Feline Philosophy

Day Fifteen. Still on track. And rather a triumph: recognizing that the soup would run out, I shopped and began the soup yesterday afternoon, and finished it up this morning, despite (because of?) being scheduled to drive to Eugene today. I successfully identified the traitor: a smarmy little rodentlike thought who said “oh, something will turn up…. Maybe you won’t run out… a can of tuna fish… (sotto voce) an excuse to pig out on something…” No. The soup wasn’t going to stretch through Saturday, and this was the last chance to stay ahead of it, so stay ahead I did. So I am tired, and there may be a morning nap in my future or may not, but I feel so much better than I would have if I had succumbed to the insinuations of the rodent.

Reading John Gray’s Feline Philosophy, which is a serious book of philosophy, and also seriously about cats, real cats, with names and histories; the cats are not a pretext for the philosophy, nor the philosophy a pretext for the cats. It’s a lovely book. I have at least two fundamental disagreements with Gray, but he brings a great gift: genuine liberation from historical teleology. Which seems like a small thing – as long as everything seems in order and the inevitable progress towards utopia seems to be being made – but at a time like this our religious devotion to it proves to be a curse of despair and blindness. We really cannot see what is happening, and we really can’t devise or negotiate a sensible hope with our opponents, whom we see simply as evildoers. Losing twice to a ridiculous clown like Donald Trump should be a clear warning to us, but it doesn’t seem to have been. Our response is ever more urgently: “Double down! Double down!”

It’s not going to work.

But. Enough. When I do speak of this stuff I tend to rant, since I no longer allow myself to speak in public, or even to speak honestly in private, except to my kids. But it’s not really what I want to talk about, not what I want to think about.

My two disagreements with Gray: I think that in fact we do have free will – that when we are deliberating we are actually doing something, and something creative and interesting; not just inventing excuses and fabricating backstories. I do not share his metaphysical commitments. (Which blessedly are not dogmatically held: he actually is a real philosopher.)

And second: I don’t think that the fact that there are fashions in morality, and that customs differ, necessarily disproves “the centrality of good.” It means that we should dismiss attempts to reduce goodness to lists of simpleminded commandments; it means that no formulation or algorithm can replace judgement; but I think it’s actually striking how easy it is to orient oneself morally in different cultures and contexts. The configuration is different, but the elements are familiar. I don’t read stories from distant cultures that are morally unintelligible.

I am less sure of the second than of the first. But D.C. Schindler’s formulation of the three transcendentals – “the primacy of beauty, the centrality of good, the ultimacy of truth” – haunts me. It throbs and buzzes with truth.

The Wind on my Face

So. This is Day Seven of the Regimen. It is also Day Four of the Vow of June, which is to sit down to meditate every day for the rest of June, even if I only sit for thirty seconds. I haven’t sat in a half lotus for ages, and I have some stretching to do before that’s easy again. So this is just to get things started, get my phone timer set up, all the mechanics. Oy. I do want to just open up and have a heart to heart with God, whoever that may be: the One or the Substrate or Old Nobodaddy or my Anima or some figment of my dwindling imagination. Sitting shamata won’t get me there, but at least it reminds me of what I want. Coming to greater propositional certainty about God would be convenient for building churches and enforcing the obedience of novices, but I can’t see that it would actually deliver anything I want. I wouldn’t want a neatly labelled and packaged universe, convenient for putting away in a storage unit, even if I thought I was likely to get it. I just want the wind on my face before I die. I may not be brave enough to live and die in the open air, but could I not just jam a window a little bit ajar and take some deep breaths?

Though I suspect that like most “all I’m asking for is a little…” requests, it’s actually asking for the monstrously impossible. That I don’t actually begin to understand how much I’m demanding.

Still, if this life has taught me anything, it’s this: that if you don’t ask you don’t get.

—-

So. Shopping for lentil soup today. A walk with Tori at noon. One or two more Spanish sessions, and shamatha. That all seems doable.

