Big Sur - Hurricane Point

"In grappling with the mystery of 'chance' we may be unable to render suitable explanation but we cannot deny that we are made aware of laws beyond the reach of human understanding. The more aware we become the more we perceive that there is a relation between right living and good fortune. If we probe deep enough we come to realize that fortune is neither good nor bad, that what matters is the way we take our (good or bad) fortune. The common saying runs: 'To make the most of one's lot.' Implicit in this adage is the idea that we are not equally favored or disfavored by the gods.

The point I wish to stress is that in accepting our fate we are not to think that things were destined thus or that we were singled out for special attention, but that by responding to the best in ourselves we may put ourselves in rythm with higher laws, the inscrutable laws of the universe, which have nothing to do with good or bad, you and me.

This was the test which the great Jehova put to Job." (Miller 226-227).

Miller, Henry. Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymous Bosch. New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1957.

Big Sur

I just finished reading Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, which I enjoyed even though I was a bit surprised at its lack of polishing.

Now I've started a book by Henry Miller, Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch. So far it looks promising, more so than Miller's Air Conditioned Nightmare, which was pretty much just blah for me. But having visited Big Sur myself recently, and having read Air Conditioned Nightmare which precedes this book, I think I might enjoy this one. Here is an excerpt I just read:

"Some will say they do not wish to dream their lives away. As if life itself were not a dream, a very real dream from which there is no awakening! We pass from one state of dream to another: from the dream of sleep to the dream of waking, from the dream of life to the dream of death. Whoever has enjoyed a good dream never complains of having wasted his time. On the contrary, he is delighted to have partaken of a reality which serves to heighten and enhance the reality of everyday."

From reading the first 28 pages, I think that Miller makes very accurate observations of Big Sur. I was surprised, when, coming back from my trip there, I read Kerouac's book by the same title and realized that it was apparently not just me who saw the overpowering and in a way frightening force of Big Sur. I think Big Sur, by Miller, will be an enjoyable read.

Harmony

I'm currently reading from Paul Tillich's The Meaning of Health, and it has pulled together some various ideas I've had floating around in my head over the years. First of all, the introduction, by Paul Lee, draws the comparison between immunology and the mental. To me, the immune system is a clear area where the "mental" and the "physical" interact. Not to say that I believe these respective categories are even valid, but given our scientific medical times, I would venture a guess that this will be the most vital and interesting area of study in the next 50 years or so.

As regards the title of this post, Harmony, I would like to leave you with a few points. (Also related to Tillich's book). Viewing health in terms of a wholeness, we can see that it is of vital importance to have harmony in our existence, in our lives. I think of this in terms of "vectors," like in physics. We can multiply the power of our efforts if they are harmonius, or we can negate our own efforts if they are conflicting.

The point is, to align our energies; align our "will" and the even more inclusive term "Intention."

The same energies that are vital to mankind; the energies (some have called libido) that push us out into the world to live our lives, can propel us toward fulfillment, or consume us if turned against each other. Are we able to live our lives under the Sun in one consistent arrow --> ?

If so, it is a life of integrity.

Attunement

One of the more important ideas I discovered from the existential philosopher Heidegger, an idea more fully flushed out in its significance by the Psychologist Medard Boss, who used Heidegger's philosophy, is that of Attunement.

For example:
A man who is starving can only see in the world all those things which correspond to his hunger, to the extent that the things in his environment reveal themselves to him, they are likely to reveal only their edible qualities, for instance. For his existence is attuned to hunger, and this is the way his Da-sein (Being) is open to the world.

Medard Boss puts these ideas to excellent use to explain the meaning of dreams, in contrast to Freudian theory which involves completely hypothetical and unrealistic assumptions - such as creating a dream censor that decides what content to "filter out." (so is there a little man in our heads, then, deciding for us? The paradox of an "unaware awareness.")

I will leave you with a few of my own reflections along this line of thought, which has been fruitful to me: It is impossible to remain in a state (attunement) of anxiety when you make efforts to be in a state of love, or Care (another fundamental concept itself for Heidegger).

If I have found anything to be the polar opposite of anxiety, it is Care and Love.

It is along the lines of this notion of "Attunement," that I relate Wayne Dyer's Power of Intention to Heidegger's existential philosophy. From Dyer;
"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."

Dyer immediately makes the leap to suggest that our attunement (he does not use the term himself) has an effect of drawing certain things closer or farther from us, and therefore advises things such as remaining in a state of constant gratitude. I see the reasoning behind his thinking, and in a sense it is well-known and common; ie "What you fear finds you." However, I have not quite yet arrived at the conclusion myself from the standpoint of Understanding, e.g. the process by which our existence can repel or attract things that are usually viewed as being quite separate from our "thoughts," such as money, being in a certain place etc.

If we can bring what we desire into our lives simply by the way we exist, more specifically by paying attention to the way we exist, the way we choose to live in and see the world, the potential is unlimited for attracting all the good things we want into our lives.

Spread too thin


In the time we live in we are pulled in many different directions. The technology that was supposed to make our lives simpler, and better has instead betrayed us. We find ourselves slaves to cell phones, computers, television, i-pods and all manner of time wasting devices. Yet we still have less vacation time than any other industrialized nation.

(Not to mention the fact that as this technology becomes cheaper and cheaper as newer and newer devices and technology come out, it provides a perfect disguise for the transfer tax, the robbing and fleecing of savers, [especially including the ever dependable backbone of the country, the middle class] better known as Inflation. This is the money illusion hard at work, although this is a topic for another blog. The bottom line is that inflation benefits borrowers and penalizes lenders. It hurts savers and encourages taking on debt.)

I find that our Being is likewise over-extended, pulled in too many different directions. Our sense of presence has evaporated until being becomes nothing but a vapor, a gas. There are too many things placing a claim on our existence, which is virtually a Heideggerian definition of what Stress is. (A much superior definition of stress, overcoming all of the inherent absurdity, juggling, and inconsistency of the cartesian subject-objects, and hence modern medical and psychological views of stress)

Is there a way to cause this evaporating, ever expanding, center of ourselves to condense? Or must we always live in the manic, ever-expanding-without-limit razor's edge of the universe? Hurtling at light speed towards the nothing, or as someone may call it, Running to Stand Still.

It seems to me that the best moments in life occur not while we sprint ahead in a manic fog of confusion, chasing some illusion of progress (which may or may not be tied to a now defunct idea of the American Dream), but in those rare, quiet moments when we can afford to offer ourselves to others in a meaningful exchange, take the time to actively listen, to cultivate & grow as persons.