.
I thank you for this comment. Your candor is refreshing, and I appreciate your fears. I've not met anyone who is not afraid of death; that such fear percolates to the surface in the dark is understandable. I am struck at times with fear in the dark, though usually it is due to a misfiring of my perceptions: I've accidently played a trick on myself.
I agree with the pull toward home idea. My pervasive feeling is one of homesickness; I am homesick even at home, if that makes any sense. I know that C.S. Lewis described the same sort of feelings that assaulted him. The heart is fraught with longing, but why?
Peace to you,
BG
Please, come again, or email me if you like.
Bill,
If the panther is indeed homesick, then I too would describe myself as homesick. In a sort of caged, unrooted way. bell hooks a feminist writer has said that the reason why rappers are always stating things like "I'm the best emcee // you can't conquer me." The reassertion of ego which they do constantly is because of the loss of belonging to a symbolic identity. I'm paraphrasing here and adding a little bit of my own thoughts, but I think it's true. I've been studying Polish shtetls in my class on the Holocaust at college and the universe of the small town (shtetl) Jew even in the Interwar period was one of high symbolization. Everything had it's place in the insular universe of the Jewish shtetl. Identity, the individual belonged to a system larger then oneself, a symbolic universe and a religious community. As "backward" as those towns were considered by the Polish intellectuals and Polish Jew intellectuals, there's something magical about the intimacy of belonging to a highly organized collective being.
Which is what we've lost.
That's not to say I would go back, but go forward into a new collective being, possibly organized by towns, local collectivism.
I had a dream last night and as the word "decentralization" was flashing across the landscape I knew that the meaning of this word is what would make me happy, would bring me home.
I can explain this as having two roots. 1. It was clear to me that it meant the decentralization of the ego, which is something I've learned in Buddhism, though never as that word. At that same cabin I talked about prior, I had the experience of loss of ego, the pervasive identifying source of experience. We think something and "I" thought it. "I think this, I feel this, I have that." But in truth any experience, any thought has the same relevance to us as a tree, a cup or water. It is not owned. You experience a sight or a thought without having to claim it as your own, the same way that a tree or a cup can never truly be owned. That is what I experienced, not theorized or philosophized or thought about, it simply happened. This is the decentralization of the ego, which is not an annihilation, but a very peaceful settling into a deeper sense of reality. (You may not agree, I realize we probably hold very different religious experiences, but I'm not trying to convert you, or win you over.)
This decentralization secondly was to be done through peace. Because I believe as Carl Jung instructs that when you want to understand dream content, think of what the content like the word "decentralization" means to you, what is it's first association. And it's first associattion for me was something I was talking about yesterday with another friend of Luke's. I had said that for the peace movement to succeed it would have to become the inverse of Al-Quaida. A decentralized organization of independent cells of movement in the name of peace. So right there in my dream I believe it was revealed to me how to----come home. By the decentralizing the ego with the constant motive of extending peace to myself and the world.
Now, I don't mind at all if you want to debate the ideas herein, or the content. Luke has said you have a flair for civil debate. So feel free, I don't want to grate against your sense of truth while you sit back and write a pleasant reply because you don't know me well enough. Feel free!
I wanted to relate to your homesickness so it brought me along on all those tangents. So I do know how you feel, but perhaps in a very different way.
I look forward to your thoughts,
Tsultrim
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