—-

I suspect that the answer to “what does God want me to do?” although it is perfectly unintelligible, and probably a ridiculous question, actually has quite accessible answers that I already know, if I stop half a second to write them out. She wants me to be good, insofar as I can and insofar as I understand it (which is not actually, for me, the deep mysterious problem it seems to be for philosophers: I know damn well what being good entails. The hard part isn’t discovering what I should do: it’s doing it). And she wants me to turn to face her, she wants me to unfurl and to flourish, like the candyflower growing from the cracks in the driveway. Not enough soil? Grow anyway. Blossom exuberantly. What God wants of me is, in fact, blindingly obvious.

Too Much Alone

Britt Hartley seems to have gone before me, as far as… I think people are just making things up. Even the process theology people. There are some reasons – not to me completely compelling, tho interesting – to believe in the One. Intimations of order. But if anything is clear about ecstatic mystical experience, it’s that it does not deliver consistent verifiable conceptual information about… anything. That’s not what it’s for. So we’re not going to get a program of action and a schema of the world to navigate by, no matter how vividly we see God. We might come to a wiser appreciation of what part programs and schemas ought to play in our life. But that’s rather different.

And the religious project generally is an imperial project, meant to constrain the future to a repetition of the past. Much of that is just necessary to the maintenance of a community. But it is the opposite of what I’m looking for. I want to the step over a threshold into a new place. On the other hand – that’s the third hand, now – I want company. I need company. This is not something that it is really possible to do alone. Not ultimately. A person alone is not really real.

And I am too much alone, these days. You know, that is the real problem. It’s a simple problem, though its solution may be complex. I am too much alone.

Gliding Into Port

Ai Cherestami, I don't know. Wind ruffling my hair, the luff of my jacket as we ease into (out of?) port. What then, Cherestami? And freedom goes for nothing.

But. Clang clang clang! Bells, always bells, always noise, nothing ever holds still long enough to actually think.

If there were once quiet, if there was once a glide into a calm port... do we even remember how to think? (Did we ever know how to think?)

I mean, there is nowhere to turn, at this point. There's only one rope to seize, only one way to climb. Going further down the tunnel is not going to help. You are not going to meet a slimy creature to riddle with. It's just cold dark water, from there down, all the way, Mynheer. 

(No, we never knew how to think. Yes, we have been going the wrong way all this time. More questions can be submitted on 3 by 5 index cards, neatly printed. Thank you for your attention! Your business is important to us!)

So grab that one rope and climb, little one. There isn't anything else. Break, break, break, on thy cold gray stones, O sea! 

I mean, this is where you meant to arrive, Cherestami. Am I wrong? This is where all demands cease. And this is the land under strange, unmoving stars. Nothing happens here, Cherestami. That's why there are no demands here. (Except the ever more frantic demands of your fatted heart.)

So, to take stock: the exercise program has actually been wildly successful. Your stamina, my Lord, is almost what it was pre Covid. Were it not for your fatness increasing in nice proportion, you would be in good physical shape. As it is, you look to die within a few years, after much misery. Don't do this to yourself, fat man. Take advantage of the fact that no craving hooks up to fulfillment any more. Yes, it's a miserable state of affairs and it means death, death, nothing but death and one that is much nearer than you used to think. (Did I mention that you have always been a self-deluded fool? I should have mentioned that.) 

There is a very very important sense that I am looking for death as well as for peace. I need to distinguish between the two, though. It's not all looking for death. It's partly looking for air and ease. I want to get out of the hole. I want to climb the rope. 

I used to think I was not ready to be dead yet. I have softened a bit there, I understand it a little differently now. Of course I long for death and I always have. That's okay. It's just one of the longings, though. Don't totalize here. It's not the only thing I want; it's not the only goal I'm driving toward. And there's nothing wrong with wanting to die. It is a consummation devoutly to be wished. It's not identical with suicidal intent. "One fine morning, when my work is done I'm going to. Fly. Away. Home. That's all. Just that. And I look forward to it, like Bergson, with cheerful curiosity.