darkly dreaming

I have fought the movement toward plaid in my own passive aggressive way; I just didn’t buy them, no matter how many models, actors, or cool guys did. It’s not my fault though. I had a horrible incident in childhood where once Christmas was entirely plaid, I mean mountain man wearing my mother’s bras plaid. A few thousand jokes later and the idea of having anything but a kilt on when I wore plaid again was as close as I could bear to be to the design. And now, I’ve snapped.

It seemed time to give up my senseless resistance and attempt to find things that were non-offensive to my childhood trauma. Hence green. It got me thinking about fashion in a philosophical sense, and I’ve been designing clothes for the characters in my books, for which the male characters present much difficulty mainly in the lack of books and shows for them. Here is my little attempt to talk about the subject without the words garment or references to denim and chiffon.

Hips — This is surprising the key differences between the gross anatomy of men and women. There are more obvious features to our eyes, and yet as far as actual structural differences and size of areas in question, the hips win every time. I think it’s essential to start there, and was the reason for my turn toward plaid. It’s not just the color but the better approach those shorts tend to take for the male hips. They are almost vertical and produce a short indentation in our frame, the perfect place to hang shorts and pants from. Obviously I’m not about sagging in the slightest.

Aside from practicality, there is something to be said for playing to our strengths. Upper bodies are interesting but overdone in a way. Additionally, the size is entirely dependent on how big of a gym life you have time and money to develop. However, with diet you can mostly control the tone of your hips, and it’s an even denominator. They don’t change in size except when your growing. For adults, they will be the same until we break them when old. It evens the field between all rivals. Therefore, choosing the appropriate rise of the shorts/jeans and the length of shirt is important for bringing out this area.

It was a recent discovery, but one I should have thought of much earlier. My upper body is incredibly short in comparison to my overall height. My legs are so long that I usually have to by jeans that come up to my belly button to get the appropriate length. Hence, for me a lower rise will make them sit much better, despite my lack of toned and uncovered abdominal muscles. Discover your body proportions and then work with them. Exposing genital hair and arch certainly have their place, but well framed hips that allow that short segment where bone meets skin to be exposed above the shorts/jeans will probably offer the most attractive visage.

Abs — It’s not necessarily about the six-pack when it comes to non-beach/nudist wear. If the shirt lets the hips become a tease, it is my opinion that the upper abdominals are better left for the later period of getting to know each other where alcohol and anxiety can distract your companion. Most everyone has strong muscles right at the waist because ever motion we make comes from this area. You can’t twist, squat or sit without activating them. Again, using the natural strengths of this isolated area can maximize your impact while at the same time creating a level field with those annoyingly sculpted men.

Choosing the shirt should be just as important as the shorts/jeans, and I see a great number of men and boys going with undershirts. I know it’s a look, but consider that even a tight undershirt of the wrong length will miss it’s opportunity. Also, they come in colors. For minimum financial impact you can have a rainbow to choose from, white isn’t right for everyone. Get the right length to suit your upper body. As I stated, my upper body is very short, and when I was at better weights, it became apparent that most shirts where incredibly long on me. This doesn’t mean you should select crop tops; if you’re that impressive, don’t wear a shirt. What I suggest is that teasing length where movement will expose the hips and yet you can walk most anywhere and not feel under dressed. Learn from women, teasing is almost more important that the goods themselves.

Minimalism — This is more my taste I suppose, but again, consider that clothes are really an optional choice in warmer climates. They are like paint in a way, and you don’t want to deface a great building with too much decoration. Layers are important when it gets colder, but there are still ways to assist your frame and therefore your appeal while doing so. Even though I opposed zipper sweatshirts in the past, the modern incarnations have made a lot of progress away from the bulky, itchy things I knew. They also allow for warmth of the extremities while allowing your previously mentioned choices to shine through from below. But always think about what the added element will do to the overall approach. Not on the day, but when you purchase the clothes. That’s another part of my philosophy, aside from ensuring that you don’t wear red and green together unless your in a camp Christmas musical, more than forty-five seconds of thought about a shirt is too much.

Interesting shirts should probably be covered by simple, single colored zippered sweatshirts or jackets. If you wear a pull over sweatshirt, then wear one of those nice cheap, colored undershirts and save the pretty ones for another day. I’ll allow that those more creative than me can link up over and under shirts to create some sort of artistic statement. If that’s the case, design some dumb options for the rest of us to buy because you’ve got skills and should be paid for them. I prefer to think that only one element should draw the eye at one time. Skin is always the first thing humans see. Next is something shiny, and after that contrasting colors and interesting shapes. This can lead to some interesting ideas.

