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Dearly beloved,
The stars depress me. They are so obviously arbitrary. And, over the ages, humankind has drawn connect-the-dot pictures in the heavens and made up stories about these figures. This is the pastime of a prisoner.
It is not a new question: How did we get here? “We” being Man and “here” being Earth. All the possibilities are terrifying. Let me see how many I can recall. (1) An alien species spilled us out; then abandoned us. (2) After a thrillion violent eons, we evolved from pigs. (3) God spoke us into existence on the first Friday ever, just before expiring. (4) A warrior sculpted us from mud. (5) A worldmaking supercomputer that was programmed to model the worst of all potential realities glitched out and got worse.
I guess the answer is five: that’s as many as I can think of. But, even with these, I probably didn’t strike upon the right answer.
And it scares me to think of all humans stemming from one prototype, because that would mean that we are all the result of brothers lying with sisters. And yet, what’s the alternative? Either we ultimately sprang from two members of the same family, or we are the result of one species bedding another. Again, it’s equally scary, whether one’s parents were too close or too distant. Donkeys and horses make mules. What do eagles and dolphins make? Why are some couplings fertile and others infertile – who draws the red line?
Or how could one of those gray, big-headed extraterrestrials that is totally bald and scrawny ever score with a hairy monkey? For this happy couple is, I presume, our true mom and dad. And it seems to make a difference which one is which sex: for, if the primate was female, then it’s hard not to think of the act of sensual congress as being forced (like a boss dating his secretary); whereas, if the alien was female, then the thought of her approaching her husband on their honeymoon evokes Leviticus 18:23 —
Thou shalt not lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion.
If confusing things are against the rules, then that makes literally everything criminal; for what is not confusing about this dimension? I can’t figure out a single detail about it. Not even “one plus one” – it’s not “two”: for we saw above that the addition of being to being results in either zero or Milky Way. That’s the name of our galaxy. It’s spiral-shaped like cream in coffee, and equally purposeless. All those solar systems.
The LORD God brought him forth abroad, and said, “Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them.” And he said unto him, “So shall thy seed be.” (Genesis 15:5)
That’s a lot of hybrids or inbreds. I wonder why this type of proliferation appeals to God. It is presented as if it’s a reward for Man; but Man is as passive as a female ape in his LORD’s embrace. Multitudes make me nervous. I agree with that saying “two’s company; three’s a crowd.” I’m not good at multitasking. I like to give people my undivided attention.
And I’d like to be righteous, not odious. So if confusion is illegal, what’s its opposite? Enlightenment.
The Enlightened One: the Buddha. Opposite of the Confusing One. So it’s all about ideas of order. And what does it mean, to be “enlightened”? Where does the rubber meet the road – what does enlightenment look like, in practice? Nobody knows. You just need to feel unhappy about illness, old age, and death; then renounce whatever worldly power you inherited; go sit under a tree and think hard until you’ve defeated the demon Desire.
This is where things get tricky. Desire is a bad thing or a good thing, depending on who you ask. I think somewhere in James Merrill’s The Changing Light at Sandover, we are invited to desire desire. I like that attitude. And William Blake sez
Those who restrain Desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or Reason usurps its place & governs the unwilling.
And being restrained, it by degrees becomes passive, till it is only the shadow of Desire.
That’s from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. I now wonder why people ever demonized Desire. Did they fear humankind’s appetite being infinite? Is it shameful to wish that one’s dreams would come true, because the fact that one’s dreams are currently untrue proves one’s poverty, one’s embarrassing lack of power? This reminds me of Adam and Eve sewing aprons to cover their nakedness. One hates to admit dependence.
In the same work, a little further on, Blake elaborates on the quote above – he refers to John Milton’s epic of Paradise Lost, contrasting it with the biblical Book of Job, and I now wonder how much this might apply to Buddha’s bodhi-tree demon-beating:
It indeed appear’d to Reason as if Desire was cast out; but the Devil’s account is, that the Messiah fell, & formed a heaven of what he stole from the Abyss.
This is shown in the Gospel, where he prays to the Father to send the Comforter or Desire that Reason may have Ideas to build on, the Jehovah of the Bible being no other than he who dwells in flaming fire.
I’m still trying to figure out how to be a good citizen of this world. I like the above quotation’s Jehovah as much as I dislike most other Jehovahs. Now the task is not only “how to distinguish between desirable and undesirable desires” but “how to gauge the goodness of your Good God.”
In Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (Ch. 119, “The Candles”) Ahab says:
Oh! thou clear spirit of clear fire, whom on these seas I as Persian once did worship, till in the sacramental act so burned by thee, that to this hour I bear the scar; I now know thee, thou clear spirit, and I now know that thy right worship is defiance.
Is he talking about Blake’s or my mother’s Jehovah? Ahab continues:
Oh, thou clear spirit, of thy fire thou madest me, and like a true child of fire, I breathe it back to thee.
What else could our sire expect from us? If desire is to be overcome, then its existence is a flaw. Although I have no problem with calling the world imperfect, I still think that to propose the elimination of this key trait is mistaken: I’m with Blake and Merrill. Desire is a boon. Whatever caused it to seem anathema to princes like Buddha was, I suggest, only its misuse.
Thomas Pynchon begins his novel Against the Day with this epigraph attributed to Thelonius Monk: “It’s always night, or we wouldn’t need light.” And here’s one last upsurge from Ahab:
Light though thou be, thou leapest out of darkness; but I am darkness leaping out of light, leaping out of thee!
Contra enlightenment, I endorse endarkenment.
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