The Iconography of my Window

It’s snowing tonight: white glimmers piecing off from a crumbling white sky. If you look closely, and for long enough, your eyes go beyond the flakes in the lamplight and pass into the gray beyond, where you become more and more receptive. You feel yourself changing.

I once participated in a guided meditation that went something like this: Start with your feet. Imagine them bursting into flame. The flame grows hotter and hotter, changing colors as it heats from orange to red to blue and finally to white as the blaze becomes hotter than fire is capable of becoming, transcending itself, passing brightly through the threshold. The conflagration then reaches from your feet to your abdomen and spreads upwards throughout your body until your whole self is a single white flame, immaculate. And now the space beyond your body catches fire as well. And the process repeats itself. It’s as if the world is falling into you, and, through your gaze, is converted also into a pure white inferno. All the universe is white. It empties.

The idea behind icon painting is that the image being depicted isn’t merely a likeness of something else and thereby intended to make the reality and the majesty of the original object present. Icon painting, in the words of Ivan Illich, “is understood as a threshold between two incommensurable worlds, from the perishable and provisional to the imperishable and eternal; from the world of death into the world of life.” As such, unlike the secular image, the religious icon takes on a peculiar sacredness all its own, one that isn’t cast off from another source but which exists within the image itself, as a vision of invisibility. The icon isn’t merely an imitation or copy or even an expression of sacredness but something through which the eternal light radiates directly into the viewer’s eye, an image both borne and conveyed by intrinsic holiness, which holds life and death in its expression.

Western art, by contrast, in attempting “to hold the mirror up to nature,” assumes a certain inevitable poverty in the image. No matter how precisely the image is depicted, it remains a copy, an inferior to the original. And after nature itself, the original original, is successfully converted through the forces of civilization into a commodity, into yet another representation, another image—when nature itself becomes a mere embodiment of its pseudo essence, of the ‘spirit’ it contains, then the entire world becomes a prison from which we futilely struggle to escape. Nothing we see is whole and separable, and the world of dearth that imprisons us, becomes, like suicide as a means of escaping one's fear of death, our hope for salvation. We look to the spectacle to lead us away from the spectacle.

In such a world, the very essence of self implies a neediness. The self becomes a scarcity—something with tangible and real needs and that begs for fulfillment. The world becomes a problem that has to be solved, except that to solve it would destroy creation, because the world can’t exist except as a problem. One helps one’s neighbor because one’s neighbor has needs that one can fulfill, weaknesses that can be compensated for, and the self looks to the outer world to grow not more complete (that’s impossible in a world of duplicating selves) but larger and more resolved, more alien and more invincible. Since everything mirrors something else, satisfaction can never be achieved, even in a world exclusively dedicated to need fulfillment. The original, which is itself a copy, forever reaches back to the form that gave it birth, a form that doesn’t exist. Consequently, our ‘real’ faces are worn like masks while we wait for the right actual mask to be covered by, and we look for love the same way that we look for a new television—by shopping. Relationships become exchanges. Once the world has been reified—once everything becomes a symbol for something else, and once thought (“I think therefore I am”) and the contingent idea of the mind as ruler and creator, becomes the foundation of existence, then the whole world is unified, with only one reality. Everything is borne of the one great law, product of the great mind, and subsequently, as shards reflecting shards, the other, mediated to us by specialists, loses her otherness. No one, including one’s self, is real; one merely symbolizes the real. And the sacred is forever diverted, like endless reflections in opposing mirrors.

The Medieval icon painters never bothered with new techniques such as perspective, the Golden Ratio, or foreshortening techniques, because they weren’t motivated to approximate an outer reality. The simplicity of the image was important because the image was meant to inspire contemplation, a meditative gaze through which a new reality could be entered and explored, and thereby required a certain amount of undefined space and a minimalist formation. The image wasn’t about something, after all. It was the thing itself—and asked not to be interpreted but cherished.

As I stare outside at the snow, I’m thinking about the way Zen Buddhists begin each meditation session with the chiming of a bell: a loud clang that expands and slowly ebbs into silence, empties, like white glowing from out of the darkness and falling again on white, extinguishing itself.

I remember when I was twenty one years old and I had just come back to Utah after a six month long internship in Washington DC. I was forced to stay with my parents until I found a new apartment, and, one night, as I had done throughout my childhood, I pulled the trampoline up next to the glass doors of my bedroom, and I slept outside. But I didn’t enjoy it the way I did as a child. The stars that used to amaze me and keep me awake for hours were no longer so appealing. They were still beautiful, but they were just stars, silent deaf stars that only the right interpretation could make meaningful. They didn’t look back at me.

Twenty years later, as I look out my window and watch the snow fall, I’m learning how to see again.

Sexist Savages

The other night, while driving home from a college basketball game, my four year old nephew invented an activity he called the Christmas game, which involved getting points for spotting Christmas decorations—or at least that’s what it involved at first. The rules kept changing in order, it seemed, to ensure my nephew’s victory. At times, green and/or red street lights yielded points. Other times not. Car break lights were included in his tally but not mine. And at the end of the game, points were awarded for just remembering Christmas decorations from the past, a nuance I had not been clued in on until the game was declared over. Needless to say, I was soundly defeated—fourteen points to five, and, mature adult that I am, I accepted my defeat in stride, without protest.

The maturity of my response was in marked contrast to the behavior of an elderly man I recently witnessed on a TV show called The Adventures of Mark and Olly about two British men who travel to Papua, New Guineau to live in the jungle with an indigenous hunter/gatherer tribe known as the Mek. In the latest episode, the tree house where the two British men have been staying starts to break down, so the tribe agrees to build a new one—about three hundred feet up. Olly, one of the British men, has a difficult time climbing the trees to help with the building process and so has to stay below and work with the women, causing his status within the tribe to diminish, or so it seemed. Later in the episode, after all of the fires in the community have gone out during the extensive rains, something else happens that, along with the tribe’s distinct gender roles and the fact that the women do the bulk of the work, seems to confirm the modern condemnation of primitive life as backward, immature, and, above all, sexist. When the male elder fails to start a fire, one of the women takes the materials inside, and, within minutes, creates a steady blaze. She gloats, and the man takes offense. The two argue until the woman walks away.

What the male should have done, of course—what any non-sexist civilized man would have done—is to graciously admit defeat, smile, and congratulate the woman for her success. In other words, he should have treated her like an adult treats a child, the same way I treated my nephew after losing the Christmas game. The fact that the male elder took offense, that he argued with the woman about the event’s significance, suggests that he might have some very real doubts as to his superiority in the community. In the modern world, you could make a strong case that no such doubts exist. The sophisticated modern male simply laughs off female victories because he knows deep down that such victories are either aberrations or meaningless child’s play—that they don’t really threaten his dominance. In the modern world, the male’s superiority would not be challenged by a simple failure to start a fire better than a woman.

Why I'm Voting for Nader

Of course Nader can't win--I understand that--but that doesn't mean I'm voting for him to merely "express my conscience", as some people like to put it. The truth is that no candidate, including Nader, comes close to representing my conscience. That choice, in our pretend democracy, is off the table. Our representative democracy doesn't allow me to vote "for" anything, because the voting process doesn't, on a personal level, offer me anything of value. What I can do, though, thanks to Nader and other third party candidates, is vote against something. I can vote against the system.

Obama is one of the more reliable sellouts to ever run for office. Due to political pressure, he now supports off-shore drilling for oil, has voted numerous times in support of subsidizing corn-ethanol (the position that won him the Iowa primary), has clearly voiced his approval of "free" trade policies, has said that he won't withdraw American troops from Iraq before 2013, and has back-tracked on campaign finance reform and coal subsidies since it became politically advantageous to do so. He has solicited for and received millions of dollars in corporate campaign support, from the likes of Goldman Sachs, Excelon, UBS, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley, many of the same corporations who directly benefited from the 420 dollar bailout he approved. And his support of Tort "reform" (making it more difficult to sue corporations), his rejection of single-payer health care, his vote to cap the damages that victims of malpractice could receive, and his vote against an ammendment to cap credit card interest rates at 30% show very clearly that he intends to pay back his supporters with policy decisions that represent corporate interest at the expense of everyone else. It's pretty clear that you can't work "within" the system, a system that is evil to its core, and expect non evil results. And Obama unquestioningly represents the system.

A vote for Nader, on the other hand, represents an honest critique of what our country is doing to the natural environment and to the developing world and to the non-elites within American borders. A vote for Nader represents an honest voice of protest against corporate-dominated America. In short, it represents a protest against abuse.

Let me put it this way: what if someone said that you had to be in an abusive relationship with a person who would beat and molest you every day or a person who would beat and molest you, more mildly, only once a week? That, to me, is the choice we're being given by our two party system. The fact that both Obama and McCain supported a 420 billion dollar robbery--a continuation, in other words, of the American government's practice of taking money and resources from the poor and middle classes of the world and giving it to the elites--only proves my point. And I don't want to cast a vote in favor of abuse, a vote that sanctions and authorizes and legitimizes that abuse. My vote for Nader, who opposed the bailout and who favors placing severe restrictions on the abusive power of corporations, sends the message that I don't want to be in a relationship under abusive circumstances (even if I don't agree with many of the socialistic ideas of Nader). A vote for either Obama or McCain, on the other hand, represents a vote for an abusive system--a tacit approval of exploitation--which, by my definition, is not merely a wasted vote but an unethical one.