Instead of awesomely bejeweled jeans, and I saw some the other day that could only be described as masculine dazzle, go for a belt that is yellow or white. Both of which have been slowly trickling down into everyday fashion for a year or so. Not to belabor the point, but the belt will help to draw attention to the hips, and it offers something new for those checking you out. Belt buckles are becoming cool again, and not just in square dancing contests. Even cool ripped jeans can benefit from an interesting belt. The studs thing is interesting, but I have a feeling bold colors may be the next thing plus they fit my minimalist philosophy.

In short, don’t overdo. Cool shirts go with boring jeans, and a bold belt. Tight buckles go with boring everything. Hoodies from Guiness, my birthday present, go with everything. Shoes are their own thing, or even if they should be worn. I’m fixated on converse for the moment, but allow that sandals and other choices make find additions. I personally don’t understand sandals and jeans, but I hate pants in general and try to wear them as little as possible. So to free your feet while constricting your legs seems stupid, and cold. Beside the fact that sandals really go with shorts, they complete the freed leg and show others that you spend your time with little to no clothes on most of the time. Or that you are a weekend slacker, but still, they know you a little better that way. Pale feet in the winter tell me you like frostbite, and tanned feet in the summer make me think you’ve been kidnapped and brain washed into wearing jeans. But that’s probably way over thinking it, and that’s against my philosophy.

Last, don’t wear colors that make you look stupid. My dad is slightly orange when considered in the appropriate light. When he puts on anything close to that color he becomes bright orange. I look best in greens and earth tones, though I sneak blue in because it’s on of my favorite colors. Pink can go with most people, but that horrible bright magenta thing should be banned from existence. Pale is probably better for our eyes anyway. Black will is good, but it creates a lot of contrast. If you’re still waiting for the public pool to open it’s doors, or the house to empty for the weekend and the neighbors to turn a blinded eye; it may not be the best option head to toe. Though I appreciate those who can use chains and face paint to make it all come together. Industrial is something I won’t pretend to comment knowledgeably about. When it’s good, it’s amazing. When it’s bad, you wonder when they showered last. An okay rule is match your eyes when possible. Especially your shirt; it’s why superman has a blue costume. But if you start to resemble the shirt color, change and never look back.

Above all, don’t obsess. Once you open your mouth, the clothes will dissapear, and depending on how wide you open your mouth, well, clothing should introduce you not speak louder and be more interesting than you are.

It’s odd, but watching a documentary about the Westboro Baptist Church, (who own the God Hates America website among other credits), got me thinking about the role of hatred and resistance in my life. Normally I watch things like that, and have this gut wrenching hatred and anger that swells up at the harm that they are causing, not only to themselves, but to the unnamed population of kids and adults who don’t fit the straight christian lifestyle. It only gets worse when they throw in the word ‘fag’, one of a few slurs that make my body cringe every time they’re used. But I sat there, sometimes with my eyes closed because it was too hard to look at the main guy’s face, and it wasn’t making me angry. Rather, I was feeling compassion toward these people. Something that was incredibly odd to begin with, but especially of people that I view as abusing and twisting religion to suit their own selfish desires.

Thus, I took a moment to study what was happening to me, and this one incident began to place some other things in perspective. I found out recently about another in a longer chain of backstabbing abuses commited by some former colleagues of mine. I left my position as Sales Manager because I wasn’t able to mix with these two people, and at the time was very angry at having to do so. I wanted to blame them for all of it, of course. But as time went on, I began to first not care, and then to work through what had happened, and try to glean from it what I could; to grow in whatever areas I had been deficient. Still, to discover that even after I had quit, they persisted in maligning my character was too much at first. I kind of went numb all over. Afterward, as I began to face what I was feeling, I realized I wanted so badly to hate them. I wanted so badly to revile them, but I couldn’t.

In truth, I felt bad for them, and not in a superior way. Both of them had to make a very similar choice to the one I made a year ago; to leave the company and seek employment somewhere better suited for them. One of them has children to feed and cloth, and the other a long history of sorrow and pain. So in the midst of my simple desire to hate them, I instead found myself feeling almost love for them. If I had to name it, then compassion, universal human compassion. Suddenly the Buddhist teachings made so much more sense to me. In my desire to be angry I found instead the realization that I couldn’t hate, I had to love them. Not to make me sound wonderful, just that I actually tried, and failed in my task of hatred.

