In one sense it’s crazy to challenge and defy Plato, the Old Testament prophets, Jesus, scientists, one’s own doctor, and especially friends. Who am I to do this? A nobody. Which is a great strength. A somebody has something to defend. At the bottom of the heap, you are free. You have only yourself to keep alive—or not.
The real strength comes when you are in touch with the ground on which you stand, literally and metaphorically. I’m on home ground in my own self. I do admire the wonderful edifice built by scientists. This morning Melvyn Bragg’s radio programme, “In Our Time” was a discussion of macromolecules “that form the basis of all life”. We know them as polymers. They are the basis of spiders’ webs and most of our plastic packaging. We use a lot of oil and fuel-energy to make plastic bags, but a spider eats flies and other garbage to produce gossamer stronger than steel, using only water-based chemical processes. Not only that, spiders’ webs are biodegradable, unlike our own legacy of plastics in landfill sites, which may litter the planet (especially the oceans) almost forever.
That science is a deadly litterer is not science’s fault, you may say. Blame business, blame governments. It is they who sponsor science, which is morally neutral. Like a prostitute: the acts she offers to perform are to please her clients, not her own choice. When I make the comparison I am morally neutral too. I don’t condemn prostitutes, nor their clients either. Nor do I attempt by rhetoric to stir the emotions of my regular readers. They are too sophisticated to fall for that.
I wrote a post about litter a while ago. This blog is also my journal, helps me recall moments trivial in themselves, but recorded in honour of some flash of illumination which made it worthwhile trying to capture something in words. Thus I retain a snapshot memory: a spot against a hedgerow in a recreation ground in Bracknell, Berkshire, which I used to call Babylon Town. I used to refer to the company I worked for as Maxiram: in fact it was the Fujitsu Corporation. Every lunchtime I’d follow impulse and go walking in the surrounding area. On that day, I saw some plastic bottles scattered roughly like the borders of a square to record the visit of a group who must have sat or lain in the shade of that hedgerow, enjoying themselves in heedless abandon. As I said then, recording my feelings at this sight: “I didn’t blame them for the non-biodegradable quality of the bottles.” From the programme “In Our Time” I learn that science could, if it had sufficient incentive, develop polymers with the qualities of spider-silk, enabling careless youth to litter freely with all the innocence of Adam and Eve before the Fall. We are not there yet.
On this blog, long ago labelled “perpetual-lab” and originally titled “An Ongoing Experiment”, a reader can trace impulse rather than intellectual coherence. That is my own intuitive substitute for the normal conventions of scientific method. It’s fallible, prone to the grossest error, but tell me what isn’t! My real strength is to allow something other than my conscious mind to come through. Any wisdom expressed here is our common wisdom, the wisdom of this organism called Earth, which is part of a bigger organism called the Universe, which started, so the scientists’ creation myth tells us, with a Big Bang. I like to listen to the other creation myths too, such as those of the shamans scattered over various parts of the globe. They say there was once a common language, common to all species—birds, beasts, plants, rocks and us. We are cut from the same cloth. Our sense of separateness is balanced, if only our culture and our individual life-journey would allow us to see it, by a sense of oneness: which is more than a “sense”. We are bound together in our destiny. Homo sapiens is currently dominant. This is very scary indeed: for us and all the other species, animal, vegetable and even mineral—for we plunder minerals too.
Without wisdom, every single thing we do, utter or even think is dangerous. Let us take science, and out of science let us extract “medical science”. Here I have to be mindful of John Muir’s dictum that “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” Everything interacts. But that is not my experience when I go to see my doctor. When I have symptoms, they are a signal for me to go to the wise man, who in my culture is the “general practitioner” (GP) within the United Kingdom’s free National Health Service. He sees clusters of symptoms but hardly the bigger picture. I don’t like to talk about this kind of thing. It tends to result in well-wishers wishing me well, which is nice, but distracts from the point I am trying to make. So let me cloak it in fiction, and say that I go to the doctor because I sometimes suffer from a temporary condition such as scintillating scotoma, together with certain other symptoms, which interest him more. Perhaps there is no particular significance in this weird distortion of vision. He also sends me for a blood test, for these samples reveal as much about my health as my untamed, untrained intuitions reveal about me holistically as an integral part of All That Is. Everything is hitched to everything else, but medical science hasn’t got there yet. My GP certainly hasn’t. He sees only the parts of a machine.