Let It Pour

In Act IV, scene II of Shakespeare's King John, just after John has killed the rightful heir to the throne, causing powerful nobles to defect--just as the forces against John are being assembled and his position of power is being questioned--just as everything seems about to fall apart, a messenger enters the King's quarters, looking fearful. The king, noticing the messenger's troubled countenance, speaks:

"So foul a sky clears not without a storm: Pour down thy weather."

The metaphorical language, as pointed out by Mark Turner in The Literary Mind, is both crystal clear and simultaneously loaded with nuance. The messenger's face corrolates to the foul sky and the messenger's news to the rain that must fall before sunny days are again possible. Pretty straightforward. But, considering the context, much more is in evidence. The king's utterance also implies a certain limitation to regal power--a power to command actions but not natures. A king can command a messenger to convey his message but he cannot determine the message's content, not, at least, without distorting its truth. A king can demand a weather report, that is, but not determine the weather. He might even demand that a frown be called a smile and an overcast sky be called sunny, but he cannot rule over natural forces. A king cannot command the skies.

And neither can US presidents or Federal Reserve chairmen--not even with 750 billion dollars.

Since the dawn of America over two hundred years ago, America has fostered a reputation for its cock-eyed optimism. And, at times, it has served us well. An optimistic spirit was needed, obviously, for a small fledgling nation to defeat the mightiest military of its time during the American Revolution. Optimism is a great quality to have when you're young, when you lack the confidence that comes with experience, and when older cagier veterans are trying to defeat you by mere posturing. It's a great quality to have when you're shooting a pressure free throw, for example, and you need to overcome your nerves and let your body do what it knows how to do, trying not to over-think the moment and become distracted.

But optimism isn't a virtue; it's a skill. And like all skills, you should only use it when it's needed. You might be the greatest sharpshooter in the world, but if you try applying your talent to circumstances in which it isn't required--as a means of resolving conflict, say--then you're probably destined for a life in prison. Your skill will be your ruin rather than your saving grace. Similarly, if you apply optimism to a scenario in which your child is screaming hysterically in the next room, your skill becomes a potentially lethal liability, not to mention an effective means of denying responsibility. Sometimes, too, a skill doesn't manifest strength as much as it conceals weakness. A young man or women might become a master at sexual seduction in order to conceal a sense of complete alienation from the opposite sex--to compensate for the fact that he or she can't connect with others on any other level, and so his or her skill works to conceal loneliness and alienation--as a means of preserving the illusion of compatibility with human society. And a mother failing to respond to her crying child might not be an act of optimism as much as it is an act of denial--a weakness of courage, I mean, to face the potentially dire circumstances that await her if she tries to learn the source of her child's distress.

The American financial system has been crying for a long time. Over eight years ago, Ralph Nader sounded the warning that the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) were on track to follow the savings and loan industry of the 1980s and 90s (TheNation). He was ridiculed. Every month of this year, the unemployment rate has increased while Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke along with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson have been "seeing signs of improvement" in the economy (dumbasses). And now we have the mess that we have.

What's more, though the screaming child isn't being ignored at the moment, the people in charge don't seem to understand what they're hearing. Rather than going in to check on the child, they've decided to spend 700 billion dollars to build thicker walls--as if the problem is with the screaming and not with the threat that the screams are trying to signal. Put in other terms, our financial leaders are trying to amend the message and not the problem. And the reason why is simple: they can't amend the problem, because the problem with the kingdom isn't that it's unraveling and that the king is about to be overthrown; the problem is with the king. The king is illegitimate. The reason they're trying to build thicker walls is because that's all they can do. That's all they have the authority to do.

Karl Marx, in a small book called The German Ideology, proposed that political ideologies are primarily "the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas". To Marx, ideology is a consequent of material social conditions, such as those of private property, and, in order to keep those conditions secure, an ideology is created to justify and idealize the material condition. In other words, the world is turned upside down. People are taught to believe that the ideology created the material conditions and not vice versa. Consequently, human beings come to view their actions as the consequence of inevitable economic factors. Ideology serves merely to obfuscate the very simplistic reality of material life--and to maintain the dominance of the rulers. Ideology becomes the artifice whereby the rulers obtain and maintain the power to rule. False and illegitimate ideology serves to promote false and illegitimate power. A mirage is created which is invulnerable to attack. Consequently, the screaming of the economy, rather than the material conditions of the economy, become the problem that has to be commanded away.

Now, I don't claim to be a financial expert. I've read about fifty articles about what's currently happening and all I can tell you is that our financial markets are a labyrinth I could never navigate ... but I can tell you this: the market depends on material resources and a financial system that creates money (and not value) from debt isn't sustainable. Ideology in the form of rhetoric can't create real long-term value--and real value (of the materials) can't keep pace with the artificial value (of the stocks) inflated by credit and hyper speculation and short-term investment and derivatives and price fixing and debt securities, etc. More specifically, the current crisis is a direct result of material social conditions which require and encourage debt, the same social mechanism that has been used since the dawn of civilization to ensure that assets are consolidated in the hands of the wealthy.

As Wall Street economist Michael Hudson puts it: "The “magic of compound interest” refers to the tendency of savings to double and redouble exponentially, with a matching rise in what debtors owe on the other side of the balance sheet. These mathematics have been operated throughout history, ever since the charging of interest was invented in Sumer some time around 2750 BC. In every known society, the effect has been to concentrate wealth in the hands of people with money. In recent years, one’s own money is not even necessary to do this. The power to indebt others to oneself can be achieved by free credit creation. However, the resulting mushrooming exponential growth in indebtedness must collapse at the point where its interest and other carrying charges (now augmented by exorbitant late fees, bounced-check fees, credit-card costs and other penalties) absorb the entire economic surplus.

This is the point that has been reached – and passed. It has been developing for many decades. But there is a great reluctance to accept the fact that debts cannot be paid."

Summed up: no economy can grow as exponentially and interminably fast as debts--no matter how much they're commanded by the Fed to do so. This bailout has nothing to do with preventing a recession. No market can exist without recessions, and the king can't do anything to change that fact. Recessions, like rainstorms, are not only inevitable, they're also good for the market economy. A recession simply means that money has been invested in an industry that no longer serves the economy's needs, and now that money has to be re-invested in other industries. In the long run, the economy is better off after the reinvestment takes place. By trying to prevent recessions, we only inflate the bubble and make the ultimate crash a little bit more severe--but the recession still comes. The king can't prevent the economy from functioning like an economy, but he can ensure that the recession doesn't hurt the people in charge; he can ensure that it protects his illegitimate power, provided we go along with it, provided we continue to believe that we're simply the victims of inevitable economic forces rather than illegitimate rulers. And that's what this bailout is all about. It's a chance to keep the bubble inflated long enough for the illegitimate people at the top to cash out before it pops. The pop, though, is inevitable.

Just before the messenger arrives in the throne room, King John has been informed of the death of Arthur, the rightful heir to the crown, and the lords give him an accusative look. The king responds:

"Why do you bend such solemn brows on me?
Think you I bear the shears of destiny?
Have I commandment on the pulse of life?"

Once again, the King's powers are demarcated. The king, by his own admission, doesn't command the pulse of life. He can't determine destiny. And yet the King is directly responsible for Arthur's death, giving further indication of his illegitimacy. The king can kill, though it isn't a legitimate power, but, as John learns later in the scene when he learns of his mother's death, he cannot bear the shears of destiny. He cannot keep either his mother or the kingdom she seized for him alive.

For me, the larger question isn't whether the Fed should try to stave off a recession. As I said, recessions are inevitable in the market economy, in the same way that storms are inevitable and in the same way that deaths are inevitable, even the deaths of empires. Not only is the financial system of the American empire unstable and ripe for death, but the entire empire, an empire dependent on infinite growth in a world of finite resources, is long overdue, as well. It's time has come. The longer we prop it up with illegitimate power, the harder the ultimate crash will be and the more people will suffer. I say we let it die now. Use the financial crisis as an opportunity, an opportunity to die and be reborn--to reinstate the rightful king, which is none other than the natural world on which we're all dependent and a part of. Don't re-inflate the economic bubble or the empire bubble. Just pop it. Let the clouds over-saturate and tilt your face up to greet the rain. Messenger, pour down thy weather!

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counterpunch
alternet

Honduras Thoughts and Highlights

I’m still in the process of defining my trip, but, for now, here are a few memories:

Copan

A small town, heavy on tourism, built next to an ancient Mayan city. The temples there aren’t as large or as numerous as those in Tikal, where I visited last year, but the architecture and the presentation of the sight are more interesting in Copan. Another thing I liked better about Copan is that they don’t try very hard to sell you on the idea that you're in a spiritual place. The tourist information is more honest: You are standing on ground that was once decimated by the ancient Mayan life-style—and the Mayans paid a heavy price for their irresponsibility. By not taking care of the land that took care of them, they were nearly wiped out—and the jungle they took for granted reclaimed their temples and their homes for itself, tree roots embedded firmly into the mortar they used for construction and the forest terrain burying every inch of their once proud and highly developed civilization.

Copan doesn't bear witness to the greatness of a civilization but to the greatness of the jungle.

The town itself, though a little too touristy for my taste, grew on me in spite of the numerous difficulties I had while there, difficulties which included stomach trouble and a major hassle trying to obtain money after losing my debit card. What made the visit worthwhile was my homestay. My host mother was so generous and trusting that she offered to let me use her credit card for the duration of my trip and bring it back when I was finished. She wrote down her pin number for me. And the two young boys were a hoot. The oldest surprised me with a big hug after coming home from my first day of Spanish classes (I had known him for a day), and the youngest would shout my name all day long. One day he was playing with a sword, and I asked him in Spanish “What’s that?” He thought for a second, put the sword between his legs and said, “Un Caballo.” A horse. It was cute. I’ll miss them.

