The Abscondo Weblog

The rational argument for beauty and pleasure

When we remove beauty from life, we are left with only ugliness.  When we remove pleasure, we are left with only pain.

As the sunset separates night from day...love from life

The highest high that we can reach in life is to be in love; to co-exist in a universe that is created by and shared between two people.  The space that love creates -- its pleasures, longings, its rules and even its sadness -- is as separate from everything else in our lives as night is separate from day.

I've said before that what is between two people cannot be understood by a third.  So just as the sunset divides the night from the day, the state of being in love must be kept divided from life's practicalities (work, friends, family...responsibilities).  When too much of love's drunkenness bleeds into our days, the sun only grows frustratingly harsh until it leaves us sick and dehydrated.  On the flip side, when the practicalities of our days shine too intensely into love's sacred spaces, those spaces are ultimately burned away like a fleeting morning fog.

On love's bus rolling through the night, the day can seem far away.  But it will come.  And when it does, we must find the strength to open our eyes and to face it...just as we always have and just as we always will have to.  And let us also find the strength to keep and protect that sacred space of love...remembering the conditions in which that secret universe was created and maintaining those conditions so that it may continue to grow.

Only through such strength can we love fully and live fully.

The dos and don'ts

The idea of not doing something leaves us with an empty, frustrating void.  To not do something leaves us with a battle of will-power, a fight against our human nature, a seemingly less-than-full existence.  Most people focus so intensely on what they shouldn't be doing that the end up doing it!

Why not look at what to do rather than what not to do?  Don't not each junk food because it is bad for you, eat healthy food because it makes you feel great.  Filling yourself on vegetables, healthy fats, and proteins leaves you with little appetite for the other stuff.  Don't focus on not drinking to much tonight, focus on having a nice tomorrow morning without the hangover.

Don't focus on your flaws, but on your strengths.  In relationships, it isn't so much what you don't do to people, but what you do.  Why do they need you?  Why do they keep you around?  It probably isn't just because you aren't rude or aren't annoying, but because of whatever positive value they see.  Again, why do they need you?  What value do you bring?

The same perspective can be applied to work.  Don't focus on what you shouldn't be doing or staying out of trouble, focus on what positive value you bring to your boss and company and why they feel it is worthwhile to keep paying you.

It isn't so much about what you don't do wrong, but what you do do right.  The difference between these two paradigms seems invisible, but is actually immense.  If you focus on the don't, you'll fail in the fight against your human nature.  If you focus on the do, you are inevitably reaching toward something desirable to your human nature and in tune with it.  To do something right is to make up for what you invariably do wrong. 

It isn't so much about what you don't do, but what you do.   

The only pursuit that matters

And I felt something changing the world
Like a new constitution
A thief I would have to pursue
At all times
At all costs
The Truth

- From the new song, Cartoon Blues, by Bright Eyes

That's it.  This is what the great philosophers were talking about since Plato.  This is what the great artists, poets, writers, and musicians are constantly trying to express.  Do we choose to pursue the sometimes brilliant and sometimes monstrous truth, or do we remain in the dark, cold, empty caves of half-truth and lies?

Do you respect truth above all else, or not?  Are you strong enough?  The boldest and most authentic choice I've ever made in my life is to answer yes to this question.  I'm not claiming to possess truth.  I claim only to pursue it!  It is the roadmap to my life, my only religion.  And in the precise moment I became conscious of the concept, and internalized it, I initiated a process which never ends. 

The pursuit of truth is a bold choice that leads us to the extremes of bliss and the gutters of agony -- sometimes in the very same day.  And yet the reality isn't even this two-dimensional, because hovering all around our personal experience of bliss and agony we also hear the sound of life on earth being destroyed; minds being polluted with propaganda; human beings being kept in slave or near-slave conditions through the oppressor of economics.  In the back of our minds we hear the causes and movements which we believe in begging for us to pitch in; we hear our souls screaming about the way we hurt or neglect a family member; we feel the fear of a loved one who is seriously ill; the frustration and despair of old age choking us.  We try to forget both the lies we've told which have hurt others and also the truths we've told that have hurt others.  Then, in another moment, we might hear the waves of the ocean, the laughter of a naked young woman emerging from the waves, and the smell of the sand just after sunset.  All of these fragments, times a thousand, are bouncing around our minds and bodies during both wake and sleep. 

