life and all that

In this somewhat regular letter, sprinkles of my wanderings through philosophy, culture, art and, well, life. An attempt to ease some ruffled spirits, perhaps. Mine, at least. This is me on the internet, this is my website.

Hello everyone,

It’s been a while. Life and all that. What happened? In this letter an approximation of an answer in the form of a meta-diary, questioning the function of the past and how that relates to the eternal now; so all in all: some light reading ahead!

The intention is to write these letters more regularly, and thereby, probably, shorter. But, in all honesty, I really don’t know what’s going to happen (which may be the theme of this letter!).

The letter, then:

One of the great things about writing, be it blog or diary, is that it’s a time machine. Looking back, you see where, how, and maybe even who you were.

Seeing the past, the present now a seemingly inevitable product of your past; those moments past, now ostensibly obvious links in the chain of life. As Kierkegaard says: ‘life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.’ Or, as Herman Hesse writes in his final book The Glass Bead Game: ‘although it is easy to fit any given segment of the past neatly into the patterns of world history, contemporaries are never able to see their own place in the patterns.’

A few pages later, a venerable theologian is discussing what it means to study history with his friend hailing from a school famous for its precise intellectualism:

‘You treat history as a mathematician does mathematics, in which nothing but laws and formulas exist, no reality, no good and evil, no time, no yesterday, no tomorrow, nothing but an eternal, shallow mathematical present”

“But how is anyone to study history without attempting to bring order into it?”

“Of course one should bring order into history. Every science is, among other things, a method of ordering, simplifying, making the indigestible digestible for the mind. We think we have recognized a few laws in history and try to apply them to our investigations of historical truth. (…) I have no quarrel with the student of history who brings to his work a touchingly childish, innocent faith in the power of our minds and our methods to order reality; but first and foremost he must respect the incomprehensible truth, reality, and uniqueness of events. To study history, my friend, is no joke and no irresponsible game. To study history one must know in advance that one is attempting something fundamentally impossible, yet necessary and highly important. To study history means submitting to chaos and nevertheless retaining faith in order and meaning. It is a very serious task, young man, and possible a tragic one.”

To study history, then, is to submit to chaos and nevertheless retain faith in order and meaning. An attempt to know what may be unknowable and thereby possibly, quite tragic.

The present, then, can only be a place of fundamental unknowing; but it is the place where life actually happens. We weave our stories of meaning and understanding after the fact. From history’s point of view, the present makes sense - or at least we can create this illusion. So there seem to be two layers of life, of living. The layer of understanding, which by definition comes after the fact, for when we think about an event, that event has already taken place. And the layer of being, which is always now, moving, current, and which is always, fundamentally, unknown. In being, in experiencing life, it seems we have to learn to surrender to not-knowing, to embrace it in openness - in this way we may return to the childlike wonder of this mysterious ‘now’ that is always present.

Here, the question of meaning rears its head. Do we find meaning in our understanding of our place in the great scheme of things, or do we find it in our surrender to the eternal now, the forever not-knowing? Or, maybe, both?

Let’s settle this little question on the meaning of life in another letter, and return to the point of this letter, or: to my past. Or: an attempt to weave some patterns in chaos, an attempt to ease some ruffled spirits. Mine, at least. An attempt, we know now, that is fundamentally impossible, highly important, no joke and no irresponsible game.

Let’s play!

But first, below, some programs and projects I have developed that you may or may not be interested in to join. Click here for all my programs, more are soon to follow.

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Nederlandse programma’s:

• Stiltedag - juni

  Een dag van stilte op 19 juni in een prachtig bosrijke omgeving in Maarn. Voor meer informatie en om je aan te melden, klik hier.

  
  Over de stiltedag:

  Juni staat in het teken van het ‘vol zijn’ in de zomer: het gaat over het ‘hoogtepunt van het jaar’ - de langste dag van het jaar is immers 21 juni. De volheid van juni geeft een goed gevoel, met het gevaar van doordraven, doorstomen en hoogmoed. In het Chinese denken wordt er rond deze tijd gesproken over de hooghartige draak:
  

  ‘Een hooghartige draak zal spijt krijgen; wat te vol is kan niet duren. Alle extremen komen in het ongeluk.’
  

  Het beeld is van een draak die over het veld raast en alleen nog maar vooruit kan en niet meer terug. Hij kent het leven maar niet het sterven; hij kent winst maar geen verlies; of: de zomer maar niet de winter - het lijkt haast wel een afspiegeling van onze maatschappij.
  

  Alleen de Wijze, zo zegt het boek, kan vooruit en achteruit: hij kent leven en sterven, winst en verlies - hierin schuilt ook het belang van het bewust worden van de circulaire natuur van het bestaan; zo verliest zij zichzelf niet, zelfs niet als zij in haar volle kracht staat. Stilte helpt terug te keren naar dat midden, het centrum, het hart en dat is wezenlijk, want 'alle extremen komen in het ongeluk.'
  