La Ceiba

The Night Club.

I’ve been in packed houses before, but nothing like this. You could barely move and there was no AC. Still, it was fun. I danced most of the night with a local woman named Carla. I think my Spanish must be getting a bit better, because I met and befriended a lot of locals on this trip.

Los Ex-Patriates

The owner of the Ex-Patriates bar is a 50 – 65 year old gringo who, though he’s lived in Honduras for ten years now, speaks at best maybe ten words of Spanish. One night he was there at the bar with a gorgeous 20 year old Honduran woman trying to explain the Fourth of July fireworks: “It’s like … boom. Like … like Feliz Navidad.” Apparently they light fireworks at Christmas time in Honduras. Amazingly, the woman seemed to, or pretended to, understand everything he said.

The same night another old gringo walked in, this one also with a gorgeous younger woman, only, in this case, the woman looked like a prostitute. I was talking to the bartender when the gringo walked up, or strutted up to us, said: “I’m so-and-so from the Caribbean. I’m here with my la-dy” He stood up tall and proud as he said it, then slammed 500 limps on the bar. “Pay it!” He then walked back to his extremely unhappy-looking “la-dy” as the bartender and I rolled our eyes at each other. Real life can parody itself better than any fiction.

Cayos Cochinos

Just before leaving La Ceiba, I paid eighty bucks—a fortune in Honduras—to spend the night on my own private island along the corral reef. Actually, I wasn’t alone. I was with four young ladies from Britain and Holland. Even better. We made a little camp fire on the beach and talked late into the night, but the best part of the stay, and what made it worth the eighty bucks, was the snorkeling. Snorkeling along the corral reef is like seeing the Grand Canyon underwater, only with more colors and with live animals who swim alongside you and occasionally turn to stare you straight in the face. It was quite literally like passing into another world.

Trujillo

The most beautiful town I stayed in, if you don’t count the jungle. It’s flanked by an impressive forest-covered mountain on one side and the beach on the other. By all rights, it should be a tourist mecca, but the locals are a bit too laid back to make it happen. The Cruise Ship Industry offered to make Trujillo a stop on their tours if the town built a port and improved the sewer system, for which the Cruise Industry provided the money. The money, though, was quickly laundered away and so Trujillo remains the same sleepy laid back town it’s been, apparently, for quite some time.

La Casa Kiwi

The hostel I stayed in the first three nights in Trujillo. I was able to do some more snorkeling there. We weren’t directly on the reef, so the snorkeling wasn’t as awe-inspiring, but I was able to swim out to an old shipwreck site, where I jumped over the side and swam around inside the hull, watching schools of fish go in and out of the hatches. Among the fish I saw were barricudas, jellyfish, and stingrays.

Casa Kiwi is a bit remote, so at night I would congregate in the hotel bar with the owner and the other five guests to drink and play pool. Nothing else I could do, and nothing else I really wanted to do.

My Morning Routine

I fell into a nice little routine in Trujillo, which started with coffee and an ice cream at a downtown hotel. The coffee in Honduras sucks. You wouldn’t think so, since you’re surrounded by coffee plantations, but they make it super strong and without any flavoring save a half a cup or so of sugar. What did taste good, though, was the coffee-flavored ice cream they sold next to the hotel. So I took to buying a cup of coffee which I would mix with my ice cream to improve the flavor. After finishing my coffee and my writing, I would go down to the beach and drink dollar mimosas while swimming and reading the newspaper. Not a bad way to start the day.

Raw Sewage

It was in Trujillo that, thanks to the knowledge of some Peace Corps volunteers, I learned that the strange looking mud I sometimes had to pass through in my sandals was exactly what I thought it was.

Olancho (the so-called ‘Wild East’ of Honduras)

I arrived in a little town called Catacama, the second largest town in Olancho but not very large, with maybe a thousand inhabitants and absolutely no tourists. I showed up at one of the two hotels in town and, after hearing the price for a single bed, asked the old woman who I presumed was the owner whether I could have a look at the room—which was about five feet away and already open. “No,” she said, without explanation. Eventually, after a few more pleas, she consented, and the room turned out to be great—probably the best I stayed in my entire trip. I think I was the only guest, too. I wonder why.

They have some caves outside town that were discovered in 1996. Inside the caves are two chambers full of bones, which, due to the calcite, glow in the dark. The bones were analyzed and dated back to 1500 BC. Unfortunately, though, as I didn’t find out until I got there, the bones are closed off to the public and all you can see are replicas in the museum. Still, I had a pleasant adventure hitch-hiking my way to the site.

The Howler Monkeys

I met a guy who owns a large farm outside of town, which he agreed to take me to visit. While there, I got to actually climb around with the dozens of howler monkeys who live there in the trees by the river. It was amazing. Afterwards, on horseback, we followed a school of parrots to the edge of the property.

The next day, when the same guy gave me a ride to the base of the mountain where I’d be hiking into the jungle, he was sure that the most memorable part of my visit to his farm was feeding cookies to the cows.

Hiking in the Rain Forest

My travel book said that I might be able to find a guide by inquiring at the town information office, but the office was closed and would remain so for several days, so, instead, a local fixed me up with a friend of his and I paid way more than I should have for what turned out to be a less than qualified hiking guide.

The first day, after getting a late start, we hiked to a house in the mountains, not too far out of civilization, where my guide had some relatives. Jose, my guide, didn’t tell me much about the rain forest along the way, but he told me an awful lot about himself, including his secret for staying young and fit, which was to conserve his sperm. Only once every eleven days, he told me, and only with one woman (a comment he later had to amend after confessing to a long affair with a woman half his age). He also claimed to be a Shaman, one whose powers came from Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church, and an “hombre muy raro” who didn’t care about money. When I suggested that he prove his exceptionality by providing me his services for free or at a discount, he quickly changed the subject. “I’ve fathered twenty one kids,” he told me.

There was a moment after we arrived at the house that I’ll never forget. I was sitting on the house patio, tired but endorphin-drunk from the day’s hike, watching and listening to these two older guys in Cowboy hats as they sipped coffee and talked politics. A candle against the wall behind them lit their backsides but left their fronts in dark silhouette. Further out: a night sky covered in stars, as many as I have ever seen, and a forest full of fireflies.

The next day we took mules until we arrived near the peak of the mountain, just before the trail ended. Jose said that we had to leave the mules with the boy who had accompanied us for that day’s leg of the journey, because the upcoming part of the forest was sacred,. We were in the heart of the jungle now, and mules were not allowed. I wanted to believe that it had something to do with a prohibition of one animal making the other into a beast of burden, so to speak, but Jose didn’t accept my romantic Westernized explanation. He said that the mules might eat part of the forest, something all animals in the forest do, and something far less damaging, it seemed to me, than hacking the forest with a machete as my guide was prone to do throughout our hike. Still, after hearing a bit more about the rare and exceptional qualities of my Shaman guide Jose, we continued our journey, arriving about an hour later at a small hut which Jose claimed to own. What he didn’t own, though, was a key to the lock on the door, so he chopped the door down to get us inside. We spent the night there, in a cloud of smoke that Jose created to keep the mosquitoes out.

Next day, we headed into the thick of the jungle. The trail had ended, so we had to machete-cut our own path, moving about a hundred feet every thirty minutes. We were trying to make our way to a cave that was less than three hundred feet from our campsite, but we never made it. Jose explained the failure by claiming that the caves probably didn’t want to be found, no doubt because of my gringo unworthiness, and instead we headed for the peak of La Picucha, the highest point in Olancho. Five or six times, Jose stopped, looking confused. “I have to concentrate for a minute,” he would say. “I need to think.” Believe me, the jungle is no place to get lost. Unlike wilderness areas in the States, the Jungles are so thick and so wet and slippery that being even a few hundred feet off course could be disastrous. So I was getting worried. We had hiked for over seven hours, our sleeping supplies were back at the base camp, and it was getting dark. Jose clearly was a little concerned as well, so we turned around, the peak no where in sight, and started to make our way back. Whether it was dumb luck or the fact that my guide knew the forest a little better than I thought, we did, in less than two hours, find our way back to the base-camp, where we settled in for a much deserved rest.

Jose had promised to take me at least to the caves the following day, but, when dawn broke, he announced that we were heading back. Though I hadn’t got to see either of the two things I had paid him to show me—the caves and the peak—I didn’t complain. I was ready to leave.

Going down was much faster, but, due to the slipperiness and the pounding on the knees, much more difficult. Plus, it didn’t help that I fell into the river trying to jump from one rock to another to avoid getting my feet wet.

After we got back into town, Jose announced that I owed another five hundred limps, about 25 dollars. Apparently, to him, a day occurred with each sunrise rather than a twenty four hour period. I told him I wouldn’t pay, especially since I hadn’t seen anything he had promised to show me and I was paying way more than the going rate to begin with. Unfortunately, though, my hiking boots, which I had traded for waders after falling into the river, were in his bag. So I wound up paying twenty five extra dollars to get my shoes back.

Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula

Didn’t spend much time in either place. They’re both big cities, and, since I live in a big city, I prefer to vacation in smaller towns and the countryside. Still, I was surprised, as I was throughout Honduras, at how friendly the people were. Once, for example, in Trujillo, I came upon three guys smoking pot on the beach, and I asked them if they knew where the Spanish School was. Long pause. After a minute or two, an old guy of about fifty years of age, slowly rose up, shook off his pot-induced ease, and proceeded to walk me five blocks to where he thought the school was. When that wasn’t it, he walked me another four blocks to another destination, failing again. So he then called a friend who gave me directions (which turned out to be wrong, but still…). This kind of thing happened on a daily basis, even in the big cities.

Traveling always makes me more aware of my mortality, but especially so in Honduras. My last night in San Pedro Sula, or in Honduras for that matter, I saw a dead body on television. The dead man had been hit in the head, and half of his face had swollen up like a balloon, and flies swarmed around the bluish-colored, water-soaked flesh of his body. This kind of imagery isn’t unusual in Honduras. It’s ubiquitous. Earlier that day, on the front page of the newspaper, I had seen the photo of a nine-year old girl who had been killed in an auto accident. Her face was shown buried in a mound of mud and grass that must have been pushed up by the impact of her body. The mangled wreckage is right behind her and beyond that a crowd of onlookers and police.

One night I woke up from a dream in which my family had, for some reason, traveled to a foreign country for a loved one’s funeral and I had wandered off to mourn in private. The dream itself isn’t really that significant. But it evoked in me a feeling of sadness like I have never experienced in my life. And it wasn’t a sadness that could be satisfied, either. It was something intrinsic to life. Not something that made life into a tragedy but a profound and inescapable sadness nonetheless. I could not cry hard enough to express it. Even now, I can’t shake it. Honduras has changed me.

Gone Traveling

I had planned on posting something before I left, but the departure date kinda snuck up on me (I leave on Thur. morning). I wanted to write something about either how nature, historically, has been mis-defined or about what elements of civilization and the "civilized mind" ought to be preserved--but I won't have time.

I'll be traveling until August, when I have to be back for the new semester. Hopefully, I'll have plenty to write about when I get back--if I have time, that is.

Have a great summer y'all!!!

The Moon and Zapatista

In the moon’s light is a nudity

That wants to be looked upon.

And in the brightness reflected upon your adoring eyes

You see a world un-darkened

And un-envious.

As to an oracle, you cry out to her

And she prophecies through the falling leaves:

“You are now the shadow of an earth

That in dreams alone can still be seen

Through a tired gaze, as dancing shapes in the dust.

You, a shadow, will see but not become the light.

You will walk and fight with no air in your lungs,

With those whose voices are unheard except as faded echoes.

You will find no shelter, no repose, no grace.

You may find one to love, and your heart

Will talk through your mouth

Each time you say “I love you”.

But you, a shadow, will never find the lips

That will say “you”, “It is you.”

You will search and you will fight

As the din of your quiescent hopes

Until the night and your shadow are one,

Until you are no more even a shadow.

You, among the dead of always,

Will die once again,

This time that you might know

What it means to live.”

***

"We are Mexican, mostly indigenous, and we took up arms on January 1 of 1994 demanding a voice, face and name for the forgotten of the earth.”

“We want a world where many worlds are possible.”

--Subcomandante Marcos

Overpopulation

According to psychologist Theodor Reich, masochism is not actually an enjoyment of pain, but a way to gain control over pain. In other words, a human being sees a painful occurrence as inevitable. There is no way she can avoid it. She feels helpless. So, in order to gain a degree of control over the situation, she connives to bring the pain on herself, which promotes the false idea that she actually enjoys pain—that she desires suffering—that she wants to be hurt. By and by she becomes unable to experience pleasure. She learns to delay gratification, and, in doing so, feels a stronger sense of self-mastery. She becomes stoic and disciplined. Although she takes no joy in it, and although she intends only to decrease her sense of impotence, she begins to destroy everything around her—not out of hatred or pride or greed, but unconsciously—as an effort to lessen her feeling of helplessness and to escape her inevitable victimization.

Now, I’m not really into sado-masochism (a million other kinky things, but not that), but, explained as it is above, I can understand its appeal. I can understand how easily a person’s desires can be changed, how easily a person can be convinced to take pleasure in something that actually causes physical pain and harm. It’s easier to cope with an imposition, after all, if you can convince yourself that the imposition isn’t an imposition—that it’s what you really want. In fact, it’s exactly this human ability to delude ourselves that makes our current capitalistic system possible.

As explained by Slavoj Zizek, capitalistic society is more effective than socialism because it adds an extra layer of injunction. Socialism tells you that you have to stop playing with your friends and go visit your grandmother, whom you don’t like, because you’ll be in trouble if you don’t. Capitalism still demands that you visit your grandmother, but it tells you so in a different way. “No,” says the capitalistic parent, “you don’t have to visit your grandmother. You can be selfish, if that’s what you really want. I thought you were better than that, but, well, if that’s what you want…. You can stay here and play with your friends and let your family down. That’s your decision. We don’t mind. If you don’t want to be with your family who loves you…. I mean, maybe you’re not the caring, loving child we thought you were. What kind of person doesn’t love their grandma and enjoy visiting her? I don’t know. Maybe you’re a little less considerate and colder than we thought. That’s too bad. But, you know, don’t worry about it. You do whatever you want to do. It’s your decision.”

And, of course, the Capitalistic child isn’t stupid. He knows what he just heard: “You not only have to go visit your grandmother. You have to LIKE IT!”

And if a child learns how to obey the second injunction, to “like it”, he doesn’t have to obey the first injunction, or, more importantly, to even acknowledge that an injunction exists. If I’m able to convince myself that I like being a slave, then I’ll probably have an easier time dealing with my enslavement. Because I won't have to even acknowledge that I'm following orders, I’ll have a better, healthier life on the plantation—but I’ll also be more likely to remain a slave. And as long as my enslavement continues, thanks to the omnipresent human incentive to make the best of a bad situation, I can never completely trust myself or my desires, even when the desire is one as seemingly natural as having kids.

For most of my life I wanted to be a father, and a part of me still does. When I tell people that I don’t want to have kids, I don’t really mean that I don’t “want” kids, what I mean is that I’ve made a decision not to have kids because I don’t think it’s a socially responsible choice. There are too many humans on the planet, and I don’t want to add to the problem—so, to honor the landbase, I’ve repressed my desires and decided to remain childless.

Still, when I watch a movie about a father bonding with his son or daughter, when I see men my age come alive as they re-live their childhoods through their offspring, when I realize how much of a minority I am because I’m not a father, when I realize there might not be anyone around to take care of me as I get older, when I listen to fathers talk with pride and selfless love about their kids, when I see assholes turn into caring and mature human beings after becoming fathers, I start to feel regretful, even scared, and I wonder if I’m making the right choice.

That’s why it’s easy for me not to get preachy about the issue of overpopulation. Not only do I sometimes question my present beliefs about my personal responsibility in curtailing the problem, but I understand why people have kids in spite of world overpopulation. I understand the desire. Plus, I’d be a hypocrite to condemn others for having kids, because I haven’t always felt the way I do now. When I was married, my wife and I talked about and agreed to start a family but then divorced before we could follow through on our plans. Even then, I knew overpopulation was a tremendous problem in the world, but I had no intention to help remedy the matter by remaining childless. Back then, I didn’t really feel like I had other choices. Simultaneously, I didn’t really feel any sense of responsibility for the choice I had made about starting a family.

But I’ve changed. And the most obvious difference between then and now is that I’m not married. As a practical matter, I can’t have children, or at least not without huge negative complications. And I make no secret about the fact that my current views evolved as a direct result of my divorce. Put frankly, deciding that I didn’t want kids, or, more to the point, that I didn’t desire to be father, helped me cope with the fact that I couldn’t have kids—and, for a while, I was in denial about my true feelings. But I’m not anymore. I now fully acknowledge that I want children—I want to be a father—but I’m also firm in my decision to remain childless—in my decision to repress that desire.

In other words, I no longer use my beliefs about needing to neutralize the problem of overpopulation as a mask for my impaired ability to have children. I don’t have to cover up my desire anymore to cope with my disappointment. At the same time, my disappointment isn’t what it used to be. More to the point, my desire to be a father is now outweighed by my desire to act on my beliefs about ecological responsibility. The latter desire, I now believe, will lead to more happiness than the former. Like I said, I’ve changed. And in addition to not being married, I’m now in an environment where I don’t feel like I need to be married to fit in. That makes a huge difference. If I still lived in Utah, where I grew up, I would not have remained single for as long as I have—and I definitely would have had children by now—because I wouldn’t know of any other appealing options. My choices would be narrowed, and I would not be able to imagine a happy bachelor’s life nor would I be as aware of the problem of overpopulation as I am now, if I still lived in the area where I grew up. Even to this day, when I go back home to visit, I’m made to feel like a failure because I haven’t started a family and because I’m well passed the age in which you’re supposed to start a family. Let’s face it, getting married and having kids is part of our culture’s recommended story—a rite of passage for all respectable citizens, an initiation test. And if you don’t live up to those expectations, you are considered a failure. While the injunction to have kids is stronger in Utah than it is Colorado, the injunction still, indisputably, exists.

