Nicht Diese...

Some old fashioned writing this Sunday evening (or Monday morning). A reflection.

There was a time when I kept a journal. As a high schooler, I wrote and wrote and wrote for no one but myself, trying out poetic devices, exploring thoughts on religion and love and politics, rarely, but occasionally, chronicling the day's events. In retrospect there was nothing all that peculiar about this habit of mine; after all, I was a teenager, and aspired even then to be an intellectual because of, and often in spite of, the community of peers that my private high school afforded me.

I say in spite of because there's a certain stigma attached to intellect in our competitive culture. There's nothing quite so satisfying as the smart guy who loses all the same, faced with the hard-working idiot. Mastermind has dark connotations, so too genius, in a more twisted and historical way. At the time - and maybe still today - I was caught in the paradox of intellect. Our culture honors the intellectual, but punishes and chides all the same. We value intellect, but we despise the person who recognizes their own intelligence.

Perhaps, more than anything, we despise the egotism of the self-promoter not because he is selfish - after all, there's a certain synonymity between "selfish" and "conscious" - but because he often refuses to acknowledge that, ultimately, there are always greater minds. In some sense, our fetish for specialization is a rebellion against the great minds of the great generalists throughout history, who strove to know as much as they could about as many different subjects as they could. "How dare they encroach upon my specialty!"

That's not the point, but I'm not sure what the point is. Even though I have become a writer of prose - after one time being a writer mainly of (poor) verse - I still hold a certain lesson from poetry dear: you don't have to have a "point." That's not fair to poetry, because most poems have a point in one sense or another, but there's a kind of beautiful chaos in the endeavor of poetry that prose simply cannot replicate. Even the most pointed and purposeful poetry is clothed, nonetheless, in a poetic diction, a formalism of meter and rhyme, that prevents easy unfolding. A poem may be compelling, then, but hardly in the way that a persuasive essay is.

Not all essays persuade, however. Sometimes they border on poetry. Indeed, John Dryden was one of the founders of the essay, and his Religio Laici, like the majority of his work, is in verse. Though perhaps that's poetry bordering on essay?

It is odd that we draw such a distinction, truly. Poetry comes from the Greek word meaning "to create." What difference, then, between Montaigne and Dryden, Plutarch and Sappho?

Ah, specialization is our specialty. Today we divide not just writing from poetry, but different kinds of writing and poetry from each other. The essay is a form distinct from the story, which is in turn distinct from the academic essay, the memoir, the novel, the novella, the biography, the autobiography, the treatise, the manifesto, the confession. Do we allow more experts, or fewer by such divisions? By that I mean, by splitting our brilliant writers into such camps, do we not maybe lose our brilliant writers?

That's not fair, either. A great many writers straddle such narrow definitions. Indeed, the best writers are the very cause of new terms and genres. The novel sprung into existence as a way to categorize the work of Cervantes, the essay for Montaigne. The same in music, where the Opera became a term necessary to characterize Monteverdi. The same in poetry.

Since I was a high schooler, I have learned a great deal about how little I know. I expect that, now, at a still-young 24, I have a great deal more to learn about how little I know. What is insufferable about intellectuals, it turns out, is not how much they know, but how little. Socrates was killed for it.

A turn of phrase, a turn of phrase. I have collected, in my short life of reading, a great many connections and associations - many of which are historical, and most of which are European, with occasional Hawaiian or Buddhist allusions mixed in - which allow me to express myself without expressing myself. That is another of the intellectual's tricks, and perhaps the heart of the poet's art. T.S. Eliot's Wasteland would not have gotten far without tricky, intellectual allusions. Nor would Joyce's Finnegan's Wake (the longest inside joke in history, perhaps). "Oystery Gods gaggin' Fishy Gods."

For a long time, between high school and graduate school, I stopped writing. Oh, I wrote for classes at St. John's, and I would occasionally pick up a pen ruefully in the time in between then and Stanford. Poetry, never, but occasional essays, arguments for why surfing matters - a concept that only fellow surfers will understand - or a history of the beautiful Platonic romance that closed my Freshman year of college.

Perhaps that is the object of these wanderings. The last of my poetic fervor expended itself in the poems composed for two women. The first, an illusive goddess who rekindled in me the concept of love - albeit in my hoity-toity (spelling?) way - sending me into thralls unmatched by any but my first (and less Platonic) romance. The second, my one-month-from wife, who is so much more real and wise. No goddess - for how long do such relationships last? - but instead a life. There was one poem each way, with Jericha, and that was enough. Indeed, those first poems probably say more about our relationship - even now - than anything else we could write (just as toddlers already display so many of the personality traits they will have as adults).

