Life and Death

Last week I read Damien Echols’s memoir Life After Death. Echols’s was one of three men convicted of murders he did not commit, in West Memphis, Arkansas, in 1994. He was a victim of religious hysteria and paranoia (the people of West Memphis didn’t like his appearance nor his love of heavy metal music, and were convinced he was a Satanist), and because of that he was sent to death row. He survived the ordeal and after having spent half his life in prison was released last year. Echols is remarkably intelligent, a deep reader and a gifted writer (another reason he did not blend in with the usual Arkansan), and his book shows it. I highly recommend reading Life After Death, as a story of survival, of the abuses of the ‘justice’ system, and as a tale of hope and caution for all the misfits out there.

The entire book is very well-written; I’d like to quote two passages:

My life has taught me that true spiritual insight can come about only by putting your hand in the fire. Faith is nothing more than a watered-down attempt to accept someone else’s insight as your own. Belief is the psychic equivalent of an article of secondhand clothing, worn-out and passed down. I equate true spiritual insight with wisdom, which is different from knowledge. Knowledge can be obtained through many sources: books, stories, songs, legends, myths, and, in modern times, computers and television programs. On the other hand, there’s only one real source of wisdom —pain. Any experience that provides a person with wisdom will also usually provide them with a scar. The greater the pain, the greater the realization. Faith is spiritual rigor mortis.

—Damien Echols, Life After Death (New York: Blue Rider Press, 2012), p. 100.

There is only one way to avoid being swallowed whole by malaise, despair, and loneliness, and that is to create a routine you stick to no matter what. A physical routine, a mental routine, and even a spiritual routine. You don’t pass the time —you create it.

I began measuring time by doing thirty push-ups a day, and pushing myself until several years later I could do one thousand. I began doing ten minutes of meditation a day, and then pushed myself until I eventually reached five hours a day. It was only by becoming more disciplined, more focused, and more driven that I could prevent myself from falling into entropy and internal death.

—Echols, pp. 176-177.

My Weekend Would Probably Bore You

I bought too many books this weekend, but I enjoyed myself just fine.

I decided since Metro would be difficult to deal with this weekend, I'd start my errands on Friday evening. I metroed out to the burbs and picked up an hard-to-find copy of Derek Parfit's Reasons and Persons. I also got a few more craft supplies from AC Moore. Other than that, Friday evening was chill.

Saturday morning I woke up early. The weather report warned of a massive storm system coming our way, due to hit in the afternoon, so I got an early start on my errands. I bussed up to Bethesda, but got there so early, stores weren't open yet, so I had breakfast at the Tastee Diner, which I had not been to in years. It hasn't changed a bit.

In Bethesda I picked up a stringing kit for a lacrosse stick head, and some athletic drawers and five-toed socks from City Sports. Then I metroed down to Dupont Circle. At two used bookstores I got a slender volume of Descartes, a slightly heftier volume if Kierkegaard, and a huge paperback Bible (KJV with Apocrypha).

I started on my way home, but got off the bus when we encountered a downed tree across Columbia Road (the storm was still hours away; maybe a stiff breeze knocked it down). I walked the rest of the way home, trying a different route for kicks.

The storm finally hit, and it was something to watch. Manuel hid in the closet and napped. I checked on a neighbor's cat, and she too was napping in the closet. No problems, except for Manu's jealousy.

Saturday night was so boring, and I was so tired, I went to bed at 2100 hours. I slept until 0800 hours Sunday morning. I guess I needed the rest. I cleaned my bathroom, and myself, and met friends for brunch at Pho 14. Then I wandered down 14th Street. At Palace 5, one of my favorite boutique shops, I got a t-shirt. I looked around U Street, 14th Street and Dupont Circle, and only picked up a few things (including yet another book at Kramerbooks). I walked home from there, and then went to supper at The Heights.

I'm relearning how to do weekends. Since I'm avoiding alcohol these days, I'm also avoiding the places I associate with drinking, restaurants as well as bars. This means rethinking where to eat when I choose to eat out. I need to try some new places. I may need to make a mental list.

Also, I have too many books. One of my projects for the fall is to cull out some of the books I no longer need/do not want/cannot really use after all, and trade them in/give them away. I wish I had two of me for that project, since getting rid of books is something I have to talk myself into.

Finally, I picked up another cute hoodie yesterday, so I have two new hoodies to debut this fall when the weather cools down just a bit more. I'm looking forward to it.

"Clean Living?"

[Context of the scene: Dave is an ex-con, imprisoned for tax evasion, who's begun to hang out with skateboarders down the road from his housesitting job. He sees them mostly as hard partying punks, rather than athletes. Steve is a competitive skater; Dave, Steve, Bobby and others have traveled to attend a skating competition in Houston.]

