Artwork © Richard Spisak

 

Chapter 6

Perhaps the only intellectual truths are axioms, and yet if Descartes in all his meditations could only arrive at one singular axiom, and a pathetic one at that, which is that he could not doubt himself doubting (“I doubt, therefore I am” a more apt epithet to what he was saying), then these intellectual truths are few and far between. As I have said before, Plato calls material existence a poor and flawed carbon copy of ideals (ideals of course ethereal, intangible, and impalpable truths lending oneself to live a more virtuous life but never exploring why we exist or how to exist in a world based on exploitation, predation, and consumption, and even a type of metaphorical cannibalism in day to day affairs), and Parmenides says that the only physical reality would have to be an entity that does not change, thus implying that because all matter, both living and nonliving, changes –Heraclitus saying we never walk through the same river twice–we don’t really exist as we are nascent and thus in states trying to be born but never fully able to be born when always being altered differently with every minute that passes in time (I mean chemically and neurologically, and with cells replicating and dying). But getting away from these ontological speculations on matter, and merely considering normal aspects of human existence, we go through the days of our lives interacting with others, hearing what they say, and never knowing the full truth of what we have been told, and we get through this malaise of not knowing anything absolutely by accepting these things nonetheless if they seem as plausible enough realities. Likewise, we drive across a bridge or walk on a pedestrian overpass never fearing that the foundation will fall, although it might well fall, because there is a plausible “truth” of it staying steady one more time. All human beings delude themselves that they are real in varying degrees with more extroverted personalities doing so more fully, never contemplating that they too will eventually go back to the elements with their lives so entirely forgotten that it is tantamount to never having been born. At least consciously these extroverted personalities do not contemplate these matters, but subconsciously that might be another thing. Subconsciously, these fears might impel their extroverted actions.

But then there are the aesthetic truths, these truths of the senses, these truths of wonder that a child knows in solitary play in nature. They are the truths of the curling stem that will grow into a new leaf of a huge tree, this solid entity, the tree, coming out of seed, soil, rain, and light, the energy of the sun emanating off of one’s skin, the kiss of the wind on one’s cheeks, the entomological societies thriving under the domicile of a rock, clouds as fog on the top tier of a mountainous hill, the shapes of clouds, dainty and timorous, on the blue background being chased down by other clouds formidable and dark, intrepid, and sometimes ferocious, and grass or the sand of the beach under one’s toes. They are truths, the only truths that make life meaningful, and if one sees the wonderfulness of the present moment, they fall into one’s senses like a gentle rain, with attempts to analyze and intellectually ascertain or dissect these things vapid, as important and thrilling as science is. For science takes us into a nonending rabbit hole of classifications, taxonomy, and nomenclature of smaller parts just as the atom as envisaged by Democratus has subatomic particles that have their sub particle parts (explanations of how things work but never meaningful truths).

But the adult, although fain to appreciate and love life like a child, cannot do so for in his use to make profit for a company, which of course he does to have a little, at least, for himself to maintain physical existence on the planet even though now prostituted and exploited, having no inherent worth but only a commercial worth, individuality forfeited or squashed so as to be a conforming “team player” which is a perfectly functioning part in the company and social constructs, he has to be preoccupied by future goals and a few myopic aims. And what introspective contributions he is capable of are stymied and stultified in his perfunctory and personal roles (the personal family life a more meaningful compensation that income gives him–family of course predicated on money and materialism), but again another factor that stops him from exploring the depths of hidden corridors of the self that have cryptic treasures of understanding about life from diminished and forgotten memories, feelings, and logical assessments made in early periods of an earlier self. It is like being sealed in a coffin and life ceases to be wondrous and only personal and monetary compensation with adjunct pleasures of honor, power, and bodily pleasures are what sustains him in such a sarcophagus. Inwardly, he is wistful for the child he once was. The silent unacted cri de couer of the worker causes him to wish to emancipate himself from the onerous yoke of such stifling roles that squeeze the pulp of inner strength and originality, prostitute and asphyxiate existence, usually under a ton of paperwork explications and justifications of his undertakings in his job, and make him live in anxiety of horrific scenarios that might happen in the future and the need to accrue a monetary reserves from which to use for dealing with future exigencies while fearing the loss of his job at all times. This causes him to never appreciate the here and now of the present moment.