I suppose, for me, there is too much poetry in living for me to write poetry. I have become polemical, instead, arguing fiercely for a position on education, music, politics, or culture. Usually arguing a position untaken, or untakeable, and explaining why it should not be so neglected. A natural contrarian, I have become, who can turn "because" into "in spite of" and back again. To what end? It profits me little that I oppose so vehemently a great many things which are simply "the way it is." Why oppose, for example, specialization? It leads to such a beautiful, functional world. Why oppose citation? It leads to such easy access to knowledge. If only it were so simple.

I oppose simplicity. Or rather, I suppose simplification, which likely means I oppose myself as a writer. The vast majority of my writing - and probably all writing - is an attempt to simplify, to make expressible the inexpressible nature of being. If writing is an argument, then the most direct, simple argument wins, and the writing that best takes the complex and makes it appear simple will always be favored. I am opposed to sophistry, you might say, even though I will acknowledge that I am as good a sophist as can be found. That's perhaps a bit too self-congratulatory, for there are a great many sophists in this world better than I.

When I allow myself to write honestly - or, at least, without regard for how complicated a narrative I weave - I find that I use the word "perhaps" with astounding frequency. Perhaps. It's a versatile word, but what it does more than anything is act as a crutch. There is no better word for avoiding conclusions than perhaps. Perhaps there is no better word for avoiding conclusions than perhaps. See the difference? One is certain, the other... Perhaps.

Judicious use of "perhaps," (and "seems," and "this suggests," and "I think," and "possibly") might be a mark of intellectual rigor, laziness, or both. Judicious use of perhaps might, also, be my least poetic trait as a writer. Good writers avoid pointless, empty words like "perhaps." It means nothing. Or it means everything.

Now I'm stealing from Demetri Martin* (I run the gamut; Socrates to Important Things), which perhaps indicates that our winding road is nearing its end. What is that end? Hard to say. What the journey? Equally hard.

* To wit: 'Sort of' is such a harmless thing to say. Sort of. It's just a filler. Sort of - it doesn't really mean anything. But after certain things, sort of means everything. Like after 'I love you' or 'You're going to live.'

Nicht Diese Tone, I titled this blog, and though I addressed it in my opening post (gulp, five months and about 60 posts ago), perhaps a return to that theme is in order. The title is German, meaning "not these tones." In retrospect, why a negative? Of all the phrases from Beethoven's Ninth, why this one? I suppose it's the contrarian in me, the intellectual who doubts the value of intellectuals; the liberal who despises the term "liberal;" the musician, astrologer, and student who wants to be everything and, sometimes, just wants to be nothing and play computer for six hours. How to describe these qualities ("and this, and so much more"), how to 'fix myself in a formulated phrase'?

There was a time when poetry was written, and though it is still written, what magic is left after the placing of such lines as "All truths wait in all things," and "It is impossible to say just what I mean." Ginsberg was reduced to a string of "Holy, Holy, Holy ..." Perhaps profound in its own right. Perhaps too self-indulgent.

But we live in self-indulgent times, which I also oppose, and also embody. Maybe paradox is the real lesson. Maybe it always has been. Or rather, maybe paradox and order, chaos and structure, sway ever across some abyss of human meaning. Death, there's the real question, the ultimate contrarian, and the hardest thing for a contrarian to oppose. And yet we have a society built around death (or built around a religion built around death, to paraphrase Nietzsche). Those poems that haunt me and inspire me sit on that precipice. Prufrock, a poem afraid of death, Song of Myself, a poem of celebrating life. Of all the paradoxes of being, that may be the most poignant, and, ironically, the most taboo in our modern age.

In truth, I have little to contribute to such looming questions as "what is the meaning of life?" Ultimately, I resist the question as unsophisticated, at least as it is commonly asked. No, ask it like Eliot, for then it is complicated enough to warrant my austere notice. Or something like that... The true story is, I first recognized the terrible power of the fear of death watching, of all things, Stargate SG-1. How's that for a paradox? What can I say, after all, that is profound?

Nicht Diese, indeed.

A Portrait of a Bookshelf

When you're young and moving from place to place, you have to make difficult decisions about what to do with your books. As a college student I lugged books back and forth from Colorado to Santa Fe, then had to decide which to ship to Honolulu when my family moved there. Now that I'm back in school - in California this time - I had to choose a small selection to send once more across the Pacific. I always sent more books flying around than I need to, of course. Who has time to read - much less read philosophy - when you're a full time student?