When he woke up again, it was light. The digital readout on the tv said 7:30. Steve’s bed was empty. Dave put on his jeans and went outside to look at the morning. He heard a car start on the street behind the motel and then saw Steve in the parking lot, warming up. He was in shorts, socks, and tennis shoes, touching his toes. Dave nodded to him, unsure of where they stood.

Steve nodded back. “Want to run some?”

“I haven’t got anything to wear.”

“Those sneakers you had on last night’ll work. I’ll loan you some shorts. Come on.”

They ran south along the 59 access road, past an orange-and-white Whataburger and a giant supermarket called the Fiesta Mart. Steve kept the pace down to where Dave could handle it. He was the closest to cheerful Dave had ever seen him. “This isn’t how I pictured you,” Dave said.

“I don’t recommend this for everybody,” Steve said. “Somebody like Bobby, he’s probably got to keep fucking himself up for a few more years. That’s cool. You need that too. I’m not sorry I did all that when I was a kid. It’s just, after a while the engine starts to miss. You get tired of feeling poisoned all the time.”

“Clean living?”

“A joint or a beer every now and then won’t hurt you. Even that doesn’t get me off like it used to.”

—Lewis Shiner, Slam (1990), pp. 139-140 [emphasis mine].

Notes on Books

Quick reading notes:

I'm nearly ¾ the way through Middlemarch. It's very interesting, although I'm wondering about Woolf's assessment that it is on the the few "adult" novels in the English language. I see the same level of miscommunication, romantic intrigue, personal crises, etc. in Pretty Little Liars, minus the creepiness. Still, a worthwhile read.

I'm tired of classical philosophy, for now, and so I'm shelving Plotinus for the time being. He's kind of tedious anyway. Every time he asserts something about the structure of the cosmos or the nature of God, I want him to prove it, and without using a Ouija Board.

Instead, I need to get into the pile of fiction that has built up on my shelves lately, especially stuff by Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Melville, Conrad and Dinesen. On the other hand, I've also been feeling a renewed pull by Existentialist philosophers, and there's plenty of Kierkegaard on my shelf to start with. So we'll see.

But first, to finish Eliot.

Favorite Quote, XI: "I Need God"

My secret is that I need God--that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love.

—Douglas Coupland, Life After God

The Luminous Quality of Being

At the heart of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's philosophy in Phenomenology of Perception is ambiguity. This ambiguity is the philosophy's strength, rather than a weakness. Because the human being in the world is in the end not completely definable because she is never completely definite. We are situated beings in an ongoing project of co-existence with others within the field of the world. When we realize the unfolding nature of existence, and our implication within it, we no longer see ourselves as either simply "subjects" or "objects"; we are "situated, contingent* beings".

The implications of this are stunning. We are certainly free, but our situatedness implies a responsibility to act in coherent welfare with other human beings and the field of the world. We have a duty to enhance existence not only for ourselves but for all.

Merleau-Ponty's philosophy is both more optimistic than Sartre's and more enchanting. He continually remarks upon the wonder of perceiving the world, the magic of being within it, and the luminous quality of the things in the universe. While I'm glad I read Being and Nothingness first, I'm exceedingly joyful that I did not stop with that book, but pressed on to Phenomenology of Perception.† I'll be reckoning with Merleau-Ponty's philosophy for the rest of my life.

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*The 'contingent' aspect of this philosophy strongly reminds me of the Buddhist principle of paticcasamuppāda, or dependent co-arising.

†I also highly recommend reading Monika M. Langer's book Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception: A Guide and Commentary as well. While Phenomenology of Perception is far more accessible than Being and Nothingness, it is still a difficult book, and Langer's guide and commentary is very helpful in clarifying it.

Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism

I read an interesting piece today on Israeli and Palestinian nationalisms, by Hussein Ibish at NowLebanon.com. Here's a salient quote:

All contemporary nationalisms are based on constructed and imagined narratives about history, geography, culture, ethnicity and religion.

There are several reasons I've chosen cosmopolitanism over nationalism. For one thing, nationalism implies 'us vs. them', with a decided preference for us. It perpetuates a dualistic outlook on the world, and contrafacilitates seeing the gray areas and thinking critically about reality.

Secondly, I prefer to encounter racial, ethnic and cultural variety. The variety keeps me from becoming complacent. It challenges my thinking and helps me see a broader, more colorful world. Also, it simply is more fun.

However, I do not support an unexamined diversity. When someone claims that sexism, heterosexism, ethic superiority, or some other similarly divisive and/or oppressive attitude is integral to their culture, I would ask them to purge that attitude from their culture. To my thinking, cultures, like people, need to grow up, and shed immature attitudes, such as sexism, in order to join in on a healthy cosmopolitan discourse.

For a well-written, thoughtful and deep book on cosmopolitanism, I recommend Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers by Kwame Anthony Appiah. Additionally, his The Ethics of Identity goes further into exploring living one's identity in an ethical manner in a cosmopolitan world.