On a day like this a few brave souls-a select few in the whole wide world- had the courage to live their own lives. Such a thing is quite remarkable, if you think about it. Not the pottering, plodding, slouching mediocre accountant-and-pen- pushing soul of the flatlands. But a genuine and dazzling 'I' that dared to say 'I'.
P. Fawcett, HG-B (next post)...
The hubris and the decadence of the individual. The decline of social capital, a terrible alienation from, and the sheer uncontrollable desire to escape from, the earth and other human beings..the self-centred egoist with his fantasy-fuelled extremism who is driven, ultimately, by mecahnisms of compulsion beyond his control or knowledge. The isolated 'will', the petty or tyrannical ego that can see nothing but itself: he who sees ratio sees only himself.
Well, yes, but what else would you have? Bound by community, the tribe, tradition, religion, societal norms, the gaze. Become a mummy and wrap oneslef in cloth to hold back time? Stuff your head with theories because theoria is beyond contingency?
It was all a pretence. Only someone who can say "No!" is truly alive. To know this, to live this, is to be not bound by the days.
The tree grows inside me.
----Rilke.
The further one moves inwards the closer one comes to the exterior, the open.
To pass through the threshold one must stop being a social being.
---Simone Weil.
6 comments:
Not the pottering, plodding, slouching mediocre accountant-and-pen- pushing soul of the flatlands.
ouch!
many people live 'ordinary lives with extraordinary love' - they let go of their "I"s so that they can nurture the 'we' and create spaces where other 'I's can grow - they go beyond being simply 'social beings' into 'being'
hello. where did eva cassidy go?
Mani, yes, you're right, of course. Most of what I've written on this blog is about 'I-we' and the "non-representative community" and I'm the last person to unequivocally support the sort of unbridled individualism that is fostered by the market: the self, rather than the person.
However, living where I do, I think the problem is just the opposite: too many pople (usually women, actually) told that they MUST sacrifice their 'I' for the we of the family/society etc.
In any case, the idea of the 'I' being sacrificed for the 'greater good' is, after the horrors of the last century, not something one can so easily state (I was going to include a quote by Malevich on this but couldn't find my notebook, where I jot down such quotes)
On your last point, I'm not sure if there is any such thing as simply being. A being without the friendship and love of others still 'is' but a tree is and so is a stone. Even God, it appears, is not happy with simply being! (the famous hadith qudsi: "I was a Hidden Treasure and wanted to be known")
But what I wanted to try and convey here was something along Merton's lines (or Lawrence's) - not the "saving" of oen's soul, but the living of it. I once met an Iraqi shaikh (link under people) and he said something thatw as quite interesting..it was this:
lots of people criticise 'westerners' for being too individualistic but at least they live according to their own lights.
Which reminded me of Blake or the Allama.
I think there's something heroic in this. (of course, to live in relation to others and sacrifice is also , sometimes, heroic)
Hmm..you've really got me thinking. Pity you're not still writing. Would love to have read your thoughts on this.
I can't help but think of the Allama when he says that the aim of life is not a 'negation' of the ego ("khudi") but a deepening of it. And where he daringly says: Even if God reveals His divine Face, I'll still take "perhaps" and "maybe".
so, mani, I'm not so sure about the 'letting go'.
anton, that song was a bit too sad for summer. I'll save it for darker days.
i'm thinking of the difference between sacrificing one's ego and letting go of it. and between 'we' and 'oneness'. i was coming at it from the christian contemplative direction, if you will - God cannot be known by the ego, which can only focus on itself.
i've been thinking a lot about that 'living according to their own lights' - first i'm not sure what's so great about that and the way i understand it, how's that different from individualism. second, i'm not sure 'westerners' do live by their own lights anymore, if they ever did. if by westerners we understand white, heterosexual men, then yes, i agree. for the rest, 'God's mercy' as we say in Romanian...
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