Causes
"First Shakespeare sonnets seem meaningless; first Bach
fugues, a bore; first differential equations, sheer torture. But
training changes the nature of our spiritual experiences. In due course,
contact with an obscurely beautiful poem, an elaborate piece of
counterpoint or of mathematical reasoning, causes us to feel direct
intuitions of beauty and significance. It is the same in the moral
world."
"A man who has trained himself in goodness come to have
certain direct intuitions about character, about the relations between
human beings, about his own position in the world -- intuitions that are
quite different from the intuitions of the average sensual man.."
"Wherever we turn we find that the real obstacles to peace
are human will and feeling, human convictions, prejudices, opinions. If
we want to get rid of war we must get rid first of all of its
psychological causes. Only when this has been done will the rulers of
the nations even desire to get rid of the economic and political causes."
- Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means (1937)
This has apparently been a very productive month. After my ability to write had subsided during winter, the spring and solstice seem to be encouragement enough for an outflow to take place. The influence upon my writing has and probably always will be a need for motion and change. The perception of a certain kind of stability and control has always appeared to me something I should distrust, and I think my recent writing has been an explanation. Huxley seems capable of filling in certain aspects of my writing which have not been coherently explained. It's an edging away from the sensualist and direct, individual-centered consciousness. I have been lately very aware of the psychological limitations of writing history and the experience of the past and it becomes apparent that the need for a more acute understanding of what we are is a plausible cause for further exploration.