Even so, the placebo effect plays its part. I do feel better after telling the doctor all I know about what seems to be wrong with me. When I have a pain, physical or metaphorical, it’s a spur to action. I must get it fixed and if I can’t do it myself I must go to the fixer, shaman, GP, psychotherapist, plumber, police. I pick the wisest I can find and leave it in their hands. Lo and behold, the pain disappears. I did need a plumber recently but he was a rogue. There was something not right about him and though he said he’d come and fix it the next day, something nagged me and I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t relax till I’d placed our water-leak in the right hands. Next morning, I rang a proper plumber and the nagging sense went away instantly, before he arrived and fixed it as the other man should have done the day before. One should listen to gut feeling, even though it too can be fooled. In this complex world, we need reason and accurate knowledge of facts too.
So this is the nature of the placebo effect. The body sends symptoms to warn us, and removes them when it receives messages that we’ve done what we can. The body is super-intelligent but alas this is very different from infallible. There is no perfection. (So doctor, don’t be a cynic who hands out sugar-pills. That’s a betrayal of your patient’s trust, even a hypochondriac one.) One might say that yes there is a God (where God is an algebraic expression x standing in for all that is more beneficent, knowing and powerful than us, which acts on our behalf when we let go the reins of our own imperious mind enough to let it). Nevertheless, x may not be perfect. Or rather, we cannot possibly know if x is imperfect or not. You and I are parts of a bigger whole. How can we judge? How can we possibly dare to let our conscious minds dictate the future of this organism Earth (or possibly Universe) of which we are integral parts?
In my first sentence I mentioned amongst other things “defiance of one’s own doctor”. I don’t blame the man: it’s not his job to actually define health. That is done at a higher level in our free health service, financed by Government and required to demonstrate 
value for money. Thus the focus is on metrics, of which the most eloquent is longevity. Conditionally and for the time being I shall collude with my doctor’s efforts to stave off my demise. But Health is far more than longevity. Health encompasses happiness, living harmoniously, creatively, with love for all, free of crime and ill-will. Longevity in itself is a worthless coin. I shall not try and outlive my allotted hour.
The illustrations are of art-works from Delia Malchert, artist and migraine sufferer.
a wayfarer’s notes 
Good heavens. I've had that numerous times and never knew what it was. Thought I was having a stroke or something. It always scared me.
So, should I call you my doctor or are you merely a placebo?
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Your posts often suggest that your discussing a singular topic, when in fact, they cover many.
You acknowledge the connection to everything in your approach to a topic.
I find myself focusing on the thing that resonates with me at the time, adding those tangents that are part of my own spheres of influence.
Perhaps one of the under appreciated aspects of humanity is our unique ability to express ourselves in ways that reveal details of our experience that other species are incapable of exposing to others.
And yet, when it comes to our own well being, no other can feel what you feel, or appreciate the impact of our environment on our bodies and minds. What makes me feel better or well, may not have an appreciable effect on others.
We have learned how to treat symptoms, diagnose disease, mend wounds. The predictable nature of those human illnesses and injuries has been studied and treatments have been prescribed that are effective more often than not.
What you have touched on is the instinctual response to a Physician who does not fully grasp the nature of your problem. I think all of us who have had a long history of doctor visits behind us have felt this at one time or another.
In my day to day life I frequently make small adjustments to my routine. These adjustments are designed to adapt to the messages my body and mind send that suggest that I am doing something that negatively impacts my health.
