The Human Condition

"Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those, who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear, which is inherent in a human condition."--Graham Greene

Thanksgiving

Today is a day dominated for many Americans by food and family--two excellent things to be grateful for. However, in the repetition and stress and tryptophan the actual meaning of the day often gets a little lost. So here are a few thoughts from Chesterton on gratitude:

"Nothing taken for granted; everything received with gratitude; everything passed on with grace."

"You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera,

and grace before the play and pantomime,

and grace before I open a book,

and grace before sketching,

painting,

swimming,

fencing,

boxing,

walking,

playing,

dancing

and grace before I dip the pen in the ink."

"I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder."

"Aren't those sparks splendid?" I said.
"Yes," he replied.
'That is all that I ask you to admit," said I. "Give me those few red specks and I will deduce Christian morality. Once I thought like you, that one's pleasure in a flying spark was a thing that could come and go with that spark. Once I thought that the delight was as free as the fire. Once I thought that red star we see was alone in space. But now I know that the red star is only on the apex of an invisible pyramid of virtues. That red fire is only the flower on a stalk of living habits, which you cannot see. Only because your mother made you say 'Thank you' for a bun are you now able to thank Nature or chaos for those red stars of an instant or for the white stars of all time. Only because you were humble before fireworks on the fifth of November do you now enjoy any fireworks that you chance to see. You only like them being red because you were told about the blood of the martyrs; you only like them being bright because brightness is a glory. That flame flowered out of virtues, and it will fade with virtues. Seduce a woman, and that spark will be less bright. Shed blood, and that spark will be less red. Be really bad, and they will be to you like the spots on a wallpaper."

Portrait of an Artist

Over the Weekend the Pope addressed artists gathered at the Vatican. The entire thing is beautiful meditiation on art and its importance in the world and I encourage you to read it. This bit, which contemplates the importance of art and beauty in the world and the tellos of art--a topic which is relevant for everyone not just artists, in particular stood out to me:

Indeed, an essential function of genuine beauty, as emphasized by Plato, is that it gives man a healthy "shock", it draws him out of himself, wrenches him away from resignation and from being content with the humdrum – it even makes him suffer, piercing him like a dart, but in so doing it "reawakens" him, opening afresh the eyes of his heart and mind, giving him wings, carrying him aloft. Dostoevsky’s words that I am about to quote are bold and paradoxical, but they invite reflection. He says this: "Man can live without science, he can live without bread, but without beauty he could no longer live, because there would no longer be anything to do to the world. The whole secret is here, the whole of history is here." The painter Georges Braque echoes this sentiment: "Art is meant to disturb, science reassures." Beauty pulls us up short, but in so doing it reminds us of our final destiny, it sets us back on our path, fills us with new hope, gives us the courage to live to the full the unique gift of life. The quest for beauty that I am describing here is clearly not about escaping into the irrational or into mere aestheticism.

Too often, though, the beauty that is thrust upon us is illusory and deceitful, superficial and blinding, leaving the onlooker dazed; instead of bringing him out of himself and opening him up to horizons of true freedom as it draws him aloft, it imprisons him within himself and further enslaves him, depriving him of hope and joy. It is a seductive but hypocritical beauty that rekindles desire, the will to power, to possess, and to dominate others, it is a beauty which soon turns into its opposite, taking on the guise of indecency, transgression or gratuitous provocation. Authentic beauty, however, unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know, to love, to go towards the Other, to reach for the Beyond. If we acknowledge that beauty touches us intimately, that it wounds us, that it opens our eyes, then we rediscover the joy of seeing, of being able to grasp the profound meaning of our existence, the Mystery of which we are part; from this Mystery we can draw fullness, happiness, the passion to engage with it every day.

An Awfully Big Adventure

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.” - Helen Keller

The Rhyme of the Restless Ones

We couldn’t sit and study for the law;
The stagnation of a bank we couldn’t stand;
For our riot blood was surging,
And we didn’t need much urging
To excitements and excesses that are banned.
So we took to wine and drink and other things,
And the devil in us struggled to be free;
Til our friends rose up in wrath,
And they pointed out the path,
And they paid our debts and packed us o’er the sea.

Oh, they shook us off and shipped us o’er the foam,
To the larger lands that lure a man to roam;
And we took the chance they gave,
Of a far and foreign grave,
And we bade good-bye forevermore to home.

And some of us are climbing on the peak,
And some of us are camping on the plain,
By pine and palm you’ll find us,
With never claim to bind us,
By track and trail you’ll meet us once again.

We are fated serfs to freedom – sky and sea;
We have failed where slummy cities overflow;
But the stranger ways of Earth
Know our pride and worth,
And we go into the dark as fighters go.

Yes, we go into the night as brave men go,
Though our faces they be often streaked with woe;
Yet we’re hard as cats to kill,
And our hearts are reckless still,
And we’ve danced with death a dozen times or so.

And you’ll find us in Alaska after gold,
And you’ll find us herding cattle in the south.
We like strong drink and fun,
And, when the race is run,
We often die with curses in our mouth.
We are wild as colts unbroken, but never mean.
Of our sins we’ve shoulders broad to bear the blame;
But we’ll never stay in town
And we’ll never settle down,
And we’ll never have an object or an aim.

