Thinking Up and Down

 

One thing which many people yearn for is understanding. We do not, necessarily, need to be understood and liked by everyone- in fact those who do often do so as they do not understand or even like their own selves- but to a certain degree all long for understanding.

 

This can take on many guises but, it seems, there is a fundamental need for understanding. What do I mean by this?

 

Well, for example, if a person is in a wheelchair and they get told to go to the top floor and, upon inquiry, are informed that there is no lift then they cannot, likely, of their own volition ascend the stairs. This is a reality with which they live and if the person instructing them to do so had the slightest glean of understanding then they would know that this is not possible and thusly would adapt behaviours to suit. This only refers to the first level. Afterwards we have to consider empathy and emotional intelligence, for example the person in the wheelchair may feel frustrated, angry, scornful, resentful, envious, bored etc. by the events but for the purposes of this example we will stick with the superficial. So, to summarise, a person in a wheelchair is told to ascend stairs unaided.   This is, without doubt, a ridiculous example, however, it may not seem so much like my favourite Jewish philosopher, Farfetched, as it may seem.

 

We are presented with a situation where one has a very obvious reason why one cannot do something, and yet, based upon my observations and personal experience, this example is disturbingly prescient. Often, we encounter situations where the hegemony of the location presents one with two options- conform or suffer. Yet, not all can conform due to reasons beyond their control, i.e. a disability such as being in a wheelchair. Yet those who have created the hegemony and maintain it have only so much experience and thusly cannot function without their carefully controlled environment. If they are encountered with a variance to the hegemony, i.e. in this instance a disability, then they often do not know how to react.

 

When confused we often return home, by which I mean return to ourselves and what we know. If one is within the hegemony, then one will try to adapt the problem to fit the hegemony. You’re in a wheelchair? That’s ok, you can take longer to ascend the stairs, I’ll even offer you a railing to lean on. As you can tell this would do nothing but 1) make the differences more obvious to all, 2) risk humiliating the person, 3) create new problems e.g. stress and anxiety. And more often than not I would predict that this behaviour would make the situation worse rather than better. However, if the person with the disability were to speak up their voice would not be heard as they would be drowned out by the hegemony.

Why is this?

 

We have oft said in this blog that all we can know, if indeed we can know anything, is wholly subjective. We experience life through ourselves and this is the crux. In this example there are two people. One has a greater knowledge of the situation, one does not. From this we can posit that there are different levels of knowledge at play here which impacts the field of knowledge.

 

How so? Well, the person in the wheelchair has a greater understanding of their self and their situation. The ‘manager’ does not. Thusly the person in the wheelchair knows what is needed whilst the manager does not have this knowledge and, often, has no desire or capacity to learn for, as Schopenhauer said, ‘Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world’, or in this sense, field of knowledge.

 

So, we have a problem created. One person has greater knowledge of the situation and thusly can, metaphorically, look down to the person below with less knowledge. Yet the lower person cannot see up and thinks that they have reached the pinnacle of the mountain and that the person who, in terms of knowledge within this context, is higher than them, must be on their level (although ego and ignorance often would place the higher person below as the ‘manger’, secure in their hegemony, would assume that if they are the pinnacle and the other person is not on their level (as they are higher) they must be lower.

 

And here we reach the conclusion and from this can draw the hypothesis that those who are ‘higher’ in knowledge have the ability to look down, often because they have experienced the thoughts etc. of those lower and have overcome them (e.g. prejudices) and have the personal experience to understand those below, whilst those who are ‘lower’ in knowledge cannot look up and thusly cannot think up.

 

It would seem that for a society to prosper, there cannot be one fixed ideology created by those who fit within it, rather a society should be formed by those who think differently to one another, who have greater personal experience and, above all, have the intellectual and emotional intelligence to understand that, as Galileo states, the world revolves around the sun and not around them, and although the voices forming the society will be different, if they all have the same core beliefs, that in the wellbeing of all by the provision of basic human rights: education; health care; compassion; love; understanding etc., then a society can not only flourish but be healthy and grow.

After all, the sum total of human knowledge is Zero and way above us there is so much more to learn, so much space into which we can grow.

