SPIRITUAL HELL IS TO PLACE A MAN OF HIGH ABILITIES AND GREAT TALENT IN A POSITION WHERE HE WILL BE FRUSTRATED AND BORED, DENIED SELF-EXPRESSION. IT IS, IN SHORT, THE OUTSIDER'S POSITION IN THE WORLD.
[Emphasis added, as hereafter]
The Outsider could be compared to a man who has been hypnotised, and lowered into a cage full of apes. The hypnosis prevents him from understanding why he finds the apes so disgusting and stupid. He only knows that he detests them. He believes he is an ape too. His solution lies in deliberately fighting the hypnosis, in telling himself: I am not an ape; I must be something more than an ape. [This will be a] ...difficult matter if his hypnosis--his conditioning as an ape--inclines him to give up the struggle and become 'a member of the simian race' and a good citizen of the ape community.
THE OUTSIDER'S DESPAIR, IN FACT, COMES FROM HIS VISION OF THE VAST SEA OF MEDIOCRITY THAT MAKES UP HUMANKIND, AND HIS REBELLION AT THE IDEA OF BELONGING TO IT. The perfect example of this attitude is in Swift, whose loathing of human beings has frequently been called 'pathological,' insane, psychotic--although to any Outsider, it looks reasonable and normal enough. ...
WHEN THE OUTSIDER IS IN HIS EARLIEST STAGES--WHEN HE DOES NOT KNOW HIMSELF[*] OR UNDERSTAND WHY HE IS 'OUT OF HARMONY' WITH THE REST OF HUMANKIND--HIS HATRED FOR MEN AND THE WORLD MAKES HIM AN UNBALANCED MISFIT, A MAN FULL OF SPITE AND ENVY, NEUROTIC, COWARDLY, SHRINKING AND WINCING. HIS SALVATION DEPENDS UPON THE ACHIEVEMENT OF SELF-UNDERSTANDING, SELF-KNOWLEDGE. IT IS ONLY WHEN HE BEGINS TO FIND HIMSELF THAT HE REALISES THAT HIS HATRED IS PERFECTLY JUSTIFIED: A HEALTHY REACTION TO A WORLD OF SICK HALF-MEN. ...
For the simplest way to define an 'Outsider' would be to say that he is a man for whom the world as most men see it is a lie and a deception. ... The fact that men need one another, that they live in close contact, means that they all impose their way of seeing on one another. This means that while a man is a member of society, it is impossible for him to achieve any vision of the world radically different from that of his fellow-men. ... COMPLETE ISOLATION--that is what the Outsider is driving at. He knows that, if he could only achieve it, there is a completely different way of seeing the world--a way so different that one might almost say that it would no longer be the same world. THE OUTSIDER'S FINAL PROBLEM IS TO BECOME A VISIONARY. THE FIRST AND MOST OBVIOUS STEP IS TO CUT HIMSELF OFF FROM OTHER PEOPLE, SO AS NOT TO BE CONDITIONED BY THEIR WAY OF SEEING. ...
The idea of hell is fundamental to the Outsider's way of thinking. He lives in a world of apes, whom he detests. He is told that 'religion' consists in loving your neighbour as yourself, and in practising the virtues of patience and charity. The most the Outsider can say is that he dislikes his neighbour just a little more than he dislikes himself. Most human beings strike him as being so stupid that they might as well be dead; consequently, he has none of the 'respect for human life' that most religions enjoin. His credo is a doctrine of self-expression, and if self-expression means war and murder, he unhesitatingly prefers it to the doctrine of peace and goodwill towards men. BY CONVENTIONAL STANDARDS, HE IS A DANGEROUS AND ANTI-SOCIAL MAN WHO SHOULD BE QUIETLY EXTERMINATED FOR THE GOOD OF SOCIETY.
* This idea of 'knowing yourself' is precisely the advice which the Delphic Oracle gave to Socrates: "gnothi seauton" (or "know thyself").
