I keep a surprisingly large amount of secrets, not because I am particularly uncomfortable with sharing them, but because it's particularly arduous to do so; they're of the sort that the average person requires a rainy day with too much coffee to really bother with. No one who knows me would be surprised to hear that I'm concerned with questions about the progress of humanity, of spirituality, of geo-political concerns and all that comes with an megalomaniacal ethos. I'm stealing a gag from Douglas Adams when I say that I am not above a little bombastic diatribe in the same way that the Earth is not above the sky. But the truth is, musing and ranting aside, these concerns are truly of grave consequence to the value I place on continuing to exist, day-in, day-out. So the topic for today is honesty and doubt; an exercise of the former, hopefully to dispel the latter.
The logic goes like this: if, in the ranks of your psychological executive staff, there is a member whose job is to insist that you are more or less irreparably inadequate, then you are likely to experience quite a lot of doubt when making statements about how things ought to be in the universe. Afterall, ultimately the only thing against which one can judge themselves to be adequate must be the universe, in any or all of its myriad facets, simply because there isn't anything else. And you see, there's a lot of personal risk in actually asserting anything before the scrutiny of the universe because, as far as having the power to assert opinion goes, the universe is in overwhelmingly the more formidable position from which to disagree. So in the ivory tower of the subconscious the debate unfolds:
Good Self: I firmly believe [something].
Bad Self: Well I'm sure you do. [snicker]
Good Self: Oh yeah? Well why don't we just check with the universe and see who's right, shall we?
Bad Self: Go for it. But just remember: if you try and fail, we're both going to know who was right, won't we? [smug smirk]
So, what's a Good Self to do? Enter the origins of what would come be called, by the advent of capitalism so rampant it actually comes to your door begging, the "foot-in-the-door policy". Good Selves are a strong and nearly indefagitable lot—but only nearly. There are just some things they can't really cope with, and Bad Self being ultimately the more correct of the two is just such a thing.
Often, Good Self nonetheless goes ahead and checks its intuition with the universe, but not straight-away, and not full-out because it's a hell of a lot safer to hedge your bets. Good Self goes:
If I really think [something] is a good and valid point, then surely the universe is both aware of prepared to confirm this, yah? If I can subtly intimate my thinking without you-know-who noticing, maybe the universe will throw me a bone.
And so it goes, with half-assed and timid little experiments, Good Selves the world over investigate their suspicions, hoping that reinforcement will be forthcoming, with the consequence that anything for which receiving reinforcement would have required a full and convicted effort never gets the green light. Yet lots of the time our equivocating trials do elicit confirmation, whereupon Good Selves experiment a little more boldly, and the accumulation of these tiny merits we eventually call growth, or karma, or if we're haven't managed to get very many of them, luck. In the best of us, Bad Self ends up with its tail between its legs more often than not and eventually goes on to sit sullenly in the corner. Meanwhile, in the worst of us, Bad Self gets away with far too many "I-told-you-so's" and generally goes over like a post-Walt Disney (that is, like a good idea passed off to bad leadership). All of this I've offered simply to explain why my bombastic wailing is more often than not unaccompanied by praxis. Because it's a damn lot safer to be appraised for your opinions, which cost a pittance in energy to air before the universe, than for your actions, which collectively amount to your life and thus, by extension, you.
When I was quite a lot younger and completely lacking what one could call a firm grasp on identity I took hold of the possibilities offered up by the iconography of the music industry and clung to it like the jaws of crocodiles cling to mammilian legs. Anyone who's ever suffered my scornful stare at their taste in music will remember quite clearly what I'm referring to. This music showed people that I was of that sort of person which (I worriedly hoped) was also the right sort of person. Thus, failing to agree with me about music was, by extension, a failure to agree with me as an argument for demonstrating what a "me" ought be like. But, when I went to school for audio engineering and began to hang around with audio professionals I encountered a haughty and caustic rebuttal to my conception of what constituted excellent music (as an aside, I may never forgive the people who taught me how to not enjoy Jagged Little Pill). Anyway, I met some audio snobs, joined them, and in the oval office of my mind a conclusion was reached. I wasn't present for it, but those who were sent me a message that went something like this:
We, the constituents of your psyche, have hereby concluded that Our Lady Peace may, in fact, not be the greatest assembly of musical genius in human history (indeed, they may not even have been granted press passes). Since we are unwilling to concede the critical dependence of a complete and worthy existence on a well-formed musical discrimination, we are therefore forced to conclude that on this matter the universe is correct, and you are wrong. Please amend your opinion post-haste, ummm, we hear this 'David Matthews' and his band are rather good.
