Still trying to fix the indexing problem with this blog. Apparently, there's a rogue robots.txt file somewhere, but nothing's visible to my console. Makes even the sitemaps unparseable. Not that big a concern, just a peculiar annoyance to encounter, as the blog is hosted by the search company.
Still a useful appurtenance to the website, though, despite the ticking of the clock and the work-study fellows patiently waiting at the back of the room with the erasers.
Quod scriptsit, scripsit -- at least for the nonce.
don't pine, it kills
That quote is from John Crowley, a favorite novelist, and it's good advice for the most part. Nonetheless, I am pining for the northern parts of the peninsula, thinking of the theatres and music and coffehouses there. But the path, for several reasons, needs to keep to the south for a bit.
And miles to go before I sleep...
And miles to go before I sleep...
the water jug
D.T. Suzuki relates the Zen parable about a student who told his teacher that he didn't seem to be making any progress in the spiritual life. The teacher told him to place two jars of water outside his door. Each morning, he was to empty and replace one of them, but leave the other as it was, day after day.
The lesson learned is probably sufficiently clear from that.
Not unrelatedly, one of the thoughts I've had to steer my mind most firmly away from is the salary scale of my law school class year. Those who were admitted past the thresholds of the firms then are doing quite well now. For the record, my grades were quite good, my bar passage scores (self-study) quite high, and my degree first-tier. Even given this, though, the important thing is the art. To use a rapier analogy, I've kept the weapons oiled and well-practiced. A bit like a swordsman who didn't have the right connections in the world of international fencing, but still has the skill and discipline. To most minds, this keeping up the skill would seem useless and illogical.
Do the useless and illogical things. Logic, for the most part, only comes from use, and use only arises from logic. But this is true only of the usual, average path through life. If you stand outside that, you must commit yourself to the useless and illogical. If the art is true, then the art can still be good.
Despite the apparent lack of progress.
The lesson learned is probably sufficiently clear from that.
Not unrelatedly, one of the thoughts I've had to steer my mind most firmly away from is the salary scale of my law school class year. Those who were admitted past the thresholds of the firms then are doing quite well now. For the record, my grades were quite good, my bar passage scores (self-study) quite high, and my degree first-tier. Even given this, though, the important thing is the art. To use a rapier analogy, I've kept the weapons oiled and well-practiced. A bit like a swordsman who didn't have the right connections in the world of international fencing, but still has the skill and discipline. To most minds, this keeping up the skill would seem useless and illogical.
Do the useless and illogical things. Logic, for the most part, only comes from use, and use only arises from logic. But this is true only of the usual, average path through life. If you stand outside that, you must commit yourself to the useless and illogical. If the art is true, then the art can still be good.
Despite the apparent lack of progress.
apolitical thought
There is perhaps a peculiar danger in a government guided by the minds and wills of the people. This puts the minds and wills of the people in play, as it were. More subject to political forces than otherwise. No one needed to make a serf believe that a certain politician would make the best king.
There are some egregious things going on with the state now, but there's something odd about them. They're predictably egregious. Reliably egregious. Masked, unidentified agents capturing people, taking them to prisons controlled by the second sovereignty, the federal sovereignty, not the one usually enforcing law and order in the state. Egregious, yes, but obviously so.
The standard jibe against the current president in NYC society was that he was a rodeo clown. When thoughts like that float down from the court, think about them carefully. A rodeo clown distracts the bull while the workers are doing the important things, the things a bull would not like if he knew about them. These egregious things are bad, yes, but what else might be going on? For example, how might they be making the lists of people to pursue?
I'm just stating the obvious. I oppose all bad things and am firmly in favor of the good things, but I don't think such a predisposition has a voice in the government at present, so I'll keep my peace. I used to read the party platforms before each election (you had to request them by mail), but now I recognize that that sphere of discouse would be a waste. Lear to recognize the important things, and focus your mind on them entirely -- ruthlessly.
But occasionally, state the obvious.
equinox approaches
The equinoctal winds seemed to start here early last week. At first, from the south, with the characteristic scent of industry (not the good kind) that seems to come with those winds. Which, based on my few weeks' worth of experience, also seem to be associated with cold fronts. Strong reversals, nights just a bit colder.
And the egg balancing. It doesn't work any better on the equinox as a matter of physics, but as a social norm, it expresses the day quite well. Beliefs aside, it's simply what we do.