We are life becoming the instrument of evolution chasing its own truth.  We don't choke it or stop its flow with distractions; watching sports, buying too many clothes, worrying about being able to afford a car, being cool.  We allow our minds and bodies to be the instrument of truth, and by doing so we make the most of this life while also giving our existence meaning.

Yet somehow, we still get up on time, make it to work on time, shake a few hands, and do whatever it takes to function.  It isn't that we can live every action according to truth.  There are simply too many truths competing at any one time to know which one to act in accordance with.  That is why I will make the surely controversial claim that, what is even more important than one's action, is one's thoughts.  Are you keeping your mind locked on truth at all costs?  Are you allowing the ideas that emerge from your mouth, paint brush, instrument, or keyboard to reflect your pursuit of truth whenever possible?  Are you at least aware of those moments when you compromise one truth for another?  Are you struggling in that decision in an authentic way or just lying to yourself and others?

How is it possible that, in the midst of all this, we learn to not just be ok...but to live life as though we are making love to it.

That's the pursuit of truth.

The immorality of the crowd

To listen to society preaching its morality is no longer acceptable.  Look around!  Can any evidence of virtue be found within the concept of nation, culture, movement?

The crowd has lost its morality and any conception of good can now only exist in the individual, or in the intimate relationship.

"From the late 18th century onwards, it is no longer from the practice of community but from being a wanderer that the instinct of fellow-feeling is derived.  Thus an essential isolation and silence and loneliness become the carriers of nature and community against the rigours, the cold abstinence, and selfish ease of ordinary society."

- Raymond Williams, The Country and the City

Possessing beauty

We take pictures, struggle in vain to inscribe moments into our minds forever, and always end up at least slightly disappointed and empty if we give in to the urge to capture and possess beauty. 

We make peace with and find growth through beauty when we allow it to speak its wisdom to us...making it possible for us to understand, and communicate in dialog with, beauty herself.

"There is only one way to possess beauty properly, and that is through understanding it, through making ourselves conscious of the factors (psychological and visual) that are responsible for it."

"The most effective way of pursuing this conscious understanding is by attempting to describe beautiful places through art, through writing or drawing them, whether or not we happen to have any talent for doing so."

- John Ruskin

When we abscond

When we abscond, the voice within us grows louder and the chatter of the crowd fades.  When we abscond, we see culture, movements, beliefs, behavior, as a set of choices (as opposed to inevitabilities).  Choices are made based on who we are, not how we should be.  Morality flows from our hearts, not from the forces of external fear.  The crowd is far enough in the distance that even it is amusing, perhaps even looks beautiful.

Like a helium balloon that a child has let go of, to abscond is to remain attached to nothing...to rise and float away from the crowd, over the horizon, fulfilling the promise of the energy trapped inside it...at peace with the direction of the wind, its present splendor...and yes, even its ultimate fate.

In this, my second philosophical post, I will attempt to describe the conditions through which it is possible to abscond from the crowd in order to discover our authentic selves.

It isn't enough to become a hermit, avoiding contact with others.  While this approach is still favorable to blending in with the crowd, it isn't possible to fully develop our authentic selves in isolation.  The value of any biological organism is in the function it provides to nature.  It isn't natural to exist in isolation, and the depression we feel when doing so is nature's consequence.

How paradoxical it would seem that I claim it is both necessary to abscond from the crowd, and yet seek a connection with others.  But this seems contradictory only on the surface, because it actually is as unnatural for us to attempt to fit-in with the crowd as it is for us to exist in isolation.  The fundamental question one must ask is, "If a culture, organization, movement has it all figured out...why do I exist as an individual?  What is my value?"

The purpose of individual existence is to develop our potential as individuals.  In doing so, we provide the maximum value to the species and to all of nature.  To conform is to become a ghost; to deny the life energy within us and take on an artificial, lifeless form defined for us.  To conform is to become part of the dying, cancered world.

If our intuition tells us that these ideas are true, then one might wonder what can be done to live in this way.  It is easy.  To start with, we need to look at others in our lives with complete acceptance.  I'm not talking about others in an abstract sense, but the people we have close relationships with and with whom we spend our time: our lovers, friends, and family.

