Morals and Transcendence

In discussion with a very intelligent friend last weekend, it occurred to me that all the talk about transcendence is great, but that no one talks about what it will be like when one eventually learns to transcend. To transcend is to be weird. Right? It is an ability to see things in a way that others don't; to remove one's self from the daily concepts to which everyone else is enslaved. Very few people learn to transcend -- to be in and not of the world...

So, not only do the transcendent become "weird," but they also become subject to all kinds of moral judgement. How, for instance, does one transcend and still fulfill his moral obligations to the rest of the people on the planet? If I decide to pick up my marbles and go home because I think the world is insane, am I not turning my back on my fellow humans?

But, in what sense am I doing that? "Global thinking," for the average person (not the average world leader) is an exercise in arrogance, as I see it.

When one says, "What can I do about the world's problems?" he is often met with some kind of saccharine platitude like, "The smallest person can make a difference." I believe that it can be true, but not in all cases, and certainly not in the sense of the problems of the globe... If I were a president, king or prime minister, then, maybe. But as a regular guy? Nah.

Am I a better person for shaking my head in sadness that girls have been abducted in Africa or does it make me better to the "Bring Back Our Girls" slogan? Which is the right move. (A lot of good that did, right? I probably just reminded you about something you had forgotten...)

JMW Turner

I have often questioned what some see as a moral obligation to "stay informed" about world issues. Why? I do believe in an obligation to my fellow humans, but I can only do so much. (And this is not a quitter's attitude. It's the truth.) Here are, as I see it, my personal social jobs, in order of priority:

1) Raise sane and well-adjusted kids so that I don't add to the mixed can of nuts that is the world's population.

2) Do the best I can as a teacher (insert your job here) to help mitigate the number of nuts in the can.

3) Help those that I can help, around me -- whether that be in a financial or in a personal sense.

If any of the things above begin to supersede the obligations directly above them, however, they become counter-productive. One should keep one's house neat and clean before one goes out to straighten up the neighborhood.

I have no right to transcend these obligations, morally, but I have every right not to waste my energies worrying about Syria. I have every right not to "play with the kids" who want to start wars. I have every right to claim my own bubble, so long as that bubble contains moral fortitude and a dedication to those I do have the means to help so long as helping them does not limit my ability to raise good children -- my most immediate and most important priority.

Of course, these priorities need to be adjusted person to person. A president has made his choices and has acquired his powers. He can do things that I cannot. But I must not sign up for the prevailing global arrogance. I simply am not important enough to claim an obligation to do my part in preventing global atrocities. In fact, I would submit that if people focused more on their own and on their children's moral and mental well-being, the global atrocities might be lessened.

So, I choose not to worry about the world bank and I choose not to burn off my mental energies by keeping up with word affairs because someone has guilted me into thinking I have an obligation to do so.

I am simply not that big of a deal and I never will be. I do, however, have an ability to be a big deal to my sons and to my students. On the ladder of social importance, we all should, from the sanitation worker up to the president, focus on those to whom we have the power to make a difference. A shoe salesman who packs his weeknights listening to political radio and who spends his weekend arguing with friends over those political issues is wasting his time. A prime minister who reads all of the world's papers every day is not.

As far as transcendence, I would never attend a party at which the guests are all insane. I would chose to remove myself from that situation; likewise, I choose to remove myself from the insanity of the world; especially from those insanities upon which I can have no effect. I have moral obligation to not transcend everything -- I must still do right by those who I can help. I do not have, however, a moral obligation to to not transcend anything. I will not participate in war and I will not bleed out my soul's blood on refugees half way around the world; not when I have autistic -- for example -- children in my neighborhood who need a coach for their softball team.

None of us normal folk, as individuals, can change the world, but we can introduce a positive influence into it. If we focus too far away and do nothing but read and fret and argue on Facebook, all we do add bluster to a hurricane. That seems like a stupid thing to be obligated to do.

The Invisible Horizon

To transcend the world is to row out from the shore, but not to put out to sea forever. Putting out sea forever is death. Transcendence is rowing away from the shoreline and rowing back in when necessary -- coming back in for supplies and for necessary human interactions.

Mostly, transcendence is living on the water, within sight of the land, but floating on the bosom of the hissing, sparkling, salty enormousness of the wine-dark ocean. One cannot stay on the water, but if he manages to spend more and more time there, most of his life is gently rocked by the rising and falling of the water, and he is peaceful and ever aware of the unimaginably huge limitlessly gentle power of the Universe. That peace is the best thing in life, but it cannot sustain life. Time ashore is necessary...

...but travels between sea and sand require crossing the breakers, both heading in and out, and sometimes one gets wet and sometimes the boat is capsized. Travel between the place at which one is in the world and the place where one is of the world can be treacherous and riptides lurk there, unseen but deadly.

The Sage knows that he must stay aware of his position. He must know when it is time to stray farther from the strand and when it is time to come back to the land for the fresh water of necessity.

After a lifetime of practice, the Sage might even be in control enough to take the final journey on his own terms; to row and row on the last day, out toward the horizon, and to disappear...out to sea, forever. Not to throw himself into the water and sink, coughing and convulsing in panic, but to close his eyes and will the boat silently away to the invisible horizon.