I could stand to be back in the city, picking up a paperback in the east village, and taking it back to the apartment or to a coffeehouse, or even the small college towns in Minnesota or North Dakota where I decamped during the plague years, perhaps wandering through the 1950s-era library and then taking the dusty Heidegger or Nietzsche back the apartment. (The Minnesota rooms were actually great for this, since the local library could reach into the largest state university library research collections via interlibrary loan. Got thoroughly caught up on the modern Russian novels.) But it seems I'm travelling through the southern Balkans (I'm much more partial to the bits above the Danube, or even further still, above the mountains, tbh), so I must find my existence in the manner of the place, or at least in the understanding of it. I must live as one lives, among the local ways, because these ways actually exist. Grounding yourself in the present place and time in order to live -- an essential practice for those who go to sea in a sieve.
Equinoctal unrest. And in the far, or perhaps not so far, distance, approaching winter.
Manet nobiscum, domine, quoniam advesperacit.
And the egg balancing. It doesn't work any better on the equinox as a matter of physics, but as a social norm, it expresses the day quite well. Beliefs aside, it's simply what we do.
I could stand to be back in the city, picking up a paperback in the east village, and taking it back to the apartment or to a coffeehouse, or even the small college towns in Minnesota or North Dakota where I decamped during the plague years, perhaps wandering through the 1950s-era library and then taking the dusty Heidegger or Nietzsche back the apartment. (The Minnesota rooms were actually great for this, since the local library could reach into the largest state university library research collections via interlibrary loan. Got thoroughly caught up on the modern Russian novels.) But it seems I'm travelling through the southern Balkans (I'm much more partial to the bits above the Danube, or even further still, above the mountains, tbh), so I must find my existence in the manner of the place, or at least in the understanding of it. I must live as one lives, among the local ways, because these ways actually exist. Grounding yourself in the present place and time in order to live -- an essential practice for those who go to sea in a sieve.
Equinoctal unrest. And in the far, or perhaps not so far, distance, approaching winter.
Manet nobiscum, domine, quoniam advesperacit.
political pessimism
The age of the Machiavel, as opposed to the age of the Republic. All well and good, but the difficulty comes when a hundred million people start to imitate that.
The cynical view: a mad, at times apparently imbecile, rat-catcher appears to be willing to burn down the city to drive out the rats, or at least unaware of the means historically used to avoid conflagration, and in the shadows, the old rat-kings are making war.
Rather good time to decamp, I think. Were it not for the war, exploring 19th c. wooden houses deep in Siberia, and reading Kant and Hegel by lamplight might be the order of the day.
I would stay and save the Republic (the famous epitaph: "They did not despair of the R."), but reading Heidegger on a park bench is a notoriously ineffective means of social change.
Gently down the stream.
The cynical view: a mad, at times apparently imbecile, rat-catcher appears to be willing to burn down the city to drive out the rats, or at least unaware of the means historically used to avoid conflagration, and in the shadows, the old rat-kings are making war.
Rather good time to decamp, I think. Were it not for the war, exploring 19th c. wooden houses deep in Siberia, and reading Kant and Hegel by lamplight might be the order of the day.
I would stay and save the Republic (the famous epitaph: "They did not despair of the R."), but reading Heidegger on a park bench is a notoriously ineffective means of social change.
Gently down the stream.
local costs
The prices are peculiar here. Clothes and dry goods about twice Amazon rates, but groceries about par with the last country. Cheap theatre/music tickets are about twice regional norms, but still a tenth of USA. Part of it might be that they seem to usually price the whole house at a single level. Online/retail outlet ticketing a bit rough, but that's par for the region.
The clothing and goods prices are odd, though. I don't see how the locals could afford it. There is cheap retail (H&M, etc., which not every city has, but the pricing is comparatively high, even against the countries to the east.) Suspect that there are other retail mechanisms (though there doesn't seem to be the market culture of the last country -- essential to master if you want decent socks at a fair price, not in the negotiation, as the first offer is generally within reason and well under retail, but in knowing which of the booths has a stash piled behind the boxes) or discounting.
The clothing and goods prices are odd, though. I don't see how the locals could afford it. There is cheap retail (H&M, etc., which not every city has, but the pricing is comparatively high, even against the countries to the east.) Suspect that there are other retail mechanisms (though there doesn't seem to be the market culture of the last country -- essential to master if you want decent socks at a fair price, not in the negotiation, as the first offer is generally within reason and well under retail, but in knowing which of the booths has a stash piled behind the boxes) or discounting.
morning runs
Still off these. I've certainly travelled through places where it wasn't safe or clean enough to go out between dawn and the early risers, and this isn't that. A combination of mild injury, some mild difficulties in the surroundings, and something I can't quite put my finger on.
