"It's better to burn out than to fade away..."

I work as a bartender these days. I arrived home not long ago and finished "Sodom and Gomorrah" by Marcel Proust, which was satisfying. I wasn't particularly fond of the last hundred or so pages but it was redeemed by this extraordinary passage (the reader will have to exercise some patience):

"For that matter, the mistresses whom I have loved most passionately have never coincided with my love for them. That love was genuine, since I subordinated everything else to the need of seeing them, of keeping them to myself, and would weep aloud if, one evening, I had waited for them in vain. But it was more because they had the faculty of arousing that love, of raising it to a paroxysm, than because they were its image. When I saw them, when I heard their voices, I could find nothing in them which resembled my love and could account for it. And yet my sole joy lay in seeing them, my sole anxiety in waiting for them to come. One would have said that a virtue that had no connexion with them had been attached to them artificially by nature, and that this virtue, this quasi-electric power had the effect upon me of exciting my love, that is to say of controlling all my actions and causing all my sufferings. But from this, the beauty, or the intelligence, or the kindness of these women was entirely distinct. As by an electric current that gives us a shock, I have been shaken by my love affairs, I have lived them, I have felt them: I have never succeeded in arriving at the stage of seeing or thinking them. Indeed I am inclined to believe that in these love affairs (I leave out of account the physical pleasure which is their habitual accompaniment but is not enough in itself to constitute them), beneath the form of the woman, it is to those invisible forces whic are attached to her that we address ourselves as to obscure deities. It is they whose goodwill is necessary to us, with whom we seek to establish contact without finding any positive pleasure in it. With these goddesses, the woman, during our assignation with her, puts us in touch and little more. We have, by way of oblation, promised jewels, travels, uttered formulas which mean that we are indifferent. We have used all our power to obtain fresh assignation, but on condition that no trouble is involved. Now would the woman herself, if she were not completed by those occult forces, make us give ourselves so much trouble, when, once she has left us, we are unable to say how she was dressed and realize that we never even looked at her?"
- Marcel Proust, "Sodom and Gomorrah", vol. 2, (Chatto and Windus, 1943), p378-379

Well, it doesn't take a lot of explaining; this is a meditation on how true love is impossible to find with our daily senses; the force is myopic and cannot be understood fully. It is a meditation on the futility of promiscuity and the truth about the nature of a true emotional and spiritual connexion. It leads quite simply into the next part of the narrative in which the protagonist lives his life in Paris with his love (a love which the reader i constantly to doubt and second-guess). The quote is a wonderful expression of how real love is irrational and exists regardless of physical attraction. Compatibility lies within a crossing of stars and an indefinable spiritual connexion which is run to the earth if ignored at the expense of physical gratification.

Less about the novel, then. I will leave "The Captive and the Fugitive" until later tomorrow. My own sentiment towards relationships is particularly purist; physical gratification is meaningless. Intercourse is just another means of releasing endorphins, the same as breaking into a smile and being generally pro-active. Intercourse is the largest trick to be played on mankind; the notion that mutual gratification is a spiritual act is deceptive.

A real concern for each others' psychological, spiritual and physical well-being is more significant. The reader might consider sexual gratification as an important part of life but it is rendered sedentary for me by more meaningful, less casual relations. As a young man I regarded physical gratification at the expense of ignoring some greater understanding as painfully obtuse. Of course, I would have thought about it in simpler terms back then, but the abstract idea is similar; if one does not understand oneself then how could one possibly consider oneself worthy of another?

It all cascades, though; people have to make regrettable mistakes in that narrow, winding beginning, carving out through experience jutting edges and finally flowing rivers... then they might join that vast ocean, be absorbed into that vast harmony and then be returned to the whole natural cycle that they are caught up in.

And to take this on to a broader theme:

It's as simple as this: the decisions that one makes in this life are irrevocable. For posterity are memories paint them either with regret or positive admiration. The cultivation of a life isn't simple, but there are sensibilities that either gather with time or can be imbued within communities. And now, we reach the crucial point for which I am writing-,perhaps even living; what must be done to nurture community, allow significant learning in our children, share liberties such as the ability to grow crops and share responsibility. The learning is there, but overhanging like a dark cloud is the institution of capital development, social fragmentation, overly-simple political agendas, the decline of the richness of education...

Why must we accept institutions which serve to negate us? This country's provision of education is a suggestion that a career might be made, that the students might assist in developing the country, but to what avail? That career exists within an unstable framework and the problem lies within this base and short-sighted specialization in certain areas. Of all Adam Smith's suggestions our economists chose the most profitable but perhaps the most dehumanizing, and short-term solutions, the upshot of which is that many people know how to perform in certain areas with proficiency but there is no broad understanding. There is no crossover between the pure economists and the politicians and, even in the case that there is, the crossover is not sufficient.