And indeed, when I came home, Dave Matthews Band and whoever else I had been instructed to adore became the occupants of my musical pedastal. But gradually, as that pedastal failed to become the throne for one musician and one musician only*, I realized the fallacy of my thinking. So, today my scorn for other people's music is motivated by an entirely different sort of insanity called 'arrogance', about which I shall not write today [insert chagrin here]. *Daniel Johns, however, is making a good run at it.
But, back to the point: what if the thing, about which a Good Self is passively asking after the opinion of the universe, is of a more fundamental variety? What, for example, if it's something about which the board of consciousness executives are unwilling or unable to concede their position on? This is a game played for all the marbles, and it's just about the most terrifying thing that literally can exist (ie. fear is of the mind, therefore what ultimately threatens the mind must be ultimately fear-worthy). Ethics, religion and generally any question related to the identity of fundamental goodness are opinions of the sort that, once a Good Self gets itself solidly convicted about them, become devastatingly hard to relinquish. And so I spout, unaccompanied by sufficient action, my turgid opinions regarding—once more from Douglas Adams—Life, the Universe, and Everything. All the worst things in life are going to go on happening for quite a while after I've died, you see, but I have accepted this. But, if it turns out hat the universe isn't even able to conduct itself in a manner that my conscience has deemed dignified then I, for one, with utter sincerity do not wish to live in it. The problem that immediately presents itself, however, is that there isn't anywhere else to go.
Now, I've run off to India. I did this for a lot of reasons, but a very central one is that I discovered, in a big contradictory web of ideas and buildings and budgets called a university, that quite a lot of hundreds of other Good Selves throughout history have thought and felt a lot of the same things I'd come to have feelings and thoughts about. Moreover, some of those Good Selves were still alive and, thankfully, teaching; consequently I've also found out a great deal about how many millions upon millions of Good Selves have been cowed into passive silence by Bad Selves, not to mention the consequences thereof. A complete account would be depressingly epic, but a sundry list looks like: war, poverty, famine, abuse, discrimination, hate, sadness, dissappointment, consumption, dissolution and generally an obscene number of years of human life failing to have been nourished, loved or to even have had a life in which to happen. It's not that I didn't also learn about all the love, inspiration, generosity and whatnot that we ape successors have been up to as well. In fact, I generally think there's been more of this activity than of the uglier variety. So, from where I'm sitting, I can't reconcile the fact that classical conditioning hasn't taken care of the issue. I've had (and continue to have) a very painful time of coping emotionally with the facts about what people do to each other and why. And, now that it's out, I've had no success at all with getting my head back into the sand. The rules, for once, are rather simple:
Do good stuff, get good results. Do bad stuff, get bad results. Choose.
The truth is that I prefer to limit myself to simply talking about these topics because I haven't fully, completely decided my position. Don't misunderstand me; if you ask about the firmness of my opinion outside of this brief moment of lucid honesty I'll contradict myself with all manners of elaborate diatribe. But the truth—the debate that's being had in a private boardroom on the top floor of my exhausted brain—is that Bad Self, with his entourage of attorneys (Team Bad Self) and Good Self, who's bravely but foolishly come all alone, haven't agreed on how I should address the inimical quandry that is life. Quite a lot of people seem to think that the thing to do is get as much money as you can, work out a lot and comfortably enjoy as much as you can until its over, with the historically recent addendum that, if you can, be nice to people—you don't want to be thought of as an asshole, right?