Gently down the stream. Stream permitting.
Gently down the stream. Stream permitting.
The event still has the power to reveal.
----------------------
I once read a fun interview with a seasoned wedding photographer, who talked about how he can always tell which marriages are going to last and which ones aren’t. It’s the way the bride and groom act around each other, apparently. Looking bored during each other’s speeches is another key tell. More on that shortly.
international public law
Reading the think-pieces around the two big conflicts can be a bit dispiriting. Having become a commentator, or a publicist, or whatever they're called these days, the writers write pieces saying what the law of nations should be, and then use them for partisan purposes.
The law of nations is precisely what nations have done under necessity, and whatever inferences you can draw from that to the present, with the presumption that things should remain the same, and parties should honor their agreements. But everyone always acts according to necessity. You can't bind a nation in a Lockean or moral-contract sense. Nations feel no guilt, and treaties are frequently "un-signed" these days.
If you're trying to make an argument for an extension of existing law, you're better off trying to predict what nations will agree to, and then inflect that a bit, rather than making an argument about what the law says in itself, so that you can then flog the other side with it if they take the other course. Eventually, that diminishes the power of the idea of international law, which is the most valuable part of international law. It took centuries to build this up, and a lot has been lost in the last five years alone.
Unlike the law of a nation, if the nations don't presently observe a certain precept, that precept no longer exists as a principle of international law.
The law of nations is precisely what nations have done under necessity, and whatever inferences you can draw from that to the present, with the presumption that things should remain the same, and parties should honor their agreements. But everyone always acts according to necessity. You can't bind a nation in a Lockean or moral-contract sense. Nations feel no guilt, and treaties are frequently "un-signed" these days.
If you're trying to make an argument for an extension of existing law, you're better off trying to predict what nations will agree to, and then inflect that a bit, rather than making an argument about what the law says in itself, so that you can then flog the other side with it if they take the other course. Eventually, that diminishes the power of the idea of international law, which is the most valuable part of international law. It took centuries to build this up, and a lot has been lost in the last five years alone.
Unlike the law of a nation, if the nations don't presently observe a certain precept, that precept no longer exists as a principle of international law.
comparison
Imagine moving to a small town in America in the 1950s. The town is distant from the capital city, and has its own distinct culture. You arrive in your wood-paneled station wagon, and ask around about employment. After some prying, people begin to talk about who the powerful people are in the different companies, who you should strike up friendships with, do favors for, etc. You ask about simply applying at the offices, and they give you a sort of sideways smile.
That's the way things are now when looking for a white-collar position, and to some degree, even for blue-collar work. It's not the way it was twenty years ago, so I have to assume that it's even more distinct from the paradigms of early 20th century American life. And no one talks about it, for obvious reasons. One's chances might be significantly damaged if one were to suggest that "networking" might be a euphemism for a way of working that wouldn't have been unfamiliar to the criminal syndicates of a generation ago.
Focus your mind on the thing itself, which has a reality distinct from the pragmatic social practices that society uses to structure itself. We weren't put here just to get by -- the point of your existence is to do something real.
That's the way things are now when looking for a white-collar position, and to some degree, even for blue-collar work. It's not the way it was twenty years ago, so I have to assume that it's even more distinct from the paradigms of early 20th century American life. And no one talks about it, for obvious reasons. One's chances might be significantly damaged if one were to suggest that "networking" might be a euphemism for a way of working that wouldn't have been unfamiliar to the criminal syndicates of a generation ago.
Focus your mind on the thing itself, which has a reality distinct from the pragmatic social practices that society uses to structure itself. We weren't put here just to get by -- the point of your existence is to do something real.
Another late night, and into the morning. Sufficient is the day -- and occoasionally its appurtenant hours.
What I thought was a substantial muscle twinge from the run seems to have mended surprisingly quickly. But it's close enough to the joint that discretion might be the better part of valor.
Gently down the stream. The ramparts of Elsinore are no place for tomfoolery.
Tried to get back to the early runs yesterday. The strays proved amiable and friendly, and there was much less dust on the river path, but a bit of uneven pavement has likely put an end to those adventures before breakfast for the balance of this stay. In context, I've successfully negotiated the same in Mostar and Bucharest for months at a time, so this isn't the UWS entitlement-happy indignant call to the city about a stray tree root. My own error, of course, the end of the run was a bit late here, so I was trying to negotiate the early office crowd at the time. One can be a proficient trail runner, and one can be a proficient city runner, but proficiency in trail conditions in the city takes real skill and care.