The most important thing that can be done to develop our authentic selves is to offer complete acceptance in our relationships and convince others to do the same in return.  Promise that you won't judge, and mean it.  I will only judge you when you judge...only point out to you that you're constantly telling me what to do.  That said, we also need patience.  We need to find peace with exactly where others are in that moment.  Start with the perspective that everything is as it should be.  What is just is.   Acceptance doesn't come with a goal.  It is an end in itself.

It is only when both people perceive what I have described as the basis of the relationship...when trust exists...that growth can happen.  Healthy change will flow naturally from a relationship in which we begin to explore each other, perceive, and focus on the unique aspects of each other.  That's because we have created a space of freedom in which we can begin to develop our authentic selves.  We have created a universe in which we can explore who we are outside of the rules of the world outside.  The more free and open this relationship can be, the better.  We have to question everything, redefine our own shared universe, and constantly tear down social barriers.  We all need at least one relationship like this in our lives...what we usually call it true friendship or love.  The possibilities that exist in this kind of relationship are as unique and limitless as are the two people involved. 

Beautiful are all of the possibilities that exist between two people without the burden of external influence.

I don't think any of this is new, original, or unfamiliar to most people.  I do, however, think that most people aren't conscious of how we achieve this state...or perhaps they avoid this state because they feel it might threaten the trivial, herd-based reality that most people cling to out of fear.  Most people look at relationships from the perspective of society; how relationships fit into our public lives, what others would think, what social benefits are attached to relationships, etc.  That's why most people also fall into the trap of trying to change loved ones, encouraging them to fight who they really are and attempting to force others into some sort of social mold.  Unfortunately, when you let the outside world into these most sacred relationships, what is sacred about the relationship starts to decay.

To live at peace with our nature is to live in peace.  We need to stop trying to change the world, fitting into the world, behaving according to its lifeless constructs, and start developing divine relationships which help us abscond the crowd and develop our authentic selves.  Doing this allows the world to shape itself around us, not the other way around.  In future posts, I will talk more about the extrinsic and intrinsic reasons why any of this is important.

It should be said that the purpose of this post isn't to describe or celebrate the divinity of these kinds of relationships.  It is the language of art which attempts to do so, but there can be no substitute for direct experience.  Indeed, the power of the word, even art, falls short.  Perhaps it is only when we feel ourselves floating away in silence, like the helium balloon, that we know we have found what I have described.  It is only possible when we develop a perspective which makes possible these kinds of relationships. 

We should be more self-centered

I hesitantly created a new category for my posts called "Philosophy."  I realize that it may be a little vain to call this series of posts philosophy, especially since I likely won't be referencing many philosophers.  But when the time comes in a man's life that his thought patterns seem to have little to do with the thought patterns of others, and when his own thought patterns move him closer to those things which we all desire -- contentment, happiness, success, love -- then perhaps it is time to risk the harsh judgment of others and declare some of his words philosophy.  Call it what you will...let's move on.

Let's consider the concept of self-centeredness.  What's needed in the world is more self-centeredness.  What I mean is that it is up to us to place our own life at the center of our world.  We do not exist to serve the needs of "the crowd" or "the system"; rather, I think we should find ways to relate to "the world" only insofar as doing so enhances the true quality of our lives. 

Much of what I will say in this series will be the opposite of conventional wisdom.  Naturally; conventional wisdom is cliche.  Cliche is the crowd's truth.  "The crowd" doesn't truly exist...well only to the extent that we all imagine it does.  Just as with economic and political systems, they only are real in the sense that we all agree to pretend they are.

Naturally, "the crowd" will define self-centeredness as something bad.  When one is "too self-centered", that individual isn't doing his job to serve the crowd, and therefore threatens the power of this non-human thing called "the public", "the mass", or "the herd." 

But what if we decide that, individually, we are at the center of it all...that our individuality is divine and that the crowd and the systems which it conforms to should merely exist to the extent that it supports our divinity?  Of course it is difficult for most people to make this leap.  Christianity came along to convince us that somehow it was Jesus' message that we should conform to this thing called "The Church" to achieve salvation.  Wasn't Jesus a perfected individual?  Then a few hundred years ago, during the Enlightenment, it was believed that, through science and technology, humans could create more and more perfect systems that would get us closer to utopia.  We are constantly taught to fight our authentic selves in order to support this external, "more important" thing that is "bigger than us."

