k

Are you still there, my oldest and most unfamiliar of friends?

The givenness of things

And the moment comes to settle on our lives.

I didn't mean by that that there's a moment when we have to settle for the life we have; it was more: a moment of blessed sleep comes to gently settle, like snow or dew. 

And in the morning I couldn't but help be amazed by the very fact we can think, speak. It sounds naff when I say it like that, but the fact that we can even reason about reason seems to me to be utterly mysterious. It points to a 'givenness' of being that is beyond reason.

Ratzinger's line held me spellbound, not knowing quite why:

Creativity is obedience to the origin.

This requires, first and foremost, a remembrance of the origin. But obedience? How can that be? I think the medievals would say, we are bound and free. And creativity is a response to that memory of what we truly are. I think Muslims would say that that entails finding our true name with God (Christians might say, our true image).

A Jewish thought:

Thou has covered me in my mother's womb.

"This Hebrew news holds me and lets me go free, whereas the Greek aspiration to return the soul to its divine source fetters me for aeons in a body cursed and to be abandoned."

--Gillian Rose. 

Here there is a deep sense of trust, an acceptance of mystery..part of which is the mystery of time. 

The old world

k

The last notes of a crumbling world. The faded photographs, drained of colour. But once, a long time ago, I have heard it said: life and religion were full of colour...

Is this the last generation? The last time a child will look at a white butterfly caught in a staggering flight and ask: why? Is this the last generation to ask what the heart has lost? 

Buddhism

I hesitate to say anything on this since I know next to nothing about Buddhism. But I am interested in understanding why eastern religions have appealed to so many people in the modern west. That is not a question about the Truth of Buddhism but, rather, why this particular 'shape' of the truth should find such a wide reception at this juncture in time.

I vaguely recall Nietzsche writing disparagingly of Buddhism..the sense of an exhausted will in the late days. And there was this by Spengler:

 It was the basic feeling of the Indian Civilization and as such both equivalent to and "contemporary" with Stoicism and Socialism. [...] Buddhism rejects all speculation about God and the cosmic problems; only self and the conduct of actual life are important to it. And it definitely did not recognize a soul. The standpoint of the Indian psychologist of early Buddhism was that of the Western psychologist and the Western "Socialist" of to-day, who reduce the inward man to a bundle of sensations and an aggregation of electrochemical energies.

It is strange when Islam is clearly more aligned to the Judaic-Christian heritage. Or is it precisely because it's so close to that heritage that it must be kept at arms length? Could it be that the interest in Sufism fits into this pattern? Any system of thought or way of living that asks serious political questions is obviously a dangerous thing. Does that, at least in part, explain the hostility and indifference? 

And why is there such a focus on 'mindfulness' right now? Does it have anything to do with current concerns that our attention has become a commodity and is being put under extraordinary pressures? Or is it just another way for capitalism to tap into the non-economic realms of life in order to extract surplus? After all, mindfulness is only useful as long as it enhances productivity/creativity.
  

In my coat I sit 

At the window sill 

Wintering with snow 

That did not melt 

It fell long ago 

At night, by stealth 

I was where I am 

When the snow began.

--S. Menashe.

Time is moving on forward with such rapidity that there's isn't even time to pause and look back, and see who I am.

The world as phantom and as matrix

A shadow on the wall

boughs stirred by the noonday wind

that’s enough earth

and for the eye

enough celestial participation.

How much further do you want to go? Refuse

the bossy insistence

of new impressions—

lie there still,

behold your own fields,

your estate,

dwelling especially

on the poppies,

unforgettable

because they transported the summer—

where did it go?

---G. Benn

~~

The summer is over, the storms grow, and your coffee doesn't taste right. Retreat, as far as you can go, to the very heart of the poppy seed, perhaps? We speak a darkness between us.

This image was brought to you...

The world, as sponsored by...

In 1956, two years before Arendt's Human Condition, Gunther Anders wrote a prescient essay describing the beginnings of a "phantom world". This is before the 'society of the spectacle' as well. In the article he talks about the mass production of "hermits" for whom the world will be brought to their private living rooms. This "phantom" world, always half-absent, the stage of representations, images, background banter and music..always brought to you with the express intent of rooting us to the spot, of making us consumers of images and therefore our own producers of a mass, isolated self.

