The Geography of My Ignorance

The Geography of My Ignorance


I do not know, nor even believe that through a careful process of articulation and elaboration, through reason, I can ever hope to know. But... to throw some light, to see in relief as it were the geography of my ignorance, to know clearly what I think or might think, to know what sorts of things might make sense to me...


-1-
There is much in our biological, social, psychological, and spiritual imperatives to drive us into rich and complex lives without worrying the threaded tapestries of our beliefs and values. And the meanings which are already there for us to adopt grow out of just such more fundamental imperatives and give them voice and dignity, are vibrant to the degree that they are harmonious with these deeper imperatives... or not.


Is it perhaps for just these reasons that I find myself asking: If there is death then what is life? If there can be such marvelous things as sentient beings, so rich for good or ill, whether man or beast, how can they then cease to exist?


-2-
Because it is autumn the sun falls upon the fields with a sharpness which brings relief to the day, with a clarity which refreshes, with a sadness in the golden light of evenings which is bittersweet. I grieve and I rejoice. All that is lost can not be regained, and what is to come... is to come... will be lost.


A stem.


A blade of grass grown dry and brittle.


It riddles in the wind, it vibrates,
it twists and turns,
sings what songs, whispers what secrets,
dances, falls.


Winter sweeps across the fields,
autumn fades as does the light,
summer is beyond recall.


Beneath the weight of snow mice will scurry out of sight,
the grass will wed the soil and sing no more.


And sing no more...


But the wind which scours the land relents,
will linger in its longing once again.


Its long recital will whisper through the grasses once again.


And you and I, passing by one day,
will wonder at this graceful song which we hear,
which we do not understand,
which is not for men to understand.


-3-
And though I have loved them not well enough nor long , I yearn for those who have gone before.


I can not comprehend that though they do not respond, they could have fallen into oblivion. Such creatures, though imperfect they may have been... such creatures as they were. What is lost is too great to countenance.


But neither can I comprehend otherwise: they have unraveled, as all things which are, must.


-4-
Beginning with that which is manifest and evident it is clear to me only that everything changes. Though it has taken me most of my life to appreciate the importance of this simple fact, I think also that it is not the end of my observations or explorations but merely the beginning, that after 50 years I have arrived... at the beginning.


Now I must determine how to proceed further, and what tools are at my disposal.


-5-
There may be and we assume there is an order to change, that things change according to unchangeable principles. Those principles are... inferred from the change we have observed.


So the notion that there are unchanging principles is a matter of faith, a working hypothesis. It seems to be an extremely productive hypothesis, and gives rise to most of our speculative thought, our science, and our technology. It is hard to see how we can proceed without such a belief. Indeed we can imagine some variations of this belief such as that the natural laws we have deduced themselves change, but they also according to some order, and so it is all one. Or that change is somewhat disorderly, but that the progress of disorder is rather slow seen from the perspective of such mayflies and gnats as we are. Never mind, the appearance of order is as good for the purposes of mayflies as the reality. In fact we may ask whether such an appearance could be distinguished from reality, or in other words whether it makes sense for mayflies to ask what is the reality behind what they can see and know. Though they may ask how could they hear or comprehend the answer?




-6-
Where once we set about to understand being, we had to satisfy ourselves with understanding our consciousness of being, and then finally merely the implications of our language. For we began to understand that our understanding was limited by our language, that the tools we used to express our insights influenced the insights which they allowed.


-7-
That wind which whispers through the trees above us,
intimates,
passes on and passes on,
that wind which blows through this place... is empty,
has no substance, nor even reflection.


I wait by this quiet water waiting its disturbance,
waiting until these present reflections are driven across the surface.
I find no meaning here.


Beyond some "cogito ergo sum",
beyond questioning, beyond any childish rationality,
the warblers sing at the edge of the wood
and hawk insects on the wind.


And if meaning is just an artifact, and beyond that too,
are we any more than a twitter hawking insects at the edge of the wood,
are we anymore than desire and procreation,
ambition and need,
against which we have created gods and endowed all this with...
meaning?