As Emerson states it, there is cleansing power in communing with nature. Without concerning ourselves with anything metaphysical in his ideology, let’s define “communing with nature” as dissolving the thought process of the social animal, allowing it to dissipate so that one becomes more like a creature of nature, an animal that only considers and lives in the present and whose social engagements when they occur are of the present and when alone in a state of nature are merely the simple pleasures of natural phenomenon until a predator engenders fear and the reflexes and adrenalin meant to jettison him from danger permeate throughout his body.

The corruptive powers of society are not so much acquisition and the language and lies as Rousseau states it is, but forfeiture of the uniqueness of the human mind by extroverted roles and long work hours, conforming to the will of others and the commercial system of rules thrust onto a man, as well as the vices for power, honor, wealth, and bodily pleasure compensation for the forfeiture of oneself.

But life is complex, and even the hermit can only stay out of society so long. Thoreau’s two years of seclusion were never in complete isolation and lasted no longer than this brief time at Walden’s Pond. Everyone, even those who love exploring the caverns of oneself, need respite from these tiring explorations in the air and sunlight that some social activity, tedious and shallow as it may be, nonetheless affords.

As nearly everyone is ambivalent whether life is good or bad, Thoreau wanted to rid himself of the nonessential trappings of life to see if the simple life without extravagance and social diversions, if such a thing was possible, was worthwhile, or even more worthwhile, than comfortable social existence; and although one might be tempted to say that “Walden” gives one answer while leaving Walden’s Pond repudiates those optimistic conclusions, the reality is that a man divorced of society and social obligations is not living an ethical existence. The idea of ethics is the exercise of virtue through compassion and assistance to others.

The complexity of social lives is a refined form of predation in which workers are used and discarded to make money for companies and by forming lives of normalcy, getting jobs, raising families, and subscribing to rules and conduct of conformity one in effect blocks the entry points and thus the light that Emerson suggests is deep in those caverns. Furthermore, these extroverted roles can be their own type of sepulture in which one becomes a superficial automaton totally unaware of the marvels to be found in communing with the self, and thus a less deep and complete being. Also, by living this less authentic life, the more one becomes inextricably bound to it the more likely he becomes tainted by the vices that are in it. Voltaire was right in “Candide” in saying that in the savagery and predation of society and nature the “best of all possible worlds” is to be in one’s own garden, but that garden must be adjacent to other gardens and in society and social obligations.

 

Steven David Justin Sills is a literary writer living in Phuket, Thailand. His book of poetry is in many libraries in the United States and a copy of one book owned by a library was scanned by the Internet Archive. Sills’ work can also be found on the Online Book Page at the University of Pennsylvania. Sills finished his last literary novel The Three Hour Lady over two years ago, and until recently, he was devoting that time to writing a long war poem about what is happening in Ukraine. Most of those 25 poems including his most recent poem are at this particular journal. As his graduate degree is great books of the Western Canon he has been wanting to write his own ethical treatise, and this forum affords him that opportunity.

Richard Spisak began his artistic career as a light artist in the Lumonics Studios of Mel Tanner, a legendary Light Artist. After serving under Jack Horkheimer as a planetarium operator at the Miami Space-Transit Planetarium, he left to begin traveling with Lumist Kenvin Lyman, whose show Dazzleland Studios traveled across America. Richard later worked as a Laserist with LASERIUM and Laser Productions, served as a technical producer for the festival company PACE Concerts, and later as operations Manager and Senior Producer at WWHP and WTCN-TV in Stuart Florida.

Richard writes for Theatre, TV, radio, and the web. He published two short story collections, Two Small Windows, in a Pair of Mirror Doors, and Between the Silences. Followed by his poetry collection 7370 Allen Drive and the recently released STONE POETRY. Richard also produces “POETS of the East,” a televised webcast featuring poets from across the globe.