The political ramifications of the loss of the public world, of the ability to act in the world, would be spelled out by Arendt. The loss of speech that comes about when we're beholden to the manufactured image has, of course, political consequences: thoughtlessness and speechlessness. 

~~~

Robinsons

Memory and loss are held by stone.

A boy standing calmly in the perfect still island
Just a dark name.
No age given, or blue plaques,
no announcement of the statistical chances of living.

No recollection of the diseases
gnawing at your body, tearing at your flesh.

Sometimes a boy, sometimes an angel.
and sometimes just a stone washed ashore.
But forever a golden child standing in the soft sand.

Robinson.

All the shells are broken,
small peieces of multi-coloured glass
well on their way to becoming glittering sand, or stars.
Listen!
O, this is the sea, this is the sea.

Drift, drift.
ggggdrift

One wave in a thousand brings something.
One of these stray heartbeats was yours?

and once I knew you with all my heart.
O, this is the sea.

~~~

The pages in the books are blank, 

The books that Robinson has read. That is his favorite chair,   

Or where the chair would be if Robinson were here. 

All day the phone rings. It could be Robinson   

Calling. It never rings when he is here. 

---Weldon Kees.

'God wills to exercise the 'abundance' of his glory-to create as many reflections as possible of his own being. But if the point of the world is the abounding plurality of such reflections, each must exist within limits, since God alone is infinite.'

'Compatible variety means the harmony of genuinely distinct subjects.'

Rowan Williams on Richard Hooker

Haven't read Achebe but did come across this:

“Wherever something stands, something else will stand beside it.” Achebe often used this proverb in discussing his work, and he explained its significance once in an interview: “It means there is no one way to anything….If there is one God, fine, there will be others as well…. If there is one point of view, fine. There will be a second point of view.”

Immersion

The other day I was sitting with some friends when the discussion turned to, "It's us versus them". This was not about the East versus the west; not about the religious versus the secularists but something that I hadn't thought about too much.

There is much talk about the battle within Islam, between the open-minded, tolerant, and/or Sufi version on the one hand and on the other the fanatics, fundamentalists, and extremists who have distorted the religion (in some sense this wasn't really a conflict from within because the latter group are really heretics, outsiders). 

Now, there's obviously a lot of truth to that claim. But as someone who is not that religious and who is, to use a loaded word in this country, a secularist, I can't get too enthused by the shrine culture (eclectic and pluralistic though it be). Of course, that is not to deny that some people might find the devotional songs, the rituals, the dances, the personification of holiness deeply appealing and, to dispel the notion that I'm arguing that the attraction is little else but a subjective feeling, that it is a legitimate approach. But, but...we're entering Gellner territory here...

On the 'them' side are also people like me and my family. Somewhat like the Puritans (at least that's what I imagine, from my very limited reading). To use the word 'wahabi' in this day and age is to bring the scorn of the 'liberals' and the sufi-oriented brigade crashing down on one. 

