endarkenment

I was 20 when it happenned, and it was sudden: I got endarkened and I ceased to believe.

It was sudden, but it was the conclusion of a slow process as well. My endarkement came out of the blue one morning when I realised I was living in a big contradiction: none of the stories I had been told about god made sense to me anymore, and at the same time I was relying on them at least to lay the foundations of my answers to some old big questions. But it was also slow, since it started even before my first holy communion; I managed to skip all the catechesis sessions and I went to the priest just one week before the event -he was very upset with me, however he explained me the details on the staging with the rest of the guys (how we should go in a queue to the altar and back, doing as if we were praying).

At the same time I was really a devotee: whenever I got a host into my mouth I used to talk to Jesus as a sincere believer, honestly. My problem came with the church itself, quite deceitful, and my catholic school and teachers, the boring religious studyings, and so on.


There were clear signs of the dark coming:
- Questioning the people who brought up the story to me (the teachers and the priests), not relying on their coherence, integrity or even their common sense
- Calling into doubt the aspects that sound unbelievable or unacceptable (weird explanations on the origin of life, old-fashioned moral doctrines)


Afterwards, getting old and assuming that the dark was not the place to be, I resumed my quest. Very carefully, however: careful with the words themselves (e.g. enlightenment as explained in previous posts), and trying to avoid to get dazzled instead.

But then, wherever I looked for alternative belief systems, I found there were mainly two options:
- or you choose one system that seems the best and accept it as a full pack; (in consequence you don't question their people and you assume the unbelievable part of it)
- or you study very closely every system available and take the small good pieces of each of them; (but those pieces don't necessarily make sense when are taken stand-alone, and the pieces from different origins don't match together either, and there's the huge risk you get puzzled)


Should I had stayed in the dark then? I didn't, and on the road I've met quite some people following the second (including myself, I'm afraid), which is a sure path from endarkenment to endazzlement.

maya

In a hindu myth, a student asks to his master about the meaning of maya; the master says
- Ufff
and asks the student to go to a village nearby to get a glass of water for him; there the guy goes and knocks the door of the first house he finds, he's really in a hurry to know about the maya thing. A beautiful girl opens it and takes him in, she's captivating, her smile and her humble eyes not daring to look up. The family was about to have lunch and the father invites the student to sit down and eat with them; afterwards there's lots of work to do, the young guy cannot refuse and makes a big effort to help them. He stays for dinner, and then he's so tired...

A few days after the father proposes his daughter to marry him (that's usually the way it works in India) and he's already so enchanted and pleased by her that he immediately accepts. The marriage is fast, simple and full of bliss, and for the following years the guy keeps on working very hard in the farm, has three children, takes care of them and the rest of the family, and he feels happier than ever in his life.

In the month of the tenth birthday of his oldest son the monsoon starts, it's early for the rains, which are terrible, the river overflows and there's a terrible flood in which he looses everything: his wife and children die; the house, the animals, crops and all his possessions are swept away. He feels a deep grief and aimlessly he walks into the forest; sitting under a tree he finds his old master and he hardly recognizes him,
- where have you been? I only asked you to fetch some water for me -asks the master
and laughs (somewhat bitterly) and explains the student that over these years he has just experienced what maya is.


Sometimes, when I've talked with some Indians friends about Descartes' method of doubt (not that I mention this so often, but I've always enjoyed this view of the world being run by dwarfs that had constructed my room and everything in it to deceive me, since nothing really exists, and they would quickly build up my kitchen before I notice it wasn't there if I decided to go and get a glass of water, etc) in response my Indian colleagues would relate it to the image to maya. When I have finally read a hindu myth on the subject, instead of philosophical it sounds to me like one of those parables of a fussy and changeable god. And it's silly but I cannot help feeling a bit disillusioned.

what?

C. S. Lewis, a writer and british gentleman, pointed out that a number of the questions we figure out are just nonsense, however we don't notice since we don't know enough; these questions would sound like "how many hours there is in a mile?"

I find the idea very suggestive; maybe half of the questions we ask are nonsense, contradictory in terms? It is well-known that a very clever question usually denotes you reckon half of the answer already. It's not only that "intellectual honesty" is an oxymoron (as in the previous post): "intelligent question" is another.

OK, I'm taking it out of context since Lewis' book is actually a sort of journal he called "a grief observed", which he wrote after his wife's death, while he was seriously in pain, suffering. He blames god for the loss, building up a rational framework to face the anguish, blames the absence, the nonsense, the nature.

Thus, he uses the fundamental questions to escape from his agony, realizing at the same time that most metaphysical questions may sound like "how many hours there is in a mile"; later, I guess, after some months, or years, he recovers, reads again the journal, finds it interesting and hands it out to the editor.


If a fundamental question were so fundamental (e.g. about the meaning of life), once I asked it to myself there would be nothing more important in my mind; I should devote myself to finding the answer. Since it is never the case, nothing seems to be so crucial until the moment, a reasonable alternative is that the question was, indeed, something not too different to how many hours there is in a mile.

oxymorons and dreams

There's a very nice novel by Alessandro Baricco, called "City", in which it is shown that intellectual honesty is an oxymoron. I remember I was reading it many years ago on a bus on my way to the office, and I felt it was something important, even if when I arrived I had to look up the word oxymoron in the dictionary.

The "essay on intellectual honesty" is proposed by one of the characters of the novel. He's a High School teacher. After 15 years of thinking about it, he finally writes it down on a flyer of a sex shop, while he's in the peep-show. It goes in six arguments more or less as follows:
- People have ideas
- People express those ideas. That's the beginning of the problem. Since it is very complex thoughts, when it's time to put them in words it is difficult to explain them clearly
- While expressing their ideas, people end up getting distance with them. The simplification of explanations of the mental process which brought to the conclusion, during the arguing, defending their truth, little by little makes that the real origin of the idea gets lost
- While defending the ideas, and in particular if it is in public, the arguments became weapons
- While using ideas as weapons, the relation with the original thought is completely lost
- Intellectual honesty is an oxymoron

When I read it, I found it funny, witty and indisputable. My colleagues at the office, however, just laughed lightly and did not seem to agree.


Anyway, recently I've realised I don't have a dream. I mean: there's something I would like so much, which implies becoming something different to what I am today (yes, at my age). But if you ask me to describe how exactly will I be when I achieve that new state, I cannot tell you a word - that's why I say I don't have the dream. What is it? I don't believe I can make it? I don't really want to make it? Should I build up my dream, that's all? The answers to those questions are only important for me, but it is amazing how much I've been talking about my no-dream.


Baricco's character goes on saying: "in another life we will be honest; we will be silent". Auurrrg!!