Also (by the way), Thoreau said much the same thing that Wilson says here, in his famous essay "Life Without Principle": that one cannot truly 'find oneself' or 'know oneself' unless one retreats to a profound state of isolation, much in the manner in which proverbial "prophets" have always had to go up into "the mountain" before they are able to return to mankind with a profound new vision of the Divine, or whatever else they saw or discovered. Joseph Campbell also makes this point in his book "Inner Reaches of Outer Space," at much greater length and depth than either Wilson or I have done here.
Saturday, November 27, 2004
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
Trading Diamonds for Dust
Every day of my life, I observe so many people living what can only be described as tawdry, mediocre lives, utterly devoid of any striving for the beautiful, the noble, the great, excellent, or sublime. I see these people willingly surrounding themselves with a desolate, hopeless, tawdry mediocrity--both physically and spiritually--which to me would be mind-numbing, the very death of my feeling, sensitive soul; and I cannot help but think that they have willingly traded their diamonds for dust, or more accurately, for the very filth of sewers: that they have literally sold their birthright for a 'mess of pottage.'
For the earth was not always like this. When this area was first taken from the native peoples by those of European descent (among whom were many of my own ancestors), this land was literally a realm of magic and wonder, and the native peoples who lived here KNEW this fact. I KNOW it, for I have read some of the first-hand accounts describing it (without hyperbole) as such. It was a land of FEW inhabitants, covered from head to foot by a vast, ancient forest, and filled with sparkling, clear waters, brilliant, many-hued flowers of all description, and populated with a remarkable variety of fauna--all of which, besides existing in its own right, might also have served and benefitted the REASONABLE use of mankind.
But what has European-American mankind done with these treasures--their very inheritance (if it can be called theirs) from God himself? Being dull and unimaginative, and utterly failing to see and understand the miraculous WEALTH all around their very eyes, they have, therefore, only wantonly slaughtered, burned, and destroyed, virtually everywhere they ever went.
DESTROYED?! Theirs is a usage that is so voracious, and so devastatingly complete, that it utterly annihilates in the process of devouring! The hapless mother Earth, it can only be said, they have repeatedly and shamelessly RAPED--all in the name of greed, which of course they justify under the rubric of the "necessity" of their own existence. The shorthand description for all of this boils down to only one small two-word term: profit-making.
All of which is to say (evidently) that the 'business' of profit-making (which they call the business of survival, as if the need for their survival is an excuse for amoral rape and wanton destruction) outweighs all other possible considerations--even the most fundamental ones of the planet itself, or of our brother and sister creations, the animals.
And this is why I have always maintained that the 'businessman' has, ultimately, absolutely no morals whatsoever (and never can have any) beyond the one moral of his own exigency, his own greed. Whatever is necessary to further the ambition of his greed--THAT, and that alone, is his moral purpose.
But even the most dull and unimaginative among us also shares, to some degree, in this terrible tragedy of the soul: for most people, as I have said, willingly relinquish their rich potential (which indeed all were once born with) for a life and environment of the mundane, tame, and mediocre--and think themselves well-off for having done so!--such is the depth of their delusion. And then, by and by, some of them may perchance wonder what is missing in their lives--what(if anything) they may have done wrong.
Suffice it to say that I personally want no part of such a sorry, pathetic world as this one which mankind has created for itself--much as typical infants, if left to themselves, will eventually soil the cribs in which they lie--that I daily, even hourly, recoil in horror and flee (as best I may) from such monstrosities. Isolation--especially of the thoughts in my mind--the only holy Temple left to me--is my only apparent hope of salvation.
Dear God--only ONCE let them walk along a leaf-strewn path through a Spring or Autumn woodland, and truly SEE the miracles of God which indeed their eyes behold, but which their puny animal minds and souls can never comprehend!
Only ONCE let them see, and comprehend!
November 8, 2002
For the earth was not always like this. When this area was first taken from the native peoples by those of European descent (among whom were many of my own ancestors), this land was literally a realm of magic and wonder, and the native peoples who lived here KNEW this fact. I KNOW it, for I have read some of the first-hand accounts describing it (without hyperbole) as such. It was a land of FEW inhabitants, covered from head to foot by a vast, ancient forest, and filled with sparkling, clear waters, brilliant, many-hued flowers of all description, and populated with a remarkable variety of fauna--all of which, besides existing in its own right, might also have served and benefitted the REASONABLE use of mankind.
