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.