English projects:

• A Spiritual Mischief podcast episode on Freedom and Frustration, transitions and Easter from a while back.

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Returning to the letter…

Looking back,

a pattern emerges.

Let me show you.

On February 20th, I wrote the post ‘creative acts, ways of being, some carnage, some assholes and the inevitable sound of subways.’ I still stand by that title, if you’re wondering.

I have become quite accustomed now to that queasy feeling of stepping into the unknown. I think I have learned to trust that sense of discomfort as a signifier that something important may be afoot. That change is happening.

I’m quoting here from the wonderful book ‘Faith, Hope and Carnage’ in which Nick Cave has a book-long conversation on faith, hope, carnage, death, mourning, his creative life and everything else.

The book (and the post) begins with this quote:

The object isn‘t to make art,

it’s to be in that wonderful state

which makes art inevitable.

- Robert Henri

So, this is me, in February, longing for ‘that wonderful state’, already acquainted with that ‘queasy feeling of stepping into the unknown,’ but struggling to stay there. Somehow knowing that this discomfort is a signifier that something important may be afoot, but not quite able to dive in regularly.

A day later, apparently, I was doom scrolling:

Whilst doom scrolling, the doom abruptly stopped when Henry Shukman, out of nowhere, posed this question:

- What if there is nothing to solve?

The brain went quiet for a bit.

The soul relaxed.

Then, unfortunately, mischief ensued, and Zen graffiti was born.

For the Zen graffiti, go here.

The question ‘what if there is nothing to solve?’ has stayed with me ever since.

It pertains to now - it is this other layer of life, of being, that doesn’t do the thinking; a layer that no amount of thinking can actually alter. There, now, there might indeed be nothing to solve - being isn’t a riddle, it just is.

On February 24, judging by my blogpost ‘the unfolding’ I still seem very much open to that strange now and what it entails. I’m even inspired to write a poem on unfolding, here are a few lines:

stop thinking about it!

just experience it all.

let it all unfold.

like the universe before matter

an unending and never beginning unfolding

and the poem ends:

the unfolding never stopping

even when

finally,

The Unfolding Credits

roll.

The credits rolling, yet, some more Nick Cave unfolds:

Sean O’Hagan:

That theme keeps recurring throughout our conversations - things finding their purpose or revealing their meaning through the doing. The creative journey as a series of revelations, almost.

Nick Cave:

I do have a strong commitment to the primary impulse, the initial signaling of an idea - what we could call the divine spark. I trust in it. I believe in it. I run with it. The writing of this book, if that is what we are doing, is a case in point. It’s something that is just unfolding before us. I have no coherent idea what we are doing at this time, and I’m not sure that you do, either. There is a sense of discovery about it. Things unfold. This place of discomfort and uncertainty and adventure is where an honest, good-faith conversation can happen. It’s all the same thing.

Things unfold from a place of discomfort and uncertainty and adventure - I would even say the discomfort and the sense of adventure come from the uncertainty, the not-knowing. Stepping into now, it’s always there.

Moving on.

In the next post, then, I seem to be longing for freedom; this is a well-known and (so far) lifelong longing that has never really left me.

The whole post is me pretty much transcribing a Nina Simone interview and a Nina Simone performance. The longing must’ve been quite acute. To be fair, it is a great interview:

and one of the great performances:

But still, a bit of overkill maybe? May be, but apparently, needed at the time.

Let me share just a couple of Nina Simone’s insights into freedom;

Her epiphany from the interview:

I’ll tell you wat freedom is to me:

NO FEAR

I mean REALLY, NO fear

From the song:

I wish I could break all the chains that are still binding me.

I wish I could say all the things that I can say when I’m relaxed

Such a simple way of describing freedom, so relatable.

And:

I wish I could share all the love that’s in my heart

Another beautiful way of understanding freedom. If we are free from fear, love will flow. It’s already there!

So, freedom as absence of fear; no fear about whatever may come, no fear from whatever was. Then, relaxed, you can say what you have to say, and share your love that is there, always present.

Some two months later, I’m walking through the city and see a poem and write this post on it.

EVERYONE SANG

Everyone suddenly burst out singing;

And I was filled with such delight

As prisoned birds must find in freedom,

Winging wildly across the white

Orchards and dark-green fields; on - on - and out of sight.

Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;

And beauty came like the setting sun:

My heart was shaken with tears; and horror

Drifted away ... O, but Everyone

Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

Siegfried Sassoon

All of a sudden there are poems and birds everywhere and I feel the need to share ALL OF THEM. Again, going a bit overboard, it seems. But I've always felt like a bird. The longing for freedom is part of that. The need to fly, fly, keep flying. However, a bird does need to land at times. Maybe freedom, flying, the absence of fear, isn’t about moving away from ‘the horror’, but understanding that real freedom is right here, wherever and whatever here might be - like a song just below the surface, a song that is always there, wordless, and never done.