No diagnosis or prescription will come close to matching my day to day adjustments. I know myself better than anyone else could possibly understand.
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Very nicely put. Having worked with physicians and surgeons for many years I still feel they usually offer industrial cures for industrial diseases.
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Well, doctors are trained, and by trained I mean they follow their script as best they can. Most everyone follows their script these days, which is why your own blog is so refreshing, as it constantly displays the thrills and spills of real life when it stretches the rulebook as far as it can without snapping the thing like an elastic which stings you on the face.
Those of us who are not trained to death, or can take time out from being bridled and saddled all the time, can be placebos or loose cannon, as the eye of the beholder decides.
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Yo Charles! You have been quiet, as far as my own earshot is concerned. Good to hear from you, and to enjoy the closeness of your attention, and the detail of your observations.
What happened? I see no signs of your blogging activity since 2009.
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Ah, Susan, you remind me of a favourite song by Dire Straits: “Industrial Disease”. You know it? See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rWuc5kar3Y
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Here's a complex machine with over a million parts, all of which interact with each other in differing ways which often change over time. It's your job to know all of the parts and how they interact and keep this machine running.
And now here are several hundred other machines which are similar but all work differently on different levels. It's your job to keep all of these machines running as well.
Good luck with that.
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Ah, luck. Yes indeed. There is a close affinity between luck and the kind of intuition that stretches the intelligence of creatures beyond explanations of how they do it.
I think your professional work involves dealing optimally with some of those who have fallen by the wayside in Nature’s magical merry-go-round. To do that, as in every other worthwhile activity in this world, requires being a force of Nature oneself.
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Dealing with repairmen is a fairly anxious experience for me as well. It's easy to feel like they're putting something over on you, or they're just plain incompetent. In any event, I inevitably feel like I'm in a helpless position. Since my ignorance is the whole reason I've brought this stranger in to deal with my problem, I'm operating completely in the dark. I have no factual guidelines to tell me if the person knows what they're doing, if they know what they're talking about, or if they're being straight with me about what needs to be fixed. I'm compelled to take their word for it. So the question becomes: Can I trust this person? I find myself sizing them up. A furrowed brow, an evasive glance, a grin that's just a little too sly….Of course, getting a huge bill never sits too well with me either, and tends to make even the most honest man look a little suspect.
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Alright, I left the “nice” comment, the diplomatic comment, but it seems that I can't bring myself to leave well enough alone. At least understand ahead of time that I'm saying what I need to say, and I mean it in the nicest, friendliest, way possible.
By characterizing the excuses that you're making for the “cowboy” plumber as reason, you are once again mistaking reason for rationalizing. As I said before, rationalizing is an alcoholic telling themselves one drink won't hurt, reason is an alcoholic telling themselves that the trouble starts with that first drink. One is a sober appraisal of reality and the other is telling yourself want you want to hear under the pretense of reason. Granted, it isn't always easy to tell the one from the other, but as the theme of this post goes, no method is fool-proof. Besides, you made it pretty clear that you knew you were misleading yourself with your excuses. Then you say that you were tossing and turning all night until you hit upon the inspired notion of abandoning even the pretense of reason and going with your “gut”. This a staggering reversal of the situation. You were tossing and turning because you knew you were lying to yourself about the plumber, and now you're calling this self-deception “reason” and declaring your victory over it!
My concern is partly for your readers. I worry that they'll think you're scoring points against “reason” after watching you drag this same old straw-man version of it out yet again to administer a public beating.
So I have to put the questions to you: What is this resentment that you have against reason? Why do continually rationalize the situation and rig the game so that reason always end up in the opposing corner, taking the blame for every misstep, constantly put in the position of some condescended-to village idiot that does everything wrong? Surely you have to see that you aren't playing fair. So why, why, why do you constantly dress this scarecrow up in reason's clothes and put it on display here for the sake of mocking it?
(Although my questions are sincere, I apologize in advance for the comment. The imp or angel or whatever on my shoulder would literally not let me sleep until I posted this.)