At some point in the weekend the idea of peaceful resistance came and went through my mind. It was the contradiction in the words themselves that caught my attention. I grew up Mennonite, and therefore still have very strong aversion to violence; yet I do not deny it’s place in the normal operation of society and the world. My ability to publish this is wholly dependent on the violent efforts of my ancestors, and even the contemporary efforts of my peers. But, the notion of resisting without violence had always been a nice idea, something to balance the need for the other. As the news of my maltreatment lingered, this was the belief that somehow came to be challenged. The link still escapes me, but I followed the thread to see where it would go.

Nowhere. At least, not initially. I don’t even remember being able to make anymore sense of it until I sat down to the program today and the numbness didn’t’ come. The anger wasn’t there, and this compassion that I thought was singular, seemed to have become more universal all of the sudden. I can’t cry, that ability seems to have left my emotional reach. But I do tear up just slightly on a few occasions. When someone sacrifices themselves for another, fictional or otherwise, especially if it’s a soldier; but also during these kinds of documentaries. I just feel so overpowered by the injustice of it, by the horribly monstrous attempts to vilify and invalidate another human beings existence. Those are angry tears, and they didn’t come.

This was it; the final piece in the burgeoning puzzle created by my uncharacteristic reactions. As I watched them protest all sorts of odd and honestly perplexing things, I wondered how I might ‘get back’ at them. Nothing. In fact, there is only acceptance and peace. Not acceptance as in turning away and ignoring it; the secular definition useful for the peaceable co-existence of conflicting viewpoints. This is an inclusive, supportive, acceptance that finds not a viewpoint, but a human being; and in finding that human being, loves them without condition. There was nothing to be done, not in resistance to them. I had to simply let my heart go and seek out the individual beyond the hate filled words and angry masks.

I suppose then, on a larger scale, this leads me to rethink a lot of those peaceful ideas I had clung to in childhood. Resisting is violent, it’s against the flow of things. I discovered a certain pleasure and success in doing so this weekend as well. As a kind of counter-weight to the path I’ve just explained, I also had some problems with a friend and finally just plainly addressed it, not exactly confrontationally, but very much direct; definitely not in the water flowing downhill way that I normally use. Also for a job that wasn’t getting back to me, I sent a direct and strongly worded email, getting an almost immediate response. Thus these two conflicting things were floating around my head at the same time.

I’ve not reached some amazing realization about all of it yet, but I do see some interesting things that I had ignored or failed to see before. Where I had assumed that these horrors wrought by religion required resistance, I find instead that they require compassion and acceptance. Yet, there is this piece to action that requires violent resistance, even in my own life. And all the while I hate doing it. My very being rejects the idea of it. But my being can’t eat if I don’t get a job. Hence the conflict between ideas and hungry reality. Where I had viewed myself as being peaceful, it was really just passive. Even going all the way back to my job, it wasn’t a peaceful existence that I responded with, it was passive. Realizing that I would have to move into an aggressive, violent role in order to renegotiate my work environment, I quit. It wasn’t a line that I was willing to cross into. But it wasn’t peaceful, it wasn’t the water way; at least not on it’s own.

Things are reversed at the moment. It’s a little odd, and definitely unbalanced for the time being. Yet peace seems to come out of it. I’ve released the violence where it was needed, and at the same time removed the need or desire to unleash it in other places. I’m sure some master ought to slap me with a stick about now. I do feel good; like something important has begun to emerge in my mind. In this moment, as I write, I am able to understand the master and his stick for the first time. How a purveyor of peace could use violent means to enlighten. I probably won’t take such a path myself, but the paradigm shifts of the weekend have at least given me some different ways to view my water metaphor.

I seem stuck in this belief that there will be something better further along. It was one of those incessant thing that followed me throughout my most doubt-filled times, when I questioned the nature of reality itself, I have always had this inexplicable feeling that something else is going on. Just this tiny little note of peace that seemed to fill in the gaps when I needed it the most. Now that life is feeling absolutely pressured, now that I begin again to question what the point is, I’m still stuck with that tiny little feeling that keeps me hoping despite all evidence and feeling that mounts against it. It’s odd, just this completely ridiculous belief that tomorrow will be better. No matter how many yesterdays that didn’t prove out, I still believe that tomorrow something greater, something better will come along.