By what feeble means we arrive at conviction! And..
what purposes are served!


This creature which out of life builds worlds,
interprets worlds,
creates worlds in his own image!


These minds which create and then navigate labyrinths of thought...
here is a mystery!


Here is the rising and the setting of the sun,
the spirit which rides on the wind,
which heaves offshore with the tide.


Here is that "cogito ergo sum",
that creature which deceives itself,
which can deceive itself,
which creates meaning.


-8-
A conspiracy of beings which pretend to essence: continuously they emerge from... from what? They ravel and they unravel. Some among them somehow manage to create meaning for themselves, which itself ravels and unravels. What is this meaning? What does this meaning mean?


What is this wind without grass to bend before it,
or grass which does not sway in the fields?
What is god if he does not flow into being,
or beings who do not return again to spirit?


We are but the emergent forms,
the chimeras of a vibrant and joyous change.
We are born of that conspiracy of appearances,
that presumption to being,
that desire of all things to come together,
to fall apart,
to dance, to live,
to be loved.


That which is... is no longer that which it was: a pattern in the changing, a pattern which arises and persists, permutes in time, then dissolves into chaos, Change is the material out of which being is wrought, out of which forms emerge, and into which they dissipate in good time. It is the wind before which we are bent... it is simply the raveling and unraveling of the many into the one, and the one into the many.






-9-
A suggestion of some interest: that the notion of an indivisible soul, a lasting I, is at least not deep, is perhaps a superstition. Is it not also part of the conspiracy of beings, a pattern which is but a part of the pattern, which arises, changes, and falls into dissolution?


This is cold comfort. If grieving is the process of getting unstuck, of withdrawing attachments which can no longer be supported, whence all this residual stickiness?


Who am I if I do not yearn for those lost souls? Perhaps if something so fundamental can be lost, perhaps if they can become nothing, if I can think nothing of it, perhaps I am also nothing. Perhaps I could deconstruct myself and find nothing but the wind blowing through the grass.


And so I deconstruct myself: I find in the interim a host of relationships and attachments to the living creatures around me, for better or worse, and only if I put them aside do I find the nothing which I suspect: I am merely a habit born of long continuance.


Though my love for them is merely a habit of long continuance it is also that which I am.


-10-
If we are characteristically creatures such as we are, and if we view things in our narrowness, not as they are, but as we must for our own continuance... the two (truth, necessity) not necessarily good neighbours... then though we may not be able to see the underlying order of things, we can at least assert that there is enough of this order to allow us to have characteristics... even characteristic limitations. There must be then some underlying order, if only the order required of mayflies and gnats.


This allows us to admit into consideration the argument from design; namely, that we know of His existence because of the marvelous design of the universe we find around us. Such a thing could not spring willy-nilly from nothing. And though the design we see may not be the design that is, we know there is enough of order to let mayflies fly. There is a design.


Even if our perceptions and understandings are interpretations, still there must be that which interprets and that which is interpreted. Or even if there is not (that too being illusion) there is at least a characteristic manner of interpretation, including that there is that which interprets and that which is interpreted.


What does the argument from design really tell us? For He must also be, and from whence He, and who is the author of that greater, more distant design, ad absurdidum...


-11-
And so we chase our tail. We can not leave this orb of being, it is hermetically sealed and we are inside.


There is no outside, for anything we might place outside we thereby encompass.


-12-
It is therefore marvelous, and deep, and incomprehensible. And I do not know where they have gone anymore than I knew how to love them when they were here.


But they are gone, and it is silent, but for the wind through the trees at night.


...though it matters not where, the mountains stretch before me as I dream. From this great plain they rise up mightily, but not yet to the sky relentless and untouchable.


They are the limit of my wandering, for on the plain there is more to contemplate than a lifetime would permit, and in the hills but a richness of distraction.


Can you see how the afternoon sun falls brightly across the roaming landscape, how quiet it is save the wind through the grasses, how comfortable if we do not seek to find ourselves... elsewhere, how every breath that is taken, and every breath that is given back is timely and well taken?


See how the birds fly in at evening to rest in the copse.