What I wanted to say about the Magus + what surprised me in For the TIme Being

I couldn’t help but notice a theme in everybody’s responses to The Magus. Answers; whether in favor of finding them or in favor of ignoring them, answers were on peoples’ minds. No doubt this all stems from the quote in The Magus, “every answer is a form of death.” A quote like that carries a lot of wait when treated as fact, and the natural response to anything being equated to death is to fear that thing. So it’s not too surprising to try to generate rules based off this statement; “always question, never answer,” or, “never think you know the answer.” In many ways I sympathize with this mentality; it seems to go right along with idea that “the mystery is the source of energy,” another major pillar of The Magus. 

What about Dillard’s book? For the Time Being seems to reinforce not only the impossibility of finding answers to big questions, but that death is an ever present, all-encompassing rule for human life as well. Then there’s the fact that one of the biggest human mysteries is centered on finding the answer for “what happens after we die?” 

If The Magus is only taken only literally, then clearly we Time Beings must forever be lost in an endless cycle of torturous questions and lies, never truly able to find answers or resolution, never able to grasp reality, never able to leave. Until we die that is, but we can’t know what happens to us after death, and if we could, surely that answer more than any other would be lethal. 

I’ve confused myself. Death is the opposite of life, right? Answers are the opposite of questions? So if death is a question (or mystery if you prefer), then life must be an answer? But if life is an answer and answers are death, then isn’t life also death? Is life the answer the questions posed by death, or is death the answer to the questions we ask in life?

At the very least, life seems to be cause of death. 

I agree with the statement “every answer is a form of death,” and I agree with seeing For the Time Being as a testament to the insignificance of a single human life in the face of the omnipresence of death. Additionally, I agree with a mentality of questioning answers, so to speak. However, I can’t agree with sweeping statements like “you can never know the answer,” simply because answers are so clearly the source of questions. I don’t understand how a person could sustain a legitimate and dynamic mystery for themselves without regularly finding answers throughout it. That’s how mysteries work; the clues build off each other. 

I am biased here though; for various reasons largely beyond my control, I am not a person who has a problem with death. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to die, and I don’t want people around me to die either. That being said, I don’t think death is a bad thing either; I can do as much about it as I can manipulate gravity, and if I had a choice between those two implied super powers, I’d pick telekinesis without hesitation. So to hearing “an answer is a form of death,” doesn’t freak me out that bad about finding answers. 

Death means life exists, ya dig?

My interpretation of the Answer Problem takes me back to Dillard. While human death and dysfunction takes a central role, so do the lives of several individuals famous for their own theodicies (theodicies Dillard wastes no time debunking or questioning). However, drawing from Eliade, it is very significant in the face of such depressing facts to notice that individuals like Teilhard or the Baal Shem Tov are remembered at all. Is there a connection between the lifestyles of individuals and the fact that they are remembered? That struck me as surprising, that amidst all her anecdotes of human suffering and insignificance, Dillard kept returning to these men. Not only do these men share a mentality that Teilhard summarizes quite well when he asks, “Why not be totally changed into fire? ((ENTROPY))” but they each were adamant about their personal theodicies; they had answers to their questions. So if answers are a form of death, why are people who found them remembered after they die? Isn’t remembrance like that almost a form of immortality?

I don’t think that Teilhard found answers that allowed him to be totally changed into fire. In fact, I think it’s because he surrendered completely to the mystery that he found an answer to living after death. The question is, does being completely absorbed in something remove the possibility of fully understanding it? Do the answers Teilhard found, his theodicies, matter anywhere near as much as the life he had to lead to find them? 

Answers are important like death is important. Questions are important like life is important. The details of any one of these concepts are only interesting if the “opposing” concept exists.

The problem with answers doesn’t seem to be that they exist. The problem seems to be thinking there is one Answer that will end all Questions, that some combination of letters and words will put an end to the Mystery. There isn’t though. I feel like even the answer to “what happens when we die” is just going to create a billion more questions, starting with “what happens after the afterlife?”

I think life is very much about hunting answers in their many forms. I also think that when a person stops looking for answers they might as well be dead. Doesn’t questioning mean looking for answers? 

Answers aren’t the cause of death; it’s the lack of questions. If they were, Conchis would have said, “every answer is death.” Instead he adds a key phrase, “a form of,” which is a phrase much, much, more open to interpretation, to questions, and yes, to answers.

Elegy

Hey there! So here's the elegy I wrote for my Creative Writing class. Sadly, I did not manage to work in a reference to flowers as per Professor Sexson's request. However, there's about a million references to our class discussions in there, so hopefully that will make up for the lack of flora.

Ganago

My name is Joseph, as was his, my Dad’s

father, who died of colon cancer back

before I was born. So what’s in a name?

Two men at least; I’m sure my Dad is certain.

Of course, I’ve known others, and Dad has as

well.

            Still.

One might ask if I have what he lacked.

Grandpa Joe was a sniper in Korea,

A color blind red head with a purple

Heart; did he think he’d make it out alive?

Strangers get named the same thing.

Ideas

Flow through me that can’t be mine. These circles

Connect; the conduit comes from outside.

Echo; is there something that I’m missing?

I swear I’ll try my best to keep listening,

But all I hear is my heart beat; if it’s

Missing wisdom, it’s a drum roll and a

Crash. There was a wormhole in the apple;

We can either panic or laugh.

My laugh

Sounds like my father’s; does his dad’s complete

Some Liminal symphony? And my son?

Do the multitudes only echo one?

My older sister told my younger self

Never touch a butterfly’s wings only

Seconds too late. Dust on my hands, did I

Wonder then, how far Monarch’s must fly?

 Help me,

what strange angels must sweeten their wings?

