I’d like to talk a little about one of my favourite writers, Thomas Ligotti. I’m not really sure where I’m going with this, but recently I noticed some similarities between my own conception of, or fascination with, Daoism, and the work of Ligotti. I don’t even know when I began to notice this, exactly, only that it’s been on my mind for some time.
Well, let me start with The Unholy City. The Unholy City is a CD that comes free with the filmscript Crampton, by Thomas Ligotti and Brandon Trenz. It consists of six tracks, all of which are written and performed exclusively by Ligotti. I say ‘tracks’ because they are not exactly songs. They are soundscapes over which Ligotti recites six prose-poems that centre on the concept of a place, or state of existence, known as The Unholy City. The tracks are, in order, The Player Who Takes No Chances, You Do Not Own Your Head, No one Knows The Big News, The Unholy City, The Name is Nothing and Nobody is Anybody. The first track, describing the human race as pawns in a sinister game that it will never understand, returns frequently to the refrain, "There is a greater blackness", and perhaps it is really here where the similarity I have spoken of begins.
What is it that first makes Daoism seem attractive to me? What is it that makes it seem different to other religious or mystical systems? Let us look at the opening verse of the Tao Te Ching (Dao De Jing):
The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.
The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.
Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.
Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.
(Above translation copyright to Stephen Mitchell)
"Darkness within darkness." Christianity speaks of the light of God, the light that blinded Paul on the road to Damascus. Buddhism, too, seems to lean towards the abstract, one might say, 'asexual', otherness of the 'light' within enlightenment. But in the first verse of the first Daoist text we are confronted immediately with darkness, which is "the gateway to all understanding". Immediately, instead of the ungraspable of light, I see the black mud that clings to roots of trees, and rivers flowing blindly underground. These things are earthy, they are watery – you might say that they are opposite to the air and fire that is inspiration and enlightenment. They also suggest movement and mutability. The light, on the other hand, stands for something that does not have shape or movement, but exists abstractly outside of time. "The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao." It is mutable, changing, like clay under one’s fingers as one tries to grasp it. But there is also a suggestion here of the beyond, since the Tao is beyond the tao, the Name is beyond the name, and this tallies with Ligotti's 'greater blackness'. There is always one shade of blackness beyond, and beyond, and beyond.
I have mentioned the mutability of the Tao. Mutability, that is, the lack of any substantial and consistent reality, is another aspect of the nightmare atmosphere conjured up in Ligotti's work. For instance, the story 'The Cocoons' features one Dr. Dublanc and a patient of his, the latter obsessed with the notion that things are changing form around him. The story opens with the doctor waking the patient in the small hours to go on some therapeutic excursion:
Side by side, the doctor and I proceeded over uneven pavement and through blotched vapors emerging from the fumaroles of several sewer covers. But I could see the moon shining between the close rooftops, and I thought that it subtly shifted phases before my eyes, bloating a bit into fullness. The doctor caught me staring.
"It’s not going haywire up there, if that’s what is bothering you."
In another story, 'The Mystics of Muelenberg', he describes a town that undergoes nightmare transformations:
At last the faces of Muelenberg became subject to changing expressions which at first were quite subtle, though later these divergences were so exaggerated that it was no longer possible to recapture original forms. It follows that the townspeople could no more recognize themselves than they could one another. All were carried off in the great torrent of their dreams, all spinning in that grayish whirlpool of indefinite twilight, all churning and in the end merging into utter blackness.
In my mind, however, the work of Ligotti diverges from Daoism in that Daoism suggests a kind of cosmic cycle, and a cycle, in turn, suggests something like order. When I question myself as to why Daoism suggests a cycle, I am hard put to find a particular quote to back this up. I think the impression rests upon the pairing of opposites that one find in the Tao Te Ching, for instance, difficult and easy, long and short, high and low. These are given as examples of opposites supporting each other’s existence. One might easily add, for instance, night and day, summer and winter. And when one adds to these the famous symbol of Daoism, the Yin/Yang design, the cycle concept seems to become even more definite. After all, Yin/Yang is a circle.
Daoism has a lot to do with accepting things for what they are:
When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
This is a philosophy that I find increasingly necessary, because, if the universe is indeed cyclical in nature, then the Yin/Yang wheel is now turning into shadow. We are on the downward curve. Do you doubt this? The tree of the world is facing autumn. Leaves are falling, and soon it shall be winter. The tree shall be utterly barren.
Watch the leaves fall. There they go:
A murderous beast man is elected to the White House.
And look, there’s another one:
And another one:
Three million dead in Congo war.
One by one they fall. Thousands of them. Millions of them.
We are the unlucky ones. We have been born on the edge of cosmic winter. Perhaps there is nothing for us to do but, in the spirit of the Tao, find the beauty in barren plains of ice. The beauty in extinction and darkness. Anyway, it seems we must accept it. In this spirit I see myself as a dead leaf already detached from the tree, floating through the air to oblivion. I yield to this great extinction. The human parasite has been too successful and is killing its host. Now extinction is good – human extinction. So I will not strive, or, if I cannot help but to strive in some way, at least I shall not reproduce and add to this heartbreaking, barren struggle.
I think now of a scene from The Setting Sun by Dazai Osamu. The female narrator has an affair with a hard-drinking artist. They are walking at night and she points to a leafless tree. "It’s beautiful," she says. "The contrast between the buds and the branch, you mean?" But she doesn’t. She means the branches themselves. "Even like that, with no leaves, they are still alive."
And so, perhaps, if there is a cycle, the Earth will eventually recover, having rid itself of the human parasite, and a beautiful spring will come again, which, by definition we will not be able to see, since everywhere we go we destroy the spring.