Kayak Meditation

Not ten minutes ago, I was on the water, sometimes paddling, sometimes drifting in the grey of a rainy morning; sometimes with eyes open and sometimes with eyes closed. With eyes closed, it feels like you're floating. Because you are, I suppose. But floating feels like transcending.

I tried to shut off the noise in my head, but that's hard. I tried to shut off the music, but that's kind of impossible. Still, with one's eyes closed, drifting forward and being held up by the bosom of a wide pond and cooled by a rainy breeze, the sense of peace works its way in to lubricate the mechanics of thought. It's an oil change for a brain like mine. Yours, too?

Mare's Pond, sans me, as it was before
and will be, after I go. 

Last night, I walked a long road lined with scrub pines and looked out upon by the occasional quiet house. The silence was dotted with the click of my dog's paws on asphalt which turned into gravel and then faded into a dirt path. But it was dusk, and the dirt path ran into a wildlife conservation of some seventy acres. Neither my dog nor I had the guts to go into it with night falling and facing the chance of meeting up with disgruntled coyotes (coyotes that are active at night and who, according to local Cape Cod science, are getting to be wolf-sized).

We walked back in the falling darkness. Most houses we saw were quiet. Some buzzed happily with families celebrating each other near fire pits or on horseshoe pitches. Some waved. Some looked vaguely suspicious of this visitor and his big, white dog.

The Shock of Transcendence

The Taoist weirdo.

What they never tell you, these philosophers and spouters of wisdom, is that, if you reach the desirable states that they recommend, you will have officially become a weirdo. You may even question whether your mind is working as it should. Transcendence, for instance, is quite alarming -- not when you manage it once, but when you finally make it part of your life on a daily basis.

Right now I am going through very difficult times outside of my home. I'll leave it sans detail, but it has been heart-breakingly rough over certain intervals.

That said, I'm not suffering much for it. I do wish things were better in this outside-of-the-home situation, but I find myself happy, otherwise. Sure, I would still love to fix what it broken, but I am not, in any way, feeling dragged down by it, in terms of my life. I'd rather these difficult things weren't so, but I do believe I have learned to take the advice of the wise to heart: to keep things in perspective and to give credence to those things that are truly important.

The Moments After Motion: Rabbit on a Leash

The other day, I got off of the treadmill and it felt like the floor under my feet was moving. You know the feeling? Or, did you ever sit at the back of a train and watch the track moving away from you toward the vanishing point? When the train stops, it appears that the track is still  moving slowly into the distance.

In both of these cases, the temporary state of being (in this case, motion) becomes sort of absorbed by our minds and bodies. Somewhere inside, the little dudes who run the machine in our brains say, "Okay -- we're moving. This is the way it is going to be. Time to internalize and react the current situation. Flip all necessary switches." Then, when it changes (the train stops, for instance) the little guys who just sat down to rest sigh and get back up again, "Reset switches, fellows!" But it takes a little time, so, the ground feels like its moving or the tracks look like they are moving away. Just until the switches get flipped again.

Lao Tzu

Lately, I have been on the literal treadmill, as mentioned above. I have also been on the figurative treadmill: busy at work; busy at home (both sons in the thick of activities with karate and baseball); busy with music (the band had been playing a lot); busy with a million other responsibilities... But the big thing has been that I found myself putting in days that ran from 6 AM to 8:30 PM, or beyond, before I could sit and breathe.

Then, one night, baseball practice was canceled. There was no karate. Band rehearsal was called off. I came home from school at around four o'clock and had nowhere to go and nothing pressing to do.

And what happened? Mr. Solitude; Mr. Self-reflection; Mr. Creative (who never has enough time for his arts) found himself pacing around the house for a few minutes, feeling stir-crazy. Me. After all my yapping about the joys of solitude and the quest for the time enough to enjoy it, I found myself feeling like a rabbit on a leash.

Good Times, Bad Times

For a long time, I have had a distaste for the marking of occasions: weddings, graduations, anniversaries, etc. I've mentioned this here on H&R a few times. I feel a little weird about it, from time to time, to be honest with you. Most people love these occasions.

Then, just when I start to feel a little mystified by my own logical salmon swim, something always hits me, and I realize there's a derned good reason for my weirdness; that my weirdness, on this particular issue might just be a form of transcendence.

Today, for instance, a friend on Facebook summed up her life of late. She mentioned how happy she is. So . . . cool. I'm glad. There is no problem with that statement, in and of itself.

Frequently, though, friends will go the other way on Facebook. They say things like. "Goodbye, 2010. You were horrible." Or they might put up "Worst day ever." Things like that.

Sugar Free Optimism

Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music -- the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.

-- Henry Miller

Christmas is over and I don't care. I never have, even as a kid. I have always loved the holiday, but I have never had a problem saying goodbye to it.

For years I would listen to people being depressed about the end of Christmas and I would think there was something wrong with me not to feel the same, but I have come to realize that I am, as surprising as it might seem to some of my friends and family who hear me complain and critique the world a lot, an optimist.