So, I just sat there quietly and listened to the three friends talk about attitudes and practices that I don't subscribe to. How the Prophet is still alive, for example. About how the holy person continues the presence of the divine (in some sense that is perhaps beyond the symbolic); about the system of dependencies on the holy man and his lineage. His cloak, his staff. Fine, but sober by nature and temperament, I can't get immersed in all that. 

~~~

In some sense the same applies to book reading. I love fiction and poetry but, at the end of the day, there's something a bit odd to giving one's life to fictions, to becoming so deeply engrossed in the lives of other people (and in the minute details of their feelings and thoughts). In a time when religion's hold is on the wane is it the case that we seek some kind of deep attachment elsewhere? If one is non-religious does this "devotion" invariably come in the form of culture (art, books, music)? Better that than getting hooked to cheap entertainments and the pursuit of money and power to fill the void.

Here, then, is the question of the balance between subjective interest/attraction and objective value. Someone who immerses themselves in useless research or in the construction of a model city using matchsticks is, no doubt, very skilled and accomplished in some sense. And one might even admire their patience, dedication, unswerving attentiveness, concentration, single-mindedness, persistence etc., etc. But can one speak of virtues without looking at the ends of action, the object of thought? Theoria, in the old sense of the word, was a knowledge of "higher things" (Hans Jonas).

So, some people swear by the loose, baggy 19th c. novels as if that was the final form that literature should take. One must wade through the accumulated debris of useless materials and observations before one gets to the "wheat". In fact, a bland and stand-alone statement of the "wheat" would defeat the whole purpose. Real life isn't like that. Time flows and carries with it lots of unspectacular moments. High times coalesce with ordinary times. To tear out the nuggets of wisdom/insight is to break up the narrative, destroy the object itself. The book, like the soul, consists of lots of higher and lower elements; is a medley of disparate characteristics and is the whole thing, take it or leave it.

Except, wasn't the novel supposed to be about experimentation and contemporary relevance? Wasn't the baggy form simply contemporaneous with a bourgeois culture (Morretti) that demanded so many diversions, escapes, entertainments, thrills? And now?

~~~

M. Robinson and the Puritans: 

  

The time of rain

I stand and watch the rain
Falling in pools which make
Our grave old planet shine;
The clear rain falling, just the same
As that which fell in Homer’s time
And that which dropped in Villon’s day
Falling on mother and on child
As on the passive backs of sheep;
Rain saying all it has to say
Again and yet again, and yet..

--Supervielle.

The time of the rain. No-one knows it. It brings with it its own world, displacing the hard-cracked one we know. The birds sense it beforehand. Watch them wait for the gathering darkness, anticipating that immeasurable freedom. It will stop and start again and no-one will know how much time has passed.

And the rain recalls those lost moments, the time you lost your heart.

The sky brightens and the light settles. Am I still here? I look at my name on the board and think to myself (who else?): who is that? 

Hasidic Tales: lost and found

I read this tale somewhere and then wondered where, in fact, I'd come across it. Much searching amidst the piled up books, notes and journal articles but it had disappeared! If only I could remember what I was reading last...Lewis Hyde, Wendell Berry? Hadn't I jotted something down? You could clearly see the word written down in your own handwriting: journey. And then, as you look at the window, the startling fact: it doesn't matter where you saw it! Why do you think you can possess it...

A Rabbi has a dream in which God tells him to travel to Prague because there, under a bridge, he will find some treasure. But when he gets there he sees that the bridge is heavily guarded. He waits patiently by the bridge, hoping the guard will fall asleep or be distracted by something. But three days pass like this; him just silently observing the guard. On the third day the guard speaks to him: What are you doing there in the shadows? I've noticed you there for the last three days".

The rabbi tells him about the dream and how he traveled all the way from Krakow just to find this treasure. The guard laughed at him: "You fool! I had a dream as well in which God told me go to Krakow where I'd find some treasure buried under the stove of a rabbi's house but I'm not so silly! I do my job here to the best of my duty".

On hearing this the rabbi returns home and, sure enough, finds the treasure under his stove.

~~~

1. The importance of trust (tawaakul).
2. What comes to fruition sometimes comes about indirectly.
3. Duty, loyalty, fidelity to what, or who?
4. What is of importance is sometimes close at hand, under one's very nose but also:
5. One has to make the journey to find home. 

Lost and found.    


~~~

Update, Horatio:

I found an old book by Buber in the library. Although locked up because it was in a "fragile condition" I managed to liberate it for a few hours. D took some photos of the small book (44 pages) and then transferred them to me (yes, technology does have some advantages!). After printing them I briefly flicked through the pages to check if the operation had been successful and noticed that all was okay except for one page. Half of the top line had been chopped off. So, I wrote the missing words out by hand:

..had never shaken his faith in God. 

Was then astounded to find that this was in fact the very same story I'd been looking for! 

The anti-economy

A

A certain amount of confusion and incomprehension is to be expected. If you inhabit a monotheistic worldview then mythological perspectives are almost certainly bound to strike one as odd, mystifying. Over the weekend you heard a number of people saying, "Hinduism..is that really a religion..does come across as wildly at odds with any sensible approach to divine matters". I didn't want to argue with that. What would be the point. We have no entry point into another's faith (this is not simply a question of scriptures and languages but of a mentality (or, more accurately, mentalities) that is shaped by a monotheistic outlook.

