war and peace
i have begun tolstoy's masterpiece, and it is riveting. i haven't yet finished the first quarter of the book, still i have learned so much. the setting is the the first decade of the 19th century, and the russian wealthy class is nervous, very nervous, because the french revolution has just taken place, and napoleon is on the prowl. all of the sudden, their positions in society have become tenuous. what appeals to me so much about this master work is that it draws the reader in slowly and deftly, by laying a foundation so tantalizing that one can't help but to savor each word. it is true that tolstoy had a deep understanding of human nature. he must have studied people, not only their physical characteristics, but their underlying, invisible motivations. you would have to be particularly astute, with an innate sense of empathy for the human condition to write a single sentence filled with this much understanding. For example, and you don't need to know the story to see the genius behind these lines:
The 'charming' Hippolyte bore a close resemblance to his beautiful sister; it was even more remarkable that in spite of the similarity he was a very ugly man. His features were like his sister's, but whereas she glowed with joie de vivre, classical beauty, and the smiling self-assurance of youth, her brother's face was just the opposite--dim with imbecility, truculent and peevish--and his body thin and feeble. His eyes, nose and mouth--all his features seemed to twist themselves into a vague kind of obtuse snarl, while his arms and legs were always in an awkward tangle. (Ch. 3)
uncle leo has got me wondering about the idea of revolution in general. americans are pacified with consumerism, celebrities, cubicle culture, and pharmaceuticals to ever be bothered with revolution. i don't think the public is convinced of the necessity of it, when life is comfortable. the situation is just not that bad when you have a flat screen tv. our eyes are always darting from screen to screen, judging the worth of this versus that. media in the 21st century is mass hoodwinkery of the most insidious sort. watching real lives come undone is a new form of entertainment that has parasitically planted itself on the american psyche, leaving little room for anything else of value, like art, nature, and being politically aware. chomsky is right. if americans put half as much effort into politics, as they do sports, we could have a revolution! we could take these treasonous bastards to task, and say, no more godammit! no more of your wars! but alas. the intellectual fabric of this country is unraveling, and i don't see a cure for this pathology. at this point, i am filled with venom and it is fueled by hate. i don't see the Self in them (bush, cheney, et.al). dualism has temporarily hijacked my brain.
if we continue on this path of letting corporate power run rampant--for the government has morphed with the corporation--natural resources will become more scarce, the poorest on the planet will suffer evermore hardships, and continuous guerilla warfare will be the status quo. it already is. wars in the 21st century will be like orwell predicted. a few perpetual, ragtag, 'rebels' --not connoting good or bad here--will be the only resistance to the hammer of the state that comes down irregularly, but when it does, it does so with massive force, temporarily stomping out opposition, like a jet spray of insect repellent over a swarm of ants. but the ants will continue dying, generation after generation, and the state will continue spraying. the paradigm has shifted from wars like ww2, korea, and vietnam. guerilla warfare will be the ever present back drop, until china becomes so strapped for resources that it decides to battle japan over oil in the south china sea. all of this rumbling in china about japanese textbooks and their revisionist recounts of japanese atrocities during ww2, is but the beginning of an even more massive discontent in china. the anger has to diffuse in some way, otherwise it will boil over, whether in my lifetime or not. wars have been declared over less, haven't they?
each tangent of thought that darts to the future, disconcerts me. there is no hope for the future. everything is fucked. but, and this is a big but (not a big butt), there is always the option of turning the eye inward, and this is the lesson i keep learning from narayana guru. it is the only salve that will bring me peace of mind, soothe my rattled nerves, and bring laughter at the thought of all this that i take so seriously. ha ha!!
am i having fun yet?
you may not be asking that, but i am. the purpose of this blog is to somewhat organize a bum rush of thoughts that plague me. i don't consider any of this 'finished' or 'polished', but maybe passably well-written. the point is to start the flow (and practice) of writing every day. i consider these writings to be polished freewrites, if there is such a thing. eventually, they may morph into something more 'complete'; they may not. the most important purpose of this blog is that it is fun for me. i very much enjoy channeling disparate energies into something i can convey in words. fun is associated with frivolity, but my fun involves delving into serious and sensible thought-experiments, and sometimes delving into not serious and insensible thought-experiments.
how sad is a life without fun? a life so consumed with making sure this thing goes here, that thing goes there. fun requires freedom. to really have fun is a deep thing. riding a rollercoaster may be perceived by some as fun, but it's just a distraction. a trivial delight. what's fun for me is connecting with my inner nature. i love to have a day spread out before me with nothing in particular to do but write down my thoughts and read my books. when the weather is dreadful, that's even better! helmholtz watson would agree. that is why he chose to go to the island at the end of brave new world, where it rained all the time. he knew the writer's ideal weather!
i believe that neurosurgery was fun for my dad. he enjoyed studying the brain, with all of his intellectual capacity. during surgeries, he was a task master. he demanded absolute silence, otherwise it was shiva's wrath. but, you ask, how is this fun? i would respond that fun is something that is enjoyable. enjoyment is something from which you get pleasure. and pleasure is "a fundamental feeling that is hard to define but that people desire to experience" (worldnet.princeton.edu). ha ha!
people who are intrinsically motivated desire a qualitatively different type of pleasure than those who are extrinsically motivated. intrinsically motivated folk bring together all of their aptitudes to do the work they were born to do, and yes, the work is fun. it's not fleeting fun, but it lasts, and it bestows its boons not only on the person experiencing it, but to those in his radius. my dad was just this way. of course, he wasn't perfect, but here was someone who was doing work that garnered all of his various intelligences into a tight bundle, like a fasci, which is an italian word for a bundle of rods, that eventually came to symbolize the fascist party's notion of strength through unity. that is, bringing disparate political parties together into a bundle. alone, they are fragile, but together they are strong. this also holds true for being aligned with your inner nature, or svadharma. when you are aligned, everything falls into place. not without struggle or hard work, and definitely not easily. but the fun is satisfying every day. you don't have to escape your miserable daily life and go bungee jumping, because your life is pure bliss!
if you are motivated by something other than your own nature (money, power, status, etc.), then chances are you don't know how to have fun and have never experienced what true fun is, except maybe when you were a child. and this is sad. don't you think?
