It’s been so hard trying to write that I’ve been tempted to try painting again, even if it takes years to do a picture. I have one beautiful view that I see through the window as I type. It’s different each day. At night the streetlights twinkle and the windows glow dimly. In the winter afternoons, the setting sun strikes. I could do hundreds of sketches, studies, close-ups, attempts in different media. What to do with my life? It was nice when I thought I was about to get a job, for then the day seemed like a holiday, a scarce resource of free time about to be used up.I’ve been reading Joseph Conrad, especially The Nigger of the Narcissus. Every sentence, observation, character-sketch, incident is so exquisite so it is impossible to choose a quote to prove my point (though I have used one above, under the blog title). His writing has more wisdom than a shelf of self-help or spiritual books. I was looking at someone’s blog. He’s a Buddhist and was talking about it being essential to give up the attachment to material things in order to attain happiness. Though a cliché of the spiritual life, it struck me as extraordinary. I mean, our whole society - I am speaking of life in the West and not some Amazon tribe without contact with Western ways - keeps going on the entirely opposite premiss. No child spontaneously attaches himself to material things. He is ruthlessly trained into it by parents, advertisers and his peers. It is something he has to learn, or get to be a bum who will shame his parents. (I’m very proud of my four children and three grandchildren and their funny ideas like not having TV and sending their children to a Steiner school or educating them at home and thinking it’s fine not to learn reading till 10 years old. Proud of them in spite of those ideas, not because of them. And the younger ones dropping out of university and not being terribly interested in careers. I tell them to find out for themselves how to live. I’ve done my bit when they were little children.)
Am I attached to material things? Definitely. I am hugely grateful for this roof over my head and this computer and the internet and my loving wife and my slowly decaying car - even that one, for when it dies I will have to go and buy another, regardless of my preference to walk or go by bus. I cannot turn my back on the world. I would sooner live and die under a shady tree as I said in my last, but in winter I would need some cardboard boxes and something to keep out the cold; and God (in whom I don’t really believe) has sent me a wife who doesn’t put up with my eccentricities.
I’m attached to persons and things. My own body and the living existence of loved ones. This view. The more I photograph it and try to draw it, the more I will be attached to it, though I know all things will pass.
Clinging to tired old scriptures is so unimaginative. Let it all go. We recreate the basic truths of life in the process of living. If it wasn’t for all the chatter, the noise of commerce, government, politics, religion, advertising, “entertainment”, gadgets, foolishness and junk food (literal and metaphorical) we’d be able to tune into life itself. In fact even with those things around us we can. I do. I don’t sit crosslegged trying to escape my thoughts, but I practise my own principles. I nearly said “practise what I preach”. Do I preach? I hope not. There is too much of that already.
15 comments:
I have to agree that there is too much preaching...there seems to be more advice and rules and regulations on every conceivable subject.
I have begun to reconsider what it means to be civilized.
Material things and a higher value placed on mine vs. ours, is also a symptom of a me vs. us (or us vs. them) mentality.
It seems to me that a truly civilized culture would embrace a resource based economy. One where resources were shared, and distributed where they are needed most. Respect for the environment, and a focus on a sustainable lifestyle that is in harmony with nature.
While we may individually be capable of coming to terms with a more civilized approach to living, I am saddened when I witness the trend toward a more possessive, selfish, and wasteful behaviors that is rewarded by our society.
I close my eyes and dream of a society that nurtures a community focus with less concern for personal possession and more focus on real freedom that comes from a caring, sharing community.
Ah Charles, you have just expressed allegiance to the ideals of communism. McCarthy is dead (does his ghost still haunt the US?) whilst Castro still rules over Cuba, himself almost a ghost.
I've lived in a commune in rural England. It was fun, but not serious. There was caring and sharing but behind it all there was money and sentimentality. But Cuba works despite every attempt of US to put spanners in the works.
Rob, it's true. Everything is dumbed down and the politicians and administrators think they are parents and we are children.
You do not preach, you describe, and I love your words. When visiting my blog you mentioned the variation of translation with the old scripture, verse and poetry. When reading Rumi, I have the constant feeling that this guy is my next door neighbor rather than a fellow drifting around the 12th(?) century. A Persian blogger who read a translation I had posted didn't even recognize the poem as being of Rumi since she reads it in his/her native voice.
But I am getting too old to learn Farsi!!
I'd like to hear more about your commune days ;)
I know the ideas I expressed conjure up communism, but I have been looking into Futures Studies of late, and there are many who are researching alternatives to the experiments that have been tried to date.
There is also Libertarian Socialism, which is near anarchy, but holds together by means of a bottom up kind of leadership.
Enforcement by the workers and community through direct councils or mutual associations. These things were done in Spain and the Ukraine during their revolutions. For Spain I would look at histories of the CNT, FAI and for Ukraine I would look at stuff on or by Nestor Makhno.
Anything that holds true to the values I expressed without an authoritarian overseer.
In any case, I think it is time for a new experiment, one that learns from the past and builds on it rather than repeat past failures.
Hey, I can dream can't I?
Vincent, I think that things like Charles refers to in his initial comment, which you call communism, is really the human heart yearning for what is truly due us, yearning for what is eventually inevitable, and it will superimpose itself on all these old labeled ideas of societies and these ways fraught with uglinesses of social failures.