But what has European-American mankind done with these treasures--their very inheritance (if it can be called theirs) from God himself? Being dull and unimaginative, and utterly failing to see and understand the miraculous WEALTH all around their very eyes, they have, therefore, only wantonly slaughtered, burned, and destroyed, virtually everywhere they ever went.
DESTROYED?! Theirs is a usage that is so voracious, and so devastatingly complete, that it utterly annihilates in the process of devouring! The hapless mother Earth, it can only be said, they have repeatedly and shamelessly RAPED--all in the name of greed, which of course they justify under the rubric of the "necessity" of their own existence. The shorthand description for all of this boils down to only one small two-word term: profit-making.
All of which is to say (evidently) that the 'business' of profit-making (which they call the business of survival, as if the need for their survival is an excuse for amoral rape and wanton destruction) outweighs all other possible considerations--even the most fundamental ones of the planet itself, or of our brother and sister creations, the animals.
And this is why I have always maintained that the 'businessman' has, ultimately, absolutely no morals whatsoever (and never can have any) beyond the one moral of his own exigency, his own greed. Whatever is necessary to further the ambition of his greed--THAT, and that alone, is his moral purpose.
But even the most dull and unimaginative among us also shares, to some degree, in this terrible tragedy of the soul: for most people, as I have said, willingly relinquish their rich potential (which indeed all were once born with) for a life and environment of the mundane, tame, and mediocre--and think themselves well-off for having done so!--such is the depth of their delusion. And then, by and by, some of them may perchance wonder what is missing in their lives--what(if anything) they may have done wrong.
Suffice it to say that I personally want no part of such a sorry, pathetic world as this one which mankind has created for itself--much as typical infants, if left to themselves, will eventually soil the cribs in which they lie--that I daily, even hourly, recoil in horror and flee (as best I may) from such monstrosities. Isolation--especially of the thoughts in my mind--the only holy Temple left to me--is my only apparent hope of salvation.
Dear God--only ONCE let them walk along a leaf-strewn path through a Spring or Autumn woodland, and truly SEE the miracles of God which indeed their eyes behold, but which their puny animal minds and souls can never comprehend!
Only ONCE let them see, and comprehend!
November 8, 2002
Thomas Mann's views on homosexuality
That mature masculinity reaches out its arm, showing itself to be tender towards masculinity which is softer and more beautiful--
I find in this nothing unnatural, and a great deal that is edifying, a great deal of high humanity.
The moment of youth comes into play here, or a magic that the feelings are prone to confuse with beauty, so that youth, unless disfigured by flaws that cause too much discomfort, will most often be perceived as beauty, even by itself, as its smile unmistakably indicates. It has charm--a manifestation of beauty which by its nature oscillates between the masculine and the feminine. A boy of seventeen is not beautiful in the sense of mature masculinity. Nor is he beautiful in the sense of a simply hypothetical femininity--that would be most unappealing. But undeniably, the charm of youthful beauty always inclines a little towards the feminine in both spirit and form. That lies in its essence, its tender relation towards the world and the world's to it, based on and expressed in its smile. At seventeen, it is true, one can be lovelier than woman or man, lovely like woman and man, lovely in both ways and all ways, pretty and beautiful, to a degree that turns the heads of both men and women.
In Gesammelte Werke, Vol.4, pp. 394-95; quoted in Hayman, op. cit., pp. 390-91.
I find in this nothing unnatural, and a great deal that is edifying, a great deal of high humanity.
Excerpted from a letter of Thomas Mann (1875-1955)
to Carl Maria von Weber, dated July 4, 1920;
quoted in Ronald Hayman,
Thomas Mann:A Biography (1995), page 250.
