Myth and Meaning
January 3, 2024 10:01am
In a gray dawn half-sleep, I’m immersed in a world of mythology. The dreamland reaches back to the animists, the early Earth gods, Vedic Rta, Maat, Moirai, Parcae, all descendants of proto-Indo European myths. Then, also Zoroaster, Sidhartha, Yahweh, Christ, Mohammed.
All mankind grasping for exemption, escape from the destiny of all life, to find some meaning to the eternal and enigmatic puzzle into which we are thrust. Stumbling, searching, holding aloft our own particular lantern from our time, our place, our culture. And, on the opposite side of the balance, reason, rationality, empiricism.
Many think that we are limited to one side, or that we must make the hard edges to fit, to force these opposites together in screeching, screaming, machinations. In another way, we realize that we are fragile, finite, infinitesimally minute particles of the universe who will bloom for an instant and then cease. Science will not whisper the story of how we should spend our brief lives or instill empathy but it can ease the physical suffering.
The myths that we make are no less real for they come from the same mind….for reasons that none can deny. They are just as critical to life well lived – they provide the framework for the sentient who each day arise and take one step further from the bestial origins of humankind.
Covid, Aging, a Worldview
January 15, 2024 12:44pm
Congressional hearings on Covid19 vaccination injuries lead me to believe that my decision to avoid the vaccine was absolutely the right move. The truth of the debacle may yet come out.
It was 6 degrees this morning when I went out to shovel the drive. There was not enough snow to justify the snow-blower – plus it was a very fine and light powder.
With age comes many accoutrements – among them, everyone you know is old and the old are unhealthy. So, I am spending more time with my parents. Their friends and relatives call for updates and I hear tales of dementia, multiple organ transplants, dialysis, and more. How does anyone persevere in the face of tribulations of such Biblical proportions? I can’t say but I fear I am not strong enough to stand against such a gale.
Here’s what I have come to believe:
We are organisms that operate according to our DNA programming but whose animal instincts are moderated by the rise of consciousness. “Evil” is a surfeit of animal instinct and “good” is a surfeit of consciousness. Our consciousness led us to create myths to give meaning to our lives.
Similar organisms exist throughout the universe, and all have an expiration date. When we are gone no one will know or care. Then, the whole ridiculous business starts all over again with a similar set of actors. That’s it.
Reaching this conclusion, this state of being, leaves one feeling very alone. There is no alternative.
Bleakness and Dissimulation
January 18, 2024 1:54pm
“In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan
Earth stood hard as iron
Water like a stone.” – IN THE BLEAK MID-WINTER
Yes, and age and sickness and decline all around. The temperature has been below freezing for days and there is the possibility of snow. Everything curls up from the cold and the distress….and yet, some are passed over through luck or Providence. Who can fathom the capriciousness of God or fate? And so, we await the vernal blush of life – so far away from this bleak mid-winter. The season made worse by auguries of chaos in the land, criminals at every turn, and dissimulation on every face. Who to believe? Who to trust? To none will we give the benefit of doubt. Everyone has stretched belief to the breaking point so no tribe commands credibility. Those that need it most have none after crying “wolf” too many times and relying on victimhood as a strategy for success.
Schopenhauer vs. Hope
January 25, 2024 1:09pm
We are all on a continuum between Schopenhauer’s materialistic atheism and the religious fervor that promises meaning and eternity. I started on the religious end and at 63-years of age had to face the hard fact that I could not be that guy any longer. My reading and internal struggles brought me to the point that I realized I “believed” because it fed my ego….my need to feel special and beyond death. Who doesn’t want to think that someone knows your inner-most needs.
So, the pendulum swung and I began to move toward the other end of the continuum. Toward a strictly material universe, without God or good or evil…..just a reality upon which most of us build our personal edifices to give our lives meaning. I now consider myself a “Christ-follower” but without the God part. Many will say this is impossible….maybe they are right. Nevertheless, I cannot turn my back on the best wisdom I have experienced. Even though the Dhammapada, the Thirukkural, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Hindu Vedas have much the same wisdom.
Now, I feel more change coming as I find myself rejecting the pessimism of the Ligotti’s, Schopenhauer’s, and Cioran’s of the world. No need for extreme measures because we have hurt feelings over our reduced importance in the universe! There is beauty and there is goodness and if you get right down to it, the only thing we have to give (to sacrifice as Christ taught us) is ourselves. So, kindness, mercy, love should be the order of the day….this is the only way to make life meaningful.
Tomorrow, I’ll probably be back at the other end of the continuum. 🙂
More Schopenhauer
January 26, 2024 6:35pm
First a quote and then the rebuttal:
“As a reliable compass for orientating yourself in life nothing is more useful than to accustom yourself to regarding this world as a place of atonement, a sort of penal colony. When you have done this you will order your expectations of life according to the nature of things and no longer regard the calamities, sufferings, torments and miseries of life as something irregular and not to be expected but will find them entirely in order, well knowing that each of us is here being punished for his existence and each in his own particular way. This outlook will enable us to view the so-called imperfections of the majority of men, i.e., their moral and intellectual shortcomings and the facial appearance resulting therefrom, without surprise and certainly without indignation: for we shall always bear in mind where we are and consequently regard every man first and foremost as a being who exists only as a consequence of his culpability and whose life is an expiation of the crime of being born.” – Arthur Schopenhauer.
While I identify with the suffering, I am now beyond the idea that there is any punishment involved. There is no atonement required and no culpability. No one suffers for any REASON at all…..the nature of our existence is not connected to any metaphysical consequences of being born…of being human. Matter is changed all the time, often in a destructive manner. Our only fault is that we are aware of time and change, it is our consciousness that persecutes us. Without that tyrant whispering in our ear about the “unfairness” of it all, we would go quietly into the night. There is no fair or unfair, just a physical system – the entire universe – doing what it does….building things up and tearing them down.
It doesn’t matter if you are a virus, protozoa, amphibian, human, planet, sun, galaxy, or super cluster, the same fate awaits all. And not one particle of matter can do anything about it. Amore fati.