This above all other things is the foundation for my belief, my faith, my spirituality; because I lost all else that had anything meaningful to say about this. Depression is such an odd little condition; insidiously comforting so that you believe all you truly need is yourself, even though you despise everything that you are on principle, still you persist quietly, hoping. When if falls upon you slowly, you can almost welcome it; the quiet between storms of genius or mad flights of imagination. Almost as though you expected it, even though you’ve forgotten what it was like every other time, and in the midst of it, you are convinced it’s never been like this before. Again, that hope, that delusion even, that this is as worse as it gets, and that something else is always better. A gentle confidant, it coos to you in deepening tones of despair, all the while slowly stroking it’s clawed finger along your chest, letting flow the life as though it were blood spilt upon the ground. If you’re lucky, you wish it were your blood; at least it would be something real.

Other times it comes on so fast you can feel your whole body begin to slow, and the skin tingle as though each muscle suddenly lost it’s vigor. Those are the worst time, because you were conscious of the process, you saw it glide across your heart and cool your blood to near silence. Where the world slowly fades from real in the quiet times, now it suddenly becomes a story; a fairy tale told by fools who still believe in rules of right and justice. Fools that continue in games of showmanship and love, fools that conjure happiness from potions of food and fun. These times are not gentle; they collapse atop you as a wave upon the sandbar, dragging you under but blurring your vision so that no way is out, there is only in. These times you fight, because you know better, you have only just left the way you wish things were; still fresh are the memories of the other time, the better time. These times you feel the loss, you mourn it with every labored breath.

And when everything is a joke, a stupid pun; when simply breathing is a questionable activity, then you are left only with your principles. You no loner trust the sensations so long regarded as real, the suggestions of life that you clung to with the fervor of fools too distracted to notice the gently peeling tide dragging them into oblivion. What is real? Because your body has stopped to function, it’s dead weight is carried only by your mind’s insistence that it above all else is still real, still exists. So you collapse inward until the things that support you fail, and you become a small lump at the center of swirling fantasy. You are not left with anything but that one, small belief; life is better than not life. Truly, it is the only belief worth having. And from that springs an eternal and unfailing hope. Something greater, something better.

Does it need an explanation? True beliefs may never. Once established by reason and fact, it is no longer a belief. That I call my belief God comes more from ease of use than something classic and codifiable. Should any theology speak to my soul, it would be Anselm. A God, the God, would be that which nothing greater can be conceived. Nothing is greater than a hope for life. I make rambling twists and turns through Jesus and Zen, whending my way home to a merry tune. These are pretense and locution; I know nothing more than hope, and of that I know very little indeed. I don’t believe in Camus, exactly; to die or to live is not the question. Even being and non-being go far beyond the issue. What drives us is the answer; is life worth the cost? Is there something greater, something better to be had that will cancel all the horrors that lurk among our days, preying upon our years? Negating life is an active decision, a rational decision; contemplating death is for mystics, but believing is the passage of all living things.

This little, annoying belief grows in intensity over time. It proves itself over and over again without evidence, and in the face of so much despair. It whittles away the will so that you must acquiesce for the sake of composure. It would be rude not to. The longer you believe it, the stronger it gets so that it despises any questioning, it loathes any attempt to reason with it. An indefatigable tyrant that lords its terror upon you even in the midst of pain and suffering. While the depression seeks to soothe you, to calm you; hope attacks you, rips at your chest and claws at your gizzard, poking flames of life into your hollow skin. You must move, for it will never cease, it will never tire; it will continue forward until death or destruction.

Thus, I believe in life. I believe that something greater, something better will come for me if I persist. I believe that whatever the cost, at least for now, life is worth it. I know things will probably worsen, that sickness and destitution linger about the edges of anyone’s existence. I know that tomorrow will most likely bring more bills and no jobs. I understand that no one will ring at nine in the morning and declare their undying belief in my abilities, offering me a posh job on the spot. Still I believe, I hope.

That I find peace in moments of surrender to the currents of impulses and allow them to wash over me is perhaps a way of centering, a way of achieving Zen. That I flow with the world, allowing it to guide me as best I am able, feeling what it wills and not directing whenever possible, is perhaps a way of achieving Satori. And perhaps, because I bless others whenever the mood strikes me, and seek the way from what I know of Jesus as man, just maybe, that’s a way to heaven. But such a thing is more dangerous than helpful. The moment I am sure that it is beyond this life that is something greater, something better; I will no longer believe, I will no longer hope. I would know, and by knowing, end.

Non-resistance, total acceptance, blessing; it is all I know. Everything else is conjecture built upon wishful thinking. There is a hope, and I am not its master. Today, I believe that something greater, something better is coming tomorrow.