And most likely for that reason, though it’s less powerful, I still have some desire to be a father. The fact that I now have more and better options for being creative has lessened my desire but it hasn’t killed it. Unlike when I was planning a family, though, I no longer trust my desires. Just “wanting” children isn’t enough. I’m now convinced that my desire to have kids isn’t really a desire; it’s an order. And because of that awareness, it’s easier to repress the pseudo desire. And I couldn’t have that awareness if I didn’t live within an environment that shows very concretely that fatherhood isn’t necessary for personal fulfillment—if I didn’t live in an environment where I can safely question and distrust my desires, and, in turn, become better acquainted with my passions and their sources.

Put another way, my desire to have kids, as well as my current desire not to have them, is a social not a biological urge. I’m not biologically predetermined to want children. And that isn’t only true for myself and other men; it’s true for women, as well. I grant that we might have a biological urge to create and nourish our species and our bloodlines, but, to me, that doesn’t translate into a biological urge to procreate. If you put a dozen worms in a jar and then reduce their food supply, the worms will stop procreating. The worms’ behavior seems to suggest that preserving the land base and thereby respecting carrying capacity, overrides the urge, if it exists, to have baby worms. And, as writer Derrick Jensen joked during a recent lecture I attended, “worms don’t even have brains!” Worms, because they can’t rationalize, can’t be manipulated with thought the way humans can and, consequently, can’t be misled about their desires and urges. They act on instinct, and instinct tells them to stop having baby worms when there isn’t enough food to go around. It says that quality of life, not just quantity, matters. It says that you have to involve yourself in your surroundings, respecting the needs of the land’s other inhabitants—that your self and your species and your bloodline extend to your entire environment and not to certain narrow and clearly delineated boundaries. It says that, for worms, respecting the ‘other’ is the most efficient way to ensure a certain quality of life for the ‘self’.

No doubt, in my mind, that in our present situation we would act the same way as the worms in the bottle if we weren’t following orders—if we were more receptive to our passions than to our duties. That isn’t difficult to prove, either. Look anywhere in the world where women’s rights are increasing, where women can more honestly and more effectively assess their human needs, and the birth rate is in decline. But in places where women, the primary victims of globalization-induced poverty and nearly all human rights abuse, have fewer rights, the birth rates are exploding. In the non-industrialized parts of the world that are being used mainly as fodder for western enterprise, where modern power is most evident—in parts of Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa—and in places where the culture publicly endorses the subjugation of women (not coincidentally the same regions)—the birth rates are growing exponentially, while in Europe and America, places where feminism has at least taken root and is at least given voice to and where power is more diffused, the birth rates are not sufficient to maintain current population levels. And it’s only within minority western communities—the Black and Hispanic communities in America and immigrant populations of Europe, within communities where, because of economic disadvantages, members have fewer opportunities and subsequently fewer freedoms—that birth rates continue to rise.

Put simply, the more enslaved within our current system a person finds herself, the more likely she is to have children. And it’s easy to understand why. If you’re born into a certain level of enslavement, you have little control over your actions. You have little say in how you define yourself as a person. You don’t have the right of self-determination, and, as a result, you become defined by your masters—by male masters, mostly, who offer you only the roles that serve their interests—the roles of daughter, wife, and mother. The reason that the US and other developed nations haven’t sufficiently supported Third World family planning programs and the reason that many non-industrialized nations don’t see overpopulation as a problem is obvious: it’s because you can’t solve the population problem without solving the problems of misogyny and oppression, two elements required by the dominant culture to function. If you give women more options, options that don’t support the power structure, and if you give men more options than the ones in which they dominate women (and support the power structure), you weaken the hierarchical and oppression-based system that rules us. You weaken patriarchy. What world leaders implicitly realize but don’t allow into their consciences is that the problems related to overpopulation—concomitant problems of world hunger and poverty, for example—are primarily women’s issues. More broadly, as suggested by Riane Eisler, they’re issues that challenge the very foundations of the andocratic/dominator system that all nations on the planet currently practice. If you advance the rights and choices of women, if women come to be known as more than just breeders, we will no longer need society as we know it. The system would collapse, because giving in to women means giving in to the very thing that modern society is trying to rise above—nature.

So, we cope as best we can. By accepting traditional roles, by convincing ourselves that those are the roles we most want to adopt, we cope better with our subservience. We learn to like it. That isn’t to say that the desire to be a mother or father isn’t real, only that it’s a manufactured desire. It isn’t pre-determined. Nor am I suggesting that the desire to be a father or mother is intrinsically unhealthy. Under certain circumstances, the desire might be created by forces other than coercion and will complement the needs of the environment. In the present-day world, though, the human desire to have children is destructive and, I believe, a-natural. It decreases what I believe all living things most desire—freedom.

That doesn’t mean, however, that we blame those with the desire, on the slaves making the best of their enslavement. To solve the population problem, we shouldn’t add on more layers of injunction. We shouldn’t, like China, start passing laws to prohibit having too many children and thereby increase current levels of servitude. Nor, as we do in America, should we do more to enable people’s desires, desires that simply serve the status quo and not the individual. Instead, we need to challenge and re-think our desires, which isn’t possible so long as we remain in positions of confinement. To solve the population problem we need to create new desires and new opportunities. More precisely, we need more not less freedom. We need to give people the world over the right to self-determination, the right to create their own stories and their own self-definitions, and not force people to adopt a way of life that gives one a choice between awareness and misery or false-happiness and increased enslavement. Barring that, barring a complete change in and destruction of our current dominator-based way of life, we can at least show people, ourselves included, that slavery isn’t inevitable; it isn’t biologically pre-determined. As artists or spokespersons, we can give others a glimpse of alternative fulfilling lifestyles—create even an artificial view of life that exposes people’s current desires as the social creations they are and which points the way to other realities, to epistemologies that favor opening of the self and not constriction; if we can’t literally expand people’s freedoms, we can expand their imaginations and thereby make it easier to acknowledge and resist our confinement. In a phrase, we can provide people with new visions and new insights—to allow both sexes a means for achieving personal fulfillment—for being creative—other than having kids.

***

Civilization is advancing not so much on the back of humanity, but, eerily enough, without it.

Murray Bookchin

***

Riane Eisler The Chalice and The Blade; Slavoj Zizek Zizek!; Philip K. Dick Valis; Murray Bookchin The Freedom of Ecology

Days When I Can't Stop Weeping

When I haven’t slept well the night before, I tend to get emotional over almost anything. I heard a song and wept once in the car on the way up to the mountain. I wept twice more while skiing: once on the lift when I saw a blackbird playing in the wind and again on my final run of the day.

At Keystone they have two very long mogul runs. I can arrive at the mountain by noon or even one o’ clock and take those two runs the rest of the day and come home completely exhausted, as if I had skied from early morning until midnight.

Today, I skied extra hard, but, in spite of the fatigue, I was having a good day. I was so in the zone during my last run that I decided not to stop and rest a quarter of the way down as I normally do, and I kept going until I reached the midway curve. Catching my breath, I sat down in the snow and waited for my heart rate to calm. When it did, I was able to focus on the view: a clear sky and miles and miles and miles of mountain and snow-frosted pines. It looked like mercy.

Postscript

Okay, here's the point, or part of the point: on the surface, it might seem as if the conclusions reached by the Minotaur's justice system are a bit crazy--and they are, except for one thing--to any careful and rational thinking reader, they're not. By the standards of conventional logic, the argument made by the Official Prosecutor is both sound and valid. In other words, the premises of his case (that you can't exist if you don't have a mother, that you can't create or give birth to something already in existence, etc.) are nearly beyond question. They are, by almost any rational account, true. And what's more, the conclusion he reaches is perfectly valid; it contains all of the premises. In other words, the premises are true and the conclusion, because it is valid, is also true. By the standards of formal logic, you can't argue with the Official Prosecutor's pronouncement that Mrs. Anderson doesn't exist. In additon, the Official Prosecutor's argument isn't limited only to the circumstances of the skit; you could apply the same deductive reasoning to yourself and reach the exact same conclusion: logically, you don't exist. (you can find the basis of the argument repeated here: nagarjuna).

And yet you do exist--I think. Logic, in this case, seems to go against what observation and ordinary sense tell us is factual. So does that mean that either logic or our observations are lying to us?

In a word, no. All it means is that the tool, logic, can't be effectively used in this instance. By the same account, addition is a great tool for determining how many chips you'll have after you win a big poker pot, but it won't be of much use in collecting rain drops. Two rain drops plus two more doesn't equal four raindrops; it equals a larger puddle. Observation, likewise, is a great tool for certain situations--such as assessing whether the current weather is suitable for a picnic--but it isn't very good, without the help of certain technologies, for determining the shape of the earth.

Even more to the point, logic didn't really fail in this case; language did. Language is simply too inaccurate to serve as a flattering vehicle for logical analysis. And that brings me to my thesis: language doesn't just express knowledge, it also inhibits knowledge. The key is to make language serve you rather than the other way around. The key is to make sure that you aren't becoming an addict. A drug used properly can cure you of a disease or even open you up to new creative insights, but once the drug starts to use you, once you become dependent, once you can't function without getting your fix, then the drug becomes a disease rather than a cure and it closes you off from, rather than exposes you to, new creative manifestations.

And in a world of addicts and pushers, somebody, a postmodernist writer, for example, has to be a voice of reason and reveal the modern drug-of-choice for what it is--a tool that is being misused and overly relied on. She has to demonstrate the limits and the drawbacks of the drug, which is exactly what certain post modern writers are trying to do with language; they're trying to prevent language from using you instead of the reverse. By exposing the failings of language, the postmodern writer isn't muddling the truth and she isn't doing scientists a dis-service, she's helping scientists and all other seekers of knowledge to see things more clearly and from less restricted perspectives. She's doing an intervention.