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I have to add something too, for the sake of clarification. Since I'm accusing you or rigging the game against reason, you might understandably ask why I'm constantly rigging the game for reason. A fair enough question (even if I had to ask it for you because you're probably well into your New Year's celebration in your time zone.)
I think I've made my defense of reason more than clear in our old project. But here's what might come as a surprise: Believe it or not, I believe a case CAN be made against reason…to a point. I don't think everything in life can or should be treated like a dispassionate math problem. I believe that we have to extend sympathy and compassion and sometimes even trust beyond reason. I believe that there are occasions where we need to take a leap of faith and hold on to hope even when reason tells that the odds are against us. I suppose I believe this because of what you slyly call “the placebo effect.” Sometimes trust and hope can engender their own reasons for existing.
My problem, however, is with your case against reason, which dresses reason up as fool and then declares what a fool reason is. You constantly accuse reason of clouding your judgement. That's not reason my friend. Reason is never clouded. It's crystal clear. If it bears any fault at all, it's being too clear for its own good.
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Bryan, thanks for these comments, I'm composing a reply. It's a quiet night in here, no party, so I would like to respond, because your probing questions are actually very helpful. More soon.
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With me it’s a personal thing, not a declaration of war against reason or science. These things have always seemed too dry. They made my brain hurt. Despite this, I went into the computer industry and trained as a programmer and analyst, starting in 1965. So that’s what I’ve done for more than 40 years – for the money! Never much good, never promoted, so I did contract work, moved around. I found ways of getting by. Brains are different. Some are dyslexic. Others are autistic. One can be intelligent but still handicapped in various ways. Intuition, impulse and a kind of spiritual compass were my instruments for getting by, plus sheer dogged (possibly obsessive) persistence. Now I have my pension, I don’t have to do all that any more.
I’m always acutely aware of this non-rational dimension, for it’s the water I swim in. It always puzzles me when I come across people I greatly respect who appear to function in a different way, swimming apparently in a different element.
This is a quick partial reply, but perhaps more than enough to explain.
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“You constantly accuse reason of clouding your judgement. That's not reason my friend. Reason is never clouded. It's crystal clear. If it bears any fault at all, it's being too clear for its own good.”
Sure it is crystal-clear. But it doesn’t answer my questions. Yes, if these are the data, and these are the things that can be deduced from the data, then reason leads to a conclusion. Like a computer program.
But I’ve never really given a damn about that process, if it went against what was important to me – which has always been mysterious and beyond the reach of reason. I love it when someone says something (face to face, in a book or whatever) that is both reasonable and resonates in my soul. But what drives me is feeling. When something feels right, I’d like to find the reasons why it feels right.
I’m not justifying this. It’s just personal, as I said. If I were a jazz musician, for example, this attitude would be considered normal.
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Oh yes, I well remember that one. Money For Nothing was a good one too.
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Funny. I had a suspicion that your work with computers kind of soured you on dry computation. I believe I mentioned it once before, but when I was a kid I showed quite a bit of potential in computer programing. I used to design my own games. I was doing advanced algebra and algorithms well beyond my age. I didn't even really realize it at the the time. I just liked making the games. My family was sure I'd have a prosperous future as a programmer, but to the their dismay I gave it up because I reached a point where it felt too limited, too cold and shallow for the things I wanted to express. So I took up writing instead.
As far answering questions, perhaps a further elaboration of my own “case against reason” will help or perhaps it will be totally irrelevant:
You've no doubt heard the old saying about an optimist declaring that a glass is half-full while a pessimist says it's half-empty. Reason will tell you that you have half a glass of water, which is true enough, but that's ALL it will tell you. It won't help you decide which side of the line to stand on. At best, reason will tell you that the universe is…indifferent to our existence. One could almost, almost say that optimism is the reasonable choice because of what I said about hope and trust engendering themselves. But the thing is the proposition that “hope and trust can engender their own existence” isn't a reasonable proposition! There's no good reason to believe that. It's just something you have to put your…hope and trust in. It's a closed loop. Reason won't get you there. It takes a leap of faith.
