Proust: Beyond Observation

Written alchemy between observation and man's inner-perception births a third point of reality: literature.

"I would amuse myself by watching the glass jars which the boys used to lower into the Vivonne, to catch minnows, and which filled by the current of the stream, in which they themselves also were enclosed, at once 'containers' whose transparent sides were like solidified water and 'contents' plunged into a still larger container of liquid, flowing crystal, suggested an image of coolness more delicious and more provoking than the same water in the same jars would have done, standing upon a table for dinner, by showing it as perpetually in flight between the impalpable water, in which my hands could not arrest it, and the insoluble glass, in which my palate could not enjoy it. I decided that I would come there again with a line and catch fish; I begged for and obtained a morsel of bread from our luncheon basket; and threw into the Vivonne pellets which had the power, it seemed, to bring about a chemical precipitation for the water at once grew solid round about them in oval clusters of emaciated tadpoles, which until then it had no doubt, been holding in solution, invisible but ready and alert to enter the stage of crystallization."

A kind companion

The poet is not the the soothsayer but the companion of the lonely. When the flesh feels the pang of the loss of a lover, or the murderous instinct of the mother remembering an infant's corpse, or the lone indescribable bliss of the warmth of the sun, the poet supplies words of communion. In the recognition, no experience is loss. Recognition. For no tree fell unheard and so no experience is loss.

The Taste of Madeleine

Remembrance. Funny the nature of memory as it sails through our minds. Like layers of intangible waves, one thought pulls another and we remember our lives in cascading moments of our quiet hours. I marvel at Proust's endeavor, tracking the substance of our own intangibility through our floating memories anchored in pieces of materials gleaned as markers of our presence. The madeleine! That madeleine that opens the lid to the memory box where pop-up houses appear for the town of Combray; then, instantaneously the narrator feels the flesh of his youth clung to his old bones and a man, now aged, becomes young again. This is the genius of Swann's Way!

And so now, I look out my window on a misty midmorning and remember fragments of my conversation with a student in a noisy New York coffee shop yesterday where the encounter paralleled the memory of an old teacher who spoke to me-- a mere student then-- seated in a quiet outdoors cafe on the sidewalks of Berkeley. These gapless memories appear now in a flash as I place my fingers to the keyboard, about to write the substance of that old teacher's advice. I organize my thoughts to speak the point of this entry, as the mist outside my window continually reminds me of the ocean, layering yet another memory on the mind's panoply: the scene from an old movie resurface showing me the wake of a boat moving away from land. A voice likens this movement to life. "In youth," she says, "you see not even a ripple as you gaze out into your life. But, as you age, with expended time, it spreads before you like the wake of a moving ship, extending to eternity." These loosely bound thoughts come and go without my having to question their connections, but for the mist, romancing memory with the elements that touch us now.

But more to the point: that is to say, the aim of this piece. My writing today germinated from what was said about what was said by a teacher who calmed our sense of utter insignificance years ago. For those of us chasing an immaterial form of communication called art, battling for relevance, my student yesterday echoed these same doubts to which he succumbed, only to find a greater loss of significance in himself years later. He spoke of loss and hollowness, of spiritual vapidness amidst years of having 'pushed down,' as it were, the instincts that enlivened him. After years of children and jobs and marriage-- all the elements that wring energy out of us but suppose to give us meaning-- the deeper thirst for self-recognition persisted. This departure he took, the compromises and self-denials, his 'pushing down' have atrophied a self to a death that cries for a kind of resurrection. And this cry has turned into a violence, a kind of anger which one cannot name but permeates all things one touches. It is the flesh calling for its intangible part. And as he spoke to me of atrophy, I remembered Peter then. My teacher consoled us by saying that when an artist retreats from his discipline to hide, he may suffer in seclusion but does not suffer alone, for his suffering is shared by the community he abandoned. His decaying self is felt by the whole that misses its absent part, like an organism that loses a limb, aching to have that part back again, for without it, it ceases to be whole.

And so went the conversation with this student. He mentioned spirit in the same breath as art; conscience became synonymous to consciousness; and these words brought Peter back on the sidewalk where that cafe sat. Those words in youth sounded so smooth, with a fragrance of promise. It hit our young ears with force that now betrayed our ignorance; for however profound we seemed to have understood what he meant, in fact we understood little. The passing years now hang on the words and render them weight with the passage of time. They are what feed us now, older, yet not less hungry, who still need and find great solace in these same words as time moves and we remember them.

Coping with Stress

"When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully, "remarked Samuel Johnson...A major catastrophe that frustrates the goal of life will either destroy the self, forcing the person to use all his psychic energy to erect a barrier around remaining goals, defending them against further onslaughts of fate; or it will provide a new more clear, and more urgent goal: to overcome the challenges created by the defeat. If the second road is taken, the tragedy is not necessarily a detriment to the quality of life...Even the loss of one of the most basic human faculties, like that of sight, does not mean that a person's consciousness need become impoverished; the opposite is often what happens. But what makes the difference? How does it come about that the same blow will destroy one person, while another will transform it into inner order?..." Flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Random thoughts on homecoming...

Re-reading parts of the Zoo Story... acting is a very delicate thing...

Swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon...

Life distills a handful of lessons amidst a sea of experiences. Lesson 1: constancy is a rarity among friends, lovers and...friends. Nothing stings more than an inconstant friend. Nothing betrays oneself more than inconstancy to a friend. Blade cuts us both ways: disloyalty, ingratitude, betrayal, inconsideration...many guises to the same face. Uniformity among morphing shapes...inconstant even in its form.

A Grand Force

Without us realizing it fully, we do live the life we intend, for the life we live is a residue of our character which, in spite of ourselves, articulates in the choices we make or disavow. However meticulous one surveys each option, the marks of our spirit will force us to follow some path, be it circuitous, resembling our inner desires. Even in the absence of the trappings we, at one point, perceived to be the appendages of our choices-- be it money, security, fame, prestige--if we taste the fullness of our lives, we will recognize the joy abundant in our activities even in its austere nakedness. You cannot fake interest for long, I remember Ann Bogart saying in some book. It's either there or it isn't. What a concept in a world of compromises. One can substitute luxuries as prizes, but the time, energy-- elemental factors of your existence will have been squandered in its vapid pursuit; the luxuries would have waned like tired, old consolation trophies you store in your back closet for some new novelty to soothe the ache of the absence of that which would have carved your energy into the shape meant for it. From the food you swallow, to the color of your dress: they are like words pouring out your lips announcing your name. All are constituents of how you've developed. You are your final product. Life is constantly giving birth to a new incarnation, even in spite of ourselves.