Was this birdy post a desperate attempt to find that freedom, a foreshadowing, a cry for help even? Could be, for this particular bird, just days later, suddenly, is lost in a storm.

I write:

walking,
the feeling of having lost something.
my most essential part.
where to find it?

Having lost my essential part, I lay down in my house, on the ground, for days, close the curtains, wait, and read:

SOMETIMES I FORGET COMPLETELY

Sometimes I forget completely

what companionship is.

Unconscious and insane, I spill sad

energy everywhere. My story

gets told in various ways: a romance,

a dirty joke, a war, a vacancy.

Divide up my forgetfulness to any number,

it will go around.

These dark suggestions that I follow,

are they part of some plan?

Friends, be careful. Don’t come near me

out of curiosity, or sympathy.

-

The poet is Rumi, the words

eight hundred years old,

but brand new

reading what you lost,

somehow

the loss is less

- but still, don't come near me

The post continues, more poems of having lost something important, something essential.

What to do?

I write:

Open, ready to receive,

one day at a time.

That's all it ever is, ever can be.

my eyes see a bit more

my ears hear a bit more

there is a bit more

the loss is less

slowly, returning

back into the world

through the well

always

through the well

(no shortcuts)

Let yourself be silently drawn

by the stronger pull of what you really love.

-

Return to here, now, opening up to whatever is and let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.

Or, as Rumi says in another poem:

Be patient.
Respond to every call to excites your spirit.

Or, listen to some true music:

Life then leads me through the beautiful Burren, in the west of Ireland.

Then, back in the Netherlands, I hear a song, I see a picture, a pattern is picked up and a story unfolds, a poem even. I set my face to the hillside.

Reading this poem now, which I named ‘recipe against disaster’, I am a little bit flabbergasted to be honest. It appears to be a summary of my last couple of months. Its final lines are:

You're in the liminal space

between water and earth

between going and arriving

one last look back

one last look ahead

one last look around

Everglades

Everglade

Ever glad

Ever gliding

-

Looking back, ahead and around, returning to the ever gliding now.

And, having returned here, the bird firmly landed, what now? If one has wings and can fly anywhere he wants, where to go?

I watch a video:

I send it to my friend Simon, which leads to a short e-mail correspondence, which is my next, and final post: ‘a conversation on joy, freedom and limitations.’

Watching the video re-ignites a strong longing for unbridled freedom, but also, something else; I encounter some words of wisdom in the I Ching:

Unlimited possibilities are not suited to man; it they existed, his life would only dissolve in the boundless. To become strong, a man’s life needs the limitations ordained by duty and voluntarily accepted. The individual attains significance as a free spirit only by surrounding himself with these limitations and by determining for himself what his duty is.

The paradoxical nature of freedom. Only in limitation, true freedom. I understand it. This seeming prison of limitation suddenly feels freeing, somehow. A line from Earthsea surfaces:

You thought, as a boy, that a mage is one who can do anything. So I thought, once. So did we all. And the truth is that as a man’s real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower; until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he must do…

Again, the paradox. The way ever growing narrower, choosing less and less, nothing even, but wholly doing what must be done. Freedom in doing what must be done. In this way you manifest your true being in the world, thereby becoming a living part of the whole.

In the introduction of this letter I wrote:

Here, the question of meaning rears its head. Do we find meaning in our understanding of our place in the great scheme of things, or do we find it in our surrender to the eternal now, the forever not-knowing? Or, maybe, both?

Let’s settle this little question on the meaning of life in another letter, and return to the point of this letter, or: to my past. Or: an attempt to weave some patterns in chaos, an attempt to ease some ruffled spirits.

It seems ‘the little question on the meaning of life’ and the point of this letter are more intertwined than I thought. Looking back, looking for a pattern, a bird searching for freedom appeared. Freedom that, paradoxically, might be most truly experienced in a form of bondage or, surrender. And so, returning to this question:

Do we find meaning in our understanding of our place in the great scheme of things, or do we find it in our surrender to the eternal now, the forever not-knowing? Or, maybe, both?

The very last written words I’ve come across in these last four months, for I’m reading them right now, again come from Earthsea, by Ursula Le Guinn. A book on wizards and dragons, but mostly about what it means to live freely and truthfully in this eternal web of life:

Every spell depends on every other spell, said Highdrake. Every motion of a single leaf moves every leaf of every tree on every isle of Earthsea! There is a pattern. That’s what you must look for and look to. Nothing goes right but as part of the pattern. Only in it is freedom.

Thank you for reading.

Love,

from,

Louis

PS a while back I wrote a strange poem. On the color green, it seems?