Morningthots and then a long reply

Dear diary,

There is no one I relate to more than a pregnant woman who loses her baby. But not someone who has had an early miscarriage – no: I mean a woman who is big with child for nine full months; and, up to that moment, the child is healthy, and so is the mother; but then something goes wrong during the labor, and the infant is lost. I relate to this woman, because I’ve spent measureless energy on various creations, and yet nothing that I’ve tried to establish in this world has come to life.

And I also relate to the woman who, after losing her child and suffering a span of devastation, then begins the slow process of trying again.

It’s stupid, but what is one to do? Kill oneself? Sure, I’d do that, if I weren’t too scared. Philosophically, I’m all for it; but my dumb animal body trembles at the thought and starts desperately to reason with itself (having had no use for reason heretofore), “Ah, but what if some good luck is just around the corner! Maybe we should put off slitting our neck till tomorrow; for perhaps by that time, our just reward will have arrived. What a shame it would be to leave this world one moment before all the good things start to happen.” And, of course, the good things never happen; but this line of argument remains persuasive.

But if I had an audience for my creations, then I would feel the pressure of that audience’s taste, and my desire would be to please them, so my taste would adapt itself to accommodate theirs. This would happen, no matter how hard I tried to avoid it. For we all influence each other.

And there’s nothing really wrong with this – it’s nice to please an audience. Who’s to say that the audience doesn’t have better ideas than me, anyway? Yes, that’s right. However, at present, I’m trying to make myself feel better about my unpopularity; and one of the benefits of being deprived of social attention is that you can grow deep roots in your uniqueness.

There’s constantly a tug-of-war between others and oneself. Life requires one to meet a host of necessities. The aim is to acquire what one needs while maintaining one’s integrity, which means: acting in accordance with the desires of one’s own heart; as opposed to acting in accordance with the desires of someone else’s heart – or, worst of all, in accord with a heartless corporation. But nobody is entirely free of external influence. Even the most independent artist, who possesses the highest integrity . . .

What is my desire? To be free, to run wild, to burst all boundaries? But these are the wants of a slave. For, wouldn’t a truly self-sufficient master simply take for granted that he can move about unconstrainedly, and go wherever he pleases? Therefore, all my wacky weird ways betray the scent of oppression. A hungry man dreams of food.

If Freud proved scientifically that all dreams are wish-fulfillments, then what about the man who has everything: Does he dream? No, Judge Holden neither sleeps nor ever shall die.

I myself use art to compensate for being repressed in reality. In reality, I never leave my house; therefore I write about traveling to Lakeville and Farmington, which are just south of here. And the truth is that I eat one bowl of unsweetened oatmeal daily; so, in my writing, I claim that I am dining at an upscale restaurant, and the waitress is serving me two bowls of sweetened oatmeal. I also say that I tip the staff heavily, and that they all like my personality and find me attractive.

The paragraph that I just wrote explains all my novels.

§

I was in a mopey mood when I confessed all the above; but then I heard a sound like the rumbling of thunder. This lured me to look out the front window; and, there on the street, I saw the mail truck arrive at our mailbox. The loud noise was due to the vehicle’s impaired muffler. So I went out and retrieved the stack of envelopes that had been delivered; and then my mood lifted, because I saw, amid all the bills and junk ads, that my sister had sent me a letter! I read it through immediately, and then I composed a response. But that used up all my free-time; which is tragic, because I still haven’t written enough words here in my diary to please my daemon. Therefore, let me cheat: I’ll bulk up this entry by filling the rest of it with copied parts of my reply to my sister.

Ay caramba, I learned more about you in this old-fashioned letter than I would have in months, perhaps years, of holiday visits. This proves the worth of writing, as opposed to merely speaking. Nothing against in-person conversations, telephone/video calls, or instant text messaging; it’s just that, for different reasons, each of those ways of interacting tends to constrict or obscure one’s personality rather than invite it to expand in the way that longform writing does. Emerson makes this point better than I ever could – here’s what he wrote to his own brother on 23 Feb. 1827:

You are in the heyday of youth, when time is measured not by numbering days, but by the intervals of mentality, the flux and reflux of the soul. . . . The river of life with you is yet in its mountain sources, bounding and spouting on its way, and has not settled down into the monotony of the deep and silent stream. Vouchsafe, then, to give your poor brother some of these sweet waters. Write, write. I have heard men say (Heaven help their poor wits), they would rather have ten words viva voce from a man than volumes of letters to get at his opinion. I had rather converse with them by the interpreter. Politeness ruins conversation. You get nothing but the scum and surface of opinions, when men are afraid of being unintelligible in their metaphysical distinctions, or that the subtlety and gravity of what they want to say will draw too largely on the extemporaneous attention of their company. Men’s spoken notions are thus nothing but outlines, and for the most part, uninviting outlines of a subject, and so general as to have no traits appropriate and peculiar to the individual. But when a man writes, he uncovers his soul, he divests himself of his manners and all physical imperfections, and it is the pure intellect that speaks. There can be no deception here. You get the measure of his soul. Instead of the old verse, “Speak that I may know thee,” I write, “Speak that I may suspect thee; write that I may know thee.” Take your pen therefore and give me the secret history of the sanctuary you call yourself; what new lights illuminate, what fragrant affections perfume it; what litanies are sung; what works are daily done in its industrious recesses, and to what god is it consecrated . . .