I came to the realization that there is nothing more freeing than ‘no’. It gives you the ability to pack it in, to reach for disillusionment and cut losses. Perhaps to appease your family, your friends, your better judgement. Or worse, you can see it as a statement about yourself; a resolution about your absolute value, a universal statement that for all time describes your worth. That is the power that we allow ‘no’ to have over us, and it is the absolute inauthentic decision to allow it to be at all.

The phenomenological truth is that in that moment you have absolute power. When someone says yes, they are giving you permission, they are in essence taking the power from you into themselves, and it is by their leave that you go forward. This is not inauthentic on principle, but it is not an authentic moment, rather the conclusion of a previous moment. ‘No’ however, is a moment of ultimate reality. It is an abrupt disruption of the normal flow of your life, and it is a truly existential moment. In that ‘no’ you are alone, you are denied access perhaps even existence. Whatever you do going forward will be an authentic choice, or an inauthentic acquiescence to an outside power, and the removal of your freedom.

First, the inauthentic reality of the moment. ‘No’ is not necessarily arrived at by a permissive request, but it is an assumption that one has been made, or should have been made on that point. It is inherently an overt attempt to deny your freedom and to remove your power. From a position of ‘no’ it assumed that a decision has been made for you. Inauthentic existence is one that accepts this presupposition and willingly accedes to its truth as ultimate reality. I will of course refer the matter to Sartre for defense on the point of no choice being a choice. Should you accept ‘no’ on the basis of it being a rejection, on the terms that the rejector has set, you are relieving yourself of responsibility; you are destroying your freedom. Such an inauthentic decision is freeing in relation to the anxiety that responsibility of decision has. It is soothing to pretend that the matter is resolved by the refusal of a power, that the responsibility is no longer yours. Yet, such a position denies your existence as a free individual, and denies your ultimate responsibility in bad faith.

The authentic decision in relation to ‘no’ is simple, pursue or retreat. Sun Tzu is very clear on the power of retreat as an art of war; that in doing so we do not accept defeat, we plan for ultimate victory. Retreat done in an authentic manner is a choice, and an empowerment based on your freedom. ‘No’ allows you the opportunity to evaluate the situation, and take in all factors that have bearing to the situation; giving ample time for pruning where unrelated concerns have grown in the fertile ground of doubt. In fact, there is no greater moment of existential reality than in the denial. There is no way to escape your responsibility to choose in this moment. It cannot be overcome by the force of prior choices, and it will not be solved by inevitable means. Any movement requires choice; responsibility demands it. It is also the situation in which courage is most drastically required to face down the denial of your existence, and the reality of the abyss that surrounds us.

Something denied is power gained. The power to truly make a decision where one may not have existed before. This is the fear and anxiety that we have of rejection in general. It will force us to choose, and we are anxious over the existential reality that we must face in that choice. It is better for us to avoid these moments of rejection; even to run from them in order that we might pursue a lie of existence. When faced, ‘no’ is a clearly defined opportunity to assert your freedom to be. There are only two choices, though variations of each choice may exist. In the face of ‘no’ you must bring yourself to resolution, draw up your courage and march solidly into choice. Willingly or unwillingly, you are given the opportunity to experience your existential reality in full.

Should you press forward, you will do so with no illusions about your resolve, and you will do so without doubt as to your courage. The opportunity to retreat has been given and forsaken in lieu of the advance. One who presses on in the face of ‘no’ does so at her own expense, and without any momentum or power gained from afar. It is a bestowal of power in the situation, absolute power. Tension and anxiety force you to evaluate your position, your character; your very existence. Meaning can only come from you. What you assign to it will be the truth, and no other can take that power from you. Courage to be in the situation must arise from within, and must be fueled by an unencumbered resolution of doubt. Evidence, either factual or affective, must be secure and confident in your mind. You must believe yourself capable of pressing forward, and this same belief will give you the courage to face the reality of non-existence staring you down. In this moment you are the author of your destiny; you are the maker of your existence.

Finally, the decision to retreat is not so much retreat as it is adherence to a different direction. It too requires courage, and because it is so closely guarded by inauthenticity, may require even more courage. Rage, revenge, rebellion; these feelings can encourage advance in an authentic manner. However, doubt, despair, decay; these feelings do not fuel authentic retreat, instead, the must be overcome if retreat is to be authentic. This is the power found in ‘no’. Every movement is power to choose. Understood, responsibility accepted; the moment of rejection is the peak moment for our existential existence.

I love Sartre right now. Let’s start with him here.