 

‘till next time

 

Visible and Invisible Laws

 

If recent changes in the law, in response to circumstances, have taught us anything it is that the notion of laws being a good thing, for other people, but not for me, is still very much in effect. With global lockdowns being flaunted not only by people who think that the sacrifice of people not being able to see their children is great, but if they want to drive for an hour to see their partner, that’s ok but also the very politicians who created and imposed the law one cannot help but wonder why.

 

Luckily this is not a new phenomena and so one does not need to try to work it out from this small sample size, rather one can look at the world as a whole.

 

The notion that some laws are enforceable, and others are not seems to stem from whether or not the law can be seen. Going to your partner’s house during a lockdown (or your lover’s with whom you are having an affair…you know who I mean…) is seen as acceptable as it is seen as a victimless crime- sure, others are sacrificing and I hope that they do so, but me, nah, I’m exempt, why? Because I am me- as not only can the crime not be seen but also, possibly more importantly, the consequences of the actions cannot be seen.

 

If the consequences can be seen- for example a country of six million people is surrounded by 600 million people and a fraction of the 600 million attack then the correct response would be an all out assault- it might not seem proportional but by responding in such a manner it reduces the chances of the attack happening again or from others joining in. if, to continue with this example, the country attacked did not retaliate or retaliated in a proportional manner, those attacking would not think their actions were wrong, why? Because the impact of their actions cannot be seen.

 

Whilst the example I cited occurs on a grandiose scale, it is more pertinent in our daily lives than we realise. There will always be those who say that the next war, or most wars of the later 20^th century, were fought over oil, the truth is that many recent wars, and many future wars, will be fought in secret, indeed they are happening as I type.

 

The greatest commodity in the world is not gold or even oil, it is data. China, the US, Russia et al are currently, as I type, attempting to hack each other, just as people are trying to hack websites to access our bank details (note: a website I use was once hacked and my credit card details were stolen, luckily my bank were very good in protecting me) and our personal identities. Yet we do not need to go into geopolitics or even mass hackings to see examples of the laws surrounding personal data being flaunted. Imagine, if you will, a much smaller scale;

 

An employee discloses medical information, this information is confidential.

One manager who has legitimate access to the information then discloses it to another by saying, ‘I have this confidential information, I will give it to you, but you cannot disclose it’.

 

The second person then says to a third, ‘I have this confidential information, I will give it to you, but you cannot disclose it’.

 

The third person then says to a fourth person, ‘I have this confidential information, I will give it to you, but you cannot disclose it’.

 

And so on and so forth.

 

Right, let’s break this down.

 

The employee discloses with the understanding of confidentiality, this is good.

The first manager has legitimate recourse to know as the employee has disclosed to him/her, this is good.

 

The first manager then discloses the information, this is bad.

 

The second person receives the information and then passes it on, these are both bad.

 

Why? Ok, so to disclose without consent is illegal therefore the first manager acts in a manner which is illegal. To receive confidential information without consent is also illegal as one should prevent it or, if receiving the said information, report it. However, in this example, this was not done, therefore both parties are liable in a legal sense.

 

Yet, all of this legal and moral mumbo jumbo is gotten around. How? By each person telling the next person that they cannot pass the information on, that they are being trusted. By this logic, 1000/1000 people can be told and not one can be liable as each has told the next to, essentially, not do as they are doing.

 

As these actions are mostly invisible and the consequences cannot be known, and/or understood (note: see previous works on ethics being what one does when one is not being observed), this is seen as being socially acceptable within society. If, for example, one were not to follow dress code and have an, for example, ear ring, then as this would be visible to all, the punishment would be much greater than for those who violate another’s confidentially.

 

Sometimes it is hard to know what is right and what is wrong in these instances, however, if you ask the questions: 1) would I like this to happen to me? and 2) would I do this in public? Then you may have a good idea.

 

Why do people get away with such crimes, even if they are brought to the light of day?  Well, as Cato the Elder said, ‘those who treat ridiculous things seriously will treat serious things ridiculously’ and as Proust states, cruelty is not considering of the consequences of our actions on others.