So there you go. If you're looking for a flaw in reason to exploit, that's the best I can offer you. Make the most of it ;D
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Of course, I'm making my transition from programmer to writer sound a little too clear cut for the sake of brevity. Technically, I think I was writing before I was programming, and there were different stretches of childhood that alternated between the two. But there definitely came a point where I decided on the one over the other.
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And as far as your distaste with the process of reason – A is to B therefore C – I get what you're saying. Believe it or not, I really. I just wish I knew what to tell you.
For me, I guess I've kind of struck a balance. I try to be a responsible adult, take care of my family, and take level-headed approach to the problem's life presented me with. On the other hand, if people knew what went on my head, they'd think I was crazy. I spend most of my time in a fog of old memories, half-remembered dreams, and dwelling on fleeting impressions like what it feels like to be in a half-lit deserted building or in a warm trailer with friends in the middle of winter or thinking about things like looking out through a stain-glass flower petal in someone's window on a rainy day.
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I guess the difference between us is that I don't really see reason as a threat to all that.
(By the well, feel free to tell me if I'm clogging up your blog with too many comments. I get a little carried away.)
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No, this is a most interesting conversation and we have a great deal in common. It is not so much that I have a distaste for reason, more that it sometimes makes my head hurt, on account of its dryness. By dryness I mean something like a shutting-out, a failure to acknowledge something else. I suppose the easiest thing is to call that something else ‘soul’ though I prefer not to call it anything, because I don’t want to think of it as a thing. Which is why I am so sympathetic to those who believe in God, whilst regretting, and sometimes protesting loudly against, the tendency to embroider that one idea into a heavy burden of beliefs.
To me this idea of soul, or whatever it is, is beyond reach of reason because we don’t understand enough. And I prefer to keep it that way, because reason seems petty, dragging high things down to the level of everyday.
I like what you say about “a fog of old memories, half-remembered dreams, and dwelling on fleeting impressions like what it feels like to be in a half-lit deserted building or in a warm trailer with friends in the middle of winter or thinking about things like looking out through a stain-glass flower petal in someone's window on a rainy day.”
—It’s good to know that you may be resuscitating the Encyclopedia of Counted Sheep!
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“Resuscitate” Yes, that's the appropriate word. The sheep are fading but not gone. I haven't had many dreams lately, and those I have had, I haven't given them the proper attention, cultivating them into something I can write as a post. I am, however, eager and itching to have some new material over there.
In fact, I had a very unsettling dream when I finally got my nap last evening. I wish I could describe it to you or make a post our of it, but all that remained of it was a disconnected mess, places and people I know. If I could put my finger solidly on one detail, I could cultivate it, but it all slips away. Mostly it's the very odd and disquieting feeling of the dream that stuck with me, even though I can't remember what was odd or disquieting about the dream. Sometimes they're like that, disconnected feelings that linger in the background of the material. Somehow though, the dream was connected to our earlier conversation. I don't know why, but I know that it was. Not that I found the conversation odd or disquieting. Quite the contrary. I think we've really, sincerely, broken through some of the blocks between us, instead of just grudgingly putting aside our differences. That's a good thing!
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And I'm glad you caught that about “fogs of memory.” It's something hard to put into words, but I was sure you'd know what I was talking about and you'd carry the ball the rest of the way. It's like, sometimes I imagine what it feels like to live in my house, even though I already live there and I'm here right now! There's living in this house, and then there's the dream of living in this house, which is neither here nor there, neither brick nor stone, but rather like a mist or vapor which permeates all things, like another world just slightly out of phase with this one, precious for being always just out of reach. Then, like those faces in chapel, I search other people for signs that they see it too. They buy a house and obsess over wall fixtures and the square footage of the garage, and I think, “No, they don't see it.” Those things may be important, but I can tell that they don't see beyond them.