Everything takes place, in fact, as if our essential and immediate behavior with respect to anguish is flight. Psychological determinism, before being a theoretical conception, is first an attitude of excuse, or if you prefer, the basis of all attitudes of excuse. It is reflective conduct with respect to anguish; it asserts that there are within us antagonistic forces whose type of existence is comparable to that of things. It attempts to fill the void which encircles us, to re-establish the links between past and present, between present and future. It provides us with a nature productive of our acts, and these very acts it makes transcendent; it assigns to them a foundation in something other than themselves by endowing them with an inertia and externality eminently reassuring because they constitute a permanent game of excuses.

I’m having some existential dilemmas when it comes to integration right now, and I got to thinking about the helpfulness of psychology toward authenticity.

Sartre captures the very problem that I am having with psychology, or I should say therapeutic advice, in my present circumstance. It’s the creation of an independent self, an entity that has actions of its own, and therefore controls our freedom. Sartre is right there to smack it down, and it’s the same thing that Zen talks about. It jazzed me up when I first read that excerpt the other day, and sparked a new campaign of writing, however, today it became even more clear to me realistically.

The presentation of reality to us causes fear and our natural reaction flight. That kind of encounter with existence is easy to keep away from by distraction and denial. I love doing those things, but now I find myself tired of it. I feel like I have to stop all the distractions and sit down for a while, and face it. I hate emotions, and I hate being emotional. My latest crisis is how to do what I feel to be authentic when there is no one around to do it with. This is where I really need Sartre, or some Zen master, to sit down with for like five minutes.

That’s more of a side rant to the bigger issue, and that is where do I find truth in the milieu I exist in? I’ve told my friends that coping is okay, that it’s natural to do it. But I also believe that at some point that coping has to come to account. I am an existentialist in my psychology, and I know that eventually all of these things will only keep you away from the root issue for a time. I think that it’s imperative to meet that root issue, and that it’s okay to have it destroy you at times. When you are secure enough to start recognizing your coping, you are secure enough to start working past the coping.

And that’s where I think that I’m having my current conflict. I get sage advice from friends about dealing with life, finding ways to be happy. And then one friend asked me, what makes you truly happy? It was rhetorical in context, but I chose not to take it that way. What makes me happy is not all the distracting coping mechanisms. Those aren’t real, and as soon as I know that, they are more hinderance than help. But what is the path to follow?

In a cognitive behavioral sense, we would just identify the behavior, and consciously change it to something that we want. I see this as trading one thing for another. It doesn’t really do anything about the basic level of whether we live for ourselves, or for our fear. What part of psychology is actually moving us toward authenticity? It seems that anything which strengths the idea of an independent self is really a move toward bad faith and away from enlightenment. ‘Do not mistake your finger for the moon.’ I may be an existential hedonist, that we should undergo as much pain as it takes to obtain the ultimate pleasure. It annoys me when people will not.

I suppose it annoys me more when people tell me not to do what I’m doing. Because I trust them, but I don’t think they’re right. I think they might be falling prey to bad faith themselves. ‘Don’t think, just go out and do.’ But even Zen recognizes that you have to ponder the idea of not thinking. You have to let the mind settle as it will. For me, part of the settling is recognizing all that which clouds my root issue. It’s like a simple exercise of noticing and letting go. I notice these things, these coping things, and then I let them go. (At least that’s what I really want to end up doing.)

It seems that ultimately, all actions that merely affirm the self as an independent entity, one that Sartre would see as the root of all excuses, and one that gives to the self our freedom, would be a move toward bad faith, inauthenticity. Yet, I know that I have received psychological comfort from the teachings of psychology, and given some in return. I suppose that is why they call it an existential crisis. Dilemma may be more appropriate in my case, ironic sense that is the root of the problem from Zen’s perspective, and perhaps this is my duality which must be transcended. But it looks like not today. I am puzzled as ever, but feeling deeply on account of it. Perhaps when I meet my zen master, she will rap me on the head and I won’t think so much.

I’ve had a moment of satori; a little one to be sure, but still satori. I need to collect my thoughts some more, and make them a little more clear to myself even, but I also wanted to put something out there while it’s still fresh. Sartre has about four pages on the view of psychology as it relates to the self, and he calls it the root of all excuses for ignoring the existential anguish. He even uses some of the same Zen language about ridding the idea of Self. God it was amazing. The same thing that I was searching for only twenty pages earlier just popped up.