Up past two AM on various tasks. Sufficient is the day, but sometimes a bit of stoppage time is required.
The center is most definitely that discipline of the enlightenment that one from the east would associate with national socialism, and one from central europe would associate with the commissars of the historical dialectic. Neither would be correct, of course. But that is the way. The ineffable lightness of being might work in Prague or Warsaw, but in the lands of the south, one must steer a straighter path. Perhaps the same danger that Gauguin decided to make a virtue. Southlands.
Sometimes, I have the impulse to find a room and just read an Iris Murdoch novel from start to finish. Usually, I channel this into reading something more productive, such as a philosopher writing about philosophy rather than a philosopher writing mass-market fiction.
It's good to understand that we sometimes pine for senses of things, not the things themselves.
Interesting -- the country to the east is livecasting their big classical music festival (which would be well outside the budget for this peregrination, were I there).
I've been very miserly with my ticket purchases. The general theory has been good theatre and music for $5-$8 per night. I remember, also in the country to the east, perhaps my first stay there, there was a classical concert I very much wanted to hear -- the pianist had been a close friend of S. Richter, and she had come to prominence by winning the competition in the hall in which she was performing, and now returned to it at the end of her performing career. But it was just a bit over 20 Euros. I did make a point of noticing the hour when it happened, though -- I was staying less than a mile away, and I listened to a Richter performance.
Something to do with the meaningfulness of sacrifice, perhaps. Marking the time.
One good thing about the last country: Sbux at 1990s prices. $2.50, and then sitting and reading for a couple of hours in a bright, air-filled room with interesting things outside the window. Unlike the country to the east, where an Americano would have set me back over $6.
It's not loyalty to the brand, or the material substance of the brew (except for the fact that I'm more confident about the hygiene of preparation and the source of the beans), it's genuinely having the place in the city where you can get a coffee in a fresh paper cup from the counter, watch them pour it, and then sit in a bright, airy room for an hour or two and read. (While everyone around is insta-telegramming their milkshakes.)
The local custom in this country, the southern coastal country of the old republic, and the mostly Muslim nation just to the north is small, dim airless rooms, or close patios with a lot of shade and greenery and cigarette smoke, where coffee is served in mugs. It's a legitimate form of comfort. Hygge, perhaps.
But it is not my way. And I am not for all waters.
In the darker places of the region, you can understand the agnosticism of the cities vis a vis East and West. The point is to get to the light, and the work of the day is to get closer to the light, and transmit more of the light. Faced with a decison between the resources of a distant superpower and the connection to a regional center of civilization and and culture, whatever the political alignment of that city, perhaps part of the deal is that choosing the first option means that spiritually, the place will have to make do for itself. Sufficient is the day. No simple highway.
Taking things on a simple East--West dichotomy in this part of the world is like reading a roadmap when planning a hiking trip. There's also the topological factors to consider. Elevations. De profundis. In situ, these things mean much more than the reality suggested by the simple colored lines.
the gauntlet
The native American tribes sometimes used a punishment called the gauntlet--they would force the prisoner to traverse, in parallel, two lines of people attacking them. Some tried to run, and were generally unsuccessful once the first solid blow was landed (at least according to the historical novels of my youth). Similarly, some tried to single out one of the attackers; this usually worked in the novel, but I have my doubts as to how it might have worked out in the field.
Having traversed a few ritual rites of training and passage that resemble the practice, though, I'm beginning to have my doubts as to whether I understood the nature of the exercise, reading novels in the wilderness about the wilderness. (Yes, that was our practice.) Perhaps the purpose of the exercise wasn't to punish the dangerous enemies of the tribe, but to identify them.
Having traversed a few ritual rites of training and passage that resemble the practice, though, I'm beginning to have my doubts as to whether I understood the nature of the exercise, reading novels in the wilderness about the wilderness. (Yes, that was our practice.) Perhaps the purpose of the exercise wasn't to punish the dangerous enemies of the tribe, but to identify them.
I've consciously followed a sort of geometric pattern in these Balkan explorations, and the correlative to this, just as the proportion and length of the fretted string has a correlative in sound and the tension of the harmonic, is that I now have an inner attunement of sorts, pining for the next step in the journey. With autumn, thinking about the northern cities, the theatres, the music. Not as ends in themselves, but it's easier to work and think when you're going to a production of Hamlet that night that has more than a parochial sensibility, and is being staged in the context of the work at the best European theatres. (That said, a truly great production of Hamlet would only have its parochial sensibility, and it would have that sensibility completely.) So I pine for paths, not places. and with the coming of autumn, it's the thoughts of the north, and the cities. God willin' and the crick don't rise.