Then there's you, and your wash-lines and your littered water bottles and I KNOW that you see it, and what's more, you're able to express it so eloquently, to further stimulate it in people who can see it too. That's a real gift. And that, despite our squabbles over philosophy and the details of different principle, is what really matters. Which, of course, isn't to say that we won't still have our disagreements about things 😉
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Bryan, I feel so moved that you feel these things too. It’s enough. That link makes an infinity of potential awareness between us. There is a sense of synchronicity too, for I was starting to write a new post, rather tentatively, because I find it hard to settle on one thing as a topic. But it was a kind of New Year assessment on the lines of contrasting people who make resolutions because they have a goal in mind and those like me who want to do nothing more than appreciate and admire. That’s kind of as far as I’ve reached.
I so much like what you’ve written about your house. It reminds me of a post I wrote about this house. I’ll look it up. And it’s about a recurring dream I used to have, too; which I never understood till I came to live here.
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When you speak about the house and those feelings, it reminds me of several posts about this house and the way it sometimes takes me to other places via dreams and memories:
Ship of Dreams
Life on Board
The Ventilator Cowl
These all refer to my 6-week voyage aged 4 from Australia to England in 1946, and the dreams it has inspired ever since.- A trip evoked wonderfully by the film I’ve recently watched, called The Legend of 1900, about a baby born on a ship and abandoned there by his mother, who grew up to become a pianist whom Jelly Roll Morton unsuccessfully challenged to a piano-playing duel; and who never in his life disembarked.
Or there’s this one:
Memory’s Carillon
But we have to find a language for the fogs of memory, don’t we? It’s certainly not the same language as wall fixtures and square footages.
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Read the first link, and I feel compelled to comment before getting to the others.
“…not as a ship but a labyrinth..”
I remember going to the Cleveland Clinic when my grandmother was sick, when I was little. The place was huge! I took off exploring all the endless branching corridors and wings. It was kind of an exciting adventure until it was all shattered by the fact that my grandmother was dying. They were turning the equipment off, and I was scared to go in and see her. The realization of what was really going on hadn't hit me until then. I felt guilty after that, that I had initially seen the whole thing as a…lark, I guess you could call it for lack of a better word.
Also, did your mother intentionally leave the elephant and your other things behind? I sense something underhanded there.
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I suppose she didn’t have room for everything. I was prone to terrible tantrums, and can well imagine she wasn’t going to risk one in the echoing Customs Shed. And as for my father! She made sure, when he came back from fighting the Japanese, not long before we sailed for England, not to introduce him to me. I don’t think I knew about the concept of “father” anyhow. Till our emigration, I’d been raised in a boarding-house with a female landlady (Lucy) and all-women boarders. You would glimpse the gentlemen-callers, usually in uniform. I know, playing back those infant memories, that the women were very excited when they called. And my mother? She’d just disappear at times, leaving me with the other women, who always seemed kinder than her.
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To clarify, he offered to marry her when he returned from fighting, but she turned him down flat and booked the earliest boat back to her mother’s in England. It took months because all the available ships had to return the far-flung soldiers from Indonesia and Europe first. After that they delivered the war-brides to join their fiancés and husbands. We were on one of those ships.
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It's funny how you piece things like that together later in life.
Reading further:
“…I didn’t feel it as a journey. I lived permanently on shipboard…”
Six weeks is an eternity to a four year old.
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That last post you linked to is the most relevant of all to our discussion! “This is when I see clearly how memory interlaces with present experience, layer after layer.” Yes, that feeling that everything links back to something else, which itself links back to something else in turn. It's like your mind in struggling to find a context for this moment, a context which overwhelms the sum of all your experiences. No analogy quite does it justice, but free associating through time like that is still a worth-while experience in its own right.