The moment of youth comes into play here, or a magic that the feelings are prone to confuse with beauty, so that youth, unless disfigured by flaws that cause too much discomfort, will most often be perceived as beauty, even by itself, as its smile unmistakably indicates. It has charm--a manifestation of beauty which by its nature oscillates between the masculine and the feminine. A boy of seventeen is not beautiful in the sense of mature masculinity. Nor is he beautiful in the sense of a simply hypothetical femininity--that would be most unappealing. But undeniably, the charm of youthful beauty always inclines a little towards the feminine in both spirit and form. That lies in its essence, its tender relation towards the world and the world's to it, based on and expressed in its smile. At seventeen, it is true, one can be lovelier than woman or man, lovely like woman and man, lovely in both ways and all ways, pretty and beautiful, to a degree that turns the heads of both men and women.
In Gesammelte Werke, Vol.4, pp. 394-95; quoted in Hayman, op. cit., pp. 390-91.
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
To me, the two most profound statements in all holy writings (aside from Jesus' immortal doctrine) are these: "God is love," and "God is light." Taken separately, we may say that if it is true that God is love (the word 'is' being an equal sign), then it is also true that LOVE is GOD. An equally true statement would be that LIGHT is also GOD. And by this I infer that since light is merely frequency-patterns transmitted over space and time, the act of COMMUNICATING (that is to say, using frequency transmissions) must also be synonymous with the words 'love,' 'light,' and 'God.' Taken together, all of the above statements amount to a new (and much more profound) definition of the term 'God.' But how many can accept such a radical departure? And yet, the evidence has been before our very eyes for nearly two thousand years! Has it really taken mankind so very long to thus expand his mindset or world-view?
27 May--7 July, 1997.
How may we define man as being separate from the other forms of life on this planet?
By the degree of his self-awareness, by the degree of his awareness of his environs (and this includes other forms of life), by the degree of his ability to communicate (and the level of complexity of his communications), and by the degree of his ability to manipulate his environment to suit his own needs or wishes.
What defines a 'civilised' society? Or--better yet--how can we determine when and if one particular society is more (or less) 'civilised' than another? This is a question that has plagued many for years, and yet I can't see how such a simple answer could have escaped notice for so long:
A society is more (or less) 'civilised' based upon the level of complexity of its technical know-how, the level of complexity of its social organisation, the level of its manipulation or domination of the environment to suit man's needs or wishes, and by the degree of its dependence (both individually and collectively) upon primitive animal emotion or instinct. In other words, a society becomes more 'civilised' than another when its constituent members (or a safe majority thereof) become more fully HUMAN (and less animal-like) than the members of another society--which may, indeed, be 'civilised' in its own right, only less so than another which finds itself in the evolutionary vanguard of the species. Or what else could Nietzsche have possibly meant?
30 June--7 July, 1997.
27 May--7 July, 1997.
How may we define man as being separate from the other forms of life on this planet?
By the degree of his self-awareness, by the degree of his awareness of his environs (and this includes other forms of life), by the degree of his ability to communicate (and the level of complexity of his communications), and by the degree of his ability to manipulate his environment to suit his own needs or wishes.
What defines a 'civilised' society? Or--better yet--how can we determine when and if one particular society is more (or less) 'civilised' than another? This is a question that has plagued many for years, and yet I can't see how such a simple answer could have escaped notice for so long:
A society is more (or less) 'civilised' based upon the level of complexity of its technical know-how, the level of complexity of its social organisation, the level of its manipulation or domination of the environment to suit man's needs or wishes, and by the degree of its dependence (both individually and collectively) upon primitive animal emotion or instinct. In other words, a society becomes more 'civilised' than another when its constituent members (or a safe majority thereof) become more fully HUMAN (and less animal-like) than the members of another society--which may, indeed, be 'civilised' in its own right, only less so than another which finds itself in the evolutionary vanguard of the species. Or what else could Nietzsche have possibly meant?
30 June--7 July, 1997.
Pantheism== The belief that "God" or "deity" exists everywhere in the universe surrounding us-as, for instance, in the air, the water, the flowers, the animals, human beings, and even the stars themselves.
Mysticism==The belief that it is possible, in this mortal life, to obtain a personal, inward spiritual awareness of, and communion with, the Divine. Example: As in an inward spiritual awakening or experience. Many shallow-minded people would call this "being born again." I say it is much deeper than that--much more profound and far-reaching in its results or consequences.
My theology, while definitely admitting and including the above two statements, really begins and ends with one simple formula, found in the first epistle of St.John (the "Beloved"):
GOD IS LOVE.