The quote that you give (“it is very dangerous to identify with another person”) is also right in line with my way of thinking – I like it a lot. Plus, it’s in harmony with Emerson’s notion of “Self-Reliance,” which I’ve taken to heart. It’s true that Bloom, Lynch and others are heroes to me; but I hope that, ultimately, I prove to be my own man – that is, I hope I avoid unhealthy idolization. I believe in honoring the divine gifts in others, each according to his or her genius, and loving the greatest minds best; while never forgetting that we’re all a mixture of successes and failures. Whitman says:

Have you heard that it was good to gain the day? / I also say it is good to fall . . . . battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.

[NOTE: the next few paragraphs refer to the fact that, for her birthday, I gave my sister a copy of The Logia of Yeshua (The Sayings of Jesus) translated by Guy Davenport and Benjamin Urrutia.]

I’m glad that you have been looking into the Yeshua book. You write “I started reading logion after logion, and then I realized that that’s likely not the best way to fully download and experience what he said.” – To my mind, any way that you read that book is fine: I myself first charged right through and read the sayings all in a row, one after the next; but I’ve also, since then, returned frequently and looked at one or two parts at a time, and thought deeply about them.

I always repeat this: Jesus committed none of his thoughts or philosophy to paper – we should never forget that he wrote nothing at all. So, any book that collects his words is already a step away from whatever Jesus intended, if it can be said that he intended anything.

The reason I wanted to give you that publication is that it’s the best gathering of Jesus’ wisdom that I’m aware of. You’re familiar with the four canonical gospels; and then there are the Gnostic scriptures and other so-called apocryphal works that attribute teachings and actions to Jesus: I’m interested in all of this, and I assume that you are too; but it’s nice to have a slim, portable collection of the core sayings, which are rendered in a way that is refreshingly free of bias. Davenport & Urrutia make no attempt to convert the reader, or to arrange the material so that it supports OR destroys any dogma, doctrine, theology . . . Plus the notes at the back of the book tell you more about certain logia; and scholarly references direct you to each saying’s source, in case you’re interested in its literary context or reading further.

Another thought on the Jesus book: If you realize that you simply don’t like it, don’t enjoy it, or are getting nothing from it, I stress: there is nothing wrong with that. I myself cannot read it without wanting to fight Jesus; my own copy is totally marked up: I write counter-logia to his logia . . . #84 says “By their fruits will you know them.” Under that, I wrote: “By their soil will you know them.” For I don’t think it’s always the tree’s fault – or, to translate the trope, humans are not always to blame for every aspect of their behavior but it’s often the social environment that overdetermines outcomes – the soil is bad. (Likewise, excellent acts can be due to good surroundings; a healthy upbringing – nurture not nature.) . . . So, anyway, don’t worry at all if the book doesn’t appeal to you. As Emerson says in his Divinity School Address:

Truly speaking, it is not instruction, but provocation, that I can receive from another soul. What he announces, I must find true in me, or wholly reject . . .

Also Whitman, in his “Song of Myself,” says:

These are the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me, / If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing or next to nothing . . .

By the way, I am very happy to hear that the First Baptist Church Bus reminded you of me. It’s hard to believe that I spent so much time singing with those kids, driving around Inver Grove Heights every Sunday before daybreak, when I was 25 years old. (The prime of life: Did I have nothing better to do? Why did the Christian brainwashing hit me so hard, compared to you & Paul!? I’m mad.)

Yes, and what you say about the Zen koans being comparable to the logia of Yeshua – I think that’s accurate . . . In the gospel of Matthew (13:13-15), the sayings of Jesus are called “parables”; and he explains to his disciples why he teaches this way, with paradoxes and riddles that are hard to understand, rather than with clear, simple instructions: “The disciples came, and said unto him: Why speakest thou unto them in parables?” – In answer, Jesus quotes the words that Yahweh God spoke to the prophet Isaiah (6:9-10) . . .

The voice of the Lord said, ‘Go, and tell this people, “Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.” Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.’

