I wrote this a while back with little intention of sharing it as it felt a little too dense and esoteric for this platform.
But as I have already shared things that fit that description and I'm in the sharing mood, here is this.
I was thinking today about death; the oddity of it, the total incomprehensibility of it. Though I can know intellectually that I am going to die--I can imagine it, I can plan for it, I can grasp my limits as they are--I believe that the enormity of it, the real truth of it will always evade me. I can think about death but I cannot understand death. Because death is impossible for my present self. My ego--my past and my future--is wrapped up in all that I am and will be and that abstract self (that which is bound up in memory and plans) can face death; it is certainly a struggle but it is conceivable. I am going to die and that cannot be denied. But my present self--my id, my animal self, my sensual self--cannot not exist. If I am truly present (a quasi-impossibility), if I am truly immersed in the now and allow myself to be only a collection of sensory inputs, death seems ludicrous.
But even if one pulls a bit back from this logical extreme it’s fair to say that death is basically incomprehensible to our present selves. When we are truly immersed in an experience, when our very soul is singing, when we are truly alive, death seems beyond distant. Because how the can we die when there is so much beauty around us? How can we imagine a world without us we are surrounded by its glory? When we are most alive it can feel as if the world and all that it has to offer is in existence in that moment for us and us alone; that what we are experiencing came to be so that we could experience it; that we are end to all of creation's means.
And in a way, that’s true. Because for each of us, the world is ours. As far as we are concerned, it came into being with our birth and it might as well die with our death. Each thing we see and experience has value and meaning simply because we saw/felt/smelled/tasted/heard it. We understand conceptually that other people see and experience things as well and that they may see and experience the same things as us but it is only when we are confronted with the possible variation of experience and memory--in particular when both parties were witness to the same event--do we really begin grasp that we each have our own world and our own truth; we all accept that it must be shared but in the end it is our “own little world” and what we make of it. I can study and learn as much as I can--history, sciences, philosophy, art--and expand my own idea of what the world is and what it means beyond myself but there will always be limits and I will always only be grasping the smallest pieces of others’ lives, accreting bits to myself and expanding my personal truth yet still staying within my human notion of the world as I have come to know it. This is all a long way of saying “I cannot be assured of or guaranteed that the world is anything beyond what I know and so although I believe and understand life to have a continuity beyond my existence it also doesn’t entirely matter; the world is finished for me when my consciousness goes and could thus be imagined to be gone entirely.”
But what then of beauty? What then of the glorious and wonderful that I saw while alive? Does it still maintain its glory? Is the vibrancy of life on earth still thrumming if there is nothing 'conscious' to witness it? If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one to hear it does it make a damn noise?
As a man of faith, I say: of course. Beauty does not need a witness for it to be beautiful; life does not need a ‘purpose’ for it to strive onward; love does not need a reason beyond itself. Beauty, life, love--these are ends unto themselves and they require no validation from human sight. A plant will continue in its work--a glorious life, filled with patient beauty--whether or not I pause to regard its splendor; the plant does not care that I stopped to marvel and it does not need me in any way to be further assured of its purpose and place on this earth. A cosmic cataclysm of size and power beyond our reckoning will take place, did take place and is taking place without any desire to impress its distant human observers. God is in all of this; from the greatest workings of our universe to the smallest movements of a protozoa and it all continues on in spite of me. I will die but all of these most noble ideas, all of the things that make life worth living, will continue on without me and they will continue on beyond even our species. God is a means unto itself, the machine and the mover, the stupendous workings of all creation that glorifies itself. We are blessed witnesses, visitors in this grand vastness who are privileged with a slightly wider view of things but let us not fool ourselves into thinking it’s here for us. All that is good and beautiful and worth loving has a future long beyond us just as it had a past long before our arrival; let’s enjoy what we have while we’re here and revel in knowing that it’s not ending any time soon.
I definitely think there is something very like an objective reality out there. G-d does not want us running with sharp scissors or trying to flap our wings while jumping off tall buildings - unless absolutely necessary. The best thing about reality and living a fact-based life isn't that it is beautiful or that huge parts of it are magnificent, but, that it is so constantly surprising. We are forever meeting up with people and things that exceed all our expectations.
ReplyDeleteAnd, that is where imagination comes in. We need imagination to compel us to seek the truth. Without it there would be no curiosity. A half millennium ago, people imagined what was across the ocean from them and what lay in-between. Some of them would probably have been disappointed to learn that there are no mermaids or sea monsters that matched the images they had created in their own minds. But, one trip to any modern marine world or aquarium today would probably make their heads explode.
Does this invalidate imagination? Not in the least. Imagination leads to exploration and exploration leads to discovery. It's one of those never-ending loop mechanisms: our five senses constantly feed and renew our imaginations which in turn lead us to ever expanding realms of shock and awe.
My Mom has fewer and fewer of her five senses left every year. She is legally blind, and can barely hear but, responds to touch and smell pretty well. Her memories are being snatched away one by one. But, her imagination is undiminished. The rose we placed under her chin last Sunday immediately caused her eyes to open and after months of barely talking, all it took was a well-timed "Happy Mother's Day!" to whisk her back to her own home, surrounded by her kids, and softly fielding questions about her age, how she was doing and even a telephone call from her 92 year old sister. Whose grasp of "reality" is the more awesome, my Mom's or the doctor who is treating her? You be the judge.
It's funny, I've always heard of imagination referred to as the suspension of disbelief. Personally, I think that's a misnomer. I think it's far more difficult to turn off our imaginations than it is to stop disbelieving. Sometimes, if we are lucky enough to be present in a time and place of solitude and security, we get a chance to appreciate all the relics and monuments that humankind have left behind as well as those parts of Creation directly in front of us. We call it "contemplation" or "meditation" or seeking "The Eternal". I call it, the temporary and, often welcome, suspension of our imagination.