Simple logic will then tell us that if "God" (the Divine) is the same thing as "Love", then therefore everything that is "Love" is also "Divine" (or God). All expressions of love, therefore, are expressions of the Divine and of the Divine Will--even those expressions which some narrow-minded and prejudiced persons are pleased to negatively judge and condemn. To love another human being, in a selfless and "Christlike" manner, that is to say, is to give expression to the Divine, to let the Divine flow through one, as it were, thus transforming oneself into a vehicle whereby the Divine becomes expressed in the physical world: a means whereby 'the Word may become made Flesh'.
This, in my opinion, is all that "religion" should ever need to be. "Anything more or less than this cometh of evil."
What are the two greatest commandments? According to Jesus, they are to love God (which is LOVE, right?) with all one's heart, might, mind and strength, and to love one's neighbour as oneself. They are both about love, correct? Basically restated, they are: Love LOVE with your entire being, and love your fellow-man as much as you love yourself. Basically, the idea is (as constantly as is humanly possible) to have a heart filled with Divine Love--toward "deity" and toward one's fellow-beings.
St.Paul said in Romans that a person truly filled with Divine Love will not murder, lie, cheat, steal, or do any other thing to harm his neighbour; or at least, if he should by mistake and due to his frail human nature do something of the sort anyway, he will be sorry therefor, and will honestly try to make amends and avoid repeating the mistake.
Shakespeare's ideal of love was unconditional love:
...love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
Ah, no! It is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on Tempests and is never shaken:
It is the Star to ev'ry wandering Bark. ...
(Sonnet No.116)
Which was merely a rephrasing of St.Paul's standard, the famous passage found in First Corinthians, Chapter 13 (Shakespeare obviously knew his Bible):
...Love is patient and kind, love does not envy... love never seeks repayment, nor is provoked to anger; love does not rejoice in harm to others, but rejoices in the truth. LOVE NEVER GIVES UP!
(Emphasis added)
Now I here freely admit that I am a human being, too. It is just as hard for me sometimes to actually live what I am saying here. But I know that I know better. And I do try at all times to conscientiously live this ideal, as should we all. I never said that it was easy, only that it is what we should all be doing (myself included).
"This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends."
(St.John 15:12-13)
Notice here that Jesus said "friends." He did not say, "wife," or "husband," "father," or "mother," or even "children." No, he said "friends." And I find this very significant. Some would perhaps say that it would be even more significant to voluntarily give up one's life for a total stranger, but that is not really based on conscious, full-knowing LOVE, is it? That would rather be a form of Altruism--somewhat more remote than intimate, personal LOVE, which has full knowledge and awareness of all a friend's faults and failings, and yet is still willing to sacrifice for him.
Mysticism==The belief that it is possible, in this mortal life, to obtain a personal, inward spiritual awareness of, and communion with, the Divine. Example: As in an inward spiritual awakening or experience. Many shallow-minded people would call this "being born again." I say it is much deeper than that--much more profound and far-reaching in its results or consequences.
My theology, while definitely admitting and including the above two statements, really begins and ends with one simple formula, found in the first epistle of St.John (the "Beloved"):
GOD IS LOVE.
Simple logic will then tell us that if "God" (the Divine) is the same thing as "Love", then therefore everything that is "Love" is also "Divine" (or God). All expressions of love, therefore, are expressions of the Divine and of the Divine Will--even those expressions which some narrow-minded and prejudiced persons are pleased to negatively judge and condemn. To love another human being, in a selfless and "Christlike" manner, that is to say, is to give expression to the Divine, to let the Divine flow through one, as it were, thus transforming oneself into a vehicle whereby the Divine becomes expressed in the physical world: a means whereby 'the Word may become made Flesh'.
This, in my opinion, is all that "religion" should ever need to be. "Anything more or less than this cometh of evil."
What are the two greatest commandments? According to Jesus, they are to love God (which is LOVE, right?) with all one's heart, might, mind and strength, and to love one's neighbour as oneself. They are both about love, correct? Basically restated, they are: Love LOVE with your entire being, and love your fellow-man as much as you love yourself. Basically, the idea is (as constantly as is humanly possible) to have a heart filled with Divine Love--toward "deity" and toward one's fellow-beings.