Annoyed at his audience for being so obtuse, God addresses them through poetic wisdom and tropes that require the use of intuition, lest people understand and get saved! – I think that’s remarkable: contrary to the Christian idea that God is up in heaven yearning for everyone to convert to his religion, Jesus & Isaiah say that God is actually coding his message so that it’s hard to understand, because he doesn’t want shallow thinkers to receive easy healing.

Incidentally, the above idea is mentioned by Robert Frost in one of my favorite of his poems, “Directive”:

I have kept hidden in the instep arch 

Of an old cedar at the waterside 

A broken drinking goblet like the Grail 

Under a spell so the wrong ones can’t find it, 

So can’t get saved, as Saint Mark says they mustn’t.

You quote “All koans are illogical and go beyond the reasoning mind.” That aligns so well with what I love about poetry (and the artistic movements of Dada and Surrealism that have always appealed to me) that you could simply swap the word koan for poem without losing any meaning. I think that all this stuff is one.

It reminds me of an impassioned response that William Blake wrote in a letter to Revd. Dr Trusler (the erratic capitalization and odd spelling in what follows are native to Blake – I copy his outburst as‑is):

You say that I want somebody to Elucidate my Ideas. But you ought to know that What is Grand is necessarily obscure to Weak men. That which can be made Explicit to the Idiot is not worth my care. The wisest of the Ancients considerd what is not too Explicit as the fittest for Instruction because it rouzes the faculties to act.

It’s futile to pamper fools and try to spoon-feed wisdom to those who are unwilling to expend creative intellectual effort.

And it takes one to know one: understanding the divine requires one to become divine. One must draw upon one’s inner divinity, a wellspring ever-flowing.

This, in turn, reminds me of another part of Emerson’s address that I mentioned above – I’m sure that I’ve shared this with you before, but it’s worth revisiting:

Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of prophets. He saw with open eye the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived in it, and had his being there. . . . One man was true to what is in you and me. He saw that God incarnates himself in man, and evermore goes forth anew to take possession of his world. He said, in this jubilee of sublime emotion, “I am divine. Through me, God acts; through me, speaks. Would you see God, see me; or, see thee, when thou also thinkest as I now think.”

One last word about Lynch: You say you’ve started watching Twin Peaks – of course, I hope you like it; but, like Jesus’ logia, just blast it if it doesn’t appeal to you. I have a love-hate relationship with much of Lynch’s work, and especially with that TV show. I’d say that the Pilot is the very best part: that’s what I tell people to watch if they’re only willing to sit thru a single episode – it’s 94 minutes long, unless you can find the 116-minute version with the so-called European ending, which I highly recommend.

When I first learned of the show, it was already off-the-air; so, to see it, I had to purchase the series on several VHS cassettes. I fell so deeply in love with its mood that I watched both seasons in a marathon session without blinking my eyes. It is common to say that the first season is great, but the second season grows tedious. It degenerated because other directors and writers joined the project while Lynch himself drifted away from it. Lynch is the magic: he’s the only reason Twin Peaks has any worth.

Actually, nowadays my opinion is even harsher than the aforesaid consensus – I would say that neither season holds up when re-watched. They’re good for a single viewing, IF you’re infatuated, but no more. It’s clear to me that Lynch was only interested in that Pilot and its “red room” European ending; beyond that, there are just two other episodes (both Lynch-directed) that are tolerable: The one from the middle of the second season which shows the murder of Maddy Ferguson (Laura Palmer’s cousin); and season two’s final episode, where Agent Cooper’s old partner tries to steal his soul. – I know that I’m right about all this, because just last month I watched the whole goddamn thing again.

Everything I’ve said so far concerns just the original show from 1990-91. The series was cancelled after the second season. At that point, Lynch directed a prequel film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), which is uneven because it’s so experimental, but it appeals to me precisely because of its daring boldness. It reminds me of Blake’s proverb, “Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius.” Fire Walk with Me is a crooked road of genius.

Then a quarter of a century passed, and in 2017 Lynch returned to make a third season of the show. This time, he directed every single episode himself; and the whole thing is like one vast Lynch-film: eighteen hours long. At first I was disappointed in all but a couple wonderful scenes of this new season, but now that I’ve re-watched it a couple times, I’ve learned to respect it. Taken altogether, despite its low moments, it’s worth struggling through, because it contains so much of his strongest and most unconventional work. And I really love the ending.

I’m head-over-heels for Lynch as an artist, so it’s hard not to come off as pedantic about this. . . .

I’ll say one last thing. (When you write “I’m excited to watch his other films, too,” it’s impossible for me to hold back my opinion.) Lynch has movies that are good and that are bad. Here are the ones that I’d call his absolute best: Eraserhead (1977); Blue Velvet (1986) and Mulholland Drive (2001).