The richness of recognized beauty defies simplistic explanation. No ‘eye of the beholder’ or theory of color and form is sufficient to address beauty’s underlying truth.
What other subjective truths are there? Are our intuitive beliefs a reaction to fear of the Other? What can harm us if we stay in touch with the Truth the natural world provides?
I’m wondering if species, creatures with life spans much shorter than ours, tiny beings with brains the size of pin heads, realize, given their brief existence, a rich and meaningful life.
Does a Wooly Bear caterpillar, struggling in moving water, feel angst, realize the probability of imminent demise while memories of hatching, eating and growing, the promise of evolution to flight slowly fades, the hope it’s brothers will survive to replenish the species and sensing these complexities while living a life that is only an instant of the life cycle we manage to waste away in insignificant concerns.
Such thoughts make me think I should pay more attention.
With the enhanced auditory abilities I’ve recently acquired (as a result of the acquisition of hearing aids) I notice what I can only describe as an otherworldly hum (not to be confused with tinnitus, which I also experience) which, if I might be metaphorical, I must interpret as the universe breathing, a wondrous sound Pythagoras might have been referring to (if he hadn’t been being metaphorical) as the music of the spheres.
I can imagine this auditory phenomenon as being primordial, originating with the Big Bang. How wonderful that modern technology has put me in touch, allowed me to realize, my connection to the universe.
I’ve been thinking lately about legacy, how one might expect to be remembered by those who knew him. It would seem most of us would like to be remembered, preferably positively, as a contributing member of his community even as he may have recoiled from participation, leadership rolls, maybe, in civic and religious organizations, being content maintaining a small coterie of friends as social norms require.
Having lived, as I have, in near obscurity, social anonymity for a long time I might expect little remembrance when I pass on, I suppose. But there’s still time. I do have a class reunion coming up. I wonder if my mates will remember me. To paraphrase Woody Allen: all one needs to do to be remembered is to show up.
I just attended my high school class reunion. I must say I was a bit uneasy about going thinking as I did about certain uncomfortable relationships that I experienced during those high school days.
But I was pleasantly surprised at how welcoming everyone was, genuinely happy to see each other, no sense of the teenage cliques I remembered. And, the bullies had mellowed, were really quite pleasant to visit with.
How many years of maturing should it take, I wondered, for a group of diverse individuals to reach common empathy? In this case it was sixty.
The new reality I’m experiencing as a result of my altered vision and hearing (due to a recently acquired ‘floater’ in my right eye and the installation of electronic hearing assistance) has, without requiring too much imagination on my part, delivered me into a fresh realm of existence. Not exactly the astral plane, I guess, since I remain physically present and still craving goo pizza, but there is experiential difference in a good way. Required, as I am, to look harder results in my seeing more and hearing more clearly adds to the richness of my general experiencing.
I think lately of the blind character Geordi in the Star Trek series whose ‘visor’ not only restored his vision but provided him with superhuman ability to see.
Nothing superhuman about my sensory alterations but I am enjoying my new perspectives.
I’ve been thinking about the downside of logical analysis. At what point does reasoning, making decisions based on irrefutable fact become inadequate for certain kinds of understanding?
Is the realm of the supernatural, for instance, discounted in its entirety because it defies logical analysis? If we allow that there exists certain knowledge that lies beyond the rational then credence must be given to the absurd. Derision must necessarily be tempered regarding the illogical and ridiculous.
Unsound reasoning must be allowed. The very argument I make here is, of course, of a reasoned and logical sort but following the public discourse these days makes clear that such rational thinking is unnecessary as the absurd will remain beyond criticism well embedded in popular thought.
I have just rationalized why irrationality must be legitimized. How absurd.
My maternal grandfather grew up in a large family of hardworking farmers who struggled to eke out a living from the rocky infertile soil of central Minnesota. Though never talked about, the tenuous life his family lived then was remembered later in life when sitting down to dinner often inspired the light-hearted but perhaps meaningful comment: ‘if you don’t like taters dinner’s over.’
The skills and knowledge required to sustain a farming existence led the brothers to develop an iron casting business that produced iron tools for cutting and polishing the granite quarried from the local mines. My grandfather served as foreman to the men who earned their pay as heavy laborers, casting the molten iron into earthen molds. These men required the intense no-nonsense leader that my grandfather became, moving as he did about the days’ activities, a cigar in his cheek providing a visual exclamation to his hard-working persona.
In stark contrast at home G was quiet and subservient to his small soft-spoken wife whose deep evangelical belief drew grandfather into the Baptist church although I wonder about the depth of his faith.
It’s hard for me not to appreciate the boot-strap-lifting, the will it took to succeed that produced the comfortable existence his family realized. Born to relative comfort myself I wonder if I would have had the will to succeed as my grandfather did.
I’ve been reading, lately, about the common man, the 99% of the population that make up the social milieu and wondering what exactly common men have in common. I’m guessing these folks (well, us folks) are mostly of middle-of-the-road social and economic status, probably have limited educational accomplishment, likely adhere to some sort of religious beliefs and most certainly rely on a social network of other individuals of more-or less like mind. We’re the everyday working stiffs who execute our often-uninteresting daily toils in the hope there lies ahead a future of personal economic progress which will provide and secure leisurely retirement.
The uncommon man on the other hand is the intellectual or man of action who drives the public narrative. Maintaining his superior status in a democratic society requires he keep a finger on the pulse of the populace. When the common man begins to lose his sense of hope in a favorable future the uncommon man, in order to maintain his status, must placate the masses by providing a positive vision that a favorable future lies in wait. To maintain societal stability, keep the masses striving for more and better, the uncommon man paints a picture of prosperity near at hand, the good life awaiting those who sustain the necessary drive to be successful.
The philosopher Eric Hoffer thought an uneasy, socially and economically threatened populace of common men who, perhaps, had lost the dream of upward mobility have the potential to produce mass movements that have in the past and will likely in the future dramatically affect the course of history.
Given the state of our world, these days, it seems to me, what we need to do is seek out an uncommon man of superior artistic ability.
I’ve been trying to understand, lately, what exactly perpetuates the fairly widespread ideas of conspiracy theory surfacing these days in the political sphere. It occurs to me that perhaps many of us are being visited in our thinking by a deep-seeded primal intuition: that appearance and reality are intertwined.
The problem with such thinking is that appearances change; what appeared to be one thing one day takes on different meaning at another time in another context. For mythic believers, a rigidity develops. The idea that once an ‘appearance’ is defined and locked in and what is thought to be the case must be the case, any sort of subtle change in or redefinition of what appeared to be the case can only be thought of in terms of conspiracy. Someone or something must be manipulating Truth.
I suppose one who engages in mythical thinking does realize a richly imaginative existence, one that can be shared with other like-minded conspiracy theorists, of which, it appears, there are many. One would hope, in the interests of a healthier society, reality will make an appearance at some point.
deideismusings 