The European project is the basic attunement of this journey. It would be much less costly to wander the resorts of the south, or the ancient temples of Asia, but I am clinging rather tenaciously to a few lines of thought and work in the West. Listening to the consecration bells broadcast every morning, to a handful of souls, from old cities and colleges to the north. It would be possible to decamp for awhile deep into the East -- a few major philosophers quietly did that after ww2, and focused on translating the sensibility of their work, but they were masters, and had their own work well in hand. We of the West do well to keep to the West, or at least as close as circumstances allow. First, keep the paths of the mind alive and functioning. While making the occasional journeys of discovery.
Very strange LNOP. Extended, maudlin sendoff for a well-connected soloist retiring in her 40s, and then someone apparently thought it would be a good idea to turn a comedian loose on the organ between the national anthem and the song of fellowship. If memory serves, the latter used to begin without the orchestra. Or perhaps that's my memory cunningly suggesting the ideal.
On the other hand, a comedian being turned loose on the great instrument in-between the national anthem and the song of true fellowship is perhaps a true reflection of the times.
Interesting piece on Woody Allen in the Times. Living, in his old age, across the street from the anhedonia of his youth. Interesting detail on the dinners with E. -- not proper meals, more telephones and computers. Rings true as to some of those types. Not the preoccupation with business, but feeling the need to call it a dinner party.
The best advice I could give would be to always focus on the thing itself, and the struggle to understand the thing itself, and yourself as someone whose task it is to understand the thing itself. You'll then be able to perceive when the folks around you aren't concerned with things as they are -- or might be. Otherwise, you might not realize the diection the bus is heading.
νῦν δὲ λογικός εἰμι: ὑμνεῖν με δεῖ τὸν θεόν. (Epictetus)
Λογικοσ--of the logos, and of legein. The mind not as some abstract capablility in negative potential, but that which brings us into being. We speak, as birds sing, to have our being by giving an order to things, and separating things that are ordered together.
-----------
Review of a new biography of (The Young) Tennyson in the Times. There's an anecdote about the time he processed into the Sheldonian to receieve an honorary degree, unkempt as usual, and one of the robed dons in the cheap seats called out, "Mum wake you early, dearie?"
And News Quiz returns for the start of the London season. Somehow it's already mid-September. And Last Night of the Proms tonight. I remember, in the days before ubiquitous wi-fi, walking up and down a subway platform on the long commute, deep in the outer boroughs, trying to cadge a network to catch a few mintutes of it live.
When I was in those years of constant auditions in the city, I actually made a practice of listening to PMQs and the BBC parliament coverage. Seemed like a good way to get the news without being drawn into the labyrinth of mediation. If word could reach the chamber, the topic was probably important, and I'd rather listen to the words that the MPs use to describe it than the writers and television reporters. The λεγειν.
There's a universe of promptings that you can tune your electronic device towards. I've always found it more useful to use it to eavesdrop on the events going on in worthwhile places, as opposed to enjoying the device as an end in itself.
Ave Maria
The feast of the name of Mary. Instituted when Sobieski's news about lifting the second siege of Vienna (more coffee for us) arrived in Rome, paraphrasing Caesar: We came, We saw, God conquered. After wandering the Balkans for a bit, these sentiments are a bit more comprehensible. There are three great historical winds here -- the wind from the West, and Rome; the East, and Orthodoxy; and the South, anciently the Sublime Porte, but Ataturk's republic is still a living force in these southern countries. Possibly, there's another wind from the north, anciently the Saxons and the protestants contra the Habsburgs (when they arrived to lift the siege, treated none too kindly by the local Catholics), and now the industrial developments with loud German shepherds, and late-night classes at the Goethe Institute -- if you look in the window, you can sometimes see the bleary-eyed locals (no doubt after working two jobs that day) scrutinizing the whiteboards.
