Pain
Pain. Isn't pain the biggest fear of all.? The avoidance of pain and searching for pleasure. In Buddhism these two things are at the root of all suffering because they are both forms of attachment. But today, I'm seeing people all over social media feeling sad and complaining about having to shift their lives and I feel no pity. Rather, I feel mainly total impatience and irritation. There is a way in which political concerns dry up compassion at the individual level. Who can feel sorry for the privileged middle class person in the face of all the unaddressed suffering in the world. And the thing about the buddhist attachment hypothesis, if you will, is that it seems predicated on ignoring how certain people suffer because they have an "attachment" to, like, basic life. Bare life, as the philosophers say.
But the sun is coming in and I can get just about any music I want to listen to pumped into my house at the mere statement: "Alexa play..." I am the queen of my domain. My world is one big pleasure house. My riches overflow. The fear of losing this is my only fear. My only pain. I don't know how I ended up here. It's all one big accident. My life of privilege is the only thing that haunts me. Do people given a new lease on life live in fear of losing it at any moment? Accepting pleasure can be a challenge. It's not motivated by guilt. For me at least.
Anyway, next topic. When you listen to baroque harpsichord music do the sound of the keys bring you pleasure? If I turned off the lights, lit a candle and played the harpsichord, would you find it thrilling beyond measure? I would. I would never want to time-travel back in time now, but when was a kid I longed for the "olden days." I felt trapped in the wrong age. It was all based on a misinformed fantasy fueled by reading too much 19c and early 20c literature. It's shocking how deeply narratives of "simpler times" back in some golden haze, can shape expectations, disappointments, or stance toward the world. It's not as simple as being influenced by the world around you, by the modern conveniences that you take for granted. Life feels shot through with dissatisfaction with those conveniences. With standards derived from what Raymond Williams called 'residual" cultural realities. Our moral and ethical quandaries are the tug of history on our necks. History, a nightmare. Essentially, all of us are anachronisms. I really don't feel focused or inspired today. Too distracted by the present moment. By its irritations. But if I were to re-read this passage, some days or even years from now, it's highly likely that I will have no idea what those irritations were factually and materially based on. I might gather some clues, sure, but it would be imperfect memories. There is no story or concrete details to help. I don't like describing things in writing. It's tedious and doesn't interest me. Stories that reveal an inner truth or something bigger are great. I'm thinking of Tolstoy. But then again, I love Knausgaard and he's filled with detail. But the details seem to be doing so much more work than offering a detailed backdrop for character development or even bringing emotion and event into sharper focus. Details in Knausgaard seem to be showing an effort beyond themselves, beyond even the larger narrative. They show the writers mind as it is writing. To me at least, I am thinking the whole time about the fact that Knausgaard worked hard to write this moment into being. I am aware of his presence in the act of writing it, making it into something. Not that the book is merely *about* writing, in some conceptual or self-reflexive art project. I taught a course once that had memory as its theme. It was influenced/inspired by a graduate seminar in memory I had taken some years earlier. I was so delighted recently while reading the book Writing the Mind Alive that the section on memory and writing, no wait, it was another book on Poetry, I'm also reading at the moment, I forget the title, It's upstairs or, no, it's sitting on the stairs. Anyway, that books section of memory and poetry begins with a quote for St Augustine's Confession, which, in the class I taught, was the first book I assigned and in the latter part of the section on memory and poetry in this book I'm reading, the author discusses Joe Brainard's I Remember, which was the last book I assigned in the course. I had the students follow the style of I Remember to write their own poems and had any student who wanted to to bring theirs in and read them aloud. I remember being so happy and proud and excited to hear them read their poems and see how proud of them they were and how good some of the poems in fact were. It was my best class I think. I feel like I did something in that class.
But the sun is coming in and I can get just about any music I want to listen to pumped into my house at the mere statement: "Alexa play..." I am the queen of my domain. My world is one big pleasure house. My riches overflow. The fear of losing this is my only fear. My only pain. I don't know how I ended up here. It's all one big accident. My life of privilege is the only thing that haunts me. Do people given a new lease on life live in fear of losing it at any moment? Accepting pleasure can be a challenge. It's not motivated by guilt. For me at least.
Anyway, next topic. When you listen to baroque harpsichord music do the sound of the keys bring you pleasure? If I turned off the lights, lit a candle and played the harpsichord, would you find it thrilling beyond measure? I would. I would never want to time-travel back in time now, but when was a kid I longed for the "olden days." I felt trapped in the wrong age. It was all based on a misinformed fantasy fueled by reading too much 19c and early 20c literature. It's shocking how deeply narratives of "simpler times" back in some golden haze, can shape expectations, disappointments, or stance toward the world. It's not as simple as being influenced by the world around you, by the modern conveniences that you take for granted. Life feels shot through with dissatisfaction with those conveniences. With standards derived from what Raymond Williams called 'residual" cultural realities. Our moral and ethical quandaries are the tug of history on our necks. History, a nightmare. Essentially, all of us are anachronisms. I really don't feel focused or inspired today. Too distracted by the present moment. By its irritations. But if I were to re-read this passage, some days or even years from now, it's highly likely that I will have no idea what those irritations were factually and materially based on. I might gather some clues, sure, but it would be imperfect memories. There is no story or concrete details to help. I don't like describing things in writing. It's tedious and doesn't interest me. Stories that reveal an inner truth or something bigger are great. I'm thinking of Tolstoy. But then again, I love Knausgaard and he's filled with detail. But the details seem to be doing so much more work than offering a detailed backdrop for character development or even bringing emotion and event into sharper focus. Details in Knausgaard seem to be showing an effort beyond themselves, beyond even the larger narrative. They show the writers mind as it is writing. To me at least, I am thinking the whole time about the fact that Knausgaard worked hard to write this moment into being. I am aware of his presence in the act of writing it, making it into something. Not that the book is merely *about* writing, in some conceptual or self-reflexive art project. I taught a course once that had memory as its theme. It was influenced/inspired by a graduate seminar in memory I had taken some years earlier. I was so delighted recently while reading the book Writing the Mind Alive that the section on memory and writing, no wait, it was another book on Poetry, I'm also reading at the moment, I forget the title, It's upstairs or, no, it's sitting on the stairs. Anyway, that books section of memory and poetry begins with a quote for St Augustine's Confession, which, in the class I taught, was the first book I assigned and in the latter part of the section on memory and poetry in this book I'm reading, the author discusses Joe Brainard's I Remember, which was the last book I assigned in the course. I had the students follow the style of I Remember to write their own poems and had any student who wanted to to bring theirs in and read them aloud. I remember being so happy and proud and excited to hear them read their poems and see how proud of them they were and how good some of the poems in fact were. It was my best class I think. I feel like I did something in that class.
Comments
Post a Comment