Just a quick sketch then. To Zen I understand that the arising of the Self is a denial of our true nature which is free. Sartre speaks of how this Self is pushed into a translucent other within ourselves, and we give up our freedom to it, viewing it as an object, and treating it like it has inertia. Then it becomes us, this Self. So that we have this series of actions both past and future that are done for us because it is who we are, our Self, our personality. There it is right there, the Zen no mind, the passing of the Self into the nothingness from which we brought it. I can’t really go any further tonight, but I needed to announce my little piece of enlightenment. I feels like I should call for a celebration. I’m going to start a seperate page where I am going to develop a new understanding of psychology and consciousness from that perspective. It just might be my dissertation.

Cheers!

I’m reading through some essays by Sartre because my friend is having me read Man and Superman by Shaw. I always get really interested in background material every-time I start reading any book that includes the development of these kind of ideas. I suppose it might also be my way of putting off completing anything. While I am enjoying the play, I did find myself again in the debate between Zen and Existentialism. Reading Sartre again has been kind of enlightening though. In his first essay he is rebutting some arguments placed against him by Marxists among others. He looks to the example of morality as preceding existence, and the absence of this to cause what he terms anguish. The way of phrasing this is not too unfamiliar in the context of Zen, based on the idea of universal suffering.

It was more just a feeling that I got as reading through it, and I wanted to journal a little bit of that process to have a developmental log as I went. Existence precedes essence is a fundamental concept to Sartre. This is opposed to the a priori methods of earlier moral systems. (Tangential to this, I love that everything always seems to come down to the moral system, the very literal how should we act, what ought we to do.) Sartre laments the absence of God, the anguish that this causes because there is no good to look to. No esscence that is given, man is free, completely. It did get me to think about the main objection to God in this moral development, the lack of choice that God would represent.

I read through a good deal of the Oxford Handbook of Free Will, which was lent me by a friend, and of course is out of print. (I don’t particularly like used books in certain genres.) Universally thought; in order for an action to be free it must be unknown, even by some extra system being. If I know what you are going to do, the future is determined, and you are therefore not free to act of your own will, but by the predetermined course that I know of. (Bear with this for a moment, I will hopefully return to the original inquest shortly.) What always strikes me is the use of dogma as truth in religion, especially whenever refuting it. Shaw helped me to see that most clearly, in that Don Juan points clearly to the lack of evidence to support the truth that Ana supposes in her arguments. The concept of God foreordaining things is not truly stated to my knowledge, in that I can’t recall a specific reference to God stating that he knows the outcome of a particular persons actions. Job, the oldest source for biblical narrative, is actually fraught with quite the opposite. God and Satan discuss what Job is capable of doing, not what he will do. It seems clearer that God has faith in Job, then that he knows what Job will do. Essentially, I wonder at the very start of what we know to be contemporary “human nature,” which began with the apple.

It was the representation of the fruit of knowledge, the knowledge of good and evil. That phrase has always bothered me, as defiance of God - either in the form of commandment breaking or renunciation - is the definition of evil. If Adam and Eve did not know evil until they bit the apple, how was it that they could commit it, and even more, that they could be punished for doing so. Rather, it has been my suspicion that it was not simple knowledge that they gained, but that they gained the possibility of will, choice. In defying the ordinance against the fruit of that tree, they chose will over determination. (Which also allows me to better reconcile the concept of predetermination, or more accurately in my sense the problem of evil.) Thus, I do not hold to the idea that God knows the fate of man to the extent that he limits our will in the determination of it.

All of which is a side inquiry to the original topic I started with. The intersection of Existential anguish and Zen universal suffering. (I realize that the concept is perhaps better preserved in Tibetan Buddhism, but I identify most readily with Zen, including its lack of emphasis on metaphysics.) The anguish over freedom is not necessarily found in the absence of God, but in the absence of a determined existence by God. Thus I find that the discussion that Sartre makes is to absolve ourselves of the dogma posited by the church, and not disillusionment of the deity. (I realize that until now I have done a horrible job at gender inclusive language, and were this a formal paper such a wanton display of reckless male domination would be corrected. However, for the moment I am more lazy than correct.)Now for the intersection of the two concepts. In Zen the role of Karma is less applicable from my study of it. (And I will readily admit greater ignorance here than in my biblical studies, and council is more than welcomed.) In many koans I see rather that action produces satori, or at least the visible evidence of it. The other day I had trouble seeing the connection between the two concepts - existential authenticity and Zen - yet now find them nearly synonymous. For even should our actions have a metaphysical outcome, or even a metaphysical moral ought, it is only through action that the truth of them is realized. So where the Existentialist begs we act to show our authenticity rather than choosing to disregard our freedom in lieu of a verisimilitude, Zen would also urge us to act rather than contemplate the Buddha in inaction. I am perhaps heretically referring to killing the Buddha should you meet him.