There are times when even last week seems colored with nostalgia, and when I was younger I was tempted to think that “then” was always somehow better than “now.” But I've grown a bit wiser. I know that I was groping then just as I am now, and that it's the memories themselves that are always permeated with that wonderful “vapor” or “mist” I mentioned above, that dream always just out of reach.
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I am now terrified of leaving a comment here because of the trail of links I inadvertently leave behind each time.
I just wanted to wish you and your lovely wife a wonderful new year – much health and happiness!
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If I might return to the subject at hand for a moment, though.
It occurred to me that what you're doing here with reason reminds me of something I see people do all the time with selfishness, constructing an “evil” straw man version of it in order to prove that it's evil.
Now, I'm not here to go to the other extreme and argue that selfishness is a virtue, but on the other hand, I don't think that self-interest is always, by definition, a bad thing. In fact, I literally see people each and every day who are a complete mess because they don't really care about themselves or their lives. As a result, they often do very regrettable things to themselves and others. Yet, people insist on labeling such people “selfish” because they equate self-interest with evil or at least the most base gratification. They don't see that a junkie and a jogger are both pursuing selfish goals. After all, who is a jogger staying in fit for, if not ultimately themselves? In fact, if they were doing it for someone else, we'd accuse them of being vain-glorious and shallow. The poor jogger can't win.
And yet, I see people with this preconceived notion of selfishness proposing scenarios and then putting this byzantine interpretation to them when twists any condemnable act into a “selfish” one. I saw someone the other day called suicide “the most selfish thing a person can do.” Try to make heads or tails of that!
Likewise, I see you doing a similar thing with reason. You see reason as this “silly rabbit”, like a cloistered, autistic child who can perform incredible calculations but is ill-equipped to deal with the nuances or ordinary life. This Silly Rabbit is always getting a gentle and condescending pat on the head because he doesn't have the capacity to really understand what's going on. With this preconception in mind, you give scenarios like the one with the plumber those same byzantine interpretations designed to keep reason in its role as this Silly Rabbit.
Bear in mind, I don't expect this to convince you of anything, and I don't bring it up to rekindle old arguments. I just noticed the analogy and felt the need to share it.
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As always, my comment abounds with typos. Sorry.
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I completely agree with the straw man point especially when applied to selfishness, or as many people call it, ‘ego’.
But I am not actually making any philosophical point here, only (as I have tried to explain in comments) trying to express how it is for me. I accept that my being irrational is in itself irrational. That is, I cannot rationally justify my stance, defend it or belittle others who behave differently. I express my viewpoint, being unable to express any other; and being interested in subjective viewpoints for their own sake.
The whole point of expressing my viewpoint is its minority status, or possibly its unpopular status.
And as for the ‘silly rabbit’, I could easily see myself as the ‘cloistered, autistic child who can perform incredible calculations but is ill-equipped to deal with the nuances or ordinary life’.
Like the horoscopes in magazines, most judgements cold apply to most people!
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could, not cold
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Seems like the typos are catching.
No, I get what you're saying about it being a personal matter and that you “…accept that my being irrational is in itself irrational.” I can accept that, myself. I'm just indulging in a little dead-horse beating at your expense. I was just reminded again this morning by something about the “selfishness” matter and I was struck by the similarity to our little “reason” problem.
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By the way, I liked how, in that Carillon post, you noted that the kind of reveries you spoke of could only be attained in a placid state of mind, free of stress and anxiety. This is so absolutely true! I wonder if you pursued this point further in any other post. I feel like you've touched on a very, very, important point here. Perhaps even relevant to our present discussion. After all, aren't anxious and stressful situations the ones which reason is most brought to bear on, like a consultant who specializes in problem solving?
I'm reminded of something Freud said when discussing his method of helping patients interpret their dreams:
“I have noticed in my psych-analytical work that the whole frame of mind of a man who is reflecting is totally different from that of a man who is observing his own psychical processes. In reflection there is one more psychical activity at work than in the most attentive self-observation, and this is shown amongst other things by the tense looks and wrinkled forehead of a person pursuing his reflections as compared to the restful expression of a self-observer.”