Young hands glistened with the death of a king.

“Do it right the first time.” Is it right now?

What is this place? And is there’s a way out?

Dirty water, heavy water; take me.

Make butterflies rise from electric mud.

Ocean minds swimming under ocean skies,

Push through me, ripple; I surrender to the tides.

To the thunder, the lightning, and the blood.

To love – keep me humble; a drop in the sea.

Joseph Schadt

 I realized that is not actually my first poem to be heavily influenced by this class. So here's two more!

Nobody Knows

Organs malfunction, or so I’ve been told.

Maybe someday I’ll know what

the hell is going on down here.

Snarl if you like strangers, go ahead.

My brain’s no sharper than my canines, and

these days I like to know if I’m dreaming.

Howl! Holler! Gorilla, beat your chest!

They say there’s God in every breath, so

how long should I hold mine? My heart beats;

Love is dangerous.

Listen, there’s a rhythm; stomp your feet.

Gravity; My toes dangle off the edge.

Planets move. I dance like I have an old soul.

What substance is foundation and what matters

when it falls?

Joseph Schadt

 This one was a great "what are the odds" moment.  The day after discussing our dreams I was assigned to write a poem based around the topic of fire. 

Rumble

An ancient flame burns deep, burns blue.

Consumes my spine, a fuse in truth.

And it is here I find myself

Looking. Again. Still listening.

Behind perception, outside my soul,

There is a name I used to know.

The dragon’s fire, my curious glow,

I hear him rumble down below.

My heart is owned by silly things.

My dreams are his, my life his dreams.

Wake me, shake me, unleash my sound.

Sharp claws lift me high off the ground.

My ancient brain, my strangest friend.

It’s time, I fear, to change again.

My lungs inhale, evolve, exhale.

Outstretch my wings and whip my tail.

Joe Schadt

 

The Magus - The Smile

Would it be completely audacious to claim I know the smile Conchis shows Nicholas so frequently in the Magus? To say I’ve felt it on my face?

You head East on Kagy towards Sola. As you approach the intersection with 11^th, a big black SUV runs the red light heading South, cutting you off and almost smashing into you. You slam on the brakes in the middle of the intersection, stunned at such reckless behavior. How dare the driver of the SUV put your life in danger to go get some coffee or whatever the fuck he’s rushing off for? A complete and total asshole no doubt. 

These moments happen all the time, where some stranger’s selfish actions cause a disturbance your life, leaving you with no explanation for their behavior, irritated and shaken. To think the driver of the SUV is a careless asshole would be totally justifiable; people everywhere can be and are careless assholes. Still, at the end of the day that conclusion is a complete assumption based off almost no context. 

The phone rings. The voice of your son’s friend trembles on the other line.

“Sam’s hurt. Really bad. I don’t know what to do.”

Without hesitation, you grab your keys and jump in your big black SUV.

Assuming the driver of the SUV is an asshole requires creating a myth as to that person’s life in seconds; the Legend of the Jackass. However, to create an alternate explanation for the driver’s behavior is equally viable; neither explanation for the scenario breaks any laws of physics or requires excessive use of imagination.

My point is, if you’re going to go around making assumptions about the lives of strangers, you might as well take the time to tell the best story you can in the process. It’s a very silver-lining oriented world-view, and the positive effects optimism has on a person’s life have been well documented – less stress, more energy, etc. But that’s not even the best reason to do it. Why tell yourself a sad, angry story that most likely isn’t true when you can tell yourself a positive (or as I prefer, absurd) story hinging on the same moment? Why not take the time to make your life as mythological as possible? If you’re going to be making up shit, you might as well keep it interesting.

An individual human being knows almost nothing. We are here in this impossibly vast universe taking turns telling each other what’s going on, and thankfully, we probably won't ever get it right on the dot. An infinite mystery means infinite energy; surrendering to the entropic flow of the universe does not grant answers, only opportunities to understand one’s own insignificance in the face of so many questions. Opportunities are signs of freedom, no matter their nature.

To be the result of a 13.4  billion year old sequence of impossible connections happening over and over means two things: I am insignificant, only existing by pure chance, a scope of hazard too big to comprehend (in a universe that’s every bit as big), and that that exact same insignificance in the face of such massive and impossible odds makes me and every other human straight up walking Miracle. The mundane occurrences of human existence become fascinating from a cosmic lens; the extraordinary become earth shaking.

Isn’t it a wonderful thing to get cut off in traffic? To have an opportunity to write reality?

Perhaps he smile comes from contradiction. By knowing nothing we have the freedom to think anything; the reality I experience is completely open to my own interpretation. Maybe the smile is the arc of the circle between anagogical and literal.

Talk of insignificance can quickly turn to nihilism – if we’re so small, then nothing we will ever do matters! Time to fuck shit up! I know where the smile comes from! It’s from being drunk and high all the time!

Admittedly, I myself have found myself swimming in the Nihilist Sea at various times in my life. In a wonderful display of contradiction, it has always been that same fact, the insignificance of humanity, that pulls me back out. If we are an imperceptibly insignificant result of hazard, then are we not also immensely precious? Why throw away the winning lottery ticket if it falls out of the sky and lands in your hand?

In the end, I think the smile comes from the simple truth that human existence is fucking ridiculous. Here our eternal souls are sloshing around in the same fleshy bag as all our guts and excrement. We are walking miracles who frequently trip over our own feet. It’s hilarious.

 So smile, damn it.

A theoretical physicist lives in the mountains to get away from the noise of the world around him. On his way home from a supply run, he receives a phone call from his assistant back at his lab.

“I don’t know what happened! The Machine just turned on! It’s opened a portal to… somewhere! You’ve got to see this!”

The scientist drops his bags and sprints to his big black SUV.