At present, I'm in the lands the government of which Demosthenes excoriated in the Philippics. It's a peculiar place. They left the old socialist southern republic before things degenerated into war -- from the chatter I've read, apparently they realized they had little interest in the fight, and would simply be used as soldiers by one of the larger ethnic groups. But avoiding the general war of the 1990s didn't make for an idyllic republic. The capital appears to be a placid but divided city, much like some others in the region, with one religion on one side of the river and the other on the other. Just a punter's guess, but perhaps the more recent conflict in the city is from the fact that the population growth after the recent nearby war didn't follow that pattern. The capital is marked with baroque architecture and statues, many from a development push a decade ago, and from a decade before that, there's an enormous lit cross on the mountain above the city. The folks across the river undoubtedly have very firm notions on statuary. (Latin churches in this part of the world seem to make a point of having a statue or two out front, and sounding the bells at the canonical hours, even if the doors are locked at the time. Cf. Ivo Andric's novel, in which the arrival of the French diplomat causes the Christians to wonder if flags might be allowed.) And adjacent to the large cross on the mountain, there is an even larger tower, apparently a telecom tower, which closely resembles the central tower in the Muslim-majority capital city to the northwest. The rocks and stones themselves.
Travelling through these places does bring some very strong dreams, and it does force you to define where you stand in relation to these questions. Someone could live their entire life in North Dakota and never encounter these forces, and there's many who would say that it's not a bad thing, and perhaps even the point of the New World. But it's been my experience, as someone from the New World on a bit of a peregrination hereabouts, that the dreams in which you have some sense of the angels will come even if you are a fast-food and television-reared child of nature amid the suburban comforts. (Kant's only statuary was a bust of Rousseau. It's a beginning.) When they occur in the context of world-historical forces, though, these dreams and intimations have a context within living experience. And perhaps the recent political experience of my country shows the dangers of these intimations of higher things when they arise without any context in the social life. The message can get a bit garbled, and a soi-disant modern Sobieski can launch a crusade against a DC pizza joint, and then make a last-second detour to the Capitol. History is an attempt to synthesize the higher truths of experience within the social fabric. And this can bring the wars in heaven down to earth, either with actual armies and actual pain and death, or in the form of a bridge laden with statuary, almost like primitive charms against the other tribe, lining the paths between the villages.
Rousseau didn't imagine that the children of nature would be dispassionate blank slates, or mild animals content to sleep and feed and work in the factories. This simplicity of primeval (or perhaps primordial) nature was a notion of greatness. The point was that this greatness came about through simplicity, and (long before Weber), disenchanting the people of a few old social charms. And Kant took this notion as a beginning. We of the New World can't pretend, in our innocence and prosperity, that there aren't ancient spiritual conflicts, and occasionally the wars in heaven are being fought out on earth. And perhaps the real danger is that we, with our own personal sense of the numinous, and of faith, might leap into these conflicts precipitously. Where wars of religion are being fought, they often have as much to do with the earthly elements of the two societies as they do with religious doctrines. The reine tor from the New World doesn't intuitively understand that these higher personal truths he senses so clearly have been translated into social experience over long centuries of conversation and daily life. Jumping into a battle because you recognize a device on the flag is a bit foolhardy. Instead, the traveller, knowing their own spiritual sympathies, is best off carefully observing the way these inner sensibilities have been translated into the social fabric, and making peace where it is possible to make peace.
I say this sort of thing with trepidation, as it's a bit contrary to the present television-oriented foreign policy of my country. But I have lived in these small towns and cities, in the north and in the south, in North Dakota and in midtown Manhattan. There are hundreds of millions staring at the televisions and imagining that they understand. Life, though, is (if I can make a sectarian point of my own) much closer to the care and encounter of sacrament than the sudden insights and identifications of textual analysis. America wields a rather big stick these days, and the policy decisions often play to the television narratives. But the ancient truths of the world are inscribed on the wanderer's staff. Every encounter is transactional sacrament, not a merely a vindication of simple and intuitive truths you always already knew.
Hold to your faith, and look carefully.
At present, I'm in the lands the government of which Demosthenes excoriated in the Philippics. It's a peculiar place. They left the old socialist southern republic before things degenerated into war -- from the chatter I've read, apparently they realized they had little interest in the fight, and would simply be used as soldiers by one of the larger ethnic groups. But avoiding the general war of the 1990s didn't make for an idyllic republic. The capital appears to be a placid but divided city, much like some others in the region, with one religion on one side of the river and the other on the other. Just a punter's guess, but perhaps the more recent conflict in the city is from the fact that the population growth after the recent nearby war didn't follow that pattern. The capital is marked with baroque architecture and statues, many from a development push a decade ago, and from a decade before that, there's an enormous lit cross on the mountain above the city. The folks across the river undoubtedly have very firm notions on statuary. (Latin churches in this part of the world seem to make a point of having a statue or two out front, and sounding the bells at the canonical hours, even if the doors are locked at the time. Cf. Ivo Andric's novel, in which the arrival of the French diplomat causes the Christians to wonder if flags might be allowed.) And adjacent to the large cross on the mountain, there is an even larger tower, apparently a telecom tower, which closely resembles the central tower in the Muslim-majority capital city to the northwest. The rocks and stones themselves.
