I Ought to Tell You Something

I sure wish I knew what it was. This refrainment from doing so is seriously messing me up.

It actually probably won't be you specifically who's the answer to all my troubles, but, as you're here as the elected representative of the Society of People Who Are Not Me, I shall practice communing incoherently with the universe through you. Consider it a sacrifice in the name of science.

Metaphysics. It's definitely got something to do with metaphysics. More specifically with the connotations that the word "metaphysics" has for me, surprisingly jaded considering I spent all my life as a devout Jew and only stopped once I became a devout Taoist. I feel like I ought to explain myself if I say something unscientific. I can kind of see where it came from but not really where it got so intense. I am more than willing to hear this kind of talk but I am terrified of creating it.

I very rarely talk with anybody about anything. Ever since 13 or so, I've moved from being pointedly quiet through being inconspicuously quiet through reciting sentences calculated to get me through conversations with the impression of being friendly all the way to this strange place I'm at now of talking with people truly unfettered, but with a draconian self-censorship so extreme it renders all conversations virtually meaningless.

I am excited about Taoism. The previous sentence is simply not something I can picture myself saying in any context outside this blog and my family. This is an impossible situation. You cannot be timid in your religion, and it is a religion - I'm not even close to kidding.

I've tried to build my confidence in it through a "scientific" examination of its core text that is being delayed for annoying, prosaic reasons, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that, but my adoption of Taoism shouldn't be contingent on my completion of a scientific project - or, more precisely, as the fact is it isn't, regardless of whether this is "wise" or not, I shouldn't pretend that it is, I shouldn't be afraid of saying out loud "I am excited about Taoism". Even "I think you too should become a Taoist". It's not a political statement; nobody's going to get harmed if I'm wrong - the only problem with it is the risk some people will respond in a way I do not consider respectful.

Now, when people show disrespect towards something that is backed up scientifically, it is easy to show to yourself and often to them and anybody else who's watching, what idiots they are. Because stupidity, presumably, invalidates a judgement. We live in a (appropriately, I think) science-worshipping time and culture, so this is comprehensively accepted and so if I prove a person's irrationality I win.

But what's the big deal about winning? I would maintain that maliciousness and narrow-mindedness and arrogance do far more to invalidate an opinion than deviations from scientific standards, even if this view is far less widely held. We all reject what is disrespectful of the scientific method, but what I'm talking about here is disrespect for people. If mocked, I may not be able to conclusively demonstrate that this mockery is the result of misinformation and faulty reasoning and general incompetence, but I can tell the person, or even just myself, that he's being a sack of shit and hasn't got a leg to stand on, because mockery by definition hasn't got a leg to stand on. It's a technique resorted to by infants of all ages when they want to criticise something for whatever reasons and have no actual arguments with which to back themselves up. It's actually a battle you can't lose at, no matter how feeble your metaphysical speculation or remark. It will never be wrong for you to say it, so long as you don't attribute any non-existent scientific value to it.

My eyes are drooping so I'll finish up. I ought to tell you how much and in what ways I am excited about Taoism. I haven't really gotten into it yet, but Taoism is really far less about itself than about people and the world and essentially respect for what exists. I ought to not be held back by scientific assessments of what I want to say. I ought to share with you specific examples and general riffs on life and the universe, instead of examining and explaining why I don't, or at least in addition. I ought to do this all the time and with all people I see of my own volition. Specific examples maybe not, but riffs? We talk about what interests us. If something interests me then it is at least possible it will interest someone else.

I've just gone through a few of my previous posts and it seems I keep revisiting this concept of science-reliance, under different guises. I don't want to be boring, incoherent, pretentious, ridiculous, smug, offensive, unfamiliar, impractical, or generally "wrong". The solution to all of these things is a strict reasonableness, but none of these things is actually a problem. "Smug" and "offensive" come closest, but if I'm expressing excitement about something then these characterisations are simply imagined, mostly by me and possibly also by other owners of overactive imaginations. We'll all have to get over it.

Sorry about this post, but writing these really is good for me.

Restatement of Mission

Which, wow, after almost five months of blog silence has probably been quite a long time coming.

I've just seen this film:

I'm not going to go into it except to mention that you should watch it, as if you're going to listen. It is, as the poster and tagline imply, about life and death and trees and a bald guy floating around in space.

I was watching it today for something like the fifth time since it came out, and it didn't shake my world as much as it had some of those previous times, except for what I later understood to be the surprisingly novel sensation of giving serious consideration to metaphysical issues.

My mind has been occupied, when it in fact had been occupied, by moral issues instead. It had and still does disturb me how ignorant people are of the moral consequences of their general complacency.

I do still mean what I said a few posts and more months back about our collective thinking being hijacked by self-impelling institutions like nationalism, orthodoxism, and fascism (as expressed by adoration for the strong and contempt for the weak - a trait very prominent in capitalism, for one).
People have a general tendency to accept that what serves the nation, custom, or unrestrained enterprise is good, without pausing long enough to consider who this kind of thinking serves and who it causes untold suffering to.

So I've been trying very hard to keep my mind clean of this, and it's even managed to spill a little into my behaviour and conversation, but what I've only noticed now is that it appears to have taken over the whole of the area of my brain devoted to "serious issues" and to have pushed out almost all of my previous musings about spirit and beauty and love and emotion almost clean out.

I stopped being religious close to a year ago now, essentially because of the moral issues I occasionally try to explain here. Its spiritual aspect seemed genuine but not exclusive enough to itself to warrant the intellectual subjugation that it by definition demands. So I'm left now with a fragile but sincere and workable moral framework in its stead, but almost none of the presumedly much easier to get hold of spiritual take on the world.

Because I haven't been looking. It's difficult to speak (or even think) metaphysical mumbo jumbo without having a very rich religious tradition backing you up. The fact is, on this subject, you are always blowing up a bubble. You can be made to feel comfortable inside it if other, "respectable" people have tried to blow it up before you, but otherwise, I guess you just have to feel less comfortable inside it.

Or you could try to find more about the non-denominationally affiliated people whose work you're continuing. I'm not the first secular man or even just non-frothingly-exclusivist-Jew (Rav Kook comes to mind) to take the issue of spirit seriously. So I guess I'm setting myself some rather vague reading assignments, as well as reminding myself to write here more often and allow and actively encourage myself to think seriously too about matters not involving morality and nefarious forces' relentless scramble for my brain.

Neil Young is not really relevant to any of this but he is awesome, so have a song: