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Human desire differs from animal desire in that it is at root insatiable. Man is characterized by a hunger for the infinite, for an eternity of life, love and joy which, whether he knows it or not, can be nothing other than God. Assuming that God exists, it will follow that God is man’s true end, for the appetite of a living organism shows its function. The stomach hungers for food because it’s function is to digest food. As physical taste and hunger may often be mistaken as to their true object, desiring nothing but caviar instead of a balanced diet, man is often mistaken as to the goal of his life, desiring wealth, power or physical pleasure instead of God. But his real appetite continues to be God, for which these lesser goals are always unsatisfactory substitutes. Those who set their hearts on finite goals are always discontented; they must always have more and more and more of what they desire, and failing this are frustrated and miserable. Profound contentment is only enjoyed by animals and primitives, in which infinite hunger has not been awakened, and by the saints and mystics who have realized union with God.
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- Alan Watts

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A 1971 television recording with Alan Watts walking in the mountains and talking about the limitations of technology and the problem of trying to keep track of an infinite universe with a single tracked mind.

Via Arthur Magazine (here)

Trying to understand the world purely by thinking about it is as clumsy a process as trying to drink the Pacific Ocean out of a pint beer mug.  You can only take it one mug at a time. – Alan Watts

I got turned on to Alan Watts just yesterday, if you can believe that.  Mike left a comment on the post yesterday and I followed the trail to his latest post where I listened to Alan Watts.  What a cool guy!  Anyway, this quote came from one of the links I listened to whilst perusing.  He was saying that thoughts occur one at a time, and I think what he was getting at was the same damned thing all the nondual folks are always trying to shove down my throat, which is that I’ll never understand it with the mind.  The mind can’t get it!  Alan Watts died in 1973.  See, even dead people piss me off!

Mike also left a link to a quote, which I’ll just go ahead an replicate so’s ya don’t have to keep flippin’ around the damned web.

Even the intellectual understanding of the inexistence of our ’selves’ is a rare and bitter attainment which few even attempt. And that is only the elimination round which qualifies us for access to Reality… Intellectual understanding should be not indispensable to a ’simple’ mind, but, with our conditioning, it would seem to be an almost inevitable preliminary. - Why Lazurus Laughed by Wei Wu Wei

Apparently, according to Wei Wu Wei (another fascinating character), an intellectual understanding is possible, although not likely.  I’d like to think that I have such an intellectual understanding of the “inexistence of our ’selves’”, as I’ve mulled this junk over so many, many times.  Then he says “…it would seem to be an almost inevitable preliminary.”  To what?  Preliminary to the experience of the inexistence of our ’selves’?  He says the intellectual understanding is a rare and bitter attainment.  I can understand bitter.  I think I’m there, actually.  It’s bitter not being able to find or locate your self.  But here  it is, in no particular location, always here, always watching, never moved or touched, just…. here.  What the hell is it?

What the HELL is IT!!!!!

And how is that me?  I am that blank nothing-screen that it’s all plastered on?  Like I’m some kind of dry erase board or something.  All this shit just “happens”, and I am some humongous infinite NOTHING that this Mike thingy happens in?  What about the Mike thingy?  What’s that?  Me?  Isn’t that me too?  Why hell no, hadn’t I negated that bizarre little friggin’ anomaly away already?  Mike isn’t me…. awww c’mon!  Oh, for frick’s sake already!  Sling ‘is head against the damned wall!  Hack it off with a rusted sword!  It’s just Mike… it’s nothing…. not who I really am… what the hell’s the difference?

OK, that was a bit twisted, but I felt it, so there ya go.  I’ve got to take off and find some meat thermometers for smoking a 14 lb turkey tomorrow, so I’m gonna need that damned head to see where the hell I’m driving.

I watched a fascinating BBC documentary, and I’d posted it in the comments section of yesterdays post, but I think I’ll put it here as well.  It’s long, but sure does getcha thinkin’.  You clowns have a magnificent Thanksgiving weekend, unless your not American of course, in which case have a magnificent non-Thanksgiving weekend.

There are six parts to this, so pay attention.

“Ik ben ook maar menselijk!” Deze uitspraak of een variatie erop heb je vast wel eens gehoord. We gebruiken het als een manier om aan te geven dat wij ook maar gelimiteerd zijn door ons eigen kunnen. Maar wat is het nu eigenlijk om ‘mens’ te zijn? We definiëren ons na zo’n vraag meestal door hetzelfde lijstje af te gaan, waarbij we zoveel mogelijk dingen noemen die bij ‘het gewone leven’ horen. Werk, ‘huisje-boompje-beestje’, vrienden maken en verliezen, oud worden. Toch begint die standaarddefinitie de laatste tijd steeds meer op losse schroeven te staan.

Als je nog niks over ballonnen hebt gelezen, is het misschien handig om dat eerst eens te doen. Als je in je hoofd inmiddels al denkbeeldige erwten hebt weggeschoten met denkbeeldige ballonnen, let dan goed op.

Want toen ik Alan Watts hoorde praten over het feit dat wij allen God zouden zijn, schoot me een ander fragment te binnen dat mijn binding met Watts z’n woorden alleen versterkte. Het betreft een stuk van Bill Hicks (16 dec 1961 – 26 feb 1994) waarin hij dezelfde theorie aandraagt als Watts. Het kan heel goed zijn dat Watts een bron van inspiratie voor Hicks is geweest, maar dat kan ik vanuit geen enkele kant bevestigd krijgen. De boodschap van Hicks windt er hoe dan ook geen doekjes om: Ik ben God…en jij ook.

Dit stuk resoneerde zo ontzettend sterk met mijn eigen overtuigingen, dat ik alle mogelijke middelen verzamelde in mijn hoofd om het te kunnen rationaliseren. Iedereen kan zoiets natuurlijk wel zeggen, maar waarom het voor mij ‘waar is’, heb ik gepoogd uit te leggen in de laatste paar weblogs. Van quantum mechanica en de oerknal, tot aan de (zen-boeddhistische) mijmeringen van Alan Watt’s en George Carlin.

De theorie

Hoe ik het zie, is dat wij allemaal maar kleine representaties zijn van het grotere overkoepelende ‘ding’ dat vaak als God bestempeld wordt. Telkens duiken er piepkleine deeltjes deze driedimensionale werkelijkheid in, om het bestaan op deze manier te ervaren, maar ook om het deels in stand te houden door observatie. Ik zie het altijd als kleinere stroompjes die zich afsplitsen van de grote rivier, om zich er later weer mee samen te voegen.

De ‘prijs’ die je ervoor betaalt is dat je, eenmaal geboren in dit lichaam, geen enkele bewuste herinnering meer overhoudt aan datgene wat er aan je huidige leven voorafging. Maar zodra je sterft en je ‘ziel’ dit tijdelijke voertuig achter zich laat, ben je weer terug bij het grotere geheel. Bij de bron, of God.

“God is alomvattend en God is alwetend.” In de context van mijn theorie lijkt deze uitspraak een stuk begrijpelijker. Een leuke bijkomstigheid van het geheel, is dat wij als mini-godje de potentie in ons hebben om meer te zijn dan ‘maar een mens’. Als je vanuit die optiek kijkt naar de grote namen die ik eerder noemde, Boeddha, Jezus, enzovoorts, zou je kunnen redeneren dat zij slechts een stapje op ons voor waren. Maar dat hoeft dus niet te betekenen dat zij, en alleen zij deze stap konden maken. Er moet ergens in ons hoofd simpelweg een schakelaartje ‘om’ en dan ligt die weg voor ons allen open.

Evolving an idea

Sommige zijn van mening dat je dit alleen kunt bereiken via jarenlange meditatie en strikte discipline. Andere menen dat het gebruik van hallucinerende middelen de weg naar verlichting is. Weer anderen denken dat het voor de mensheid ‘ineens om zal slaan’. Dat laatste wordt ook steeds vaker gezegd met een verwijzing naar de 2012-datum in december van dat jaar.

Natuurlijk is het allemaal maar speculatie. Niemand kan met 100% zekerheid zeggen dat zij ‘de weg en het licht’ hebben gevonden, al denken zij dat zelf natuurlijk wel.

Wat ik wel denk, is dat als we niet snel ‘wakker’ worden, we in een overbevolkte, kaalgeplukte wereld eindigen, waar de lucht te giftig is om te ademen en het water te zuur om te drinken. Of zoals Bill Hicks het in een andere voorstelling omschreef:

“Folks, it’s time to evolve idea’s. Evolution did not end with us growing thumbs, you do know that right? Didn’t end there. We’re at the point now where we’re going to have to evolve ideas. The reason we’re all so f***ed up is because we’re undergoing evolution. And the reason all our institutions, our traditional religions are all crumbling, is because… they’re no longer relevant! *laughs* They’re no longer relevant… so it’s time for us to create a new philosophy and perhaps even a new religion, you see?

And that’s our right, because we are free and holy children of God. With minds that can imagine anything…and that’s kind of our role.  Maybe something based on, yes, the principles of Jesus. Which were, love your brother like yourself…Because you know what? He is yourself!”

Als afsluiter dan nog het filmpje van Alan Watts waar het voor mij mee begon (naast die ene hierboven, van Hicks). Het laatste stuk van dit filmpje is Michael Tsarion die op zijn eigen manier hetzelfde probeert over te brengen.

Ik wil nog even terugkomen op Alan Watts. In mijn vorige blog gaf ik al aan dat Watts geloofde dat ieder mens in essentie ‘god’ was. Of Boeddha of Shiva of Krisjna of zelfs Jezus Christus. Daarvoor nog refereerde ik in mijn ‘black hole machine’-verhaal aan het idee dat dit universum ontstaan was omdat een hogere vorm van intelligentie het begin waarnam, en het daardoor realiteit kon worden. Ik zal in deze post proberen uit te leggen hoe ik dat beredeneer en ook wat dit uiteindelijk met Watts z’n uitspraak heeft te maken.

In mijn ‘black hole’ stuk probeerde ik met het tweede filmpje er aan te herinneren dat wij als mens niet veel meer zijn dan een bijeengeraapte verzameling van atomen. Hoe erg we ons ook vasthouden aan het idee een vaste vorm hebben, zijn we op het diepste basisniveau nog steeds die piepkleine kern, met in een vacuüm daaromheen weer andere losse deeltjes.

Toen ik dit voor het eerst hoorde, refereerde die verteller ook aan de notie dat wij dus in essentie ‘leeg zijn’. Waar ik in die eerdere blog ook vertelde over die ‘doperwt van alle vaste deeltjes in het universum’, illustreert dat perfect hoe ‘leeg’ wij daadwerkelijk zijn.

Als het nu echt waar is dat de daad van observatie het ‘gedrag’ van vaste deeltjes kan veranderen, dan moet er ooit eerste observatie gedaan zijn. ‘De observatie’, zou je bijna zeggen. Omdat observatie, volgens de theorie, in zeker mate realiteit creëert.

Een theorie vol hete lucht

Ik zal mijn theorie ten eerste illustreren met een mooi metafoor. Stel je voor dat het universum, in de staat van die ‘doperwt’ vóór de Big Bang, een lege ballon is. Dan komt er iemand langs die de lege ballon ziet liggen en bij zichzelf denkt: ‘Hey, daar zit potentie in!’. Dus deze persoon begint de ballon op te blazen en met elke uitademing wordt de ballon een beetje groter, zet zich uit. Maar tijdens het blazen wordt de ballon niet alleen gevuld met lucht, maar ook met deeltjes van de blazer zelf. Losse (huid-)cellen, wat verdampt speeksel en de geur van de adem gaat met elke keer blazen méé de ballon in.

Bedenk je nu even dat in elk stukje, elke cel van jouw eigen lichaam een specifieke dna-code zit, die op zijn beurt weer elk aspect van jouw fysieke wezen beschrijft. Van je haarkleur, tot de manier waarop je tenen in een bepaalde richting groeien. Met deze gedachte kun je je voorstellen dat de ballon inmiddels gevuld is met duizenden, misschien miljoenen minuscuul kleine ballon-blazertjes. Wanneer wij als mensen kinderen krijgen, mengen de twee dna-strengen van de ouders zich in een soort biologische blender en wordt er op de ‘puree-knop’ gedrukt. Het resultaat is een compleet willekeurige samenstelling van elementen van beide soorten dna. Maar als het goed is, wel altijd met twee benen, twee armen, twee ogen, enzovoorts. De reden dat dat elk mens toch zo verschillend is, komt omdat we de oneindige diversiteit van het het ‘god-gen’ al miljarden keren door de blender hebben gegooid.

Terug naar de ballon. Probeer je nu voor te stellen dat de intelligentie die de ballon zag en ‘begon te blazen’, niet de god is zoals hij altijd voorgesteld wordt. Geen groots vaderfiguur in witte gewaden en een lange baard, maar eerder als een concept van creëren, zoals die blazer dat deed in het voorgaande metafoor. ‘God heeft de hemel en de aarde geschapen’, ‘God heeft de mens in zijn evenbeeld geschapen’, ‘God leeft ook in jou’.

Het zou verklaren waarom sommige mensen denken dat ze een ziel hebben (de ‘adem’ van god die een stel atomen bij elkaar raapt en er een levend, bewust mens van maakt). Het zou ook logisch zijn waarom mensen soms zeggen ‘de aanwezigheid en liefde van God’ te voelen. Dat zou volgens deze theorie niks meer of minder zijn dan de herinnering van vóór onze geboorte in dit aardse bestaan. Een onderhuids gevoel wat je vertelt dat je ooit onderdeel van iets veel groters bent geweest (en wat je op dit moment dan natuurlijk nog steeds bent).

Maar daar kom ik nog op terug in een latere post.

Now reading a wonderful book — Myth & Religion by Alan Watts. In the opening quote, he says that the current Western religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) do not help people realize that we are all God, and we are all one God, connected to everything that exists. What an overlook! This book is good stuff.

“Western civilization is in a state of chaos. It has lost effective knowledge of man’s true nature and destiny. Neither philosophy nor religion as they are known today do much to give man the consciousness that the deepest center or ‘ground’ of his being is to be found in that eternal reality which is in the West called God.”
- Alan Watts

Ooit zei Alan Watts: “Each one of you is really the Great Self. Therefore each of you is in essence a Krisna or Buddha and ultimately the entire universe”. De van oorsprong Britse filosoof, zen-meester en ’all-round guru’ (6 januari, 1915 – 16 november, 1973), was op het hoogtepunt van zijn ‘carrière’ één van de grootste vertalers van oosterse filosofieën naar de westerse denkwijze. Vanuit zijn boeddhistische overtuigingen wist hij in zijn toespraken en redenaties alledaagse situaties tot op het bot te ontleden en te versimpelen tot een hapklare en begrijpelijke uitleg.

Nu vraag je jezelf misschien af wat op dit moment de actuele aanleiding is om over Watts te praten. De man is immers al ruim 30 jaar dood. Het klopt dat er volgens de officiële journalistieke criteria weinig reden is om nu over Alan Watts te beginnen. Toch is het zo dat zijn uitleg over zulke algemene en overkoepelende zaken gaat, dat het in feite tijdloos is. Veel van zijn uitspraken zijn namelijk net zo goed van toepassing op situaties die jij en ik in ons leven tegenkomen, als op de dingen die zijn publiek destijds meemaakte. Dat zorgt er uiteindelijk voor, dat zijn ideeën op dit moment nog net zo relevant zijn als op het moment dat hij ze voor het eerst uitsprak.

De verschillende onderwerpen die Watts bespreekt zijn enorm divers. Iets dat ook niet zo vreemd is gezien de man minstens 25 boeken heeft geschreven, talloze artikelen heeft gepubliceerd en een bijna eindeloze hoeveelheid toespraken heeft gehouden. Van werkethiek en de midlifecrisis, tot de Zin van het Leven en onze waarneming van tijd. Zo nam hij tijdens zijn leven bijna elk aspect van ons aardse bestaan wel een keer onder de loep.

De manier waarop de zenmeester zijn uitleg brengt, spreekt (mij in ieder geval) heel erg aan. Via makkelijk te volgen taalgebruik, heldere metaforen en met redelijk wat humor weet de man de meeste luisteraars minstens zo ver te krijgen dat ze zijn gedachtegangen tot het einde blijven volgen.

Gezien de beste man zoveel verschillende onderwerpen tijdens zijn leven heeft belicht, is het moeilijk om er echt één te kiezen die zijn denkwijze het meeste recht aan doet. Daarom heb ik gekozen voor een verzameling van een aantal korte ideeën en zijn kijk daarop. Daar komt bij dat dit filmpje fijn gemonteerd is en ondersteunende animaties heeft, die van de hand van Trey Parker en Matt Stone (de makers van South Park) zijn.

Dit stukje is natuurlijk maar een korte greep uit de talloze uitgewerkte stukken van Watts. Als je echter een beetje behendig bent met zoeken in Youtube en op Google kun je met gemak nog vele andere video- en audiofragmenten terugvinden, mocht je dat interessant vinden.

Verfrissend, toch?

This is the first real Alan Watts video I ever listened to and my personal favorite. It is also the antidote to the video in the previous post.

Props where props are due. Many of the Alan Watts videos that I link to and that are on youtube are created and uploaded by a fellow usernamed redliterocket4 and 0ThouArtThat0. He has an extensive library of uploaded and favorited videos, most of great quality. I suggest you visit his pages there:
http://www.youtube.com/user/redliterocket4

http://www.youtube.com/user/0ThouArtThat0

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“The Earth is geological, yes, but this geological entity grows people,

and our existence on the Earth is a symptom of this other system,

and it’s balances, as much as the solar system is a symptom of our galaxy,

and our galaxy in it’s turn is a symptom of a whole company of other galaxies.”

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~ Alan Watts

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You cannot understand life and its mysteries as long as you try to grasp it.

Indeed, you cannot grasp it just as you cannot walk off with a river in a bucket.

If you try to capture running water in a bucket,

it is clear that you do not understand it and that you will always be disappointed,

for in the bucket the water does not run.

To “have” running water you must let go of it and let it run.
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~ Alan Watts

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Last album from memory lane. An early work from Alan Watts, Zen teacher extraordinaire.

I highly recommend any books by Alan Watts if you’d like to expand your view of the world.

Enjoy

Info

“There is a bumper sticker that reads: God, please save me from your followers. Just as the disciples of the Deity often present the most considerable obstacle to knowing Him, a like argument can be made for the earnest devotees of Gilbert Keith Chesterton.  This is most unfortunate, since we merely aim to be grateful to one who has offered us spiritual strength, and may have even led us to God.”  Yet somewhere along the line we have been presented with a mere caricature of the man, a pompous old know-it-all who seems to have an epigram for every question posed and a grinding joviality and humour that totally obscures the man who suffered for every truth gained. I am far more in debt to Garry Wills’ fine work “Chesterton Man And Mask” than to anything EWTN has ever produced and if the latter is your main image generator for this giant of twentieth century literature, well you need help.

This excellent biography would be one place to start. The best place of course is with the source itself, the man’s own books, but then you lack his place in history and the milieu in which he operated. As you will see from the reading selections below “Pearce maintains a good balance between telling the tale of Chesterton and providing selections from his writings–poetry, essays, books, novels–which are integral to understanding the man, and which greatly increase one’s admiration of him. . Much is made, for instance, of his friendships with Hilaire Belloc and Fr. Ronald Knox, but also of those with George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells, with whom he frequently disagreed. We also learn about the ways in which C.S. Lewis, Evelyn Waugh, Dorothy Sayers, and George Orwell–among others–were influenced by him.”

As is my custom, reading selections that I found compelling here:

The Bible For Protestants and Catholics
Protestant Christianity believes that here is a Divine record in a book; that everyone ought to have free access to that book; that everyone who gets hold of it can save his soul by it, whether he finds it in a library or picks it off a dustcart. Catholic Christianity believes that there is a Divine army or league upon earth called the Church; that all men should be induced to join it; that any man who joins it can save his soul by it without ever opening any of the old books of he Church at all. The Bible is only one of the institutions of Catholicism, like its rites or priesthood; it thinks the Bible only efficient when taken as part of the Church.
Chesterton in the Daily News

Selfishness
Selfishness is not a disease, an abnormal accident…Selfishness is a permanent and natural danger which arises form the existence of a self…While you are turning over the musty folios of early Victorian materialism, newer things are happening: a fresh and fierce philosophy of oligarchy and the wise few is spreading from Germany all over the world. We have a logical answer to that philosophy. You have none. We have a basic defense of democracy. You have none. Our answer is: “There are no wise few; for in all men rages the folly of the Fall. Take your strongest, happiest, handsomest , best born , best bred, best instructed men on earth and give them special power for half an hour and because they are men they will begin to perform badly.
Chesterton in a private letter to Robert Blatchford, 1904

The Relevance of God
You cannot evade the issue of God: whether you talk about pigs or the binomial theory, you are still talking about Him…If Christianity should happen to be true…that is to say if god is the real God of the universe – then defending it may mean talking about anything and everything. Things can be irrelevant to the proposition that Christianity is false, but nothing can be irrelevant to the proposition that Christianity is true. Zulus, gardening, butchers’ shops, lunatic asylums, housemaids and the French Revolution – all these things not only may have something to do with the Christian God, but must have something to do with Him if He lives and reigns.
Chesterton in the Daily News

Poetry Deals With Origins
Poetry deals with primal and conventional things—the hunger for bread, the love of woman, the love of children, the desire for immortal life. If men really had new sentiments, poetry could not deal with them. If, let us say, a man did not feel a bitter craving to eat bread; but did, by way of substitute, feel a fresh, original craving to eat brass fenders or mahogany tables, poetry could not express him. If a man, instead of falling in love with a woman, fell in love with a fossil or a sea anemone, poetry could not express him. Poetry can only express what is original in one sense—the sense in which we speak of original sin. It is original, not in the paltry sense of being new, but in the deeper sense of being old; it is original in the sense that it deals with origins
Chesterton in Robert Browning, 1903

Poetry Is The Science of Motives
The practical value of poetry is that it is realistic upon a point upon which nothing else can be realistic, the point of the actual desires of man. Ethics is the science of actions, but poetry is the science of motives. Some actions are ugly, and therefore some parts of ethics are ugly. But all motives are beautiful, or present themselves for the moment as beautiful, and therefore all poetry is beautiful. If poetry deals with the basest matter, with the shedding of blood for gold, it ought to suggest the gold as well as the blood. Only poetry can realize motives, because motives are all pictures of happiness. And the supreme and most practical value of poetry is this, that in poetry, as in music, a note is struck which expresses beyond the power of rational statement a condition of mind, and all actions arise from a condition of mind.
Chesterton in Robert Browning, 1903

Ronald Knox on Chesterton’s The Napoleon of Notting Hill
The book concludes….by opening up a wider problem; which was right? Quinn, who invented Notting Hill for a joke, or Wayne, who did not see that it was a joke and turned it into a reality? Which is right – the cynic who sees everything as amusing, or the fanatic who has no sense of humor at all? The answer to that is, that the two men are in reality only two lobes of one brain; it is only when the world goes wrong that the pure precipitation of cynic or of fanatic is formed; the normal man, living in normal surroundings is a blend of both. Laughter and love are eveyewhere; in healty people there is no war beween them.

Facts
“Facts,” murmured Basil, like one mentioning some strange, far-off animals, “how facts obscure the truth. I may be silly—in fact, I’m off my head—but I never could believe in that man — what’s his name, in those capital stories? — Sherlock Holmes. Every detail points to something, certainly; but generally to the wrong thing. Facts point in all directions, it seems to me, like the thousands of twigs on a tree. It’s only the life of the tree that has unity and goes up — only the green blood that springs, like a fountain, at the stars.”
Chesterton in The Club of Queer Trades

Mental Growth and Dogmas
The vice of the modern notion of mental progress is that it is always something concerned with the breaking of bonds, the effacing of boundaries, the casting away of dogmas. But if there be such a thing as mental growth, it must mean the growth into more and more definite convictions, into more and more dogmas.  The human brain is a machine for coming to conclusions; if it cannot come to conclusions it is rusty. When we hear of a man too clever to believe, we are hearing of something having almost the character of a contradiction in terms. It is like hearing of a nail that was too good to hold down a carpet; or a bolt that was too strong to keep a door shut…. When he drops one doctrine after another in a refined skepticism, when he declines to tie himself to a system, when he says that he has outgrown definitions, when he says that he disbelieves in finality, when, in his own imagination, he sits as God, holding no form of creed but contemplating all, then he is by that very process sinking slowly backwards into the vagueness of the vagrant animals and the unconsciousness of the grass. Trees have no dogmas.  Turnips are singularly broad-minded. 
Chesterton in Heretics 1905

Dogmatism and Bigotry
A common hesitation in our day touching the use of extreme convictions is a sort of notion that extreme convictions, specially upon cosmic matters, have been responsible in the past for the thing which is called bigotry.  But a very small amount of direct experience will dissipate this view. In real life the people who are most bigoted are the people who have no convictions at all.  The economists of the Manchester school who disagree with Socialism take Socialism seriously. It is the young man in Bond Street, who does not know what socialism means, much less whether he agrees with it, who is quite certain that these socialist fellows are making a fuss about nothing. The man who understands the Calvinist philosophy enough to agree with it must understand the Catholic philosophy in order to disagree with it.  It is the vague modern who is not at all certain what is right who is most certain that Dante was wrong. The serious opponent of the Latin Church in history, even in the act of showing that it produced great infamies, must know that it produced great saints.  It is the hard-headed stockbroker, who knows no history and believes no religion, who is, nevertheless, perfectly convinced that all these priests are knaves.  The Salvationist at the Marble Arch may be bigoted, but he is not too bigoted to yearn from a common human kinship after the dandy on church parade.  But the dandy on church parade is so bigoted that he does not in the least yearn after the Salvationist at the Marble Arch.  Bigotry may be roughly defined as the anger of men who have no opinions. It is the resistance offered to definite ideas by that vague bulk of people whose ideas are indefinite to excess. Bigotry may be called the appalling frenzy of the indifferent.   
Chesterton in Heretics 1905

Dickens As Mythologist
Dickens was a mythologist rather than a novelist…He did not always manage to make his characters men, but he always managed at the least, to make them gods….it is not the aim of Dickens to show the effect of time and circumstance upon a character; it was not even his aim to show the effect of a character on time and circumstance…It was his aim to show character hung in a kind of happy void, in a world apart from time.
Chesterton in Charles Dickens, 1906

Dickens At One With The Common Mind
His power, then, lay in the fact that he expressed with an energy and brilliancy quite uncommon the things close to the common mind. But with this mere phrase, the common mind, we collide with a current error. Commonness and the common mind are now generally spoken of as meaning in some manner inferiority and the inferior mind; the mind of the mere mob. But the common mind means the mind of all the artists and heroes; or else it would not be common. Plato had the common mind; Dante had the common mind; or that mind was not common. Commonness means the quality common to the saint and the sinner, to the philosopher and the fool; and it was this that Dickens grasped and developed. In everybody there is a certain thing that loves babies, that fears death, that likes sunlight that thing enjoys Dickens. And everybody does not mean uneducated crowds; everybody means everybody: everybody means Mrs. Meynell. This lady, a cloistered and fastidious writer, has written one of the best eulogies of Dickens that exist, an essay in praise of his pungent perfection of epithet. And when I say that everybody understands Dickens I do not mean that he is suited to the untaught intelligence. I mean that he is so plain that even scholars can understand him.
Chesterton in Charles Dickens, 1906

Marriage
One of the mysteries of Marriage (which must be a sacrament and an extraordinary one, too) is that a man evidently useless like me can yet become at certain instants indispensable. And the further oddity (which I invite you to explain on mystical grounds) is that he never feels so small as when he knows that he is necessary.

Chesterton told her the story of Augustine strolling along the beach meditating on the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Suddenly the saint saw a small boy scooping water from the sea and putting it into a hole. Upon asking the child to explain what he was doing, St Augustine received the reply that he was putting the sea into the hole in the sand. The Saint smiled at the sight of the vast sea and the small hole and the child said to him: ‘As easy to put the sea into a hole as the mystery of the infinite God into a human mind.’
Chesterton in a letter to Father O’Connor, 1909

Dickens At One With The Common Mind
Shaw is wrong about nearly all the things one learns early in life and while one is still simple.  Most human beings start with certain facts of psychology to which the rest of life must be somewhat related. For instance, every man falls in love; and no man falls into free love. When he falls into that he calls it lust, and is always ashamed of it even when he boasts of it.  That there is some connection between a love and a vow nearly every human being knows before he is eighteen. That there is a solid and instinctive connection between the idea of sexual ecstasy and the idea of some sort of almost suicidal constancy, this I say is simply the first fact in one’s own psychology; boys and girls know it almost before they know their own language. How far it can be trusted, how it can best be dealt with, all that is another matter.  But lovers lust after constancy more than after happiness; if you are in any sense prepared to give them what they ask, then what they ask, beyond all question, is an oath of final fidelity.
Chesterton in George Bernard Shaw, 1910

Dogs (A Short Essay)
Cynics often speak of the disillusioning effects of experience, but I for one have found that nearly all things not evil are better in experience than in theory. Take, for example, the innovation which I have of late introduced into my domestic life; he is a four-legged innovation in the shape of an Aberdeen terrier. I have always imagined myself to be a lover of all animals, because I have never met any animal that I definitely disliked. Most people draw the line somewhere. Lord Roberts disliked cats; the best woman I know objects to spiders; a Theosophist I know protects, but detests, mice; and many leading humanitarians have an objection to human beings.

If the dog is loved he is loved as a dog; not as a fellow-citizen, or an idol, or a pet, or a product of evolution. The moment you are responsible for one respectable animal, that moment an abyss opens as wide as the world between cruelty and the necessary coercion of animals. There are some people who talk of what they call “Corporal Punishment”, and class under that head the hideous torture inflicted on unfortunate citizens in our prisons and workhouses, and also the smack one gives to a silly boy or the whipping of an intolerable terrier. You might as well invent a phrase called “Reciprocal Concussion” and leave it to be understood that you included under this head kissing, kicking, the collision of boats at sea, the embracing of young Germans, and the meeting of comets in mid-air.

That is the second moral value of the thing; the moment you have an animal in your charge you soon discover what is really cruelty to animals, and what is only kindness to them. For instance, some people have called it inconsistent in me to be an anti-vivisectionist and yet to be in favor of ordinary sports. I can only say that I can quite imagine myself shooting my dog, but cannot imagine myself vivisecting him.

But there is something deeper in the matter than all that, only the hour is late, and both the dog and I are too drowsy to interpret it. He lies in front of me curled up before the fire, as so many dogs must have lain before so many fires. I sit on one side of that hearth, as so many men must have sat by so many hearths. Somehow this creature has completed my manhood; somehow, I cannot explain why, a man ought to have a dog. A man ought to have six legs; those other four legs are part of him. Our alliance is older than any of the passing and priggish explanations that are offered of either of us; before evolution was, we were. You can find it written in a book that I am a mere survival of a squabble of anthropoid apes; and perhaps I am. I am sure I have no objection. But my dog knows I am a man, and you will not find the meaning of that word written in any book as clearly as it is written in his soul.

It may be written in a book that my dog is canine; and from this it may be deduced that he must hunt with a pack, since all canines hunt with a pack. Hence it may be argued (in the book) that if I have one Aberdeen terrier I ought to have twenty-five Aberdeen terriers. But my dog knows that I do not ask him to hunt with a pack; he knows that I do not care a curse whether he is canine or not so long as he is my dog. That is the real secret of the matter which the superficial evolutionists cannot be got to see. If traceable history be the test, civilization is much older than the savagery of evolution. The civilized dog is older than the wild dog of science. The civilized man is older than the primitive man of science. We feel it in our bones that we are the antiquities, and that the visions of biology are the fancies and the fads. The books do not matter; the night is closing in, and it is too dark to read books. Faintly against the fading firelight can be traced the prehistoric outlines of the man and the dog.
G.K. Chesterton in Lunacy and Letters

Thinking About Jesus
When we look, so to speak, through he four windows of the Evangelists, at this mysterious figure, we can see there a recognizable Jew of he first century, with the traceable limitations of such a man. Now this is exactly what we do not see. If we must put the thing profanely and without sympathy, what we see is this:   an extraordinary being who would certainly have seemed as mad in one century as another, who makes a vague and vast claim to divinity…For some of his utterances men might fairly call him a maniac; for others, men long centuries afterwards might justly call him a prophet. But what nobody can possibly call him is a Galilean of the time of Tiberius…That is not how he appeared to his own nation, who lynched him, still shuddering at his earth-shaking blasphemies…

If I take it for granted (as most modern people do) that Jesus of Nazareth was one of the ordinary teachers of men, then I find Him splendid and suggestive indeed, but full of riddles and outrageous demands, by no means so workable and everyday an adviser as many heathens and many Jesuits. But if I put myself hypothetically into the other attitude, the case becomes curiously arresting and even thrilling. If I say “Suppose the Divine did really walk and talk upon the earth, what should he be likely to think of it?”– then the foundations of my mind are moved. So far as I can form any conjecture, I think we should see in such a being exactly the perplexities that we see in the central figure of the Gospels…

I think he would seem to us to contradict himself; because, looking down on life like a map, he would see a connection between things which to us are disconnected. I think, however, that he would always ring true to our own sense of right, but ring (so to speak) too loud and too clear.  He would be too good but never too bad for us: “Be ye perfect,” I think there would be, in the nature of things, some tragic collision between him and the humanity he had created, culminating in something would be at once a crime and an expiation…

I think, in short, that  he would give us a sensation that he was turning all our standards upside down, and yet also a sensation that he had undeniably put them the right way.
Chesterton in The Hibbert Journal, 1909

Cardinal Luciani, Bishop of Venice, Addresses Chesterton in 1971
The monk’s conclusion, which is yours, dear Chesterton, is quite right. Take God away and what is left, what do men become? What sort of a world are we reduced to living in? ‘Why, the world of progress!’ I hear someone say, ‘The world of affluence.’ Yes, but this famous progress isn’t all that it was once cracked up to be. It contains other things in itself: missiles, bacteriological and atomic weapons, the present process of pollution – all things that, unless they are dealt with in time, threaten to plunge the whole human race into catastrophe.  Progress that involves men who don’t recognize a single Father in God becomes a constant danger;: without a parallel moral progress, which is continuous and internal, it develops what is lowest and cruelest in man making him a machine possessed by machines, a number manipulated by numbers…

Dear Chesterton, you and I go down on our knees before a God who is more present than ever. Only he can give a satisfactory answer to the questions which, for everyone, ar the most important of all;  Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going?
Cardinal Luciani in Illustrissimi, 1978

Cynicism
Through the medium of Father Brown, he [Chesterton] illustrated how cynicism pollutes and destroys wisdom as much as it pollutes and destroys innocence. Once cannot see objectively through innocent eyes because the vision is obscured by dark, skeptical clouds. Consequently only the eyes of innocence see clearly.

On The English And The French
It is no idle Hibernianism to say that towards the end of the eighteenth century the most important event in English history happened in France. It would seem still more perverse, yet it would be still more precise, to say that the most important event in English history was the event that never happened at all–the English Revolution on the lines of the French Revolution.  Its failure was not due to any lack of fervour or even ferocity in those who would have brought it about: from the time when the first shout went up for Wilkes to the time when the last Luddite fires were quenched in a cold rain of rationalism, the spirit of Cobbett, of rural republicanism, of English and patriotic democracy, burned like a beacon. The revolution failed because it was foiled by another revolution; an aristocratic revolution, a victory of the rich over the poor. It was about this time that the common lands were finally enclosed; that the more cruel game laws were first established; that England became finally a land of landlords instead of common land-owners. I will not call it a Tory reaction; for much of the worst of it (especially of the land-grabbing) was done by Whigs; but we may certainly call it Anti-Jacobin. Now this fact, though political, is not only relevant but essential to everything that concerned literature. The upshot was that though England was full of the revolutionary ideas, nevertheless there was no revolution.  And the effect of this in turn was that from the middle of the eighteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth the spirit of revolt in England took a wholly literary form.  In France it was what people did that was wild and elemental; in England it was what people wrote. It is a quaint comment on the notion that the English are practical and the French merely visionary, that we were rebels in arts while they were rebels in arms. 

Father Brown Quote
What we dread most is a maze with no centre. That is why atheism is only a nightmare.

C.S Lewis On Reading Chesterton
It was here that I first read a volume of Chesterton’s essays. I had never heard of him and had no idea of what he stood for; nor can I quite understand why he made such an immediate conquest of me. It might have been expected that my pessimism, my atheism, and my hatred of sentiment would have made him to me the least congenial of all authors. It would almost seem that Providence, or some ‘second cause’ of a very obscure kind, quite over-rules our previous tastes when it decides to bring two minds together. Liking an author may be as involuntary and improbable as falling in love. I was by now a sufficiently experienced reader to distinguish liking from agreement. I did not need to accept what Chesterton said in order to enjoy it. His humor was the kind which I like best – not jokes imbedded in the page like currants in a cake, still less (what I cannot endure), a general tone of flippancy and jocularity, but the humor which is not in any way separable from the argument but is rather (as Aristotle would say) the ‘bloom’ on dialectic itself. The sword glitters not because the swordsman set out to make it glitter but because he is fighting for his life and therefore moving it very quickly. For the critics who think Chesterton frivolous or ‘paradoxical’ I have to work hard to feel even pity; sympathy is out of the question…In reading Chesterton as in reading MacDonald, I did not know what I was letting myself in for. A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere – Bibles laid open, millions of surprises’, as Herbert says, ‘fine nets and stratagems’. God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous.
From Surprised by Joy

Chesterton Contrasting Protestants and Catholics
In so far as the Ulster Protestant really has a faith, he is really a fine fellow; though perhaps not quite as so fine a fellow as he thinks himself. And that is a chasm; and can be most shortly stated as I have often stated in such debates: by saying that the Protestant generally says, ‘I am a good Protestant.’  while the Catholic says, ‘I am a bad Catholic.’

Chesterton On Israel
There as a movement in my own mind that was attuned to these things…for the sense of crisis is not only in the intensity of the ideals, but in the very conditions of the reality…And the burden of it is the burden of Palestine…A voice not of reason, but rather sounding heavily in my heart, seemed to be repeating sentences like pessimistic proverbs. There is no place for the Temple of Solomon but on the ruins of the Mosque of Omar. There is no place for the nation of the Jews but in the country of the Arabs. And these whispers came to me first not as intellectual conclusions upon the conditions of the case…but rather as hints of something immediate and menacing and yet mysterious. I felt almost a momentary impulse to flee from the place, like one who ahs received an omen. For two voices had met in my ears; and within the same narrow space and in the same dark hour, electric and yet eclipsed with cloud, I had heard Islam crying from the turret and Israel wailing at the wall.

Chesterton On The Pessimism Of Modern Poetry
I will not write any more about these poets, because I do not pretend to be impartial, or even to be good tempered on the subject. To my thinking, the oppression of the people is a terrible sin; but the depression of the people is a far worse one.

Hilaire Belloc Writing To Chesterton Concerning Faith
The thing I have to say is this (I could not have said it before your step; I can say so now. Before it would have been like a selected pleading). The Catholic Church is the exponent of Reality. It is true. Its doctrines in matters large and small are statement of what is.  This it is which the ultimate act of the intelligence accepts. This it is which the will deliberately confirms. And that is why Faith through an act of Will is Moral. If the Ordnance Map tells us that it is 11 miles to Wookey Hole then, my mood of lassitude as I walk through the rain at night making it feel like 30, I use the Will and say ‘No. My intelligence has been convinced and I compel myself to use it against my mood, It is 11 and though I feel in the depths of my being to have gone 20 miles and more, I know it is not yet 11 I have gone.’

I am by all my nature of mind skeptical, by all my nature of body exceedingly sensual. So sensual that the virtues restrictive of sense are but phrases to me. But I accept these phrases as true and act upon them as well as a struggling man can. And as to the doubt of the soul I discover it to be false: a mood not a conclusion. My conclusion – and that of all men who have ever once seenit – is the faith. Corporate, organized, a personality, teaching.. A thing, not a theory. It.

To you, who have the blessing of profound religious emotion, this statement may seem too desiccate. It is indeed not enthusiastic. It lacks meat. It is my misfortune. In youth I had it: even till lately. Grief has drawn the juices. I am alone and unfed. The more do I affirm the Sanctity, the Unity, the Infallibility of he Catholic Church. By my very isolation do I the more affirm it as a man in a desert knows htat wate is right fo a man; or a wounded dog not able to walk yet knows the way home…

But beyond this there will come in time, if I save my soul, the flesh of these bones – which bones alone I can describe and teach. I know –without feeling (an odd thing in such as connection) the reality of Beatitude: which is the goal of Catholic Living.

In hac urbe lux solennis
Ver aeternum pax perennis
Et aetern gaudia

Chesterton On His Conversion
Before arriving at Catholicism I passed through different stages and was a long tine struggling. The various stages are hard to explain in detail. After much study and reflection, I came to the conclusion that the ills from which England is suffering: Capitalism, crude Imperialism, Industrialism, Wrongful Rich, Wreckage of the family, are the result of England not being Catholic. The Anglo-Catholic position takes for granted that England remained Catholic in spite of the Reformation or even because of it. After my conclusions, it seemed unreasonable to affirm that England is Catholic. So I had to turn to the sole Catholicism, the Roman. Before my conversion I had a lot of Catholic ideas, and my point of view in fact had but little altered. Catholicism gives us a doctrine, puts logic into our life. It is not merely a Church Authority; it is a base which steadies the judgment…to be a Catholic is to be all at rest! To own an irrefragable metaphysic on which to base all one’s judgments, to be the touchstone of our ideas and our life, to which one can bring everything home.

Chesterton On The Test Of The Church
The Church cannot move with the times; simply because the times are not moving. The Church can only stick in the mud with the times, and rot and stink with the times. In the economic and social world, as such, there is no activity except that sort of automatic activity that is called decay; the withering of the high flowers of freedom and their decomposition in o the aboriginal soil of slavery. In that way the world stands much at the same stage as it did at the beginning of the Dark Ages…We do not want, as the newspapers say, a Church that will move with the world. We want a Church that will move the world. We want one that will move it away from many of the things words which it is now moving; for instance, the Servile State. It is by that test that history will really judge, of any Church, whether it is the real Church or no.

Chesterton On The Psychology of St. Francis
Many signs and symbols might yet be used to give a hint of what really happened in the mind of the young poet of Assisi.  Indeed they are at once too numerous for selection and yet too slight for satisfaction. But one of them may be adumbrated in this small and apparently accidental fact; that when he and his secular companions carried their pageant of poetry through the town, they called themselves Troubadours. But when he and his spiritual companions came out to do their spiritual work in the world, they were called by their leader the Jongleurs de Dieu…. St. Francis was talking the true language of a troubadour when he said that he also had a most glorious and gracious lady and that her name was poverty. But the particular point to be noted here is not concerned so much with the word Troubadour as with the word Jongleur. It is especially concerned with the transition from one to the other; and for this it is necessary to grasp another detail about the poets of the Gay Science.  A jongleur was not the same thing as a troubadour, even if the same man were both a troubadour and a jongleur. More often, I believe, they were separate men as well as separate trades. In many cases, apparently the two men would walk the world together like companions in arms, or rather companions in arts. The jongleur was properly a joculator or jester; sometimes he was what we should call a juggler.

Chesterton On The Secret of St. Francis’ Success
It is commonly in a somewhat cynical sense that men have said, “Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed.” It was in a wholly happy and enthusiastic sense that St. Francis said, “Blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for he shall enjoy everything.” It was by this deliberate idea of starting from zero, from the dark nothingness of his own deserts, that he did come to enjoy even earthly things as few people have enjoyed them; and they are in themselves the best working example of the idea. For there is no way in which a man can earn a star or deserve a sunset. 

Alan Watts, 1960’s Counter Culture Guru on Chesterton
It is in fact the sense of wonder which transforms every littlest thing in the universe into a divine mystery…The sense of wonder expresses itself in gratitude, and I know of no finer exposition of the mysticism of gratitude than the concluding pages of Chesterton’s Autobiography: “The aim of life is appreciation; there is no sense in not appreciating things and there is no sense in having more of them if you have less appreciation of them”.

The Origin of Distributism in Rerum Novarum (1891)
The law, therefore, should favor ownership, and its policy should be to induce as many as possible of the people to become owners. Many excellent results will follow from this; and, first of all, property will certainly become more equitably divided…. If working people can be encouraged to look forward to obtaining a share in the land, the consequence will be that the gulf between vast wealth and sheer poverty will be bridged over, and the respective classes will be brought nearer to one another.

Chesterton On One Of The Chief Duties of the Catholic Church
Nine out of ten of what we call new ideas are simply old mistakes. The Catholic Church has for one of her chief duties that of preventing people from making those old mistakes; from making them over and over again for ever, as people do if they are left to themselves…The Catholic Church carries a sort of map of the mind which looks like the map of a maze, but which is in fact a guide to the maze. It has been compiled from knowledge which, even considered as human knowledge, is quite without any human parallel. There is no other case of one continuous intelligent institution that as been thinking about thinking for two thousand years. It’s experience naturally coves nearly all experiences, and especially nearly all errors. The result is a map in which all the blind alleys and bad roads are clearly marked, all the ways that have been shown to be worthless by the best of all evidence; the evidence of those who have gone down them…By this means , it does prevent men from wasting their time or losing their lives upon paths that have been found futile or disastrous again and again in the past, but which might otherwise entrap travelers again and again in the future. The Church does make herself responsible for wanting her people against these…She does dogmatically defend humanity from its worst foes, those hoary and horrible and devouring monsters of the old mistakes

Chesterton On Birth Control
Everybody believes in birth control, and nearly everybody has exercised some control over the conditions of birth. People do not get married as somnambulists or have children in their sleep.  But throughout numberless ages and nations, the normal and real birth control is called self control. In so far as there is a local evil of excess, it comes with all other evils from the squalor and despair of our decaying industrialism. But the thing the capitalist newspapers call birth control is not control at all.  It is the idea that people should be, in one respect, completely and utterly uncontrolled, so long as they can evade everything in the function that is positive and creative, and intelligent and worthy of a free man. … The nearest and most respectable parallel would be that of the Roman epicure, who took emetics at intervals all day so that he might eat five or six luxurious dinners daily.  Now any man’s common sense, unclouded by newspaper science and long words, will tell him at once that an operation like that of the epicures is likely in the long run even to be bad for his digestion and pretty certain to be bad for his character.  Men left to themselves gave sense enough to know when a habit obviously savours of perversion and peril. And if it were the fashion in fashionable circles to call the Roman expedient by the name of “Diet Control,” and to talk about it in a lofty fashion as merely “the improvement of life and the service of life” (as if it meant no more than the mastery of man over his meals), we should take the liberty of calling it cant and saying that it had no relation to the reality in debate.

Chesterton on Vulgarity and the War Against Culture
…the evil I am trying to warn you of is not excessive democracy, it is not excessive ugliness, it is not excessive anarchy. It might be stated thus: It is standardization by a low standard…the chief danger confronting us on the artistic and cultural side and generally on the intellectual side at this moment…If I were to mention my own social remedies I would be talking politics and if I were to mention my own deeper remedies, I should be talking theology…(I wish to bear testimony) to the act that there never was a time in the whole history of the human race when it was more necessary to defend the intellectual independence of man than this hour in which we live.

Pain: A Cure For Delusional Man
In one of the stories (in The Poet and the Lunatics) a character named Saunders is cured of his belief that he is God when Gale drags him to a tree and pins him there with a pitchfork. Helplessly humiliated in this position, and in considerable discomfort, Saunders becomes aware of his own limitations and ultimate mortality. It is then that Chesterton…delivers the profundity of his message. His violence was the only remedy for Saunders who needed the ’acute, practical, and painful discovery that he could not control matter or the elements’. Appeasement would have served only to reinforce his delusions: ‘there is no cure for that nightmare of omnipotence except pain; because it is the only thing man knows he would not tolerate if he could really control it.’

Chesterton on Philanthropists And Christians
Philanthropists would give money the deserving poor; Christians would give it to the undeserving poor. For the first thought for the Christians, if they were really Christians, would be that they themselves were examples of the undeserving rich.

Chesterton on Thanksgiving Day
The Chestertons spent Thanksgiving Day in New York and it is here that Gilbert made the remark that the English should institute their own special Thanksgiving Day to celebrate that the Pilgrim Fathers had left.

Chesterton On How Christ Would Solve Modern Problems
If I were to answer the question ‘How would Christ solve modern problems if He were on earth today?’ I must answer it plainly; and for those of my faith there is only one answer. Christ is on earth today; alive on thousands of altars; and He does solve people’s problems exactly as He did when He was on earth in the more ordinary sense. That is, He solves the problems of the limited number of people who choose of their own free will to listen to Him…

Chesterton On Conversion: The Morning Of The World
A man who finds his way to Catholicism, out of the tangle of modern culture and complexity, must think harder than he has ever thought in his life. He must often deal as grimly with dry abstractions as if he were reading mathematics…He must face the dull and repulsive aspects of duty, as if he were facing the dreariest drudgery in the world….He must feel all the counter-attractions of Paganism at least to enough to know how attractive are those attractions. But, above all, he must think; above all he must preserve his intellectual independence; above all, he must use his reason…I say when you are convinced, when you are rationally convinced, when you have come to the end of the long road of reason,  when you have seen through the tangled arguments of the time, when you have found the answer to them – then you will find yourself suddenly in the morning of the world. Then you will find yourself among facts and not arguments.

Chesterton Contrasting St. Francis and St. Thomas
St. Francis was a lean and lively little man; thin as a thread and vibrant as a bowstring; and in his motions like an arrow from the bow.  All his life was a series of plunges and scampers: darting after the beggar, dashing naked into the woods, tossing himself into the strange ship, hurling himself into the Sultan tent and offering to hurl himself into the fire. In appearance he must have been like a thin brown skeleton autumn leaf dancing eternally before the wind; but in truth it was he that was the wind….St. Thomas was a huge heavy bull of a man, fat and slow and quiet; very mild and magnanimous but not very sociable; shy, even apart from the humility of holiness; and abstracted, even apart from his occasional and carefully concealed experiences of trance or ecstasy. St. Francis was so fiery and even fidgety that the ecclesiastics, before whom he appeared quite suddenly, thought he was a madman. St. Thomas was so stolid that the scholars, in the schools which he attended regularly, thought he was a dunce.  Indeed, he was the sort of schoolboy, not unknown, who would much rather be thought a dunce than have his own dreams invaded, by more active or animated dunces.  
St. Thomas Aquinas (1933)

The Dumb Ox: St. Thomas Aquinas
Among the students thronging into the lecture-rooms there was one student, conspicuous by his tall and bulky figure, and completely failing or refusing to be conspicuous for anything else. He was so dumb in the debates that his fellows began to assume an American significance in the word dumbness; for in that land it is a synonym for dullness.  It is clear that, before long, even his imposing stature began to have only the ignominious immensity of the big boy left behind in the lowest form.  He was called the Dumb Ox. He was the object, not merely of mockery, but of pity. One good-natured student pitied him so much as to try to help him with his lessons, going over the elements of logic like an alphabet in a horn-book. The dunce thanked him with pathetic politeness; and the philanthropist went on swimmingly, till he came to a passage about which he was himself a little doubtful; about which, in point of fact, he was wrong.  Whereupon the dunce, with every appearance of embarrassment and disturbance, pointed out a possible solution which happened to be right.  The benevolent student was left staring, as at a monster, at this mysterious lump of ignorance and intelligence; and strange whispers began to run round the schools.  
St. Thomas Aquinas (1933)

Aquinas’ Belief In Life
He did, with a most solid and colossal conviction, believe in Life: and in something like what Stevenson called the great theorem of the livableness of life.  It breathes somehow in his very first phrases about the reality of Being.  If the morbid Renaissance intellectual is supposed to say, “To be or not to be–that is the question,” then the massive medieval doctor does most certainly reply in a voice of thunder, “To be–that is the answer.”  The point is important; many not unnaturally talk of the Renaissance as the time when certain men began to believe in Life.  The truth is that it was the time when a few men, for the first time, began to disbelieve in Life. The medievals had put many restrictions, and some excessive restrictions, upon the universal human hunger and even fury for Life. Those restrictions had often been expressed in fanatical and rabid terms; the terms of those resisting a great natural force; the force of men who desired to live.  Never until modern thought began, did they really have to fight with men who desired to die.
St. Thomas Aquinas (1933)

Chesterton On The Ramifications Of The Incarnation
There really was a new reason for regarding the senses, and the sensations of the body, and the experiences of the common man, with a reverence at which great Aristotle would have stared, and no man in the ancient world could have begun to understand.  The Body was no longer what it was when Plato and Porphyry and the old mystics had left it for dead. It had hung upon a gibbet.  It had risen from a tomb. It was no longer possible for the soul to despise the senses, which had been the organs of something that was more than man. Plato might despise the flesh; but God had not despised it. The senses had truly become sanctified; as they are blessed one by one at a Catholic baptism.  “Seeing is believing” was no longer the platitude of a mere idiot, or common individual, as in Plato’s world; it was mixed up with real conditions of real belief. Those revolving mirrors that send messages to the brain of man, that light that breaks upon the brain, these had truly revealed to God himself the path to Bethany or the light on the high rock of Jerusalem. These ears that resound with common noises had reported also to the secret knowledge of God the noise of the crowd that strewed palms and the crowd that cried for Crucifixion.  After the Incarnation had become the idea that is central in our civilization, it was inevitable that there should be a return to materialism, in the sense of the serious value of matter and the making of the body. When once Christ had risen, it was inevitable that Aristotle should rise again.
St. Thomas Aquinas (1933)

Chesterton On The Difference Between Form And Matter In Thomism
That strangeness of things, which is the light in all poetry, and indeed in all art, is really connected with their otherness; or what is called their objectivity. What is subjective must be stale; it is exactly what is objective that is in this imaginative manner strange. In this the great contemplative is the complete contrary of that false contemplative, the mystic who looks only into his own soul, the selfish artist who shrinks from the world and lives only in his own mind. According to St. Thomas, the mind acts freely of itself, but its freedom exactly consists in finding a way out to liberty and the light of day; to reality and the land of the living. In the subjectivist, the pressure of the world forces the imagination inwards. In the Thomist, the energy of the mind forces the imagination outwards, but because the images it seeks are real things. All their romance and glamour, so to speak, lies in the fact that they are real things; things not to be found by staring inwards at the mind. The flower is a vision because it is not only a vision. Or, if you will, it is a vision because it is not a dream. This is for the poet the strangeness of stones and trees and solid things; they are strange because they are solid. I am putting it first in the poetical manner, and indeed it needs much more technical subtlety to put it in the philosophical manner. According to Aquinas, the object becomes a part of the mind; nay, according to Aquinas, the mind actually becomes the object. But, as one commentator acutely puts it, it only becomes the object and does not create the object. In other words, the object is an object; it can and does exist outside the mind, or in the absence of the mind. And therefore it enlarges the mind of which it becomes a part. The mind conquers a new province like an emperor; but only because the mind has answered the bell like a servant. The mind has opened the doors and windows, because it is the natural activity of what is inside the house to find out what is outside the house. If the mind is sufficient to itself, it is insufficient for itself. For this feeding upon fact is itself; as an organ it has an object which is objective; this eating of the strange strong meat of reality.
St. Thomas Aquinas (1933)

Chesterton On The Mind In Thomism
The mind is not merely receptive, in the sense that it absorbs sensations like so much blotting-paper; on that sort of softness has been based all that cowardly materialism, which conceives man as wholly servile to his environment. On the other hand, the mind is not purely creative, in the sense that it paints pictures on the windows and then mistakes them for a landscape outside. But the mind is active, and its activity consists in following, so far as the will chooses to follow, the light outside that does really shine upon real landscapes. That is what gives the indefinably virile and even adventurous quality to this view of life; as compared with that which holds that material inferences pour in upon an utterly helpless mind, or that which holds that psychological influences pour out and create an entirely baseless phantasmagoria. In other words, the essence of the Thomist common sense is that two agencies are at work; reality and the recognition of reality; and their meeting is a sort of marriage. Indeed it is very truly a marriage, because it is fruitful; the only philosophy now in the world that really is fruitful. It produces practical results, precisely because it is the combination of an adventurous mind and a strange fact. … M. Maritain has used an admirable metaphor, in his book Theonas, when he says that the external fact fertilises the internal intelligence, as the bee fertilises the flower. Anyhow, upon that marriage, or whatever it may be called, the whole system of St. Thomas is founded; God made Man so that he was capable of coming in contact with reality; and those whom God hath joined, let no man put asunder.
St. Thomas Aquinas (1933)

Chesterton On Thomist Practicality
Long before he knows that grass is grass, or self is self, he knows that something is something. Perhaps it would be best to say very emphatically (with a blow on the table), “There is an Is.” That is as much monkish credulity as St. Thomas asks of us at the start. Very few unbelievers start by asking us to believe so little. And yet, upon this sharp pin-point of reality, he rears by long logical processes that have never really been successfully overthrown, the whole cosmic system of Christendom.
St. Thomas Aquinas (1933)

Chesterton On the Joys Of Everyday Life
Unless we can bring men back to enjoying the daily life which moderns call a dull life,, our whole civilization will be in ruins in about fifteen years. Whenever anybody proposes anything really practical, to solve the economic evil today, he answer always is that the solutions would not work, because the modern town populations would think life dull. That is because they are entirely unacquainted with life. They know nothing but distractions from life; dreams which may be found in the cinema; that is, brief oblivions of life…Unless we can make daybreak and daily bread and the creative secrets of labor interesting in themselves, there will fall on all our civilization a fatigue which is the one disease from which civilizations do not recover. So died the Pagan civilization; of bread and circuses and forgetfulness of the household gods.
Radio Address 1934

Chesterton On Past, Present, And Future
We talk of people living in the past; and it is commonly applied to old people or old-fashioned people. But, in fact, we all live in the past, because there is nothing else to live in. To live in the present is like proposing to sit on a pin. It is too minute, it is too slight a support, it is too uncomfortable a posture, and it is of necessity followed immediately by totally different experiences, analogous to jumping up with a yell. To live in the future is a contradiction in terms. The future is dead; in the perfectly definite sense that it is not alive. It has no nature, no form, no feature, no vaguest character of any kind except what we choose to project upon it from the past. People talk about the dead past; but the past is not in the least dead, in the sense that he future is dead. The past can move and excite us, the past can be loved and hated, the past consists largely of lives that can be considered in their completion; that is literally in the fullness of life. But nobody knows anything about any living thing in the future, except what he chooses to make up, by his own imagination, out of what he regrets in the past or what he desires in the present.
From The Essay, On Facing Facts (1934)

Reading “The Book”

The author says in the excellent chapter “So What?”:

“We are gulping down undigested experiences as fast as we can stuff them in – because awareness of our own existence is so superficial and so narrow that nothing seems to us more boring than simple being. Is it surprising that an existence so experienced seems so empty and bare that its hunger for an infinite future is insatiable?”

1

He dejado atrás a mi familia: no es algo de lo uno deba vanagloriarse, de modo que lo anoto con tristeza, pero así es: he dejado atrás a mi familia.

Cuando enterraron a mi abuela Vicenta, hace, más de veinte años, tuve por primera vez la certeza de que perdía algo más que una abuela.

Aquella mujer de bajísima estatura, pañuelo negro y ojos azules, era un nexo silencioso, una raíz que nos conectaba a todos con la tierra y la estirpe a la que, para bien o por desgracia, pertenecíamos.

Mi abuela era como uno de esos personajes de John Cheever que emiten una radiación aún en los momentos más triviales; esa gente que, emanante, nos envuelve en la tela de la esperanza o el sentido, acaso porque vislumbramos en ella nuestra pérdida.

A mi abuela la sacaron de casa en un féretro escueto, oscuro y feo que me invitaron a cargar junto con otros parientes. Hacía calor y era un día laborable: lo recuerdo porque yo había llegado el entierro en el último momento.

Desde el plató de televisión en el que trabajaba, siempre con el tiempo como enemigo, conduje hasta la aldea de forma temeraria por los vericuetos de las carreteras locales gallegas, que son una suerte de laberinto mántrico en el que sólo podemos movernos quienes llevamos el vértigo en la sangre.

Rehusé ser partícipe del transporte a hombros del ataúd y, en las miradas y las medias voces, percibí que la decisión era mal recibida. A nadie pude explicar mis motivos, quizá porque tampoco yo mismo era capaz de dilucidarlos.

Al día siguiente tenía cita con el siconalista, al que por entonces visitaba tres veces a la semana: uno de esos tipos engreídos y patosos formados en la Escuela de Frankfurt, capaces de escribir un trabajo para una revista corporativa con una nota al pie tras cada frase, pero inútiles a la hora de ayudar al paciente.

Recibía en un piso lóbrego, sin ventanas a la calle, y con un salón de espera vulgar donde, para la distracción de nosotros los heridos y, sospecho, para amedrentarnos antes del encuentro, colocaba revistillas diseñadas para no ser leídas (aunque sí subvencionadas con dinero público dada la altísima frecuencia en que aparecían densas notas al pie).

Nunca dejaba que los pacientes nos cruzásemos en la salita de espera (quizá porque el contraste de pareceres, experiencias o números de teléfono son los peores enemigos del moderno negocio de la locura y bastarían para dinamitar las doctrinas de Guatari, Lacan y Papá Cocaína Freud).

Antes de una de mis sesiones, sin embargo, el sicoanalista cometió un despiste muy poco digno de Frankfurt am Main, y coincidí unos minutos con un compañero de terapia, un joven de unos 25 años, corpulento y pálido, dedicado a leer un tebeo (sin notas al pie) que había traído consigo. Estaba a cuatro patas, como un animal, apoyado en uno de los agotados sofás de polipiel marrón.

Aunque no la he practicado en salas de espera, también a mi me gusta esa postura y no me chocó en exceso que mi colega de terapia la adoptase: parecía cómodo y tranquilo.

Murmuré un saludo que no fue correspondido.

Unos minutos después, el sicoanalista asomó por la puerta y, con notable embarazo por el error de coordinación, llamó al joven a consulta. El muchacho le siguió sin abandonar sus modos cuadrúpedos: caminaba a cuatro patas, como esos hermanos turcos a los que hace unos años Internet, madre de todas las bestias, convirtió en motivo de chanza y polémica para tiempos de botellón espiritual.

Mi sicoanalista se llamaba Manolo, lo cual debió hacerme pensar en la inconveniencia de contratar sus onerosos servicios, porque no es posible que alguien con ese nombre pueda reordenar el desbarajuste en los salones de juegos que llamamos mente, alma, corazón o simplemente coco.

En la consulta dije:

Manolo, ayer enterraron a mi abuela.

Manolo no respondió

Nunca hablaba conmigo, era mi Hakótel Hama’araví y yo me limitaba a dejar papelitos entre las rendijas de las piedras.

Dije:

En el entierro de mi abuela sentí envidia de clan, una nostalgia pretérita, anterior a mí, una emoción tan intensa como una nota al pie.

Fue mi última sesión. A las dos semanas, Manolo me llamó:

¿Por qué no has regresado a la terapia?

Contesté la verdad:

Manolo, te he dejado por un libro de Alan Watts.

2

La dedicación a la obra y, sobre todo, el compomiso con la obra.

Compromiso físico, corporal, sabiendo que la enfermedad es un posible precio a pagar, un precio bajo, un saldo. Compromiso hasta tal punto moral que implica también la mentira (una mentira no piadosa, no, sino cruel y a sabiendas).

Qué diferente a las relaciones de este oficio mío, el de periodista, donde el verbo ordenar es ejecutado pero no asumido por el verdugo que cobra un plus por serlo. Practicado siempre en la esfera de la dominación bellaca de ser consumado aunque no admitido como condena.

Cuando hace unos años planteé el juego –creí que público- en una reunión matinal de jefaturas, alguien que cobra por ordenar señaló:

Dices ‘ordenar’ como si te pusiésemos una pistola en el pecho.

La tarde anterior, a las 18 horas, es decir, a media hora del cierre (también ordenado, esta vez bajo la lógica irrefutable de la producción mecánica) y el comienzo de la entrega de las páginas de mi sección, la misma persona había reajustado los contenidos de dos de las cuatro planas, echando al traste todo el trabajo previo del área que coordino.

Más allá de razones (yo había expuesto las mías, él apuntó las suyas, equivocadas, creo, pero eso no importa, todo es opinable), tenía el derecho a hacerlo, de ordenar la ejecución de la orden: insisto, le pagan por ello.

Sin embargo, el verbo ordenar le dolió cuando lo mencioné a la mañana siguiente: la objetividad clara de una estructura de poder para todos nosotros, evidenciada a diario pero oculta, no le pareció conveniente.

No hay víctimas en esta guerra y we are happy family, aren’t we?

Detesto la vergüenza de las imposturas y los juegos de poder disfrazados de decencia.

3

Miles Davis en el festival de la Isla de Wight, agosto de 1970:

Sólo compré el DVD por los 38 minutos de la actuación, un grano en las nalgas sonrosadas del hippismo.

Todo lo demás, el documentalismo y los testimonios, no me importan, no quiero ver lo que no me salva.

Los organizadores colocaron a Miles, el músico más trascendental de todos los que actuaban en la cita, el único que ya había intervenido en la historia para subvertirla (al menos tres veces), a las 5 de la tarde: hora de nadie para el negro, hora de sopor para África.

Frente al escenario, un lote de peludos espera que Miles brinque, toque la trompeta con la nariz, difunda un mensaje de obligado cumplimiento sobre la hermandad universal, les indique qué modelo de pantalón deben lucir el próximo otoño…

Pero el negro nada dice, el negro vuela desde Zanzíbar a Chicago, y los hippies no entienden de furia y válvulas, no saben de Zanzíbar, sólo esperan a Jimi Hendrix.

A Miles le preguntan por el título de la canción (como si la música fuese un continuum all together now let’s get together happy together come together).

Miles responde:

Call it anything.

Y se largó sin fumar un solo canuto porque la jeringa, valvular, estaba esperando.

4

He dejado atrás a mi familia, los álbumes, la genealogía, incluso buena parte de los recuerdos.

Tendría que trabajar con afán para dar con el nombre de mis primos; no escribo a nadie que lleve mis apellidos; no recuerdo la formas de las facciones familiares o el gesto que nos corporiza y nos hace humanos…

Es equívoco el sentimiento que reina en mí al respecto. Vagar, estar, vivir son verbos extraordinarios, casi milagrosos… Resultan inaprensibles buena parte de las veces, se escurren, están escritos con aceite sobre una existencia de agua.

Pero son milagrosos, como Zanzíbar.

5

En una entrevista, Cheever dijo sentirse:

un paria: un sucio y mezquino falsario merecidamente despreciado

6

Leo el extraordinario Manual del contorsionista. He tardado demasiado. Es uno de esos libros que pueden demolerte.

El único consejo de su autor, Craig Clevenger, para quien desee escribir tiene que ver con el compromiso y la muerte:

I keep a note tacked to my machine that says, This is the last book you will ever write. That’s not some motivational carrot on a stick, but something I truly believe with each book. I don’t have a career; I have one last novel, so I have to get it right.

7

Cheever añadió:

Entonces tomo aliento y me pongo muy erguido y la imagen repulsiva se desvanece. No soy ni mejor ni peor que los presentes, soy yo mismo

Call it anything.

Summer has felt like it has just about dragged on forever here in Florida.  Yesterday, October 30th, it was over 90 degrees and stupidly humid.  It is pretty aggravating for it to be this late in the year and for it to still seem like winter, or even fall, may never come.  Seasons in life can feel the same at times.  Sometimes they flash by, sometimes they drag on.  Some seasons are full of joy, while others feel like your trudging in sand (nice way to tie in the photo eh?).  But for whatever reason, we are supposed to be exactly where we are.

This is not mind blowing wisdom here.  But I just feel like sometimes it is easy to get anxious about the next thing that I forget to fully live in the now (A little Alan Watts wisdom for ya).  God is good in all times of life.  I am learning to hear Him, to be content while striving towards God and the best possible life He has to offer.

Much love to my one reader out there.  You know who you are!

Try things with fresh eyes.

Alan Watts: wiki

Alan Watts: iTunes Podcast

I was talking with my son on Friday evening and asked him how the week had been.  He said, “You know, it didn’t start out well, but I finished the project today and it ended really well. I was pleased with it all in the end.”  He told me about some of the people he had worked with and things he had done or dealt with during the week, and how progress was made through the week to what was eventually a good final outcome.  

In listening to him I thought to myself, isn’t life really all about the outcomes?  Two weeks ago, I had started out on a ten mile run feeling very much the world beater and confident it would be a good day.  At the end of it all, looking down at my watch, I was disappointed in the outcome which was the result of a badly managed effort, on a day that should have gone much better.  

Another Positive D.O.V.E. Fund Outcome - Ai Tu School Sponsored by Marines HMM-164

The following week I was slow to get started, my legs felt heavy and both hips ached.  At the end of the first mile I was unsure if I would endure the next 9 miles at all.  At mile five, I had managed myself fairly well and decided I would work toward a negative split if it was only by a few seconds. I finished the second half of the ten miles faster than the first.  The end result of it all was I completed the 10 mile run 5 minutes, or 30 seconds per mile, faster then the prior week, and I got my negative split on a day when I hadn’t been at all sure if I would make it to the finish at all.

 Emerson is credited with the thought that “A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer”.  I expect that could have been said a lot of different ways.  I tend to think of it in terms of outcomes that result from enduring, or perhaps even starting out and pushing forward under less than ideal circumstances.

 William James believed that a man is capable of achieving incredible things when he has been under duress for the longest times and under the most difficult situations. He believed that from conquering our most difficult tasks we gain enormous power and energy.   

Plan For John's School - An Outcome Many Years In The Making

Without question life is about outcomes, some are short term like my son’s week at work or my 10 mile runs. Others represent a lifetime time of input and effort, or perhaps take generations to be played out.  One thing I am sure of is this – the outcome you get may be far different from what was expected when gun went off.  I am also sure that positive outcomes are a result of positive endeavors, attitudes and efforts.  Everything else that happens in between the beginning and the end may be in the hands of God or the fates.

 Sometimes we don’t even realize how we came to an outcome until we arrive, or what it has that brought us to that end.  I am now part of an outcome, John Craven’s school that has been being played out for 40 years.  The story of how and why I am part of this outcome is being told every week in this blog.  A lot of people have been on this journey for many more years than I, and have certainly had much more significant roles.  I am just a bit player.  Fernette Mahaffey, a family friend used to say, “All outcomes in life are a combination of compulsion and coincidence.”  Perhaps I am part of the coincidence in this outcome.  In any event I am determined to be a positive part of it and I hope you will consider joining me.

 Side Bar

 A war could never be considered a positive beginning to any outcome.  I do believe however that there can be positive outcomes that result from it.  They come from people who endure. People who struggle sometimes for years to cause a positive result from what was a painful or difficult experience. People who make good outcomes result from others’ mismanaged or fundamentally bad decisions.  Alan Watts talked about the law of black and white in “The Book”.  Stated simply, all things exist because of their polar opposites and it will always be that way.  His message was that we can only manage our personal outcomes and sometimes even that isn’t possible.  But you know what, sometimes it is.  My parents lived to be into their 80’s under much tougher circumstances than I have lived my life.  It is quite possible that I am only three quarters into my personal outcome.  I think I would like to go for a negative split. Perhaps my marathon will be a good start in that direction. 

Remember, your comments are always welcome and your donations are always appreciated.

Alan Watts – Slices of Wisdom PT 1/2 and PT 2/2

Alan Wilson Watts (January 6, 1915 – November 16, 1973) was a British philosopher, writer, speaker, who held both a master’s degree in theology and a doctorate of divinity. Famous for his research on comparative religion, he was best known as an interpreter and popularizer of Eastern philosophy for a Western audience.

He wrote more than 25 books and numerous articles on subjects such as personal identity, the true nature of reality, higher consciousness, meaning of life, concepts and images of God and the non-material pursuit of happiness. In his books he relates his experience to scientific knowledge and to the teachings of Eastern and Western religion and philosophy.

“Nothing satisfies an individual incapable of enjoyment. If our own richess and our own way of life are not enjoyed here, they will not be enjoyed anywhere else. But peace can be made only by those who are peaceful, and love can be shown only by those who love. Nor work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.”

                                               by Alan Watts (The Book)