Of course, that is a gross exaggeration for in reality it seems to me that monotheism is never anything but a rare phenomenon. It is either distorted beyond recognition by the zealots (think: Taleban and ISIS and how infinitely distant they are from a genuine religious sensibility); or it is mixed up with ideas, attachments, and styles of thinking that are more to do with the local culture (land and language, one might say). 

So, we often look to the religions of the east and their "strangeness" as a way of reaffirming our own "pure" approach to religion. So, our lack of understanding is not simply the result of a natural (providential?) barrier, as if to say: after all, no human being can inhabit every possible perspective; it is, rather, that in addition the barrier is a psychological and political limit we construct. 

But if language and thought do not get us across the barrier then what does? To get across does not necessarily mean inhabiting the other 'realm' but it can, at the very least, be a recognition that there is some kind of inexplicable mystery across the border and that one's own position or understanding is not a sealed-off space, as it were. A certain amount of undermining, confusion and incomprehension is to be expected. Don't take one's unbelief too seriously; but do not ignore it either.

Bob would be able to say something about this image. My vague intuition is this: compassion, at the highest state of being, is universal. Nothing goes unnoticed. There is a looking back, not a looking after the self (in the final analysis is the latter only a delusion anyway?). The self is a barrier. Look and look out. The gestures of the hands. What do they mean?  

"Everyone who has to contend with unbelief should be advised that he ought not to take his own unbelief too seriously. Only faith is to be taken seriously."
--K. Barth.

~~

Haven't read Achebe but did come across this:

“Wherever something stands, something else will stand beside it.” Achebe often used this proverb in discussing his work, and he explained its significance once in an interview: “It means there is no one way to anything….If there is one God, fine, there will be others as well…. If there is one point of view, fine. There will be a second point of view.”

world-ending fire

This is the world that we have set on fire.

This is the promised burning, darkening
Our light of hope and putting out the sun,
Blighting the leaf, the stream--and blessed are
The dead who died before this time began.

Blessed the dead who have escaped in time
The twisted metal and the fractured stone,
The technobodies of the hopeless cure.
Now, to the living, only grief has shown

The little yellow of the violet,
Risen again out of the dead year's leaves,
And grief alone is measure of the love
That only lives in rising out of graves.

--Wendell Berry.

"This supposed economy has no plan for temperance or thrift or the ecological law of return. It will do anything. It is monstrous by definition."

This is the anti-economy where there is no question of intrinsic usefulness, no thought of 'final ends' or human needs. Instead there is only blind desire, "wanton preferences", and formal rationality. "Just do it". Or "go with the flow". A system that generates the wasteful, the useless, and the unnecessary. It is never asked-and can never be asked-whether the ramifications of production and consumption (and our lifestyles that are inextricably bound to them) are morally, ecologically or spiritually uplifting or whether they lead to boredom, frustration and anxiety. 

I step back, and look forward.

A form of conservatism, a retreat of sorts, but with one's eyes firmly on what is moving towards you (the opposite of Benjamin's 'angel'). The Benedict Option?  

Oy, Tolstoy! Clear off, mate. Brexit means fucking Brexit!

There's something quite sad about seeing a small island race becoming, well, ..er..a small island race. At critical junctures maybe some trait, characteristic or sensibility that has for large periods of time been hidden suddenly rises to the surface. So, even though under normal circumstances it isn't a dominant feature of an individual's or a society's make-up, at points of transition it rears its head. Hasn't there been something petty and mean-spirited brewing for the last thirty odd years of the neoliberal experiment? Is it something more permanent?