But, the argument prevailing from Good Self is disparaging of being nice to people "just so I won't be an asshole". Someone in the office with the view wants to be nice to people because people are nice, because he likes them, and whether or not they think I am (we are?) an asshole is not as important as whether or not their lives are failing to be full of pain and suffering and all the finest turmoil humans can muster. In a nutshell, I'm pretty certain that this disposition puts me in the camp that rests the blame firmly on the shoulders of ego and attachment. The debate runs like this:
Good Self: I don't think you're understanding this, guys—I don't really think that this business is about us at all. I think... you know I think there's a possibility that none of us have really got a clear sense of perspective. What we ought to do is try and leave the boardroom, to, you know... to see if we even can exist beyond the confines of... well, here. [whereupon Team Bad Self exchange lawerly glances that confirm the unanimity of the position that Good Self is off his head]
Bad Self: Well, that's your business. But if you're wrong, you realize, you're not going to get to be wrong ever again. No sir, if you try to pull the plug on the whole enterprise we've worked so hard to build up here, and you're wrong, we're putting you in the white coat with the long straps and that's the end of it. I'm not saying we've never been wrong in the past... hell, I'll even give it to you—in the last couple of years we've been shooting wide the mark quite a bit. But on this one, well hey... this isn't just about setting up a cubicle down on three for some whiny alt rock band is it? You're talking about giving up the lease on the penthouse suite, so don't hope for the mulligan if you screw the pooch.
It's an intimidating reprisal, so Good Self stares at the door, bites his lip, and fumes quietly for a few minutes before sitting back down to have anther go at concensus. But there's none to be had; Bad Selves are not the compromising sort. Good Selves either disobey them and come back with the proof or suffer their authority. And that, dear readers, is what I'm truly, properly, really and honestly getting at: authority. If you want to be an anarchist, and I mean, really an anarchist (and I have claimed to want this rather badly), it's no good to go off half-cocked whining about the suits if you haven't even ousted the aristocracy in your noodle.
In plain English, I came here to learn about Buddhism and all I've found is a clearer way to frame the exact same argument I came here with in the first place. Not that it's been a waste, because the argument is clearer, and I'm staring at the exit sign over those mahogany double-doors quite a lot more earnestly. But I am waxing and waning between suicidal contempt for existence (read: samsara) and... well, I can't explain to you what the other margin is because I've got to exit the equation to get there. But when I come back from research trips into emptiness (clarity, selflessness, wisdom, social harmony, whatever), I'm certain (well, damn near) that it's the right thing. Not a right thing. The right thing; not Buddhism, not even religion, at least not in the "necessary and sufficient" sense. Methodologies, no matter how profound or sacred, are ultimately just instructional pamphlets and travel brochures. And with that analogy in mind, I confess that I'm becoming exhausted by the commute. I don't want to merely visit anymore, but packing my things and selling the real-estate is a one-off deal. It's like marriage: because it takes a life time you can only do it once. You can call it marriage all you want but if it ends then it was never the real thing to begin with. It's just logic—how can you know the identity of something that, by definition, takes the rest of your life if you don't spend the rest of your life doing it? If you want to know if I'm having a successful marriage, ask me twenty minutes before I die.
And so, I'm asking myself: am I picking the right concept of what a life is supposed to be like? But, damnit, I surely can't wait until life is over to decide and it surely is elapsing now. When asked, here is my best argument for the value of faith: without it, you can't really do anything sincerely, because you can't really believe it's going to yield results. I have faith that my can-opener will release the delicious fishy bits inside, and so I really do use it and I really do get the (delicious) tuna. I have faith that the next Silverchair album will blow my mind and so I really will buy it and, I can tell you in advance, it really will render me insensate from musical bliss.
But at long last I have to confess: while I don't seem to feel this way, from the discrepancy between my words and my actions only one conclusion obtains: I merely suspect that we can be free of contempt, avarice, jealousy and fear.
What worries me is that I have seldom seen a person act wisely only upon a suspicion.
February 18th marks the day that my Indian visa expires. The new rules state that anyone who leaves India on a tourist visa must remain outside of the country for two months. So, I have decided to go to Thailand, alone and into retreat, to evict the suits if I can.
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