Here is a detail from a postcard that I received from my brother.
Dear diary,
When I saw that I’d become a creature in this world, I immediately wanted to do a little research about what this might mean. What is the consequence of having fallen into creaturehood?
It turns out that this form that I have become is not indestructible: that’s my main takeaway. This vehicle, my creature, which facilitates the thinking that is represented by these words will eventually cease, but the words that the vehicle leaves behind might survive it for a modest amount of time. And if the words survive, they might trigger thots in the future, where my current form does not live. Therefore it seems that the purpose of this creature is to perpetuate thot: my vehicle is living for the sake of thot, almost as a thot-proxy, and written words are that ongoing thot’s external memory. (This brings to mind Kafka: I am a memory come alive.)
But why “fallen”? Couldn’t I have alternately said “What is the consequence of having clomb into creaturehood?” Yes, because the human form is an accomplishment for certain aspects that make it up, while it’s at once a sort of disgrace or embarrassment for other aspects. I feel that’s it’s more correct to refer to these latter aspects as inhabiting the human form, or inspiring the human form, or employing the human form for higher ends, rather than merely making up the form. It’s that old dichotomy: matter versus spirit. On one hand, the dirt, the atoms, the physical flesh; and, on the other hand, the wind that moves in and out of the dirt-flesh: the breath of life which animates it. And the brian is a hunk of meat with blood vessels; but it’s also electricity, which is sorta like fire. The meat is dark but the thots are light. Is dark undesirable? No. Is light poisonous? Sorta; it depends.
O dirt, you corpse, I reckon you are good manure—but that I do not smell—
I smell your beautiful white roses—
I kiss your leafy lips—I slide my hand for the brown melons of your breasts.[from Walt Whitman’s early notebooks]
Anyway, what I’m trying to say (I’m still trying to explain why I see myself as having fallen into my flesh form, like Satan into Hell, rather than having achieved it, like a climber atop Mount Sinai) is that altho this way of labeling the different parts of the human form might be incorrect, I embrace it because it syncs with my fancy; and if we accept the division of the human into matter and spirit, I side with spirit — this is an instinct, an intuition: I do it automatically; it just feels natural to say “O drats look what base form I stumbled into now,” rather than “O glory look how advanced I’ve grown compared to a moment ago when I was a rodent.”
But I think a more balanced approach would be even better, so I’m admitting that this tendency of mine, to identify wholly with the spirit and misprize matter, is immature: it is not the best way forward. It’s a fashion of impatience.
One thing that’s smart about my imperfect stance, however, is that I value means over ends. Ends matter only to what is immortal, and since I’m a fragment of finitude, it seems fitting to…
What I’m trying to say is that I don’t strive for perfection in art. Value is a choice, and I choose to let myself value experimentation, because I think it’s more important for a mortal to enjoy the process of sallying forth than to care too much about the results, whether they seem successful or not. I’m not indifferent to success: I even love it when it occurs; but I don’t go seeking it — I let it appear when it likes, and, if possible, I preserve it and commemorate it; but my major focus is on simply continuing. Movement for the sake of movement. Rhythm for the sake of rhythm. Play for play’s sake.
Cuz if you don’t like the feeling of merely breathing while gazing at the sky and the trees, or even just reclining indoors and staring at a blank wall, then what?—do you think you’ll enjoy the feeling of drinking lava when you join the cherubim? You can’t keep assuming that the upcoming format of being will wow you out of your divine boredom. The problem lies in your will: I say that happiness is when you align your will with the given, the present moment, the means not the end; and sadness is when you place your will perpendicular to the eternal now: it’s like a valve that regulates water flow: when its lever is pointing in the same direction as the pipe, the liquid is free — this is the best position: always open, all the time. The drowned ark forgives the flood. And this is why I can say, without any hint of sarcasm, that I am pleased to occupy my gray cubicle at this law firm. One moment you’re a worm; then the plow comes by and cuts you up; and now this: you’re a clerk in the service of a superstar prosecutor. What sense would it make to say “I can imagine better: I have a vision of gardens bright with sinuous rills, where blossom many an incense-bearing tree (quoting Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan”) — here I await my demon-lover!” It’s much better to allow yourself to savor the feeling of the blouse against your forearm as you type your way thru the cease-and-desist order. For, just as nowadays it’s customary to pay good money to enter a ride at the amusement park which allows the patron momentarily to feel what it’s like to live life as an outmoded creature, say, a brontosaurus trapped on a runaway freight train (I’m thinking of the standard roller coaster); so also, when you’re an amber-winged damsel rendezvousing with your aforesaid demon-lover among the flames of paradise, the main attraction for ye twain will be the ride-sign promising: LIFE AS A SUBORDINATE PARALEGAL IN PRE-RAPTURE TIMES!
And yet, being mindful of the present often entails indulging in wild dreams of futurity. (Isn’t wishing itself an action of the now? And aren’t our hopes for the future always superior to the letdowns that transpire?) Let me not forget that yearning and complaining are phenomena unavailable to the immaculate. So if you find yourself a mortal human being who is not frequently carping and moaning, bitching and throwing temper tantrums, then you’re not getting the full advantage of the product. No one marries a street hooker just to demonstrate missionary-style intercourse to an audience of animals on the altar in a jungle-church. That’s why, despite my vow to shun dirty politics once and for all, I still am concerned with the best way to merge the Americas.
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