But perhaps, after all, the universe is not cyclical. Maybe the Tao and the mutability of the Dao extends beyond even the order of cycles. After all, doesn’t global warming herald the end of the seasons? As Ligotti says in The Name is Nothing, when deconstructing the name he has constructed, 'The Unholy City':
As for the quality or characteristic of unholiness, this is also misleading, a nominal façade designed to make things interesting for a world born out of blackness where nothing holy or unholy has ever existed, where nothing exists at all, except dreams and fevers and names for nothing, the creation, so to speak, of that original blackness which pulls itself over every world like a hangman’s hood over a condemned man’s head.
Yes, the name that can be named is not the eternal Name. Perhaps everything, despite the dubious Dr. Dublanc’s diagnosis, has indeed gone haywire. Perhaps the moon has shifted its phase.
By rights the previous post should appear on the seventh comments screen – as it stands at time of posting. Anyone reading this for the first time as of the fourth of December, please take note, the Opera comments section has some strange quirks and these comments will not be in chronological order.
Hello.
You’re quite right, in Daoist terms, Ligotti’s work contains Yin but no Yang. I tried to express this in the idea that mutability in Daoism is probably cyclical (Ligotti’s work suggests no such cycle). But since the Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao, it seems likely that it is capable of slipping its own cycle.
I have a sense of Ligotti’s prose somehow describing a world that is melting before one’s eyes, which is why I posted the Dali painting. Mutability without the ‘refreshing’ aspect of cycle and circulation, would seem to me a kind of strange stagnation or mutation, and that is what Ligotti’s prose and Dali’s paintings both describe for me.
Dear Emily, Following on from yesterday’s posting I want to give you some further thoughts apropos your reply. I may have to ‘hasten’this along somewhat, because tomorrow I’m flying to southern Europe and shall be there for two weeks. However, there are internet-cafes to hand and so I hope to continue posting to you and Q. and ‘the world’ from there, ad hoc, although it may not be with the same frequency.
From an early age I was raised as a Christian. I went to church regularly, but this was a benign ‘enforcement’ on the part of my mother. It was what you might recognise as an Episcopalian church. It’s known here as the Church of England. Many see it as the Established church. it would be more correct to describe it, in my opinion as The Establishment’s Church. I also attended Sunday School and this was exactly what it meant. A school on a Sunday. So by the time I was able to rebel and stay away, from Sunday School, I must have been 13 or 14years old. At that age I had learned my Scripture and knew enough about Christianity to realise it was not a ‘fun subject’, being imbued with an apparently angry and vengeful God who seemed intent on imposing his will and reminding us that we were all born sinners. I didn’t buy into that. I may have been young but I was rebellious in my nature. I like to think now that I was (and still am) a free thinker.Later on, I read more and more History and other science /knowledge based subjects. It soon became clear to me that organised Religion was dominated by people who simply wanted to impose their own will, claiming they were following the Scriptures and, therefore,God’s Will.
These were just a bunch of ‘fanatics’ or ‘narrow minded’ folk who were obsessed with their Belief. Or so it seemed to me. I later came to realise that there will always be exceptions to any apparent ‘rule’ and that there are many, many, thoughtful, loving, caring, moral, honest, open and sincere people who hold firm Religious beliefs and, from which ,draw deep comfort and spiritual guidance and sustenance. That there exist also charlatans, fanatics and abusers – within some of these faiths – is a fact of human nature – a corruption if you will – or a misunderstanding of the essence of God. I try not to see the latter group as being part and parcel of the former grouping but have to admit that it’s a struggle at times when most seem to shelter under one umbrella.
I cannot now readily accept organised religion’s assertions. I have read philosophy, including the Buddhist way and other eastern paths. What those ‘ways’ indicate, to me, is that we can face or even triumph over adversity if we know ourselves more fully, and ”reach down’ into our ‘inner self’ for the strength we need for the task. Maybe I’m over simplifying my explanation ,or cannot explain this any better, but I don’t regard it as a ‘religion’. I can and do regard it as a ‘divine thing’ without actually knowing whether it is, or is not, or what the ‘driving force’ really is.
Hard evidence of the existence of God is elusive. Almost the same as the evidence for what ‘Truth’ itself is. I look at facts or declarations which present reasonable explanations. But I do not think ‘fact’ is always compatible, or the same as ‘truth’ itself. In my estimation a fact may only appear to be ‘true’. A truth seems to me to be an absolute, though sometimes it is more difficult to define. Ok. I know this looks like more ‘cloudy’stuff. But it is just as ‘cloudy ‘ to me – and I’m the one attempting to clarify what it all means from my perception and with my mindset. If I were actually with you, having this discussion, you would be able to see my ‘body’ language, my ‘facial expressions’ and my ‘gestures’. It would, perhaps, clear away some of the ‘clouds’ surrounding me.
I like your description of a “Divine Creative Force”. It chimes in with my idea of ‘God’, a ‘something’ beyond my present understanding. It is so. I don’t see this as being in conflict with my logical or rational side, or any of my education/ learning about evolutionary processes and/or ‘supernatural’ happenings.
I am not ready to accept that the only thing consequently responsible for bringing all matter into existence was the “Big Bang”, although it is the essential idea of the “Big Bang Model” of course(I am willing to accept the Big Bang Model as a serious piece of scientific reasoning because it rests firmly on two theoretical pillars, 1. “General Relativity” & 2.”The Cosmological Principle” which are supported by some very eminent scientists). I don’t see any need to discount or disregard the idea or proposition that a “Divine Creative Force” was responsible for all of this.