The closing of the American/British mind? This goes beyond the narrowing of horizons that results in our attention being caught up in all the trivia and information flotsam that streams in front of us, 24/7. And beyond the shallow, everyday kind of racism that offers an animal-like warmth of petty hatreds to a working class that has lost its bearings. I think it extends further: to a middle class that is enamoured by shopping or private fantasies of drug or alcohol-induced flights from reality; it extends to the self-styled religious folks whose bitterness at the direction the world is taking results in a cheap cynicism and condescension.

~~~

Calasso's The Art of the Publisher:  

k

dark;
grey, wild hunger
[for you]
[..

heart,
where are you now?

Below the surface
of the coal's equations
a small flame,

smudged,
nearly extinguished

The heart has traveled, 
reached the first twist
of her hair;
how much further?

I brought you a mirror from the East:
look at you; think of me!

And now the broken pieces
reflect the sky, floating clouds,
all that is hidden.

Where are you now, heart? 

There are mountains 
in the sea;
oh, deep down
deep down.

---lines by Bronk.

Embed from Getty Images

k

Don't tell my father that I have died.

He doesn't need to know. I promised him I'd never grow old..so at least I've kept that part of the bargain. Say I had to go. And God knows, maybe that's the truth. They say there a million gods but I only ever needed one. There are miles and miles of beautiful land but where am I now? The land's very name is mine; and now I am engraved in the land. A nameless one now. They call us the disappeared but my spirit will never leave here.

For you India is a land of mythology and colour, deep and profound mysteries. Why, then, should you look at my own pale death which tells you nothing? I don't want to speculate on your systems; they never meant much to me anyway.  

You found your way here. I lost track of you. If you saw my face now would you still take a second look? And why do you sit in the shadow of the tree?  

It is cold here. Where's my kangri !

civilisation

Years ago the incredibly perceptive Ivan Illich wrote about the idea of "internalities"; the ideology of "progress" and the preponderance of experts who were responsible for administering and justifying this ideology were not simply reducing our autonomy, our ability to give shape to our own lives, and not 'merely' generating perverse outcomes (externalities, such as pollution); no, both were actually preventing us from achieving the 'goods' that progress was supposed to be delivering in the first place.

In what sense, for example, are we healthier (and here one would have to look at and evaluate the whole distribution, even if one could agree on what constitutes 'health' in the first place). Our ability to move about in our own cities, to move about in a recognizably human way that accounts for the human body and its rhythms and its limitations, is impaired: gated communities, slums, are not 'external' to capitalistic development but central to its story. And our movement is either too quick for us to be attentive to our surroundings or slowed down to a snail's pace by congestion. The freedom to walk or cycle in a city-and what sights do we register on our journeys?- seems, to me, to be in abeyance. 

The rich, those "global citizens" who don't really live in any particular place, will always aim to bypass or transcend the city. They'll find some fast track, or live out their lives in their own fortresses (at One Hyde Park the city-and its food-is brought to you). Late antiquity withdrawal into a life of ..what, precisely? Studied leisure, self-cultivation, hedonism?

the time of the sun

Even the sun has its own time. Even the sun has its moments. 

The light is brilliant by eight o'clock. Beyond that it cannot be contemplated, only felt. The leafless tree is outlined with great clarity, as is its stark shadow on the ground-- the forked shadow almost as real as the tree itself.

~~~

In a small Butler's chocolate dish (which the kid must have swiped) there is some cold oil and a few strands of hair and next to them a dead cockroach that has given up the ghost, almost preserved in the wax-like liquid. Do cockroaches always die on their backs? The hair-my hair- looks more and more like its legs as time passes.  

~~~

But the sweet prairies of anarchy
And the thought that keeps my heart up
That at last, in Death's odder anarchy,
Our patterns will be broken all up.
Though precious we are momentarily, donkey,
I aspire to be broken up.

--Stevie Smith.

The faraway nearby

And now I look for the word 'faraway' and find it everywhere. Or rather I don't look - not trying to jinx it - and it returns.

'There's a word for each leaf and each
wall and
a word for nothing.' 

There'sawordforeachleafandeachwallandawordfornothing.

Larry Eigner, I should have said, from yesterday, in case you were wondering, faithful reader. And what of you, o faithless one?



I have felt it as they've said
there is nothing to say


there is everything to speak of
   but the words are words

when you speak that is a sound
what have you done, when you have spoken 





of nothing





or something i will remember