There is something which lurks in the current of modern thought which has created discomfort, propelling me to firstly understand its origins and secondly to reconcile it with what I think it has severed itself from.
It leaves me to conjure up strong visuals of the age in which we are in. In doing so, I find these visions align lucidly with Martin Buber's imagery in 'The Eclipse of God'. There is a considerable amount to reflect on in how the light in all things is affected by this. Given the medium of this communication, all I can offer is a prelude to my thoughts- a sketch of the portrait.
What was once truth, is now fiction. What was once the geometric continuum of reality is now a hyperbolic daydream.
What was once a source of light is now a parade of shadows orbiting themselves, colliding in a decentralised fury of fear.
I wonder when that 'once' began and when it ended. What makes us want one God? What singularity are we craving? What do we feel as our centre?
This decentralisation has seemed to have caused an enormous spectrum of curious phenomena. The centre of the modern era is the self. Yes- that unit of existence so bold enough to think of its mode of consciousness as a singular quantity. Until you dissect it, divide it, fracture it, destruct it to a mere fraction of a fraction. And what do you possess? Sheer infinity. A number which throws all of the discrete digits of the self into an impenetrable fear as it stands before a crossroads: 0 or ∞, it asks itself.
As for all the numbers in between, what are your functions? Shape. Colour. Calculations of the unknown. Paths into parallel worlds. Language of freedom's efflorescence shackled into the mathematics of our light-hiding mechanisms.
I wonder if there is a mathematical proportion / calculation for any given state the self finds itself in at any point in time. I wonder what the grand proportion of a life is. I wonder what shape each self has. Its mathematical force must operate both within the conditions of time and the conditions of non-time. Each thought must provide a variable to be factored into the whole. And then from what is the variable derived? An abyss; an infinity. Each thought (if propelled by intuitive existentialism) would attempt to reach closer into the cess pool of timelessness. That is a well-trained mind. That is a mathematical mind. That is a poorly trained self. That is a mind destined for efflorescence. That is a self destined for demise.
Saying I wonder is essentially saying I believe there is. Saying I believe there is, is saying that in some probability of perception it exists. I have a knowing for a potentiality. Whether it becomes active in perception is out of my control. We are all seeing different motions of the motionless- difference dances of Shiva. It is not my role to debate, but to understand the function of all variables to perform the most elegant equation. In essence, an equation of love. The only real equation. All else must be proportional- bamboo canes bending to the wind of love.
Where is the eclipse in all of this? Numbers are cosmic. There are proportions of the self; There are proportions of humanity. Time is performing endless calculation which operate as derivatives from one singularity. Every variable is a cause and effect from and to the universe. We are microcosmic entities operating in a continuum with the infinite. Would it then be unfathomable to believe that we ourselves created this eclipse? We moved, created another existence which resides between us and the God who needs serious redefining and reconciliation.
Where is this thing called self-identity in all of this? Ever-changing yet fixed! Yearning to always traverse the entire spectrum. It is a mathematical force of potential and kinetic energies. The identity is not an aesthetic digit or number- it is a function of the whole.
What is psychology? An attempt to understand variables, not as angles in a large geometry or factors in a proportional relationship, but as logical entities in an equation which carries into all versions of selves. Dangerous. A valuable attempt but one of the most dangerous I have ever come across. Empirical materialism idealising the notion of the self as an equation performed by behavioural logic.
Wrong.
Psychology should be exercises of abstraction, reconciling the forces of numbers, behaviours, events in the self, with the geometry of the whole. Continuum. Not Exclusivity. Self as continuum. Behaviour as colour in wide range of spectrum. Stretching beyond shadows. Not hanging onto the notion of Subjective and Objective. Making this its creed:
"Subjectivity, in so far as its subjectivity, is not an object presented to thought but rather the very wellspring of thought- a deep, unknown, and living centre which superabounds in knowledge and superabounds in love, attaining only through love its supreme level of existence, existence as giving itself." - Jacques Maritain
Psychology remains an eclipsed attempt. Science remains an eclipsed attempt. Our brains hang on tightly to the notion of our hemispheric separations.
Solution? Dissolution.
Letting the light dissolve the shadow. Letting love be the ultimate equation.
Surrendering our secular psyches, allowing our spheres to orbit into impossible realms which disguise themselves as fiction and which reside in the abyss of being.
Interesting, but our brains tend to wish to segregate all thoughts and entities. Is it nature, or taught by society? Is society, which is achieved simply a product of the nature of many, who are ascribed? For example, this essay is difficult for me to follow, because all ideas are integrated. Am I alone in that regard? Without levels of distinction in things, the said things would remain unnamed and impossible to explain. How are people meant to reconcile between integration of all and subdividing for perhaps an ease of understanding?
ReplyDeleteThank you kindly for satiating questions! I answer only to ask more myself and to think aloud.
ReplyDeleteThe Nature vs. Nurture debate somehow seems unsatisfying. For a continuum implies a relation which carries the two to function beyond the limits of both. I suppose my idea of 'separation' is not to imply a nominal necessity to identify things as separate. For that actually is a beautiful feature of living- to identify one thing as itself. There seems to be many identities in one / multi-fold integrations occurring- empirical divisions to arrange patterns of material reality- to then synthesise with the patterns of abstraction. In some sense, Time itself seems to impose our need to divide and conquer.
I will liken it to music: one needs to subdivide rhythms in order to accomplish the piece as a whole. I think, whether we believe we are or not, we are performing this in real-time. Time being sequential subdivisions of rhythm. There is an indelibly fixed nature in the mechanics of music. There are intervals, rhythms, frequencies of pitch. What I believe is that we do reconcile most succinctly the 'integration of all' and the 'subdivisions' in art as a way in which to understand how to do the very same in real-time. It seems to be an totality of 'state' rather than methodology on how to balance both. But yet this very life seems to be an endless search for that reconciliation which 'creation' may be an attempt to realise. Balance and Continuum. Not implying an ambiguous integration, but rather an actualisation of all parts to the degree all entities perform entirely new functions.
Look forward to more musings.