I am presently reading “Unweaving The Rainbow – Science, Delusion & The Appetite For Wonder” by Richard Dawkins. I have also started to read “A Short History of Nearly Everything” by Bill Bryson. I have just completed reading “The Matrix
Unlocked” by Paul Condon.
So to me things are not always ‘clear cut’ and I’ve tended to take a ‘logical’ view when it comes to looking at God and our existence. Perhaps that’s a problem in itself. It raises more questions than answers.
Emily, I am grateful for your response. It increases my own understanding . It shows me that there are others who know more than I do but who are willing to share their ideas and their questions with me. You are such a person. I am very happy to debate with you my strengths and weaknesses in these matters and to gain insight from your perceptions. If there is one thing I truly know it is this. The Earth is a living thing. It is hurt by what we do to it. It struggles to mend the wounds we cause and if we do not cease what we are doing it will not be able to overcome the destruction we reap and it will perish. I pray that there is a “Divine Creative Force” that will intervene before it is too late. Perhaps it is already too late. My aspiration of Hope is pointless if we have gone beyond Hope.
Emily, Please accept my deepest thanks and my respect. In my view you are a very extraordinary person. Unlike me you are not ‘cloudy’. You shine.
~~~lokutus~~
By the way, it’s strange that you talk about Ligotti now, cause there is a discussion about your works currently at Ligotti’s board The Nightmare Network (www.ligotti.net). Granted, it is only on very material matters, but the seed is planted and we may end up discussing the link between your stories and Ligotti’s…
Dear lokutus,
My sincerest apologies. I never intended to imply (and am not of the opinion that I did) that you are incapable of valuable contributions to our debate, or that you are a “pompous prick” or that the conclusions you have arrived at through your life experiences are without value simply because the exclude (or do not embrace) the possibility) of God. I think you have made some inferrences which you should examine. However, if I insulted you by calling you an amorphous cloud that touches everything and grasps at nothing, then please forgive me. That statement was intended to describe my perception of you. I am not mocking your open-ness. I think it is a rare and fortunate trait. I am, in fact, not mocking you at all. I only intended to draw attention to the difference in the way that we perceive the world. I fully admit, as I did in the previous post, that my belief in the Divine may be a concession to insanity, or to something lower in the human mind. I do not hate logic and ration. As I said before, I do not live in a world where the supernatural and the divine need to deny one another. When I said that you were vague, please re-read the post to see that I realize that what I asked might have been unfair, that I recognize that in articulating my own beliefs I might have sounded just as “vague”. I was not atempting to discredit you, but to include you in the web of human wonderment, in the myriad ways we look at the world and try to make sense out of it. We really don’t know anything, after all.
Also, I think we need to have a look at my idea of God, which is not, as you might expect, a big, beneficial dude in the sky who made people and the Earth, and who you can pray to about the superbowl, or who feels honored when you thank Him at the Academy Awards. I don’t even know if “God” (for lack of a more unconventional term) is a sentient thing. It is perhaps a Divine Creative Force. It is within us all. It is outside of time. I don’t really know. But I have experienced the Supernatural and cannot deny that it Is. Unless, like I said before, I wanted to go against my nature, and determine that I was crazy, or overly imaginative. In the end, it doesn’t matter to me what other people believe, my my soul is mine alone, and we are all alone on our journey. You are a Seeker, too, Lokutus. Truth comes in different ways. When I said you had never heard the voice of god, I was not suggesting you had never prayed. I don’t think there is a human alive that has nver prayed out of desperation or curiousity. Perhaps “God” has even spoken back to you. I have the strange fortune of actually hearing weird voices, so for me, there is little doubt. Make of it what you will- clairaudiant or insane. I am uncomfortable with the idea of insanity, and the effect of belief in the other possibility has proved interesting and positive.
Of course I made assumptions about you. Scientific minds require such activity. But I don’t think those assumptions are as clear as you think they are, because even now, you seem cloudy to me. All I know of you is that you are an intelligent, rational person, that you are disinclined toward the supernatural. That you have a philanthropic bent, that you cherish Hope and Reason. I respect these things, and have no intention of mocking you for your beliefs. Such a thing would not be to my credit.
Please forgive any unintentional insult.
E
Hello. I’ve just had a look at the discussion. I’m afraid that The Nightmare Exhibition is out of print, and I don’t have any spare copies of it myself. It’s also true that there should be another collection out soon. These things are subject to delay, but I imagine it will be in January or February.
Well, it would be nice to see a discussion of the kind you mention. I do have a very strong empathy for the feelings expressed in Ligotti’s works, but though, as many people have observed, I’m not the most cheerful of people, I think I’m probably something of a Pollyanna in comparison. For one thing, Ligotti says somewhere in the interview I posted a link to, that he’s one of the very few writers who really is a horror writer and nothing else. However, when I describe myself as a horror writer, it’s usually for the sake of convenience. I just don’t really see myself in those terms. I’m basically a romantic fantasist who has somewhere become entangled with nightmares and shadows. I have previously described myself as a reincarnated Iranon having to live with the unconscious memory of having failed to find the city of Iranon and committing suicide in his previous life. I imagine that you won’t need me to explain the reference. I suppose that’s a very high-fallutin claim to make about oneself, but that’s Iranon for you.
Now, with a little bit of luck I should have cast a spell that will banish the bold type.
This is great, I haven’t had to post anything here in days, and the comments are still coming in. Which is good, because my shoulder is still poorly.
Also, I think I’ve lost the plot, and I’m not sure I can contribute anything of worth.
http://www.geocities.com/jon_b_howell/Voodoo/Voodoo.html">This</a> should be the Voodoo link.