 

‘till next time

 

Boxes of Perfection

 

I have a collection of shoe boxes (note: this is the greatest opening line in literature, roll over Kafka, tell Ginsberg the news). Each shoe box is a time capsule, full of notebooks, ticket stubs and souvenirs. Now, it is important to note that I am not nostalgically sentimental. I listen to old blues and country, for example, not as memoirs from a bygone age, but because the singing contains the urgency of the ‘this is real and nothing else matters’ (‘it hurts me toooooooooooo’ (Elmore James)), I read Plutarch’s histories of the great Greeks and Romans, not because they are history but because they can teach me about human nature and the world of today. Whilst the great Marcel Proust wrote that the only paradise is the paradise which has been lost (think Eden), the past is never perfect, not even in memory. It is brutal, it is hard, it is indifferent. Indeed, it is only the trials of the ‘now’, no knowledge of the future, which makes us think that the past must have been a reprieve from the toils of ‘now’ and the uncertainty of the future but the past was once ‘now’ and thusly was the same in many respects.

 

So, if I am not nostalgic and I don’t believe that the past really was the halcyon days of memory, why do I keep time capsules?

 

The answer is as weird as it is baffling. The boxes do not contain the perfect past of paradise. There is as much pain and suffering in those boxes as there is in anyone’s daily life. However, for the good and the bad, the boxes contain perfection. What do I mean by that? Well, when the boxes were sealed, I was sealing away a fragment of my life, up unto that point. Thusly, with that fragment of my life sealed away, I could move on to the next part of my life. However, time is not linear, nor is it really experienced thusly as the memories of the past and the future create the fabric of our impressions of the ‘now’. We are equally created by the realities of the past (lived experience) as we are of the possibilities of the future. We live as though we will live forever, and many yearn back into the past to their younger selves hoping to do so in, to use Ernest Becker’s phrase, ‘the denial of death’. Life is only given meaning by death creating a finitude to existence, however, to live one must live as though one will live forever, even if one knows this is true, or one spends one’s life preparing for death and what comes after (think some branches of theology).

 

Anyway, back to my boxes. If I am not nostalgic, if I don’t believe that the past was a paradise lost, if I am conscious that even if one moves on from the past, one still is, on a fundamental level, the same person one ever was at any stage of their life- past, present, future, why do I insist on having perfect little time capsules isolated away from the ‘now’, even if they exist in the ‘now’ within my memory? (note: memories of the past are experienced in the ‘now’ and thusly cannot be seen as being devoid of the ‘now’, indeed, it is possible that the only thing which has changed is the emotional aspect of the moment, for example when I wrote X I was feeling Y, now I have ‘moved on’ past that moment, I no longer have the same emotional attachment to the piece I wrote then yet I am still the same person on a fundamental level).

 

From this we can tell that the boxes contained various aspects. The practical- moving around a lot and not having much storage space led to them needing to be put into storage; the psychological- this moment in my life is over, time to move on; and the ridiculous- I have obtained perfection in these little boxes.

Whilst one might argue that an element of perfection has been reached in the creation of the boxes, the boxes themselves very much exist in the ‘now’ as the time contained impacts upon the now. 1) the boxes exist, 2) the boxes take up space, 3) there are things in the boxes that I may require now and need to replace as I do not have access to the as they are sealed away ‘in the past’ etc. and so from this we can see that what was sought was gained  however, the cost of the past perfection is paid by the ‘now’.

 

So, what to do? Well, for one, get over the notion of things having to be perfect! And, more realistically and easily, get the boxes out of storage and embrace the past to move on, which I am in the process of doing.

 

 

‘till next time

Dreamscapes and Prophecy

 

Regular readers will be stunned to know that since early childhood I have been plagued by bad dreams, (what? Not even one of you will pretend to be surprised?).

 

What dreams are and what they mean is unknown to all, and will probably remain to do so, however, certain aspects of the dream can be explored. For example, external stimuli whilst sleeping can cause the aspect of a dream to change- heat can cause anxiety, half falling out of bed can create feelings of instability and so on and so forth. From this we know that the brain is still hard at work processing stimuli (note: whales, when sleeping, shut down half their brain and keep the other half active as breathing is, for them, conscious, and to sleep fully would cause death) both the external and, as Freud excellently points out (wait, I am praising Fraud? Is this the end of days?!), by referencing another (ah, crisis adverted), with the external sources of stimuli limited, the mind turns inwards and from this the slight irregularity of the body, for example the bowel, can cause the aspect of dreams to be changed.