And my 'religion', if I have such a thing, is steeped in scriptures, but not in the stale and failed understandings that have shrouded them and buried them. Rather I use them as gateways of new thoughts and visions, means of transcending the normal old preachings that have led to this sick and sorry society that we call 'modern'. I am now in the process of finding a way to elucidate this 'religious way' and to make it more 'practical' for myself to have greater effect in helping to usher in this more natural (hear that Vincent, 'more natural') social reality that will be natural but super natural in that it will raise nature above death and the ways that lead to that destruction of ourselves.
Perhaps some of that is understandable, anyway, you make me think, don't stop your blogging even if you get this work, continue to give us a bit of your heart and soul if you can, you are vital and beyond today.
Children have to live their own lives, stand back and watch, mind your own business, help when or where they need you, but let them live their own ways, such is my handling of my children who are grown and about their own days. I love them all, I am sure you do yours too.
Yes, Goatman & Jim, we forget how closely our ancestors studied their scriptures and became intimate with them, in ways that did not disturb their social order or make them go to war. I think of simple villagers in England who had no other book but the Bible and who saw their English countryside through an Old Testament perspective.
Charles, I have written something about those commune days yesterday. It is a huge topic. I used real names and got in touch with a lady who was at the same place after I left. I am debating whether and how to publish. (I already published on a private site.) The issue for me is ways of living which I find troubling to contemplate today. I want to disown them, for I was so crass and ignorant. It is not that I regret anything or feel huge remorse - more embarrassment than anything.
On the subject of communism, I don't know what buttons this presses in America. I think very different associations than over here. Personally I have a rather romantic idea of Cuba. It is probably quite a wrong one. To me the darkness of American interference in foreign affairs is far worse than any regime they have sought to flatten or undermine. And the American ideal of "freedom" fills me with terror too, for it has weighed heavily on other cultures within its borders.
Jim, I have always respected & had great hope even for your aims, even though sometimes it has been hard to appreciate where you were going. But as you have acknowledged there has been work to do. And your independence and originality will see you through.
Vincent, I say that, Yes, the USA is turning out to be this dark and dismal failed reality...but I don't think Cuban Communism is the answer, or any present day socialism either. I think we have to look past what we know and try hard to invent 'new' from within ourselves where tomorrow waits.
The USA has fallen into the same trap as the old Soviet Communism model, in that it has become 'theoretic' and so the theory disregards the human on which it is imposing itself, the theory becomes the living thing (but is dead), and the human is crushed beneath it. This is the vision seen INSIDE the USA, only the general population hasn't become fully aware of the immensity of the 'crush' and impersonal aspects of their governments, federal and local, yet.
The international manifestation of this is an obvious failure of globalization of the 'theory', just now in its early stages of failure.
Thanks Vincent.
Yes, I am looking for something new. Not the old or the current forms of communism, or socialism.
I ran across The Venus Project a couple of weeks ago, and it's description of a resource based economy struck me as a delicious alternative.
I have no idea if it is feasible or that even if it was, if would be provided any opportunity to gain a foothold in today's world. But, it makes more sense to me than most anything I have heard anyone else recommend.
I had a quck peek at the venus project, Charles and it struck me as a bit hi-tech. What I personally envisage is a downsizing that puts us close to the earth and out of reach of the consumerist conspiracy.
This morning I saw some exhortation on the washing-up liquid bottle to recycle the plastic and help save the earth. Yesterday I saw some shop in town offering to help eliminate the "nightmare of Christmas".
In each case it's the frenzied consumerism - marketing-led of course - which creates the addictions: to buy the sexiest cleaning products and the best Christmas presents.
In poor countries they have rag-pickers who - children and adults - spend their days on dangerous garbage heaps trying to recycle something to live.
In rich countries there are nothing but gestures to a sane way of living - and of course the poor countries would like to catch up with the rich countries.
It's perfectly obvious to me that we could live well on principles which got civilian Britain through WWII. Save bottles, return them to a plant for washing and re-use. Ban plastic bags (all supermarkets here give these out, not paper ones as in US).
I'm not just talking about ecology here. The issue is power. Government and business are too big and have encouraged all the old ways to be swept away.
In poor countries they know the value of water and energy and utensils. Here we are far too rich to care. Scouts and other young people used to collect empty bottles so as to get their return value and donate to their charity - or give themselves needed pocket money. So everything is allowed to drop unsightly to the ground.
I don't trust any big organisation, Charles. I would start at the bottom, with local community. I trust in the people because the propaganda thrown at them still hasn't eroded all of their common sense. At least here.
Vincent,
I agree, it needs to be a grassroots kind of thing. Local people working together to develop a lifestyle and means of support that is less taxing on the land, on resources and on our time.
Many don't seem to realize how complicated and wasteful we have made things. Simplify the tools and methods we use to address our basic human needs and we can live with much less infrastructure.
Current forms of government and specifically capitalism, have encouraged us to believe that we cannot live without the things they provide. But they are not interested in our survival. They are interested in sustaining the culture that supports them.
We (collectively) need better motivation. You were turned off by the technology mentioned in the venus project. But, consider the possibilities of applying technology, along with our scientific knowledge to the production of tools and methods that are in themselves simplified to the point that they are either self maintained or consist of very few components.
Simplification, ease of maintenance, durability and utility would be the goals. The motivation only to produce what is needed, vs. the excess we see today.
I have heard of many products over the years that can be produced by simply growing them yourself. These products would be in direct competition with commercial products that are in many cases less effective.
You never hear of these options, as they would wipe out whole industries.
Common sense does not rule the land today. It is one of the many reasons I have become more of a humanist, dedicated to reason.
Post a Comment