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Hello Q (hello also, E.),
Apropos the selected quote I have placed in the above title;
Perhaps, as some sort of addendum, you might consider ‘cutting & pasting’ in to here, somewhere, the extent of our other, longer conversations, in which we /you explored your ‘psyche’ – for want of a better word. It would be, technically, ‘off-topic’ in relation to the whole of this, your latest, journal but for those who were not privy to our last ‘ongoing correspondence’ it would (I suggest) provide something of a back-drop to the fundamental view you have in regard to your own purpose /existence and its raison d’etre (on the other hand it might not be so enthralling as your latest compilation, in which event my suggestion would prove to be pointless).
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Earth was Not Enough
——————–
“The two figures had adjusted their motive power and now hovered some 50 meters above the landscape. Their sensors brought them a view of absolute devastation. Far above them the mothership maintained contact in bursts of energy sent directly to the psy-nodes, located at the base of their tales. ‘What manner of creatures once lived here?’ murmured the taller of the two. ‘Creatures beyond our understanding’ replied the companion ‘For what specie would do this? It is incomprehensible’.
‘And are they all gone?’ queried the first speaker to the sentient mothership. ‘None of the planet’s previous inhabitants exist, anywhere’ replied the mothership. ‘And all sentient life is absent.’ The two figures hovered in silence, contemplating the vast desert below and the gathering darkness.
The smaller being emoted a sound akin to a human sigh. ‘We should never have left’ it said ‘Leaving behind certain concepts of knowledge seemed logical at the time’ Its companion gestured with its left claw ‘We are blameless. We did what we have done on a million other worlds. We left certain tools for them to use’ His companion shivered a little ‘It would seem they did not find them in this case’
A short burst of energy from the mothership caused both of them to glance down. Enlarging their vis-orbs they saw the object of the message growing between some large jagged structures. ‘Is it sentient?’ The tall one speculated. ‘It is life’ responded its companion. ‘A second chance perhaps? It will be interesting to see what is made of it.’ The mothership understood the nuance and logged a directive into its Id-base.
In a blur of motive power the two beings returned to their mothership and continued their onward voyage.”
(c)lokutus-prime 11/24/2004
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Consider the impasse of a no-God universe.
Explorers finally arrive at the Nexus. Looks like a nice place. Rolling hills, amorphous mists overlaying them, creating a vague impression of substance. Here there is everything and yet nothing. It’s a long walk up the mountain. Several discarded slates, with squiggles on them, crunch underfoot. Looming out of the fog straight ahead appears some sort of rundown mansion. Must have been impressive a long time ago. The explorers approach cautiously, indecisively, unsure of themselves. There’s a big old iron gate. Its chained and the chains are padlocked. Seems like there’s some sort of pole, with a cloth on it, hanging at an angle over the gate. Explorers edge towards it. This is not the time to be bold. Not the time to do anything to rock the boat. They ummm and errr for a moment. What the hell. They get a little closer. God dam’, the cloth’s got a big message writ on it “Gone Away – Room To Let”. This doesn’t make a lot of sense. The Explorers sit around a while, directionless. All those WMDs back on the home planet. All that environmental destruction. All that shit piled up everywhere. All those efforts to wreck the place for good. What the hell was going on?
The Explorers get out their hyperglobalmegatransmission unit and send a frantic message back to their base.
“The old guy’s gone. We gonna have to take the rap. That wasn’t part of the deal – over”
Hello again Q.
It occurs to me that I should have prefaced my ‘short story’ with a note to you saying it was intended to be a corollary to your ‘theme’ and an allegorical reference to both Despair and Hope. Instead, it looks, to me now, that I have ‘plonked’ it down as an unreferenced item, following on from my previous cooment.
That’s 2 strikes against me. Three strikes and I am, as they say, out.
Dear Emily, Following on from yesterday’s posting I want to give
you some further thoughts apropos your reply. I may have to
‘hasten’ this along somewhat, because tomorrow I’m flying
to southern Europe and shall be there for two weeks. However,
there are internet-cafes to hand and so I hope to continue posting to you and Q. and ‘the world’ from there, ad hoc, although it may not be with the same frequency.
From an early age I was raised as a Christian. I went to church
regularly, but this was a benign ‘enforcement’ on the part of my
mother. It was what you might recognise as an Episcopalian
church. It’s known here as the Church of England. Many
see it as the Establishedi/) church it would be more correct to describe it, in my opinion as The Establishment’s
Church. I also attended Sunday School and this was
exactly what it meant. A school on a Sunday. So by the
time I was able to rebel and stay away, from Sunday
School, I must have been 13 or 14years old. At that age I had learned my Scripture and knew enough about
Christianity to realise it was not a ‘fun subject’, being imbued with an apparently angry and vengeful God who seemed intent on imposing his will and reminding us that we were all born sinners. I didn’t buy into that. I may have been young but I was rebellious in my nature. I like to think now that I was (and still am) a free thinker. Later on, I read more and more History and other science /knowledge based subjects. It soon became clear to me that organised Religion was dominated by people who wanted to impose their own will, claiming they were following the Scriptures and, therefore, “God’s Will”.
These were just a bunch of ‘fanatics’ or ‘narrow minded’ folk who were obsessed with their Belief. Or so it seemed to me. I later came to realise that there will always be exceptions to any apparent ‘rule’ and that there are many, many, thoughtful, loving, caring, moral, honest, open and sincere people who hold firm Religious beliefs and, from which ,draw deep comfort and spiritual guidance and sustenance. That there exist also charaltans, fanatics and abusers – within some of these ‘faiths’ – is a fact of human nature – a corruption if you will – or a misunderstanding of the essence of Max nested elements reachedMax nested elements reachedMax nested elements reachedMax nested elements reachedMax nested elements reachedMax nested elements reachedMax nested elements reachedMax nested elements reached
Hello Dr Prime. On the theme of despair and hope, well, I’m not entirely despairing, even though this planet does seem stuck in a destructive rut. But I find it harder to articulate hope. Hope is what is left unsaid. At least, it is for me.