Travelling through these places does bring some very strong dreams, and it does force you to define where you stand in relation to these questions. Someone could live their entire life in North Dakota and never encounter these forces, and there's many who would say that it's not a bad thing, and perhaps even the point of the New World. But it's been my experience, as someone from the New World on a bit of a peregrination hereabouts, that the dreams in which you have some sense of the angels will come even if you are a fast-food and television-reared child of nature amid the suburban comforts. (Kant's only statuary was a bust of Rousseau. It's a beginning.) When they occur in the context of world-historical forces, though, these dreams and intimations have a context within living experience. And perhaps the recent political experience of my country shows the dangers of these intimations of higher things when they arise without any context in the social life. The message can get a bit garbled, and a soi-disant modern Sobieski can launch a crusade against a DC pizza joint, and then make a last-second detour to the Capitol. History is an attempt to synthesize the higher truths of experience within the social fabric. And this can bring the wars in heaven down to earth, either with actual armies and actual pain and death, or in the form of a bridge laden with statuary, almost like primitive charms against the other tribe, lining the paths between the villages.
Rousseau didn't imagine that the children of nature would be dispassionate blank slates, or mild animals content to sleep and feed and work in the factories. This simplicity of primeval (or perhaps primordial) nature was a notion of greatness. The point was that this greatness came about through simplicity, and (long before Weber), disenchanting the people of a few old social charms. And Kant took this notion as a beginning. We of the New World can't pretend, in our innocence and prosperity, that there aren't ancient spiritual conflicts, and occasionally the wars in heaven are being fought out on earth. And perhaps the real danger is that we, with our own personal sense of the numinous, and of faith, might leap into these conflicts precipitously. Where wars of religion are being fought, they often have as much to do with the earthly elements of the two societies as they do with religious doctrines. The reine tor from the New World doesn't intuitively understand that these higher personal truths he senses so clearly have been translated into social experience over long centuries of conversation and daily life. Jumping into a battle because you recognize a device on the flag is a bit foolhardy. Instead, the traveller, knowing their own spiritual sympathies, is best off carefully observing the way these inner sensibilities have been translated into the social fabric, and making peace where it is possible to make peace.
I say this sort of thing with trepidation, as it's a bit contrary to the present television-oriented foreign policy of my country. But I have lived in these small towns and cities, in the north and in the south, in North Dakota and in midtown Manhattan. There are hundreds of millions staring at the televisions and imagining that they understand. Life, though, is (if I can make a sectarian point of my own) much closer to the care and encounter of sacrament than the sudden insights and identifications of textual analysis. America wields a rather big stick these days, and the policy decisions often play to the television narratives. But the ancient truths of the world are inscribed on the wanderer's staff. Every encounter is transactional sacrament, not a merely a vindication of simple and intuitive truths you always already knew.
Hold to your faith, and look carefully.
The problem afflicting all of the superpowers, perhaps: the necessity that the politically unacceptable but meritorious folks be able to secure a minimal existence within the civilization. Beneficient corporate purposiveness has its antinomies.
Before the conflict started, I mused about heading to Siberia, with its 19th c. wooden buildings preserved in the cold, to find a small university (somehow with English language instruction) and study and live simply. Infinitely preferable to being caught up in what passes for the political world presently. Dostoevsky wept when he read Hegel's pronouncement that the remote place that he was in was outside history, though. But if the centers of things are caught up in false ways of thinking, perhaps it is better to live deliberately. History is the consciousness of history. If, at the center of things, only those who don't understand are allowed to play a role, then perhaps the nature of history (as we know it, a relatively recent vocabulary for parsing experience) itself has changed.
Back to the books.
Still off the morning runs. Has led to a more civilian rising hour. Just going with it for the nonce. Inauspicious place for the early run (the city has many interesting things about it, but I think even its partisans would concede that it's not California in that respect), and resting the ligatures a bit after a month of lengthening the morning course in the last city. (Up to six or seven miles, I think. Incentivized by the fact that I had to run out of the urban areas to the idyllic forested parts by the rivers.)