And while most scientists understand this, there are certain pseudo-scientists, Richard Dawkins foremost among them, who feel threatened by imprecise and creative uses of language because they're seeking a unifying singularity rather than knowledge; they're seeking confirmation for their own brand of fundamentalism, which they spread through the church of reductionist science. Like the Catholic missionaries of yesterday, the prophets of reductionism are hell-bent on spreading their gospel to anyone who will listen, or be forced to listen, and it isn't truth that matters to them, but ideology, an ideology that anyone can receive if he just opens up his veins, sticks the needle in, and gets carried away by the sense of certainty and cohesion.

The reductionists don't use Science as a tool; Science uses the reductionist to filter out knowledge that it doesn't like--as a means of minimizing what can be known so that everything supports a particular ideology. It's not surprising then that a reductionist would want to do the same thing with language that she has done with Science. Instead of seeing language's limitations and using it only in the limited circumstances in which it's feasible, and instead of trying to re-vision language to make it less able to undermine the truths of experience, the reductionist strives to purify language as a scientific instrument by putting its limitations onto the actual world--to make the world fit the language (and the Science) instead of vice versa.

Properly and narrowly applied, science, like language, can be a useful tool. I'm not questioning that. But I am questioning the value we place on scientific knowledge. It seems to me that by failing to acknowledge the limitations of science, we run the risk of defining science as a dogma rather than as a tool--we're setting it up to be our master, a master that we've managed to codify and embody in words. But words can't be mistaken for the things they represent. The moon is not the same as the finger that points at the moon, and scientific knowledge, which must be expressed through language, either the language of words or of logic and mathematics, is not the same as the truth it attempts to express. This, I believe, is what many post modernist writers are trying to make evident. So, while in certain circumstances, despite its limitations, I might find scientific knowledge extremely useful, even to the point of delegating to it my own less-informed judgment, I don't trust it as my master, and neither should anyone else. If either science or post-modern philosophy tells me, for example, that I don't exist, I'm not going to trust it, no matter how impeccable and accredited the reasoning and no matter how insistent others are that I use no other tool to make a verification.

Here's an article that further details the flaws in reductionist thinking:
Darwinian Fundamentalism

Justice

I wanted to write a post today, but I’m pressed for time, so I’m going to take a shortcut.

The following is a skit I wrote as a brainstorming exercise on the subject of how language can be used to manipulate people. Since I no longer belong to a theater group and since the piece was never written to be developed as a performance in the first place, I’ve decided to post it here in an effort to say something about postmodernism, language, and science, a subject that HH introduced on his blog here. I’ll post the skit first, and then, in a postscript I’ll write as a separate post, I’ll explain how it relates to the value of postmodern style and discourse and how deficiencies of language can lead to deficiencies in knowledge.


Scene
A woman sleeping.
Enter Minotaur. He stops, looks at her, pokes her ribs to wake her up.
Woman
Stop it! Can’t you see I’m sleeping?
Minotaur
Madam, you can’t stay here. You’re trespassing.
Woman
Shh!
Minotaur
Madam, you don’t just invade someone’s home like this and start bossing them around. If I want to speak, I have every right to do so. I’m the king here. But you—you have NO right to do anything without my permission. You’re trespassing.
Woman
(She sits up, starts to rub the sleep out of her eyes)
I’m not trespassing.
Minotaur
I beg to differ, Madam.
Woman
(Looks at him, startled)
You’re a Minotaur.
Minotaur
Of course I am.
Woman
But you can’t be a Minotaur.
Minotaur
Like I said, this is MY kingdom, Madam. Not yours. You have no right to be telling folks what they can and can’t do.
Woman
I must be dreaming.
Minotaur
I’m afraid you’ll have to leave.
Woman
You can’t be a Minotaur, because Minotaurs aren’t real. I must be dreaming.
Minotaur
Madam, I’m trying very hard to be patient with you.
Woman
I’m dreaming you. You’re not real—so you can’t hurt me.
Minotaur
I’d rather not force you into exile, Madam—I’m trying very hard to implement democratic reforms here—but I’ve very nearly reached the end of my wits. I’m afraid that if you don’t leave at once, I’ll have to call in the guards.
Woman
You can’t force me to do anything, sir. Because you’re not real.
Minotaur
Oh … now I understand. Now I see what this is all about.
Woman
Do you?
Minotaur
You’re staging a coup, aren’t you?
Woman
A coup?
Minotaur
You’re here to assassinate me.
Woman
I don’t mean you any harm, sir. Like I said, this is just a dream.
Minotaur
It’s no dream to me, Madam. And the consequences for attempted assassination are gravely serious.
Woman
I’m not here to assassinate you. I promise.
Minotaur
Did you or did you not just say that I don’t exist? Did you not deny my right to existence!?
Woman
You don’t exist. This isn’t real. None of it. You’re not real. This place isn’t real. That palace in the distance isn’t real. That village isn’t real. It’s all a dream.
Minotaur
Ah, so you’re not just an assassin. You’re here to wipe out my entire kingdom, aren’t you? You’re waging war against me.
Woman
I’m going back to sleep. (Lies down)
Minotaur
Guards!! (Enter guards) This woman has just murdered an entire village and wiped out the castle and the countryside. Seize her at once. (They seize her)
Woman
Wait a second! You’re hurting me.
Minotaur
I gave you fair warning, Miss. It’s too late to ask for mercy now.
Woman
I haven't done anything wrong.
Minotaur
So you wish to plead innocent then?
Woman
Of course I’m innocent. I didn’t do anything.
Minotaur
Very well. Do you have council?
Woman
Council?
Minotaur
Legal representation?
Woman
No, I don’t.
Minotaur
Very well. We’ll appoint you an attorney. We are a democratic country, after all. We’re not the Barbarians you take us for.
Woman
I don’t think—
Minotaur
Council! (Enter defense attorney, his hair unkempt, his shirt half tucked, a bottle of booze in one hand). Council, you’ll be representing the defendant.
Defense Council
(Takes a drink, sits) Very well.
Minotaur
Prosecution!
(Enter prosecution team, accompanied by march music. All are dressed in identical suits and ties, holding identical briefcases.
A gallery, bench, etc. (a court scene) are set up.)
Minotaur
Court is now in session.
Defense Council
Your honor, the defense rests.
Woman
No, your honor. The defense does not rest.
Minotaur
Do you wish to testify on your own behalf, Madam?
Woman
I wish to say that—
Minotaur
Please take the witness chair, Madam. (An electric chair is brought out. She is forced to sit)
Woman
I wish to say that I did not kill anyone or wage war against your kingdom.
Minotaur
Is that all? Do you have any proof?
Woman
(Thinks)
My proof is this: I can’t have killed anyone, because none of this is real. It’s all a dream. You can’t kill people in dreams—not for real. (Gallery murmurs in astonishment)
Minotaur
Is that all?
Woman
And since none of this is real, that means you aren’t real—and your kingdom and all it’s inhabitants aren’t real. And you can’t kill or destroy what isn’t real. (Heightened murmurs)
Minotaur
(Angered)
Is that all, madam?
Woman
Well … well, yes. I think so.
Minotaur
Prosecution! Would you like to cross examine the witness?
(The team confers, then Prosecution lawyer number one steps forward.)
Prosecution number one
Yes, we would, your honor. (He approaches the witness) Miss …?
Woman
Miss Anderson.
Minotaur
Miss Anderson, your claim is that the victims of your horrendous acts are in fact not real, correct?
Woman
Well … well, yes. There are no victims. They don’t exist.
More murmurs.
(Prosecution lawyer number one confers with his team, as if confused by the answer. Prosecution lawyer number two then steps forward.)
Prosecution lawyer number two
By what authority, Miss Anderson, do you claim to determine what is real and what is not real?
Woman
Well … well, I’m not sure. I just know what I know, because … because I’m a real person, whereas … whereas you all are characters in my dream.
(Prosecution lawyer number two, in confusion, confers with his/her team. Prosecution lawyer number three steps forward.)
Prosecution lawyer number three
So you claim, that since you’re real, you have the authority to determine what is not real? Is that right?
Woman
Umm … yes. Yes, that’s right.
Prosecution lawyer number three
And do you have any PROOF that you’re real, Miss Anderson?
Woman
Well … well, I’m real, because … because I am, because … ah! because “I think therefore I am.”
(Confused, Prosecution lawyer number three confers with team. Prosecution lawyer number one steps forward.)
Prosecution lawyer number one
Your honor, due to the special circumstances of this case, I think it appropriate that we call in the official prosecutor.
Minotaur
The official prosecutor? Is it that serious?
Prosecution lawyer number one
Considering the nature of the offense, sir, I think it is. After all, the survival of the very kingdom is at stake here. We best have the real thing.
Minotaur
(Thinks)
Very well.
(Rock music sounds. Enter Official Prosecutor, a train of adoring fans and dancing women in his wake.)
Official Prosecutor
Miss …?
Woman
Anderson.
Official Prosecutor
Miss Anderson, you base your claim of innocence on the grounds that your victims are not real, correct?
Woman
Correct.
Official Prosecutor
And you base that assessment on the fact that you, as a “real” person, have the authority to determine what is real and unreal, correct?
Woman
Correct.
Official Prosecutor
Miss Anderson, isn’t it a fact that you are lying?
Woman
No.
Official Prosecutor
(Snaps his fingers in disappointment, regains his composure)
Isn’t it a fact, Miss Anderson, that you don’t have any authority to determine reality whatsoever because you yourself are NOT REAL!
(Gasps from the court)
Woman
(Shouting over the murmurs)
No, that’s not true!
Official Prosecutor
(Slight pause)
True or not true, Miss Anderson? In order to exist, you had to have been born?
Woman
That’s true.
Official Prosecutor
True or not true? In order to be born, you need to have had a mother who gave birth to you?
Woman
True.
Official Prosecutor
Your mother then is your producer.
Woman
Right.
Official Prosecutor
And in order for one thing to give birth to another, the conditions for the thing produced—for the effect—must be inherent in the producer; some portion of the thing being produced has to be present in the producer. I mean, ants can’t give birth to hyenas, correct?
Woman
Umm … correct.
Official Prosecutor
And you can’t produce fire from water, correct?
Woman
Correct.
Official Prosecutor
My tie, at this moment, can’t give birth to a sea turtle, can it?
Woman
Of course not.
Official Prosecutor
But a sea turtle can produce a sea turtle egg or a even a piece of jewelry if crafted appropriately, correct?
Woman
Correct.
Official Prosecutor
So in order to cause the existence of something the thing that’s created must be inherent in the creator, correct?
Woman
Uhh... Yes. Correct. I think so.
Official Prosecutor
Now, to restate your earlier testimony, you told the court that you were given birth to by your mother—that you were in effect produced by her actions, correct?
Woman
Correct.
Official Prosecutor
Which is to say that your mother is at least one of the causes of your existence, correct?
Woman
Correct.
Official Prosecutor
But, as you just now testified, the conditions for your existence were inherent in the creator—in your mother, to be precise—and if the conditions for your existence were inherent in your mother, that means that, in essence, you yourself were in existence at that time, correct?
Woman
I’m really not sure where this is going?
Official Prosecutor
Which means that you were already in existence prior to your mother giving birth to you, which means that your mother can’t be said to have “caused” your existence at all. You can’t cause the existence of something that already exists, can you?
Woman
Well, no, but—
Official Prosecutor
You were, as you stated, inherent in your mother, correct?
Woman
I suppose so, but—
Official Prosecutor
Which is to say that you existed prior to being created by your mother, correct?
Woman
Well, yes—in a sense, I mean—
Official Prosecutor
And you can’t cause something to exist that already exists, can you?
Woman
No, I suppose not, when you put it that way, but still—
Official Prosecutor
And if your mother didn’t in any way “cause” you to exist—if she didn’t produce you—then, by definition, she can’t very well be your mother, can she? (She thinks, doesn’t respond). Which means you don’t have a mother, Miss Anderson. (Still no response). Which means you were never born. (Again, no response. Long pause) Which means that you, Miss Anderson, do not exist. (He sits. Everything goes quiet.)
Prosecution lawyer number one
(Rises)
And if she doesn’t exist, your honor, she has no authority to determine what is real and unreal, which means that the entire basis of her defense—her claim of authority to determine the unreality of her victims—is verifiably false.
Minotaur
Yes. Yes. And that means … that means … that … that….
Prosecution lawyer number two
That means that she has no defense. Her entire testimony is a lie. She herself is a verifiable lie.
Minotaur
Right. Which means ….?
Prosecution lawyer number three
Which means that she is guilty.
Minotaur
She’s guilty?
Official Prosecutor
It means, your honor, that the evidence of the prosecution, namely your first-hand testimony, has gone unchallenged. And you may now give the court your ruling.
Minotaur
Guilty!
Woman
That’s not fair, your honor. You can’t be judge in this case. It’s not fair.
Minotaur
I can’t be judge in this case because I don’t exist, I suppose?
Woman
Because you’re the victim. You’re biased.
Official Prosecutor
Your honor, since the defendant has now admitted that you are in fact her victim and thereby confessed her guilt, I move that she be convicted for perjury as well as murder and other war crimes.
Minotaur
Guilty!
Woman
That’s not fair!
Minotaur
Silence in the court! Council, please silence your client. (The defense council wakes up, tapes his client's mouth shut, straps her to the chair). Considering the magnitude of your offense, Madam, I’m left with no choice but to give you the maximum penalty. You shall be taken forthwith from our kingdom and be made to spend the rest of your mortal life in exile from all human society and from all “real life”. You shall be tossed into the eternal abyss never to be seen again. Bailiff, take her away!
(The bailiff complies.)