I put this post here just to try and end the italics madness that was plaguing Q’s page. My real post is at the end.
Hello quentincrisp,
This planet will evolve – whether humankind will ‘stay the course’ is a moot point. I will leave unsaid my aspiration.
Nice to see you’re at least still reading the posts, even if you’re incapaciated. Thanks for fixing the Vodou link. Ogu and the other loa thank you. Apparently I’m too much of an idiot to do it right.
I’m worried about your shoulder, Q!
Peace.
Hello, boys.
So, I think I’ve figured you out, lokutus. And we might have more similar ideas about the world and its beginnings than you might think. As for the Earth evolving, what does that mean? Does it evolve, or is it just host to great cycles? I’m not trying to “spank” you this time. I really want to know what you think. Your posts are always so vague, your understanding so hinted-at. Either I am very right about you, or I am very wrong. But there’s more to what I believe in than just gods and vodou and ghosts and synchronicity. And I can hardly bear to exist.
Quentin,
Thanks for sharing these thoughts about Ligotti (which is also probably my favourite living author).
I’m not at all familiar with the Tao and Daoism, but from what you write there is definetely a link between parts of this philosophy and the undercurrent tones of Ligotti fiction. Except that there is nothing in Ligotti’s worlds to balance the darkness.
If I may quote from “I Have a Special Plan For This World” :
“It was the voice of someone who was waiting in the shadows, who was looking at the moon and waiting for me to turn the corner, and then turn a narrow street and stand with him in the dull glaze of moonlight. Then he said to me, he whispered, that my plan was misconceived that my special plan for this world was a terrible mistake because he said :
“there is nothing to do, and there is nowhere to go. There is nothing to be, and there is no-one to know”
“your plan is a mistake” he repeated.
“This world is a mistake” I replied.”
And there is something worse than going from autumn to winter, it’s when autumn lingers on sickeningly as in another of his great stories “The Shadow at the Bottom of the World”…
Hello Emily (Greetings, Q.),
We do have similar ideas about the world and its beginnings and if you whizz over to your journal you will see I have penned something there (no one ever whizzes to my journals. Sometimes I am glad I never wear a neck tie, for it would be constantly wetted by copious tears of self-pity).
But to be serious.
My statement “…This planet will evolve…” is now under your scrutiny and I have to say what I intended it to mean. A mere ‘throwaway’ explanation, to the effect that I was speaking in a general, science-oriented, manner would not be acceptable. I’m in a corner now and know that if I fail to give an answer then I could get a good ‘spanking’. I was trying to imply that in a biological sense the planet would develop (a characteristic) by evolutionary processes and that it would undergo gradual change – through evolutionary processes.
Since none of us can know the future I was basing my sentence on some scientific ‘evidence’ (history of same), supposition, and my logical determination to say something to Q, based on a probability of future occurence. But perhaps I was also being simply a smart ass. In any case, any speculation on my part will always fall prey to that mindnumbingly boring phrase & caveat I learnt in college many years ago which states “..all other things being equal..”.
But, dearest E., you, I suspect, are referring to something more esoteric in your question. Something which, perhaps, is based on occurrences that give credence to the apparent ‘fact’ that certain events seem to happen in “great cycles”. From a purely philosophical viewpoint I would argue that it is reasonable to suppose that a large number of people (including myself) want to believe that there is more to our existence than,as you say, “..just gods and vodou and ghosts and synchronicity.”
I would also debate that our ‘senses’ which tell us that those other, earthly, things exist, are not misleading us, but reporting an effect. The effect may be due to our own individual and or collective actions – self induced through an enhanced experience /state-of-mind /collective hysteria /religous invocation &c. On the other hand all of these things may be as real as blueberry pie & custard. Even as a rational thinker (a self-delusion, perhaps) I am cogniscent with the fact that many explanations are possible.
The problem I have is that I do not know the absolute truth. I only perceive what I think are fractions, glimmers, through the shutters of my own mind. When I was much younger – and particularly when I was living, for a period of my young life, on my own in a rather lonely and not very ‘up-market’ part of the metropolis, all the thoughts of ”existence’ and ‘the meaning of life’ would sometimes tumble through my mind, weigh on my reasoning in the small hours and the not so small hours. Some of these propositions have been resolved as I have aged.
But none of this answers your question, Emily, does it?
I have heard it said that some scientists hold the view that the Earth seems to be designed to fit the universe as an anthropomorphic structure (addition) and it/we is/are unique. I do not know. My logic tells me otherwise and I want to believe that we are not unique – that we are not alone. I am not talking about ‘life after death’. I am referring to the desire (on my part) to share the universe. To not be ‘alone’. To not be the only planet with life, sentient or otherwise.
Emily, I have tried not to ‘wriggle’ out of giving you a direct answer. There is no single answer. The questions and answers I have asked, and discovered, throughout my life are, seemingly, never-ending. But unless one becomes a monk (bhuddist or otherwise), or throws one’s self into profound introspection (and perhaps self-destruction) then one has to continue the quest for knowledge some other way. It distresses me to read your phrase “And I can hardly bear to exist.” But you will achieve more – I sincerely hope and wish – if you continue to exist. People like you are needed.
Now, have I avoided that ‘spanking’?
Peace,
lokutus.