 

There seems to be a consistency in dreams and meaning in that, for example, teeth falling out means one is not feeling heard, not being able to find a private bathroom denotes violations of privacy and being exposed (note: losing your bedsheets can also give the feeling of being exposed as, in sleep, we are at lour most vulnerable) yet, I would not go as far as to say the dream is inherent and the meaning is thus gleaned. Rather, I would suggest that one looks at the landscape of the dream.

 

Freud, again citing, states that we most often dream of things from our past, or rather the images in the dream come from our past, as things within the present as still being processed by the conscious brain and has not yet become unconscious. This can explain whilst, for example, being concerned about a holiday, you dream of a school test and so on and so forth as the anxiety is transferred from a real-life situation from the present and posited upon images from the past. This may make one think that the past has a hold over them, as in not being able to move on from, but if we take the citation as being correct that we do not dream with images from the conscious world, then it is clear to see that the images from the past take on a surrogate role and do not, in any way, reflect upon the past (note: trauma victims are an exception to this rule as they are trapped within the emotion of an event and cannot escape ad thusly are forced not only to relive but also refeel the event).

 

To expand upon the dreamscape further, we can only know what we know. The dreams take on a personal aspect as we are confined to our own experience. What do I mean by this? Well, to use the toilet and anxiety notion, we all use the toilet, we all know the desperate need sometimes associated with finding a toilet to perform our perfectly natural act, an act which, in modern society, is seen as being vulgar and shameful. Thusly, the inability to find a toilet, to go and or be in private, represents the anxiety we feel elsewhere. And here we also have a possible explanation for the universality of dreams. The fact many can have the same toilet dream or falling dream etc. stems, in my opinion, from one reason- a shared experience. As I have stated we all know the anxiety that can be attached to the toilet so it makes sense that it would take on an image of anxiety, also, it is an intimate, personal action and thusly a source of shame in our enlightened world (note: this could be the cause of a common lexicon in relation to the language of dreams).

 

Dreams have often had associations with prophecy, from the Augers of Ancient Greece, to the Bible to modern psychology. I would, building upon what I have just written, state that rather than a psychologist or a mystic, to understand prophetic dreams, one must consult a historian. What do I mean by that? Well, dreams often work in a linear narrative A leads to B, B to C, as time, although sometimes not seeming linear within the dream, still remain linear in that the one experiencing the dream is experiencing the dream within linear time, i.e. their sleeping body in the non-dream world (note: it was hard to phrase that for as Mr Poe stated, ‘is all that we see or seems, a dream within a dream’) and thusly when attempting to make sense of the dream, to remember the dream, our mind works in a linear pattern. As we think in linear time and subscribe to the, frankly absurd, notion of causality, we can look to the past for guidance to the future. One might have a clichéd dream about failing a test and being held back in summer school. Whilst, as we have said, the anxiety is referred from another stimuli, the dreamer understands, previously, that tests can be passed or failed and that there are consequences for both- you might get a brighter future as a psychologist or you might be forced to retake the school year ad nauseum. Both of these are extremes; however, the dreaming mind exists only within extremes, or maybe only the dreams we remember, and thusly the worst/best case scenario is the one presented. From this one can predict what will happen in the future, for example in the Bible, Joseph predicts that plenty will be followed by famine. This is generally how things go in nature and thusly he can draw upon previous lived experience to say that once something become too inflated it will not be able to continue- not only in natural nature but also economics etc.

 

From these two examples, I hope I have shown that although we can never know what a dream is, in it-self, or how it is created or where it comes from, dreams can be understood in a personal context as they can only contain that which we already know from conscious and unconscious lived experience (as Leonard Cohen stated, even the imagination has its own history) and can either be explored to see what currently is good/bad in your life or, as with all bad dreams, think of it as a film that you don’t have to watch so end the film and start anew.

 

Sweet dreams

 

‘till next time