{"id":7395,"date":"2010-04-30T05:32:10","date_gmt":"2010-04-30T09:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=7395"},"modified":"2010-05-01T12:46:55","modified_gmt":"2010-05-01T16:46:55","slug":"the-self-i-cannot-see","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2010\/04\/the-self-i-cannot-see\/","title":{"rendered":"The Self I Cannot See"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>From whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Life continuously refuses to show us the plot. The desire to give it shape, and by shape, meaning, is so great anything will do. But Orwell would have us stand against all the “smelly little orthodoxies which are now contending for our souls.” I am struck by how difficult it is to get back to something we knew to be true once we have been converted, forced by circumstances, or simply denied and turned away from it, to whatever lonely mess we have managed to make since. It is as though the experience of unhappiness is more valid than that of joy. We all know the experience of wanting something badly, only to have it disappear as we approach it. Rarely do we look at the wanting self. My shadowless shadow. We don’t cope with much grace, neither the grace of civility, nor the grace of physical being, nor the grace of the spirit. There is at bottom no real distinction between them anyway. Perhaps I am too often absent from my own being.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Terrance Keenan [source<\/em><\/a>, including the first three sentences])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Self-Portrait<\/strong><\/p>\n

Between the computer, a pencil, and a typewriter
\nhalf my day passes. One day it will be half a century.
\nI live in strange cities and sometimes talk
\nwith strangers about matters strange to me.
\nI listen to music a lot: Bach, Mahler, Chopin, Shostakovich.
\nI see three elements in music: weakness, power, and pain.
\nThe fourth has no name.
\nI read poets, living and dead, who teach me
\ntenacity, faith, and pride. I try to understand
\nthe great philosophers – but usually catch just
\nscraps of their precious thoughts.
\nI like to take long walks on Paris streets
\nand watch my fellow creatures, quickened by envy,
\nanger, desire; to trace a silver coin
\npassing from hand to hand as it slowly
\nloses its round shape (the emperor’s profile is erased).
\nBeside me trees expressing nothing
\nbut a green, indifferent perfection.
\nBlack birds pace the fields,
\nwaiting patiently like Spanish widows.
\nI’m no longer young, but someone else is always older.
\nI like deep sleep, when I cease to exist,
\nand fast bike rides on country roads when poplars and houses
\ndissolve like cumuli on sunny days.
\nSometimes in museums the paintings speak to me
\nand irony suddenly vanishes.
\nI love gazing at my wife’s face.
\nEvery Sunday I call my father.
\nEvery other week I meet with friends,
\nthus proving my fidelity.
\nMy country freed itself from one evil. I wish
\nanother liberation would follow.
\nCould I help in this? I don’t know.
\nI’m truly not a child of the ocean,
\nas Antonio Machado wrote about himself,
\nbut a child of air, mint and cello
\nand not all the ways of the high world
\ncross paths with the life that — so far —
\nbelongs to me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Adam Zagajewski; translated by Clare Cavanagh [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

We suffer from a hallucination, from a false and distorted sensation of our own existence as living organisms. Most of us have the sensation that “I myself” is a separate center of feeling and action, living inside and bounded by the physical body — a center which “confronts” an “external” world of people and things, making contact through the senses with a universe both alien and strange. Everyday figures of speech reflect this illusion. “I came into this world.” “You must face<\/em> reality.” “The conquest of nature.”<\/p>\n

This feeling of being lonely and very temporary visitors in the universe is in flat contradiction to everything known about man (and all other living organisms) in the sciences. We do not “come into” this world; we come out<\/em> of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean “waves,” the universe “peoples.” Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated “egos” inside bags of skin.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Alan Watts, The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are<\/em>)<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

There was a Young Maid who said: “Why
\nCan’t I look in my ear with my eye?
\nIf I put my mind to it
\nI’m sure I can do it.
\nYou never can tell till you try.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Anonymous)<\/p>\n

…and (excerpt):<\/p>\n

Matins<\/strong><\/p>\n

I<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve felt undeserving. I\u2019ve made myself ill with the glory,
\nin the unleavened garden
\ndisgorged the lies and scared away with a stick a snake.
\nWhat made me cover that which I could not have?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve grieved and walked in catacombs,
\nI\u2019ve felt undeserving. I\u2019ve made myself ill with the glory.
\nEven the falling leaves gesture their renunciation.
\nI disgorge the lies and abhor the serpant\u2019s hiss.<\/p>\n

I remember seasons, things I bring from far away,
\nand grieve. I walk in catacombs.
\nIn gardens now, by the stone walls, sunlight closes,
\nthe falling leaves gesture their renunciation.<\/p>\n

I remember being in a field touching a man\u2019s body.
\nI remember seasons, things I bring from far away
\nand things that hold their breath for shame.
\nHis skin was soft as a girl\u2019s and he closed his eyes.<\/p>\n

I placed apple petals on his eyelids;
\nwe were lying in a field and I touched his body.
\nThen there were clouds, an uncanny silence,
\nas when in a green place the air holds its breath for shame.<\/p>\n

What made me covet what I could not have?
\nIll with the power and glory, a thrashing in my chest,
\nI remember the unleavened gardens,
\npetals falling singly, the yellow snake disgorging lies.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Carol Frost; read the whole thing here<\/em><\/a> (The Poetry Foundation))<\/p>\n

I thought I’d wrap this up on a sassy, upbeat note with a video set to 1966’s “Stop and Take a Look at Yourself,” by the Northern soul<\/a> girl group The Shalimars:<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

(I haven’t found lyrics to the song anywhere online; if anyone wants to attempt a transcription, well, y’know…)<\/p>\n

Update 2010-05-01:<\/strong> The Shalimars, and their “Stop and Take a Look at Yourself,” are really<\/em> invisible on the Web. About the only references I can find are to videos, and some eBay sales, and occasional mentions on Northern-soul fan pages and forums. But there’s nothing about them, really, except:<\/p>\n