______________________________________________________________________________
In an impossibly tall structure, in the heart of the Greatest City On Earth, the Tech-Scientist pondered. He had worked on the problem for many years.
Over time he had carried out experiment, after experiment, using the cutting edge of technology. He remembered when he was starting out. Most of what he had now achieved wasn’t possible then. Computers were in their infancy. The science in his field had not yet developed to the present level. But he had persevered. And with the advent of powerful computers he had solved the riddle.
If there was one single thing he could be certain of it he was certain of it now. God was the ‘The Second Law of Thermodynamics’, personified. He was Chaos. He was Entropy. But of course ‘He’ was not a person. That label had been invented over millennia to keep the masses under control. It had worked so well that religions had been formalised and built up in its wake. The Tech-Scientist tapped his fingers on a plasma screen. Someone would question him about the total theory of the “Second Law” of course. It did not matter. The Microscopic Basis of Thermodynamics would take care of that question.
He would deflect most questions by adopting a lofty pose and reminding his audience ‘We are all molecules.” Should he add “..and that includes God too…”? Perhaps not.
There might be so theologians just waiting to pounce. Play it safe. Keep to the point.
Things expanded. Things contracted. Things reached equilibrium. There was Chaos. There was Equilibrium. Ergo, no actual God involved. Why some unenlightened individuals prattled on with mindless questions he knew not. In his world logic and reason lived happily together and his was a rational, ordered environment. But what if his calculations were wrong? What if his new formula was disputable?
Not possible. He dismissed the thought. He had gone over it hundreds of times. It was not merely a question of simple arithmetic where 1+1=2. Any fool of a mathematician could do that. Mathematics and arithmetic wanted absolute proof, indisputable evidence, each time, every time. Still, there were some people, even some of his colleagues, who would either try to steal his limelight of, worse still, come up with their own theories.
Better to sit tight on this one. Keep it out of any ignorant debating forum.
The Tech-Scientist leaned back in his comfortable chair. A feeling of extreme inner satisfaction flooded his mind. What a sense of wonder he felt.
God, it was good to be alive.
(c)lokutus-prime 11/29 2004
Hello E & Q,
Emily, I wish I had not used the sentence ” People like you are needed.”. Not because the actual statement isn’t true of itself, but because, now that I see it again, on screen, it looks patronising and ‘sounds’ trite. That wasn’t my intention, as I hope you will realise. My poor expression will not do. Let me redeem myself (if I can); from where I sit I ‘see’ your character /personality through your writing. Your concerns are valid and nobly expressed. You are needed. I think so. I hope others do too.
Peace,
lokutus~~
Dear Emily,
Thank you for replying to my ‘tirade’. I try to provide answers to questions put to me. I can answer through any knowledge I already have as well as any experience I have. I can answer some things without hesitation if they fall into the net of my education and/or my study/skills. If I appear to be ‘hesistant’ or not very clear in my replies it is not because I am trying to cover myself in some sort of ‘cloudy’ response. It is because I am trying to ‘follow through’ at my own pace the line of discussion. When I was born it seems I came with into the world more than one characteristic in my ‘nature’. I have a strong artistic, creative & emotional side. This has to do business with my less stronger logical, rational side . When I was so much younger it was sometimes an intellectual ‘struggle’ to arrive at conclusions which required a more deeper and more thoughtful approach. I was all for jumping in the air and shouting “I know the answer!” And I often did. Jump in the air I mean. I have never entirely ‘rid’ myself of the ‘struggle’ itself but I keep it in check now because I have – as we used to say when I was younger – ‘mellowed out man’ and of course that in itself is probably because angry young men could always get away with so much more couldn’t they? And of course I am a tad older now
So, let’s draw a line under my reaction but not under your gracious and graceful reply. I say quite loudly that all your inquiries are valid and valuable. If you and I have different ways of replying or displaying our feelings then that’s an enrichment to discourse and to our friendship; for it is that in my eyes. Who would have written in the way I did to someone who had not touched my intellectual feelings, as you so obviously do if it had not been because I thought you were nearer the truth than I was willing to admit. Now that I have managed to say a big “thank you” let me seriously consider your wider questions, ‘though this may have to wait until tomorrow, as it is late where I am. Meantime you may wish to smile, if you want, at the “self-mockery” (myself) which is hidden in those two little stories posted here.
..For the moment, Goodnight and Peace, My friend Emily.
lokutus~~
Hello all.
We seem to be talking about hope, despair and so on. I’m afraid that I’m in an especially black mood today, after reading yet more about the environmental havoc that the human race has wrought. To me, the biggest issue in our lives right now, bar none, has to be the fact that the human race is destroying the planet, but very few people seem to be taking any notice of this. To be honest, most of the time, it seems that there’s really no point in talking or thinking about anything else, since everything else is effectively rendered irrelevant by this fact. The human race is not only doomed to destruction, it is the cause of its own destruction. In other words, the end is not only imminent, it is well-deserved. There’s no moral reason to survive; quite the opposite. If we survive I don’t see how we can cling to the illusion that humanity somehow represents any sort of moral good. We’ll have to face the fact that we are an utterly pernicious vermin. This realisation in itself should finish us off, since a pretence of moral order is all that keeps human society from total chaos.
This is what I’ve been thinking to myself. I really have no idea whether this is helpful or not, or whether words such as ‘helpful’ even have any meaning.
I only know that I am disgusted, for instance, when I read of what is happening in the Galapagos Islands. I’ve been reading about it in a magazine, but so far can only find old material about it on the web. Fishermen hand in glove with a corrupt government fighting for their ‘right’ to fish the area around the Galapagos into total exhaustion.