I think that some of the books I chose to ship from Hawaii this time I knew I would not read. I sent them more as reminders of concepts, as artifacts of my academic heritage as a Johnny. Other books I think I sincerely believed I might pick up on some odd afternoon. Still others I simply hoped I might finally find time and motivation to read.

So which books did I send? That's the subject of the post. I don't know that I'll hit everything, but there a few indicative selections worth mentioning.

Have Read and Enjoyed, but Unlikely to Read Again Division

Hegel - Phenomenology of the Spirit
Hume - A Treatise of Human Nature
Plato - Republic
Smith - The Wealth of Nations

Yeah, I know. In retrospect, the Hegel is a little bit over-the-top. A small part of my mind probably thought that I might pick up Hume and maybe (maybe) Smith at some point. I loved Hume, and there are parts I haven't read that I really do want to. And, really, The Wealth of Nations is a seminal and still highly pertinent book, but Hegel? If you're not familiar, Hegel is probably one of the most unclear writers in the history of Western philosophy. Just a random quotation to demonstrate:

"We found that a law existed when the relation was such that the universal organic property in an organic system had made itself into a Thing, and in this Thing had a structured copy of itself, so that both were the same being, present in the once case as a universal moment, and in the other, as a Thing."

Yep, I'll be picking that up for fun. I suppose I should chalk the decision to bring Hegel up to Nostalgia, or the craziness of last-minute book selections. I do suppose it would look impressive (and/or pretentious) to visitors, if I had any.

As for Plato, I feel I don't need to justify that one. Who doesn't have a copy of the Republic on their shelf these days?

Have Read and Still Sincerely Hope to Pick Up Again, but Probably Won't Division

Adams - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (the whole, 5-book trilogy)
Cervantes - Don Quixote
Heinlein - Stranger in a Strange Land
Pascal - Pensees
Plutarch - Lives

Because I still hope to read these - or at least leaf through them - I don't consider them bad decisions. But really, how likely is it that I'll pick up any of these books? Adams is great, and hilarious, and odds are at some point I'll pull down the series and read it again. But odds also are that time is after my graduation in August. Cervantes is, of course, much heavier reading than Adams, though just as fun. Heavier, however, means less likely. Heinlein I haven't read in a long time, but it's a pretty long book, and not as humorous as Adams or Cervantes.

Pascal and Plutarch are much more serious, though in very different ways. Pascal can be agonizing, but fortunately he writes in little fragments (mainly because he died before he could finish the book, but still). Those fragments make for quick reading, but usually require much contemplation as well. Plutarch's various biographies occupy that awkward space between just a tad too long to read in one sitting and too short to devote serious energy to. I wrote one of my bigger papers at St. John's on Plutarch, so I do have a soft spot for him, and do tend to carry his Lives wherever I move around, but I rarely actually read them (even though there are many I haven't touched yet).

Honestly Do Intend to Pick Up Again Division

Montaigne - Essays
Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil
Whitman - Song of Myself

Now we're getting into the inner sanctum. Each of these three works I fully do intend to read at least part of. All three books come in larger volumes that I haven't read all of yet, so there's ample opportunity not only for review, but for new exploration. In fact, this summer I already started to read some Montaigne I hadn't read before, so it's far from absurd to imagine that might continue at some point.

As for Nietzsche and Whitman, those two may seem diametrically opposed in many ways, but they also represent two of the more influential works on my own way of thinking. Even though they would probably disagree about a great many things, it is indicative that both loved the music of Beethoven. So perhaps they are not so different after all. Smells like a post for a later time.

Books I Haven't Read Division

Plato - Laws

As with the other divisions, I'm leaving out some things here. In this case, the Laws just about sums it up. When will I read this? It's Plato's second longest dialogue - behind the Republic - and apparently one of his more complicated and enigmatic. Socrates, his usual star, isn't the chief interlocutor (and maybe isn't in it at all? Someone who has read it can let me know...), and it's subject-matter is, as always, heavy. Sometimes our aspirations outstrip possibility.

Reference Books and Religious Books

I won't list all of these, but a substantial portion of my current library is occupied by astrology reference books, a handful of music books, and some of the heavy-hitters from various religions.* All-in-all, these are the books I actually use most. The religious books probably could be fit more into some of the categories above, but the astrology books reside on the lowest shelf, closest to me, because I find myself referencing them whenever I'm running a chart.

* Bible, Rig Veda, Upanisads, Confucian Annalects, Discourses of Buddha, that kind of thing. I do have to admit that I have the New Testament in Greek, but not in English. Consequently, I also have my Greek-English Dictionary, which I will pretend is useful despite the Internet.

Astrology is a post for another time, however. For now, it's back to paper-writing and PhD application-completing.