Well I'm here to say that nothing in our collective imagination is bigger than us as authentic individuals.  As long as we continue to define ourselves only in terms of how we fit into that which is "bigger than us", we will continue to act against our own self-interest and our collective self-interest.   We aren't even thinking!  We're just reacting out of fear that we don't fit the crowd!  And what is there to fear?  That we will be lonely?  To the contrary, the superficial relationships we find in the crowd are what make us feel lonely.

Clearly, the path we are on will not lead us to utopia.  There can never exist a collective utopia.  But what *can* exist are individual utopias.  We can only find our divinity by expressing and constantly developing our authentic selves while at the same time allowing others to do this same.  We cannot find, express, or develop our authentic selves as isolated, lonely members of a society in which relationships are solely defined by economics, systems, organizations.  What I'm talking about can only be done one-on-one...in situations where two (or occasionally more) people create a space where they are not only free to be their authentic selves, but they are expected to be that.  This state can only be achieved when it is protected from "the world outside" in every sense.  The moment something authentic is thrown into "the public", it is thrown to the dogs...becomes interpreted in an inauthentic way and is destroyed.

It is, indeed, possible to develop our authentic selves while at the same time successfully relating to the crowd.  This is done by adopting the perspective of "both, and" as opposed "either, or".  We don't have to choose between being either completely authentic all the time or being sellouts.  We can have both money and quality of life.  On the other hand, we can be both poor and have a high quality of life.  The examples aren't as important as the way of looking at choices.  What did you "sacrifice" recently?  Was it really necessary?

Of course there are times when something is clearly not needed in our lives, and it should be rejected completely.  But my point is that, when we put our own quality of life ahead of all else, we no longer worry about that which might appear hypocritical to others.  In fact, when we live in this state, we no longer care what "the world" thinks about us...as we are beginning to understand ourselves and we have others around us with whom we share this private, personal utopia.

I will talk more about all of this in future posts.  Specifically, I will talk about how to build the kinds of relationships that are needed to achieve this state.  I will also redefine other words as I have done with the concept of "self-centered". 

But for now, it is enough that we remind ourselves to stop worrying about where our life "is going" or, worse yet, what we can do to change the masses.  Our lives are not missions.  The only purpose for our existence is to be the unique genetic mutation that we are.  So for us to become that which we were meant to become, we have to slow down and take the time to become that which we truly are!

Friendship over love

Falling in love is beautiful.  But so is getting drunk.  Falling in love is giving in.  Some men can fall in love, in one second, with a woman he passes on the street.  He may even find a way to make her fall in love with him.  So what?

Love conquers, but then what?  Love is tearful and tragic.  It is selfish in the sense of conquest. It is possesive in the sense that we talk about "having" somebody.  It is as ugly as greed.  Love without friendship leaves only pain and agony.  Love alone simply doesn't work.  It has no real value.

It is necessary to think of friendship as something higher than love.  It is not a second prize, it is the only prize.  Even in marriage...everyone loves who they marry...but what misery a couple experiences if they don't explore and develop friendship.  How cold and calculative the arguments.  How selfish the decisions.  How insensitive the words.  How boring and basic the sex without the playfulness of friendship.  How ugly!

Love is not the goal...it is the given.  It is the effortless part.  Laughter is the goal.  Growth.  Support.  Help.  Sensitivity.  Selflessness.  Forgiveness.  Caring.  Curiosity.  Hope. Friendship.

And how interesting that, while romance and sex can easily flow from a beautiful friendship, pain does not.

On betrayal

At this moment, how many people around the world stand on the verge of a fundamental betrayal of nature and their own humanity?  We were born into this world for a single, simple purpose: to be the unique genetic mutation that we are.  To respect nature itself is to be what we are and to allow others to be the sometimes strange yet overwhelmingly beautiful mutation that they are.

We all know this to be true at the deepest levels of our souls.  Without a doubt, we all feel it.  Nature as put this instinct in us.  To hide who we are or to conform is painful.  To force others to do the same is the same.  Every time any of us unquestionably obeys authority out of fear, when we look at others with envy and try to imitate, when we talk sports because everyone else is, when we augment our bodies with surgery, when we starve ourselves to look like models in magazines, when we take corporate drugs to make us seem normal, when our tax dollars are used to overthrow a democratically elected government and destroy the hope of a people, when we put someone in prison for choosing to enjoy marijuana...we are acting in betrayal of nature and we are selling our souls to the cancer that is the corporate-controlled system of oppression which is destroying the world.

Fuck it.  Be who you are and let others do the same.