I’m not sure why I’m posting this really. It sometimes seems that, since there’s nothing to be done either way (if we survive it’s bad, if we don’t, it’s not particularly a pleasant thought), I might as well pretend nothing’s wrong and get on with my meaningless life in the same manner as everyone else… If I can.
Sorry, this probably seems like a complete non-sequitur.
…I am not very adept at html as you can see….. sigh
Hi Q.
Hi Lokutus. First things first: Your explanation strikes me a still being vague, but I think it’s because you are vague, in every sense of the word. You are amorphous, like a fog creeping ever outward, touching everything and grasping nothing. And I wonder if I, who think religion should be as individual as a snowflake, could so easily articulate my own beliefs. I wonder if what I asked was unfair, anyway. If it distresses you to think of me barely being able to stand existing (it shouldn’t- I’ll explain why in a minute) then it distresses me to think of you living your whole life without ever hearing the voice of a god, of having any kind of supernatural religious experience. Of course, having experienced these things myself, I realize I could always re-evaluate the events, and determine that I was crazy, or that it didn’t hapen the way I remember it, or diagnose myself with an over-active imagination. But what would be the point? It is a question of choice: believe or don’t. To choose the School of Disbelief in favor of fitting in among those who cherish rational thought above all else would be to stomp on every ember of intuition that glows within me. It would be against my heart. Perhaps that means I am damning myself to craziness or irrational thought. I like to think that logic and the supernatural do not have to deny one another. I think that quantum physics in some ways adresses this issue, through the idea of an irrational universe, with many possibilities exisiting simultaneously. This is what I mean when I say that I can hardly stand to exist. I feel trapped inside my three-dimensional body, with its three-dimensional mind. I feel trapped inside of space and time. There has to be more than this, this desperate, grubby, fumbling, wasteful humanness. I can almost feel myself in other dimensions, blurring through time. My dreams are more vivid than my waking life. Time twists and bubbles behind me; some moments stretch for eons, and entire years blink away as though erased.
Q, certainly there is more than this! Your despair is like the slow tug of a black hole, because I know you’re right. But beauty and love are the reasons to continue existing. Or they are my reasons. But “beauty and love” – that sounds so silly, so optimistic, so trite. And yet I know no other way to say it. For in beauty and love (and I mean these terms in the broadest, most all-encompassing way) I think humanity has some kind of expression of divine intent. I know I’m starting to sound like a religious looney, and that really isn’t my point, or how I go around interacting with the world. I think that there is something divine, something special about humanity, that we (as a group) posess the capacity to appreciate and generate love and beauty. Even your tea-burner, Q, posesses a kind of divine beauty. Each vibration of your existence interacts with and affects the Universe(s).
Of course, like I’ve said before, my heart breaks like Q’s does, because despite my great love for humanity with all our potential and magic we posess and supress, we consistently fail to rise (as a whole) above the vices that destroy and enslave us. We waste ourselves time and time again. You believe in Darwin, Lokutus, and I do too, because the evidence suggests the case. Evidence also suggests that a future approaches that many will despair of, that cycle or not, humanity may be approaching its Great Decline. But in my sadness, my grief, there is also a heightened awareness of Beauty. It is like the most precious kind of gift that you mentioned in the tea-burner post, Q. Beauty is something that will be gone soon, either because we have used it all up, or because we will have lost the capacity to recognize it, like the taxi driver in Japan who thought the neon lights were beautiful. It is not a reckless and hedonistic “enjoy-what-you-can while-you-can” approach I’m advocating, but a pointed, painful awareness of each lovely moment, of how each moment dies, like blossoms dropping from a tree.
…and one day I would like you to teach me how to apply html characters properly….. I can only look at what the second ‘layout’ attempt came to and, like Homer Simpson, pound my desk and shout…”Doh!!” in frustration. But at least the posting doesn’t look as chaotic as my first attempt (now there’s a blessing). I should also like to post some images, as you and Q. do.
~~lokutus~~
“You are amorphous, like a fog creeping ever outward, touching everything and grasping nothing.”/i> This description of me is, to my mind, an unpleasant and degrading one.
If you ever wondered how you could ‘poke’ me into a reaction, more in keeping with a what you might regard as a normal human response then you have achieved your objective.
Who says I have never experienced ‘the voice of God’? I was not born as a ‘Darwinist’. I was not born as a rationalist. I am the sum of my life’s happenings. I had to endure many things before I reached any sort of a ‘plateau’. And if my convictions are not so obviously emphatic as yours – does that make me less of a thinker? Does this mean I have learned nothing in my long life? Does this mean that all my working experience – all my travel experience – at sea and on land has written nothing on my life’s slate? Does this mean I am merely a dabbler in discussion, rather than a contributor?
Does it mean I am incapable of arriving at a decision?
Does it mean I must plunge into an idea, a debate, an affray – (as I used to do so often when I was in my early 20s?).
Does it mean I have a natural propensity to “ummm…..& errr” and never arrive at any conclusions? yet bore the pants off my listeners at the same time?
Or do all the foregoing questions make me sound like a pompous prick? (you need not answer that one).
Who says I have never been in situations where I hoped God would have leant down and touched my face? Who says I have never spoken to God? Who says I have never indulged in anything similar to your own experiences? Who says I cannot arrive at a conclusion and jump up to shout “Eureka” when I know I have found it?
In my attempt to indulge in a rational dialogue with you and to be as courteous as I can, and to ensure that I explore all possibilities I come across to you as “vague” but you mistake caution for “vague”. You mistake my laughable attempt to try to see how many sides there are to an equation.
You ‘sum’ me up from your perceptions of my (I had hoped) wide ranging, cautious, reply. I expected a strong response from you. I did not expect you to ‘see’ me as some incipient vapour.