Separately -- my route took me past the museum of contemporary art there, which apparently has a practice of playing exotic and threatening bird calls in the mornings to keep the flocks of crows away. Strange how an organization's purpose can be reflected in all of its works. Hegel: the cunning is more than the conscious.
I'm a very big fan of that city. Much more civilized than comparable cities within world powers. Non-aligned. Big military parade next week, though. I spent many evenings at the sbux across from the redesigned space in front of the parliament, and the redesign of the street really does give a Red Square vibe.
But as for today, no run. When I return to it, I will return to it. Now that I am not doing it, I am not doing it.
"The most important thing is not to be divided." (Grotowski)
re: Morning Runs
Still off these for the nonce, for several reasons. There are times when the light brigade should charge, and there are times when the light brigade should refrain from charging.
[In the background, from their various tents, the Light Brigade strikes up a winsome refrain of "All Quiet Along the Potomac" in the flickering light of the campfires.]
It would be useful to be in a place where I could run before dawn without the strays and the pollution, a gym at hand, basic healthy food (coffehouses, perhaps, as well), churches for meditation and liturgy, and a world-class research library to work in all day, but the only scenario that would provide that, if I were to try to jump now, would likely not allow for a place to rest the head in the evenings, so I reckon I'll press on. Though I did mull the prospect.
In the larger view, many more things would be useful, of course. The fact that these things come to my mind indicate that the mind's provisioning task is revealing the nature of the work to be done.
So -- work towards these things, to the exclusion of others, to the extent that circumstances allow.
Notes for something Kafkaish, cont'd:
A protagonist, a bit adrift, attempts to compose the events of the past into a recognizable history, but encounters considerable difficulty. Perhaps he is the child of civil servants, and knows that confidential government work basically destroyed his parents and his family, and also he knows that, after he left their home, networks of corrupt people made short work of what he thought to be his life's work and then two subsequent attempts at a career in the learned professions. The question, the thing that keeps him from understanding the story, is the degree to which these things might be connected. Is it the nature of the country and society that such things happen, or did something happen within the world that encompassed both events and made his experience unique from the others?
Knowing the story seems to take on added importance, as he senses even the smallest, least remunerative opportunities closing themselves off to him outside the world of the corrupt networks, and the darker contacts and context of the old home. Fathoming the reason for the vanishing of the light -- a peculiar impulse, perhaps.
At any rate, an interesting piece of fiction.
The point might be wondering at the urgency of knowing such things, when the knowledge would seem to be of little avail.
From my limited understanding of the present national politics, and my personal experiences in several spheres, I'd be inclined to say that the most salient thing about the present executive is that this is not an outlier or an anomaly -- across the two factions prevailing generally (as against each other), this sort of sensibility seems to be prevalent. And, not incidentally, each offers a world-encompassing explanation sufficient to constitute a comprehensive political ontology for its followers.
I have no way of knowing how many other wanderers there might be. Perhaps I'm the outlier, and the republic is entirely healthy with the single exception of the experiences of one of its citizens. But these experiences would objectively suggest the possibility of a more prevalent difficulty. The presumption is properly against the anomaly.
I actually feel a bit like apologizing to each of these settlements, as it tries to draw me into the sleep of the place, and I assert my inward ways against it. (I'm off the morning runs for a bit, for several reasons.) It's not like I'm holding off, hoping to fall into the spell of a greater city. The attraction of the large northen cities on these travels is precisely that it's easier to stand apart from things there, and think and work. Even in my home city of a few decades, I've deliberately lived, like many of the full-time residents there, at some distance from the madding crowd and their various comforts. The trick is to appreciate the flame that has drawn the forest to the place, without following the moths, and trying to cast yourself into it on arrival.
And yet -- each place does have a message that it is straining to express to the traveller, and it is possible to listen for those things, the things the place wishes to be known, and to try to understand them.
We were the first class of the conservatory (now in the top ten worldwide, by some rankings), so there were some difficulties. I stayed out of the fray, and just worked on soaking up as much of the work as I could. The higher elements, mainly the classical elements (and listening to those concerts and rehearsals were a small part of that), have leavened the other things over the intervening times. Conservatory is about planting seeds for the coming years. Mix in a few redwoods. Cedars. Eastern pine. The parts of it that have fallen away in the course of the years were lesser things from the beginning. There were one or two very passionate but craven teachers, feminist politics, all the right PC ideas, etc. Those teachings won't even endure, let alone prevail. The more careful work of the art lasts.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)