St.Paul said in Romans that a person truly filled with Divine Love will not murder, lie, cheat, steal, or do any other thing to harm his neighbour; or at least, if he should by mistake and due to his frail human nature do something of the sort anyway, he will be sorry therefor, and will honestly try to make amends and avoid repeating the mistake.
Shakespeare's ideal of love was unconditional love:
...love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
Ah, no! It is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on Tempests and is never shaken:
It is the Star to ev'ry wandering Bark. ...
(Sonnet No.116)
Which was merely a rephrasing of St.Paul's standard, the famous passage found in First Corinthians, Chapter 13 (Shakespeare obviously knew his Bible):
...Love is patient and kind, love does not envy... love never seeks repayment, nor is provoked to anger; love does not rejoice in harm to others, but rejoices in the truth. LOVE NEVER GIVES UP!
(Emphasis added)
Now I here freely admit that I am a human being, too. It is just as hard for me sometimes to actually live what I am saying here. But I know that I know better. And I do try at all times to conscientiously live this ideal, as should we all. I never said that it was easy, only that it is what we should all be doing (myself included).
"This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends."
(St.John 15:12-13)
Notice here that Jesus said "friends." He did not say, "wife," or "husband," "father," or "mother," or even "children." No, he said "friends." And I find this very significant. Some would perhaps say that it would be even more significant to voluntarily give up one's life for a total stranger, but that is not really based on conscious, full-knowing LOVE, is it? That would rather be a form of Altruism--somewhat more remote than intimate, personal LOVE, which has full knowledge and awareness of all a friend's faults and failings, and yet is still willing to sacrifice for him.
I have the greatest admiration and respect for those few, rare souls who are somehow able to free themselves intellectually, but more especially emotionally, from their surrounding, invasive, and demanding culture. I may even say that it actually excites me almost beyond words to meet and converse with such people. Alas, though, this experience has been mine only too seldom in my lifetime. Many of those few I have actually met who would aspire to this high title of 'genius' or 'non-conformist' have, upon, closer inspection, proven only to have been fraudulent deceits, thus earning only my distasteful scorn.
For those people who are still the mental slaves of their cultures, but who (as in many of the young) still show some youthful strength, idealism, and hope of liberation, I find myself frequently feeling a mixture of pity and an urgent yearning hope that they might succeed in breaking and destroying their mental shackles.
For those who have patently given up the struggle, and hasten to conform themselves in every way possible to their peer culture--that culture with which they unquestioningly and exclusively identify themselves--for those, I say, who are now and likely ever will remain only mindless, safe, obedient, unquestioning drones, I can only feel the lowest form of contempt and disgust, and only the fact that they, too--even they--are still human beings also capable of SUFFERING prevents me from treating them exactly as their behaviour merits: as expendable, interchangeable drones in the human hive. Only the hope that--difficult as it may be for me to imagine at present--they may in some future age exercise that flabby muscle called a 'brain' beyond the automatic and instinctive reactions, and thus expand and redeem themselves, prevents me from this reaction.
26 August, 1994.
For those people who are still the mental slaves of their cultures, but who (as in many of the young) still show some youthful strength, idealism, and hope of liberation, I find myself frequently feeling a mixture of pity and an urgent yearning hope that they might succeed in breaking and destroying their mental shackles.
For those who have patently given up the struggle, and hasten to conform themselves in every way possible to their peer culture--that culture with which they unquestioningly and exclusively identify themselves--for those, I say, who are now and likely ever will remain only mindless, safe, obedient, unquestioning drones, I can only feel the lowest form of contempt and disgust, and only the fact that they, too--even they--are still human beings also capable of SUFFERING prevents me from treating them exactly as their behaviour merits: as expendable, interchangeable drones in the human hive. Only the hope that--difficult as it may be for me to imagine at present--they may in some future age exercise that flabby muscle called a 'brain' beyond the automatic and instinctive reactions, and thus expand and redeem themselves, prevents me from this reaction.
26 August, 1994.
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