Artwork © Richard Spisak
Chapter 9
Again, for those masses whom Thoreau claims are ambivalent whether life on this planet is in fact unequivocally good, I think a simple understanding attests all. If animals, human or otherwise, many or few, are exploited or consumed for the survival or convenience of another group, then the experiment of life should not have taken place; and likewise, with Montaigne being absolutely right in “Of a Monstrous Child” that not even conjoined twins are freaks but manifestations of the variety of life that exists on the planet, all beings are unique specimens of this manifestation and should be valued as having inherent worth. But in the fecundity of life, both literally in the state of nature and figuratively in society, an individual only has consumptive worth, with more vulnerable populations (the young, the elderly, and the infirm) more easily the subject of predation. However, on one level, even the life of a CEO of a major business is fodder for his organization, its board of directors, and its stockholders in terms of time, thought, and energy he must expend for it. Our lives are always prostituted and ground up to the realities that exist that enable our existence. Every individual in varying degrees has to forfeit potential for comfort, and every introvert must come out of his shell to sing and dance for the larger group (the thinker probing depths of self in forging ideas about the universe figuratively compelled to become stripper or belly dancer, gigolo or whore). And as for those extroverts of a materialistic and ambitious hybrid, no amount of planning is capable of replicating the initial ideas of the mind, which brings us to another ignoble truth: not only is our inherent worth as individuals worthless as gold if it were as replete as pebbles and gravel, and because of its abundance cannibalized, but no dream, no matter how well planned out or executed, can, in the execution, match the inception.
Thus, when within a world in which it is impossible to mold reality to the wishes and expectations of the mind, there are only two behavioral responses that are possible. The first is to devote time, energy, and wherewithal to the project of shaping an ersatz, a substitute ideal, the best that can be done within the framework of imperfect volition within (humans vastly more capricious than logical even when having mental acumen and determination to do otherwise due to microbial, chemical, and neurological changes, and the proclivity to believe the new will be a more conducive fit to the old), and vicissitudes, variables, and vagaries without, all that are subject to practical realities in this realm, which I maintain to be a less than real state with any gauge of “the real” being more a “plausible reality” than anything actual when nothing can be proven absolutely and a man needing to walk on stable ground the way he does with plausible realities as his compass. The second response is to relinquish all sense of control, and with maximum flexibility and with minimal resistance (absolute resistance humanly impossible as regularity of habits, venues, and associations are essential in stabilizing a man mentally at least for the minimum of some days before he can plummet into vastly different realms of experiences), allow the self to be fluent in changes of time and space like the electromagnetic forces around us.
For those prone to leadership and control, they gravitate to the former as do their acolytes, the majority with the same inclinations, but with at least some degree of conscious recognition gurgling and eventually buoying up from submerged subterraneous caverns of the subconscious that they are without unique vision, and must follow the extraneous status quo that might allow a personal life, at least, that is uninhibited and under their control. As the former has a penchant toward more provincial leanings, erecting itself on its singular foundation and fixed simplistic ideas of right and wrong, the latter has a more libertine approach for being buffeted by changes and experiences, which, most often unwished for, nonetheless expand self exponentially as adjustments are made to be more conducive to various environments and in so fine-tuning the self to the environment, discovering new dimensions and new awareness. However, when those changes are too inordinate or too tragic, then the intensity of this barrage can seem a siege making introspection and growth impossible and often from indulging in licentiousness or other indulgent forms of debauchery excessively, the behavioral excesses of the libertine involving the third level of the soul as Plato would phrase it takes over and carries away the man the way habitual actions of intense pleasures, addictive ones, usually do.
The self as matter is ever malleable, and ever changing (physically and mentally, and of course emotionally, it is in a state of continual flux) so it is no wonder that individuals, to feel like the same entities from year to year, are adamant in maintaining preconceived notions despite changing information and realities, while clinging to the material, but the denouement is inevitable. Just as the more obdurate one is, the less likely he is to factor in current realities, the more he clings to other people and other material items the more the material will seem real and the more intertwined self and the material will become, causing happiness to be dependent on a seemingly consistent matter (a fixed home and family for example) for happiness. But for he who is not so enmeshed with material possessions any form of happiness is dependent on the volition of self.
For whatever financial resources we garner in the hope of having this putative immunity from suffering and resources for this physical restoration of self (historical monuments and edifices we are not and even with them they at last become relics hundreds or thousands of years after their inception and human being mere mortals), with enough time family, friends, and material possessions slip away from us eventually unless we slip away first. In that sense all human experience, as sui generis as it is, is ubiquitous. Thus, as the stoic slave Epictetus says, the best means to counter such loss is to think of those temporarily in our keeping as objects kept and enjoyed for a bit of time but ultimately to be returned.
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.