I find for the moment that the greater crisis is the idea of heaven; more appropriately the idea of eternal reward for subjugation to an ought foreordained by the deity. In such a case it is most appropriate to question, as Sartre does, the veracity of our claim to this ought. In what way may we claim that it has truth beyond our own interpretation of it. Such a thing is nearly impossible to prove without a prior belief that such a thing is possible to prove. To she who refuses such an assumption, no amount of argument will provide agreement. Actions done in search of heaven are not authentic, and are not Zen (again in my current understanding.)

Giving up our choice to pursue what others have determined we ought to do is our choice not to choose. Do not seek the Buddha. An ought that is not determined by our own will is not authentic to our will. If I move in the direction that an ought tells me I should, then it must be done of my own will or it is meaningless. Sartre seems to be saying as much, that the action is the definition of the truth. That we make truth for ourselves in each action. Zen seems to also focus on this matter of action. How can one contemplate the way and yet lie in his heart.

For the moment, there is no real conclusion to this meditation. Merely the continuing development of this crisis I find myself in, between the mind and the spirit, both of which pursue their own paths, but a faith seems to well up within me that both are not separate, and that in them there is a truth to be found, and a convergence to be made. 

I was talking with a friend, and I realized that we are our secrets. If you look at it from an existential point of view, the thing that we use to define ourselves is what separates us from everyone else; especially in a milieu where so very little separates us anymore. The things that are entirely our own are those things that we do not share with anyone else. We call it our inner lives, our self, our person or soul. Sharing secrets is like sharing the very essence of who we are. If we are in denial about our existential existence, then the violation of a secret is like an instant bath in the instability of existential isolation. At once it is the realization that we are alone because we have this secret, and then the treachery at being exposed in such a way, naked and isolated. This a rough idea at best, but it was a strong feeling that I had. The results however was a new perspective on the revolution against duality, and the progress toward enlightenment.

It became a little clearer to me how the self is created and indicated to us. Our very knowledge may in a way work against us, creating this world of pain that we endure daily. In our zeal to be seperate, to be a self, we horde things unto ourselves, just us and not anyone else. Perhaps it is most viceral with our homes, the feeling that someone was among our place of self, and worse took things from that place of self. The reaction seems to be universal. What’s more, once that violation occurs, it seems as though we have lost our self, lost the thing that made us feel separate. I think this is where the paths of existentialism and zen tend to diverge for me. At least, in that I have not seen them merge. Isolation is our natural state, and so to feel that we have lost that is somehow impossible, and against our path toward authentic action. Yet, to attain enlightenment it would be a positive step. Letting go of attachments and cravings.

Perhaps they are one in the same. Taking of our secrets, the violation of the boundary we have set out as self makes us feel our own true isolation. We have created a link, an anchor to the world through these physical structures, and to the people that inhabit them. When we are forced to see how variable and inconsistent that boundary can be, we revert to a state of existential realization, that we are far more separate and alone than we thought. The comfortable barrier that we have created is in fact an illusion in our attempt to delude ourselves from the reality of death, of ending.

So also it is a step toward releasing the self. Though we usually react by gripping even more tightly to the things that we have used to create a self. Physical objects are replaced, and security systems installed. But the taking of a secret is physical. My friend used the phrase “physically violated.” It’s a visceral feeling because it is the removal of the self by a forcible measure. But it can be used as a method for seeing the illusions of the self through these horded secrets, that these really are not a thing in themselves, but our attempt to be separate from everyone else.

The divergence however is even more apparent the more that I think about it. To take a path toward authenticity, I would accept my self in isolation, but to step toward enlightenment, I would look toward the removal of this illusion. It is odd to me that at times these two idea are synchronous, though now that I feel a little bit closer toward understanding the illusion of the self, they are so divergent as to cause me even greater confusion. It may of course be that one or the other, or lamentably both, are incorrect at best, and delusional at worst. But these things are often the province of thought and reason which are the worst offenders in this line of inquiry.

I suppose the most visceral part for me is that I horde my short list of secrets very tightly. I cannot imagine the violation of them. So much that I will freely give away what others might think secret. All is a rouse to hold on even more tightly to my self. That was the greatest understanding that I gained from this little experience. I can feel that tightness in me even now. Lastly, I began to wonder, what of the person that I tell all my secrets to? Is that a healthy step, a positive growth. Or perhaps is that the greatest secret of all? (And also the most hypocritical seeing as I’m about to post this into public space, but the literary whore in me won the day.)