I will elucidate with comparison: when did philosophy, religion and science become distinct? They are retrospective names given to abstract ideas which more or less correlated in the past. The truth is that each area is concerned with the development, assistance and temperance of the human species. The only difference is the nature of the practice: philosophy being analytical/ conjectural; religion based upon tradition and belief; and science itself based upon empirical evidence. But they are all entwined; each practise is a human tendency, either to seek to understand with introspective reflection, with external belief, and then with rationality. The consequence that lies within refusing to understand these subjects in their whole tapestry is self-evident; people refuse to understand just how much is held in common, the almost universal attempt to make life somewhat better.

Well, back to my case against modern professions. To what avail to be a history professor but offer none of that collected knowledge and understanding to latter day politics? Why study philosophy if the consequence is a refutation or an outright skepticism towards reality? Why study divinity without trying to understand the historical course of religion from a general historian's point of view? The distance that emerges between points of view becomes staggering and their is no cross-pollination (thank you again, Proust) of ideas. My intention is- regardless of the immense satisfaction it would give- not to read forever in this ocean of literature and philosophy which I have been swimming in for several years now but to begin writing, and I wish to effect a change by it. I now go forth as in this scene of “the Brothers Karamazov” by Fyodor Dostoevsky:

"'...the science of this world, which has become a great power, has, especially in the last century, analysed everything divine handed down to us in the holy books. After this cruel analysis of the learned of this world have nothing left of all that was sacred of old. But they have only analysed the parts and overlooked the whole, and indeed their blindness is marvelous. Yet the whole still stands steadfast before their eyes, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Has it not lasted nineteen centuries, is it not still a living, a moving power in the individual soul and in the masses of people? It is still as strong and living even in the souls of atheists, who have destroyed everything! For even those who have renounced Christianity and attack it, in their inmost being still follow the Christian ideal, for hitherto neither their subtlety nor the ardor of their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of man and of virtue than the ideal given by Christ of old. When it has been attempted, the result has been only grotesque. Remember this especially, young man, since you are being sent out into the world by your departing elder. Maybe, remembering this great day, you will not forget my words, uttered from the heart for your guidance, seeing you are young, and with the temptations of the world are great and beyond your strength to endure. Well, now go, my orphan.'”

- Fyodor Dostoevsky, “The Brothers Karamazov”, p186-187

In order to effect cultural hegemony and a large-scale inspiration of people one must produce writings on a free and unconditional basis; the ideas that a man produces for the well-being of his neighbor must be offered liberally. One might find this disagreeable but the problem resides within the refusal of people to publish and express their ideas, thinking that they are their own. Now, let me make this point clear: no idea is sacred, no one on this earth can perceptibly create a new idea from nothingness; the ideas are available through an accumulation of wisdom and the entire populace is involved not only in this process of development but also in sustaining it. If it were not for the world at large, the writers and men of genius would not survive. No, ideas we can not call our own; they are rays of light caught in a perceptive mind which reflects and further refracts them. No idea is unique; the overall purpose is interconnected and the individual is not an individual; he is a variation of a human theme, degraded more or less by submission or non-submission to weakness and idleness.

My interest in the human species is that it refuses to accept that equality is a natural state. Death makes man equal. Death is inevitable, and death can only be overcome by the cultivation of ideas and the inter-communication of the species.

"If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time.”

- Marcel Proust

This resonates with much idealism but that is my nature. Now, my next theory: death can be overcome. This is the basic premise of the apostle John: death has already been overcome; death was admitted upon entry into this mortal coil. My idea that death need not be feared is simply this: in the honest and sincere life of even the most humble man, ideas and insights are cultivated which are passed through generations. And if we would be honest with ourselves, the part of life that we most value is this universal and virtuous aspect, and if knowledge and understanding can be passed from the self to the society that self is set within, then that self does not die; it serves its purpose and resumes in the thoughts of later generations.

So I do not believe that death is a reality we need be afraid of. What we really ought to be afraid of is that we might lie to ourselves, that our perception of the world might become limited by a society that is a fraud, that we all might become so complacent that we truly believe that our children should be taught by strangers (which is sadly the case). The non-understanding that all the proposed wealth in this world is based upon a trust which dates back to one mans knowledge and strength above others. The fundamental reason why society is running the way it is at this moment is much because of investors who profit from the current global situation and have found means through times of crisis to manipulate and systematize such things which should never be systematized (for instance, look at increasing world food prices which is due to food price speculation).

What do I believe is the best course of action? A new literary, philosophical movement inspired by ecological, political, social and economic issues. A part of the population that is willing to offer supplementary education to adults in order to diminish the monopoly universities currently have on that kind of implement for making man more useful to society. Of course, the incentives of security and stability in having a qualification are not easy to achieve but, were people to take the initiative to create an effective new education system, then this country might have more free thinkers willing to improve our dying communities. The question is of people's willingness to begin something like this. Our society is like a conservatory that has replaced a garden; no longer to we cultivate with our own strength; we buy with money and we forget the discipline that is required to achieve a beautiful garden.

My intention is quite wonderful, I hope you will find. We cannot improve the United Kingdom the way we have set out to and our government is a veneer quite incapable of covering our dwindling security, self-sufficiency and future. The priority is to begin by realizing that we are as a whole responsible for improvement...

But I think that this is enough writing for tonight.