Of course, I'm not entirely crazy about some of the word choices here. What he calls “reflection”, I would have called “critical thinking”, and I would have reserved the term “reflection” for the kind of relaxed, passively drifting, state of mind that he oddly calls “self-observation.” But that's me, and the problem might lie with the translation anyway. At any rate, I'm sure you recognize these states as well I do, by any name, and see how they might lie at the crux of the situation.
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Gina, that trail of links you leave is like a sparkling meteor shower which enhances this humble site. I know you worry that people may think you are a relentless self-publicist, but I think some kindly angel is doing that on your behalf, and you gratitude rather than embarrassment is called for. In my case, I often in an idle moment (bless those idle moments) click on one or two of those links, and am transported …
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On the contrary, dear Bryan, you have flogged the dead horse back into useful life, as the cabman always hoped and prayed (his interpretation of “Faith can move mountains”).
Or, since Nature’s laws are not to be cavalierly over-ridden, you and I have each been riding his own hobby-horse, but now instead of charging full-tilt at one another with lances couched, we may now go as boon companions on the great Grail-quest.
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Vincent, I am working 10-11 hour days, with a one hour drive in each direction to and from work. My own Maxiram of sorts.
I have precious little energy left at the end of the day. In fact, I added in my comment while chewing on some lunch. As I am doing now.
I have been pre-occupied with work since I abandoned my own company in favor of a job with medical benefits. Oddly enough, I did not have to work as hard when I worked for myself. I was less demanding and compensated myself well enough to satisfy the needs of my family and myself. However, I was relying on my wife for medical benefits. This came to an abrupt end a couple of years ago and forced my hand.
So, Maxiram it is. For now.
I have time for doodling in the margins of notebooks, a few random thoughts jotted here and there. Perhaps I will start a blog with shorter posts. However, I know I will be tempted to expand on my thoughts, engage with others in comments, as I have in the past. I haven't the time or energy to give it the attention I think it deserves.
Know that I still take time to read your posts. I will comment when I can.
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Best of luck with MaxiRam, Charles! You are young and resilient enough still, and still required to pay your dues to society with the mixed blessing of paid work. Those long days must be vexatious to the spirit and the hour-long drive each way an insult added to the original injury. But we can break free of those limits!
And, anomalous as it may seem, when I worked at MaxiRam – I mean Fujitsu, of course – I somehow managed to write more posts on this blog than at any other time.
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Bryan, I’ve been away and not till now able to respond to your suggestion, that the predominance of directed reason or free-floating reverie in our lives is likely determined by the extent to which we are driven by the demands of necessity on our attention, and particularly stress.
I think you are absolutely right here, and agree that it is a point worth making very clearly. For me, the mere fact of being indoors tends to inhibit the free flight of reverie and drown that inner voice which is something other than the conscious mind. I find that when I go out for no reason other than the lure of sunshine and clouds for instance, and am free of care enough to hear the birdsong in street and spinney, that’s the time when inner experience is at its richest and most unchained. Thought and feeling run free as wild horses, unbridled, unsaddled by reason.
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Yes, being outdoors is a much better venue for those more relaxed, free-roaming thoughts and day dreams. There's nothing like a soft breeze of fresh air to stir the pot. Outdoor air always seems to have a mood to it, while indoor air is stale, neutral, and inert.
Well, maybe I'm generalizing a bit, but it definitely helps to get up and out and about and shake the cobwebs off now and then.
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(I offer that last provision because I can definitely think of “indoor” situations, like being in an old country garage that's a little cool with that musty grease smell in the air, which would definitely evoke strong emotions in me.)
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Yes to what you have said, Bryan. There are places indoors too. I tend to notice them as sacred, because they evoke something subtle when I’m within their aura. I might write a short post on this!
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[…] Scotoma […]
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