Money and Make-Believe Part II

Okay, let me try to explain this more clearly--or to the best of my understanding anyway.

Let’s say that due to a nuclear accident there are only three people left in the world: persons A, B, and C. And let’s say that all three of these people are dedicated Republicans who believe strongly in the American way and wish to recreate the American system of government, beginning with the US financial system. If that were the case, one of those people, let’s say person A, would be designated the money maker (in the real world that role is divided between the Federal Treasury, the Federal Reserve, and commercial and state banks, only the first of which is a purely Federal institution) and the other two would be designated the money receivers, or, in the American system, the money borrowers.

Person A then decides to create one hundred dollars by telling person B that he now has one hundred dollars (today we make this transaction by typing that amount into a computer; rather than saying you have one hundred dollars, someone types it). But that one hundred dollars is not given freely or as compensation for labor. It’s created from nothing and given only as credit, which means that the money has to be paid back with interest.

Person B now takes that one hundred dollars and decides to make a purchase from person C. Person C is obligated under the rules of the system to accept person B’s imaginary one hundred dollars as payment. In other words, he agrees that person B’s imaginary one hundred dollars is real money and has real value. Consequently, person B becomes the proud owner of a slightly used but very warm winter coat, and person C is one hundred dollars richer.

But, because person B still has to pay the one hundred dollars back to person A, he will have to earn back his one hundred dollars by either selling merchandise to or by going to work for person C. Remember, there is only one hundred dollars in the system at this time, so person B is likely to turn to person C, the owner of all the money in existence, for help in repaying his debt. Person C understands this fact and agrees to pay person B five dollars a day in exchange for B’s cooking services. At this rate, the principal on the loan could be paid off in twenty months. However, since person A lent the one hundred dollars at a five percent monthly interest rate, B’s one hundred dollar debt will have doubled by the time he earns his initial one hundred dollars back. The problem, though, is that there isn’t an extra one hundred dollars in existence. Person A only created one hundred dollars, not two hundred; he created the principal but not the interest person B is expected to repay (and it should be pointed out that if person C deposits his money with person A, there will be an extra ninety dollars available for borrowing).

This means that Person B will have two options. One, he can borrow more money from person A and use the money he receives and was created from his second loan to pay back the first loan, and then later use the money from a third loan to pay back the second, and then later take out a fourth loan to pay back the third … and on and on indefinitely. Or, a more appealing option, he can convince person C to take out a loan also. If person C takes out a loan of one hundred dollars, then person B can sell his secret cooking recipes to person C for the same one hundred dollar amount and pay off his loan in full. Then person B is debt free. But person C is now in the same position that person B was before paying his debt. So person C, eventually, is left with the same two options that B had. Someone within this system has to remain in debt; someone has to be losing in order for the other to get ahead or to just stay even. Equal prosperity is impossible.

Inevitably, someone will ALWAYS be indebted to person A who has now made close to three hundred dollars simply by twice speaking the same sentence: “you have a hundred dollars".

How well do you think A, B, and C would get along being governed by this system? What would the quality of their relationships be like? Pretty shitty, I imagine.

To be fair, though, I’m not an expert in this field, and I’m sure my analogy oversimplifies a few things. I know, for example, that in the actual world, person A wouldn’t be an actual, complete person (and wouldn’t thereby be accruing wealth, just money) nor would he be the only designated wealth-maker (central banks don’t have a monopoly on wealth, just money-making) and A would also have to pay interest (in extremely small sums) to hold on to the assets of persons B and C etc.—but, for the most part, I believe, if the information in the movie is correct, my analogy creates a reasonably accurate picture of the current system. And if that’s the case, I doubt it would take long for B and C to realize that the system wasn’t working out too well. And I doubt A, B, and C would become super good friends while the system was in place. Talk of revolution wouldn’t be described as Utopian fantasy, but talk of maintaining and accepting or even merely tweaking rather than overthrowing the system, by anyone other than person A, would likely be described as pathologically passive and delusional—the type of talk that you hear from an abused wife when she’s rationalizing her husband’s abuse for the upteenth time. Moreover, person A would have a tough time convincing B and C that their inevitably cut-throat and manipulative behavior towards one another isn’t a required behavior pattern of the system. He couldn’t say, well, it’s not the system that causes you to exploit each other the way you do; it’s your animal nature. YOU’RE the problem. I doubt B and C would believe him.

Well, on second thought, they probably would.


*****


We are completely dependent on the commercial banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar in circulation. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture; the tragic absurdity of our hopeless position is almost incredible, but there it is.
Robert Hemprill
Credit Manager Federal Reserve Bank

Anyone who believes that exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.
Kenneth Boulding
Economist

Money is a new form of slavery and distinguished from the old simply by the fact that it is impersonal; there is no human relationship between master and slave.
Leo Tolstoi

Money and Make-Believe

While standing in line at the grocery store yesterday, I overheard the following conversation between a mother and her daughter:

“Mom, can I have some gum?”

“Do you have any money?”

“Yeah.”

“Not pretend money. They don’t take pretend money here.”

“I have real money.”

“Show it to me then.”

“It’s orange.”

“Let me see. No, you need real money here. They don’t take pretend money.”