If I come across to you as ‘vague’ then that’s more my fault than yours.Perhaps I’m hiding my guttering lamp behind a vague curtain? Perhaps I am ‘flirting’ with knowledge, rather than making a real contribution to any debate?
Looking at what I have just written, I am acting like a child whose had his face slapped and told not to be so vague – sorry, amorphous. But it is morning here, with a grey sky lowering, and perhaps I’m just dam’ tired of trying to be ‘rational and logical’ most times. Perhaps I need to be born again and to hold that hard, cold, anger in my hands once more. I do not think you bear me any ill will. But there is a very fine line in describing anyone’s character and although I am a stranger to you I formed the view that my character had come across in some other form. Ah well, that’s the internet I suppose
Now you see me for what I am. Apologies if I have said anything in a moment of hiatus, but I could not suppress my feelings and still be true to myself. But there remains the nagging thought at the back of my mind (and this may well be the reason for my angry response) and it is this …”But what if you are right in your description of me – does that end my ability to have a meaningful discussion with you or anyone else??” …
Only a stranger could fire with such accuracy.
Peace to you.
lokutus.
~~lokutus~~
With your fury in our veins
we bled the stones. You filled our minds with the fire of necessity, scorched our souls with that fire, allowed us to kiss the Earth with that fire and from this union distill raw, tangible, Strength.
You spun fibers of metal from beneath our feet, so that we could make tools and swords. Now we build ocean liners, and skyscrapers and airplanes – where are your altars? Our blood runs wrong within us, and knows the elemental truth – so rich with iron, much of what is in our veins belongs to You.
For more information about Ogu and other Loa, click http://www.geocities.com/jon_b_howell/Voodoo/Voodoo.html"here>.
Just thought I’d throw this into the mix:
Consider the impasse of a One God Universe. He is all knowing and all powerful.
He can’t go anywhere since he is already everywhere. He can’t do anything since the act of doing presupposes opposition. His universe is irrevocably thermodynamic,
having no friction by definition. So he has to create friction – war, fear, sickness, death –
to keep his dying show on the road. Sooner or later:
“Look, boss, we don’t have enough energy left to fry an elderly woman in a fleabag hotel fire.”
Well, we’ll have to start faking it.
Joe looks after him sourly and mixes a bicarbonated soda.
“Sure, start faking it and leave the details to Joe.”
Now look, from a real disaster you get a pig of energy. Sacrifice, heroism, grief, seperation, fear, and violent death, and remember one violent death yields more energy than a cancer ward.
So, from an energy surplus you can underwrite the next one. But if the first one is a fake, you can’t underwrite a shithouse. Try to explain to God Almighty where his One God Universe is going. Asshole doesn’t know what buttons to push or what happens when you push them.
Abandon ship goddamnit, every man for himself.
Recollect Pope John 23 saying, “Like a little soldier I stand to attention in the presence of my captain.”
It’s the old army game from here to eternity. Get there firstest with the brownest nose.
I hate it when that happens. I posted a comment under the title ‘still ill’ and it appeared right on the first page of the comments, where it makes no sense whatsoever.
I am in complete agreement with your feeling of despair. My generation failed the planet. Your generation is paying the price. I am sorry. I talk about Hope as an aspiration. I really must stop deluding myself.
Tongiht I am drunk and unhappy. What better time to embarrass myself by being self-indugent and posting lyrics whose relevance no one else will understand?
I am hated for loving
I am hated for loving
Anonymous call, a poison pen
A brick in the small of the back again
I still don’t belong
To anyone – I am mine
And I am hated for loving
I am haunted for wanting
Anonymous call, a poison pen
A brick in the … ah …
A brick in the small of the back again
I still don’t belong
To anyone – I am mine
I am falling
With no-one to catch me
I am falling
And there’s still
No-one to catch me
Ah ..
Anonymous call, a poison pen
A brick in the … ah …
A brick in the small of the back again
I just don’t belong
To anywhere
I just don’t belong
Mmm …
Ah …
(By Morrissey)
I really like the ‘Mmm…’ and ‘Ah…’ at the end.
I’m not sure what to say to this. This is precisely the point where I want to talk in a hopeful manner, but although I have a vague sense of hope as a possibility, it really remains that. By which I mean, I’m not sure even how to ‘try’ to be hopeful, since humanity trying, in other words, humanity’s attempts at ‘progress’ seem to be exactly what have brought us to this. Perhaps, in a sense, I am trying to acheive hope by giving up. This includes giving up in a number of senses. For instance, I recently ‘gave up’ eating meat. I don’t like to be all talk. My diet is already very restricted, so fish being my only source of protein at present, I’m not sure about giving up fish (although I don’t eat tuna or cod), but I think I’m going to have to thoroughly review my eating habits to see which fish I can eat without causing environmental damage.
Actually, even though it does seem to me that there’s really not much left to talk about except the impending collapse of civilisation, I’m not sure how helpful it is to talk about this, either, because, to tell the truth, I don’t relish the idea that I might have made you feel despairing (I don’t know if this is actually the case). That’s why I decided to change the subject with my latest post, about tea. However, as Emily pointed out, the enjoyment of something finite and passing, like tea, is an example of what is left to us in life, of beauty and so on, and this was, in fact, precisely my intention in writing that post. So, I suppose it’s still related to the same theme.
Having said all this, I truly, truly hope that I – and several thousand scientists – are wrong, and that whatever troubles lie ahead for us, they are not as bad as current evidence suggests. Who knows? In the end, the most hopeful thing we can say seems to be, who knows? In the meantime, I really hope that we can treat each other as well as possible.
?