No, there’s that in us that time can never tame;
And life will always seem a careless game;
And they’d better far forget –
Those who say they love us yet –
Forget, blot out with bitterness our name.--Robert W. Service

Know the pain, Appreciate it

I keep feeling that I'm missing something. That there's some part of me that's not there yet. I've never tasted desperate. I've never had to deal with with the dirt and the grime. I've grown up with comfort and security and love. I haven't had to fight with the fear and the pain and the hardness of people's hearts. Yet, I feel that I should, that there's something to gain from having to go through this, that in some way it will help to shape me into the person whom I want to be.

There's a part of me that wonders why I haven't had to cope with this type of life. Why have I been blessed so? Is it simply arrogance on my part that I feel is if I could thrive if I was in that type of environment? Despite this, I feel as if I know or rather that I could know. It's not that I feel that I can relate to people who have had to go through this, it's, more so, that I feel that I do relate to them, that I have some kind of connection with them.

I have often attempted to put words to the reason why I have this design etched permanently in ink on me. It's as though I know that it is right, but I can't quite voice why. I can't quite make someone understand why I care for tattoos in general and why I care a great deal about my own. The reason is not solely because of it's mere look. That is part of it, but the greater part is, most certainly, what it says and the fact that it is shared. Furthermore it was him that asked to get them together and that never ceases to please me. There's something about tattoos in that they are forever, or at least they should be forever. They seem to say that no matter what happens, this will still be who I am, this will always be what I hold dear and what I believe and nothing can change that. Even if I am forced down in this world, I shall not be broken.

These two seemingly separate ideas, that of tasting desperate and tattoos, somehow coincide in my mind. I am having difficulty phrasing this, but there is some truth in that having a tattoo further enables me to understand. People, often time, look down on those who are covered with these permanent markings. Yet, this should not be.

Ora et Labora

Work, which makes a man free, and thought, which makes him worthy of freedom. --Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not.

I know that I have written recently about the idea of change but it is a question that haunts me. There is so much in the world that needs doing and so much apathy solving nothing. I know that it is a terrible trap to think that the world can be "fixed," that someone can can install or strong arm the world into peace, prosperity and happiness. And yet I am nearing my twentieth year of schooling and working towards a PhD in the humanities and would I be more effective working in a soup kitchen or an inner city school, or trying to change policy? I received a pretty clear sign, basically was shouted at, that I am where I am suppose to be. Yet long hours in the library leave me asking existential questions about my purpose in the world.

A few weeks ago in my first year colloquium we had a speaker (one of the professors) taking about the relationship between politics and literature. His point was that politics need not be something forced nor need they be at the forefront of our every thought and action. "We embody what our politics are." In a way the very act of being a scholar is a political act. It has been repeated so many times that it has begun to sound trite, but there is some truth in the statement that there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. The world has revolved, changed, and convulsed because of the ideas of people whose only claim in life is that they are scholars. The incipient power of ideas is just more subtle and hard to trace than the crack of a gun or even the power of a hot meal. But it is there.

And if our only goal is to take care of the material needs of the world, to make sure everyone is feed and sheltered we are only providing for part of what humanity needs. Not only is thought the only safeguard against abuses of power when attempting to achieve these ends but in addition to basic needs humans yearn for truth. Truth is the end for which we were made and the intellectual life if the pursuit of this Truth.

It can be too easy to forget this when engaged in the too solitary pursuit of knowledge, to get locked in a cyclical and sterile dialogue within the discipline that can never reach the outside world. So I leave you with final words of the aforementioned professor to our class-- in everything "The world should be too much with us--live with some discomfiture in the world."

And I'm Free

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
--Mark Twain

is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished

I recognize that I am a day late with this, but yesterday I did not have a spare moment to get down my thoughts on the day. I apologize for the delay.

My Guy Fawkes Day, as is my custom, culminated in a viewing of V for Vendetta. I know I mentioned the movie in last year's post for the day, but on this viewing something very different struck me. While there is plenty of violence in the film (as is to be expected I guess, in a movie by the Wachowski Brothers based off an Alan More comic book), V never recommends violence as a widespread social panacea and in fact never recommends that anyone beside himself, whom he seems outside of the system and as not full part of the world, use violence. For your reflection here is part of his television address to London, I realize it is a little long, but it is fascinating:

Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high chancellor, Adam Sutler. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent. Last night I sought to end that silence. Last night I destroyed the Old Bailey, to remind this country of what it has forgotten. More than four hundred years ago a great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives. So if you've seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you then I would suggest you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked. But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside me one year from tonight, outside the gates of Parliament, and together we shall give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever be forgot.

V makes two points here; first, injustice demands action or we are complicit with it. But his other point which underlies the first one is that, we cannot recognize justice, we cannot stand up for truth without deep contemplation. The authors here have spoken repeatedly about the power of words but it is a point worth repeating--we must be constantly intellectually engaged with the world. In 1984 one of the government's primary tactics in controlling the populace is redefining words--a practice which goes on both intentionally and unintentionally in our world. As Alan More says, "…Text-messaging or The Sun, these are perfect Orwellian ways of limiting the vocabulary and thus limiting the consciousness…" The real revolution is not V blowing up a building. That, as he says, is a symbol. The real revolution, what V is in fact urging the people of London to do and what hopefully follows the action of the film, is the people once again begin to think, to question, to challenge and thus to rediscover the Truth.

Stand Up and Fight and I'll Stand up with you

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
--John Stuart Mill