“Mom?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I have some gum?”

It’s sad but true. The store doesn’t accept imaginary orange money, not even from adorably cute little girls. But the mother wasn’t entirely correct in telling her daughter that the store didn’t accept pretend money. The store does accept certain kinds of pretend money, so long as it comes from the right people. It accepts my debit card, for example, which, since it withdraws money from my bank account, is only slightly less substantive than the empty hand the little girl showed to her mother. That doesn’t help me any. Whatever money I spend with my debit card represents real wages that I’ve earned with my labor. But when I deposit my earnings into a bank account, most of my money, about ninety percent of it, even though I use the full amount to make purchases, will disappear. The only reason I’m able to make purchases with my money is because its value is secured through other people’s debts, debts that generate profits for the banks. And if everyone in America paid off his or her debts, I wouldn’t have any money. NO ONE would have any money! Here are a couple videos to explain it all in more detail:


Moneyasdebt


moneymasters


I haven’t watched the second one yet (it’s REALLY long), so I can’t really vouch for it. Let me know if it isn't worth my plug.

Nurturing the Inner Anarchist

Last week, while visiting Utah over the holidays, I met with three other members of the blogger community for what my Brother-in-Law has termed the first annual Exmo Expo. There were a few threads of discussion (we talked for over five hours!), but only two that I want to give more time to here: the issue of whether Christopher McCandless (the young man who inspired the book and movie Into the Wild) was being inconsiderate to his parents and the issue about whether “anarchism” is a realizable goal.

In an essay on Shakespeare’s most famous play, the poet TS Eliot makes the claim that the only way of expressing emotion in art is by “finding an ‘objective correlative’; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked.” He goes on, using the objective correlative as a fundamental criterion for successful artistic expression, to condemn Hamlet as a failed play, a play in which Hamlet’s emotions are “in excess of the facts” and the dramatist’s emotions unconverted by his artistry.

To his credit, Eliot later denounced the objective correlative as being too rigid and dogmatic, conceding that “it does not necessarily exhaust all the emotional overtones, which are conveyed, as far as they can be, by the incantation of the verse”. But he didn’t denounce the concept entirely, insisting that it “must satisfy the reader or theatrical onlooker that it is the equivalent of the author's feelings, and thus as far as necessary communicates and renders intelligible these feelings”.

To a certain extent, as I’ll explain shortly, I agree with Eliot’s insights, but I strongly take issue with his final judgment. Hamlet is a great play, and it’s precisely because Hamlet lacks an objective correlative for his emotions that the play works. It’s the failure of the play—the failure to force experience into language and a familiar story—that makes Hamlet the indisputable success that it is, both in terms of its impact and its longevity.

Eliot is right on one account, though. The play is, ultimately, a dramatization of failure—a failure, in this case, to create a set of facts capable of reproducing the intensity of the artist’s inner experience. For that reason, Hamlet is not a play for everyone. It’s not a play for the vast numbers of people who have deadened the intensity of their emotions by trimming them down to fit the circumstances of the world that they live in—for those who, because their careers and their domestic lives insist on it, have put their feelings to sleep. For that audience, art has to be jarring and unpleasant. It has to awaken.

But Hamlet is not for that audience. Hamlet was written for those already awake, for those too much awake, for those too much alive, or, to use Hamlet’s words, “too much under the sun”. Hamlet is a play for the other Hamlets of the world, for the person of sensibility, who, as Eliot deftly articulates, has maintained the life within him (and the intensity of feeling normally only felt in adolescence) by his “ability to intensify the world to his emotions”.

Such a person was Christopher McCandless. By fleeing “into the wild”, McCandless was not merely attempting to escape his parents and society’s expectations, he was trying to keep his emotions alive and to intensify the world he lived in to match his inner awareness; he was seeking an objective correlative, an objective correlative that would not limit and tame his inner feeling but would enhance and nurture it. He was trying to avoid domestication. McCandless sought the kind of relationship that he couldn’t have with his parents or with anyone who has “trimmed down her feelings to fit the business world”; he sought a relationship that only an artist can realize and a relationship that can only exist in the raw, in primitive conditions, a relationship “between two solitudes that protect and greet each other”, a relationship between two autonomous and equal entities. For McCandless, as with Hamlet, the thought of reducing his passions to accommodate society’s expectations was unthinkable. For the Hamlets of the world there is only one way to interact with society, and that’s by elevating society, by intensifying the world, even with cruelty, to match their inner passions, passions as yet undiminished by the threats and tyranny of civilization.

For these people there are two choices: suicide or revolt. They cannot cow their emotions to suit those who love them. They cannot be imprisoned, except by bad dreams. Instead, they must create the conditions for cohesion by not merely escaping into the wild but by importing the wild into civilization. They must act to embody their passions. Otherwise, the life within them will be extinguished. Though they direct their actions onto others, it is their own fullness, their own life and freedom, at a minimum, that is being preserved.

For the anarchist who has not forsaken his feelings and authenticity, the question of whether anarchy is a realizable goal becomes secondary; the real question is Hamlet’s question, the question of whether “to be or not to be”, the question of how life itself, in all its freedom and wholeness and reality, can be perpetuated. Whether the anarchist dream can actually be achieved is merely an intellectual question, a question asked by the prisoner in order to tolerate his incarceration. It isn’t a question asked by the animal in an effort to stay alive or the mother instinctively acting to protect her child, and it isn’t a question asked by the anarchist.

But it is a question that every civilized human, even the Hamlets of the world, have to wrestle with at one time or another. While most of us deal with the problem by putting our hopes to sleep, others, the intellectuals, deal with it through exorcism, by finding an objective correlative that will petrify our yearnings rather than nourish and broaden them. In Hamlet, we witness such an effort, the effort, as described by Herman Muller, “to articulate a despair so it can be left behind.” Art provides a means to articulate that despair and to consequently escape it, but, as Hamlet shows, it is an effort doomed to failure—to failure and to isolation and to existential impotence.

The ghosts of our fathers, the ghosts that speak to us from the grave and from the mouths of our parents and our teachers, must be listened to but they don’t have to be obeyed. The past does not have to be exorcised or to determine us. That attempt at determination, that social programming, in fact, must be resisted, just as Hamlet and McCandless resisted it, by insisting on one’s non-meaning and wildness—by refusing to become an objective correlative that can be owned—by maintaining one’s solitude and one’s otherness in the face of a reified world attempting to tame, largely by shaping our desires into fetishes, our natural passions.

Both Hamlet and McCandless succeeded in their resistance (or would have succeeded, I’m presuming, had they lived). They learned that the only way to preserve their solitude and their authenticity was by engaging the other as other—by relating creatively to the life around them rather than imposing their will or being imposed upon. In a sense, both learned to become artists—post-modern or Zen artists, in a way, who attempt to relate to others through experience, through untamed and unlimited experience, rather than through dogma and conceptualization. They learned to engage the world rather than symbolize it. In that respect, Hamlet’s and McCandless’ quest becomes the quest of the artist—the quest to find self-expression through poetry, through “the incantation of the verse” instead of through the manipulation of concepts and language that would define and thereby minimize rather than intensify the experience of the audience. By not identifying a clear objective correlative, by not defining or minimizing Hamlet’s experience in any way, Shakespeare manages to engage the audience without condescension, without determining them or allowing their preconceptions to determine his expression and his actions. By altering traditional expectations of meaning and structure, the audience is allowed to experience the play afresh, without instruction. As a result, the theater experience is intensified in a way that enables the audience to relate to the play, and to the artist and characters who help create the play, in all its terrible beauty and horror--as "the thing that it is that can be no other thing". The viewer is forced then to look life head on, in all its wildness and ineffable mystery, and to choose either to ignore or to exorcise it, but not to control it, not to make of it a possession. In other words, the artist insists on being related to honestly. At times, such an insistence might be seen as cruel (“I must be cruel, only to be kind: Thus bad begins and worse remains behind”--Hamlet Act III scene IV.), and at times, because the stipulation isn’t honored, it can be seen as evasive, but in truth it is neither.

And the struggle to realize anarchy, to strip experience of all that defines and limits it and in that way to create a space wherein honest and equal interaction is possible, is no different than the artist’s struggle to reach an audience. One does not embark on such a struggle out of feasibility but out of self-preservation. And the artist’s public struggle cannot be divorced from the private struggle. One’s private revolt, one’s efforts to preserve a healthy solitude and to avoid domination, becomes realized only through action, through public and conspicuous resistance. In an interdependent world, the self cannot exist except through relationship, which means that one cannot exorcise the problems of the world away or cast them outside of one’s self. The past cannot be left behind, but, by engaging the world as a creator, as one who magnifies possibility instead of coercing it into oblivion, the past can be transformed. And by transforming your conditioned self, the self imposed on you from patriarchical ghosts throughout the centuries, and by simultaneously transforming all your relationships and preserving your authenticity, you are also transforming the world; you are attempting to realize the anarchist both within and beyond you. In that sense, the artistic and the anarchist struggle, the struggle to achieve self-liberation, is also the struggle to achieve communion and a struggle that isn't avoidable, a struggle to love and to be loved without restraint.

****
“I believe that reading, in its original essence, is the fruitful miracle of communication within the midst of solitude. [To read (and, I might add, to honestly relate)] is to receive a communication with another way of thinking, all the while remaining alone, that is, while continuing to enjoy the intellectual power that one has in solitude and that conversation dissipates immediately.”
Proust

http://www.bartleby.com/200/sw9.html