Like you, perhaps, I just got done with some yard work.
Spring.
I smelled soil. Rich, thick, penetrating.
Soil.
Sweat building underneath.
Soil bound with the damp.
Do you even lift bro?
Have you even smelled soil?
Have you ever smelled soil?
You should.
Smell.
Soil.
One point gleaned from reading Lewis Hyde's The Gift, is that we need death to grow.
Hyde focuses a great deal on Walt Whitman and Leaves of Grass and one metaphor in particular: grass over graves.
Death underneath provides the nutrients for the new blades to bloom.
We need death to grow. We need finitude for our lives to matter.
If we are eternal, there can be no value.
Death is the ground to your figure, always there, giving your life and your projects, definition.
I had a truly terrible dream last night.
I had a dream I was taking a German exam and I was unable to prepare for the exam–my ability to memorize got me through undergrad and a scholarship for graduate school (I once got a 100% on a Spinoza exam mostly by memorizing a shit-ton of Spinoza)–so this was terrible for me.
But, it got worse, the way some dreams do. While taking this awful exam, with pictures I couldn't make sense of and directions I couldn't make sense of, pages out of order, I tried to go up to the front of the class to ask the prof for clarification. But you know dreams, while trying to make my way to the front of the class, I get lost, end up on a crowded sidewalk in a crowded city and almost get hit by a trash truck, only to reach a prof for a previous Marxism class, plus my exam is all out of order and I can't even ask her questions. So I'm trudging back to my German class, exam in hand, fighting the people on the sidewalk and the occasional car up on the sidewalk when, I wake up.
I have dreams of this ilk and they are awful. The feeling resides upon waking. The feeling of being lost and unprepared. I hate to Heidegger this up (do I though? Don't I love Heidegger?) but this feeling of geworfenheit, of being thrown...into the world is truly awful, almost horror...for me.
And I thought about writing upon awaking. And I thought about perhaps my son, asking me why I have these kinds of dreams.
And I thought about explaining to my nine year old Juju that: I'm not satisfied with quaint little stories. Though quaint and cute they may be. I think I have these dreams because I seek accurate explanations.
"But you're a relativist!" I hear from the interlocutor.
Indeed. You have me pegged.
But my relativism doesn't quell the questioning. This is the crux.
Consider an example:
You're starving. You haven't had a crumb of food in, let us say three weeks, and the only reason you are alive is you've had access to water. Truly starving is my point here. You'll die unless you find something to eat.
You find something to eat.
A can of wet, dog food.
Yes, dog food. It'll keep you alive and sustain you. Perfectly edible, dog food is.
My relativism is dog food. Can sustain me but it doesn't taste very good and it doesn't go down easily. Different from the quaint, candy-like stories that go down oh so smooth, but rot your teeth.
Truth is relative, per Lakoff and Metaphors We Live By but I am still thrown into this world and I live and move about in the minutiae and the people who thwart my projects (so much Heidegger this guy!) and offend my delicate sensibilities.
The world gives me dog food when I want to order off menu–the Dirty Steak from Al Forno in Providence, after a grilled pizza appetizer, with a single malt to wash it all down.
Dog food.
"We do not believe that there is such a thing as objective (absolute and unconditional) truth, though it has been a long-standing theme in Western culture that there is. We do believe that there are truths but think that the idea of truth need not be tied to the objectivist view. We believe that the idea that there is absolute objective truth is not only mistaken but socially and politically dangerous. As we have seen, truth is always relative to a conceptual system that is defined in large part by metaphor. Most of our metaphors have evolved in our culture over a long period, but many are imposed upon us by people in power—political leaders, religious leaders, business leaders, advertisers, the media, etc. In a culture where the myth of objectivism is very much alive and truth is always absolute truth, the people who get to impose their metaphors on the culture get to define what we consider to be true—absolutely and objectively true. It is for this reason that we see it as important to give an account of truth that is free of the myth of objectivism (according to which truth is always absolute truth). Since we see truth as based on understanding and see metaphor as a principal vehicle of understanding, we think that an ac-count of how metaphors can be true will reveal the way in which truth depends upon understanding."
Let us say that, theoretically, I am in therapy.
At the age of fifty.
Let us also say that, theoretically, I am in therapy for, again, theoretically, anger.
Let us say that.
I am 5'9, 160lbs.
An angry 5'9, 160lbs.
I have a sense of the origin of this, ahem, anger. And I told, this theoretical therapist, that this something else, is presenting as anger.
And I had this thought the other night, in a relaxing tub, while reading Lewis Hyde's The Gift. I remembered sharing, in one of the psychology courses I taught at the community college, this example of myside bias. Basically, myside bias is when you do something, perhaps wrong, you have legitimate reasons and the circumstances justify this behavior. Ah but when someone else does, misbehaves, it speaks to their character, not the circumstances. And I used the example of parking in the fire lane at the local grocery store. I used the example because I can get genuinely angry at people that park in the fire lane at this grocery store, though, wait for it, I have done this myself. You know, with legitimate reasons, like just pulling up for a second to drop off my pregnant wife, because we have two kids in the car and etc etc. Legitimate reasons, justifying my parking there. But other people, oh no, their reasons are not legitimate. Well, you can sense the hypocrisy. And I started rolling this around in the old bean and it started becoming a comedy bit of sorts but with effect and Heideggerian perspective/psychological framing at the end, that shoots, from all things, a hearing aid.
So hear it now:
AS A COMEDY BIT
Oh man, get this. I am in therapy. Yep, fifty years old and in therapy. Haven't figured things out after fifty years on the planet. Oh and get this, I'm in therapy for...anger. Yep, lil ole me has anger issues. Grrrrr.
This one time, I was going to the grocery store, grrrrr, and as I pull in the place is packed and I get all angry about it. Grrrr. Just incredibly bothered and angry about a crowded grocery store. You can see why I need therapy now. Anyway, I'm pulling in to this incredibly jamming parking lot and get blocked by this car parked, you guessed it, in the fire lane. Oh boy, I'm pissed now. I can't get my errands done on my time, I might have to wait for thirty seconds and you all know how important I am and how thirty seconds matters so much to a man of my incredible importance. Why I am a man who needs milk, and eggs, and butter, how dare you park in the fire lane and interrupt my important life. Right? So I'm jammed up by this fire lane parker so I just lay on the horn behind this fire lane parker. Just blarin' my horn, to let 'em know how important I am. Grrrr.
Well all of a sudden, an old lady gets out of the passenger side door. Must've been close to a hundred years old. She's got the three prong walker with the tennis balls, the whole nine yards, and she's going to get her groceries. Well I feel awful about myself and immediately cut off the horn. You know it all hits me in a matter of seconds, seeing this old lady getting out of the car, and I just feel awful and turn all that anger inward, right. Grrrr.
But here's the thing. Next thing, I see this old arm, from the driver's window, waving me past. Ok, now I'm ashamed. Just awful. All I wanted to do was go to the grocery story and I'm having all of these feelings. So I start to creep by this guy, with my shameful self in my shameful car, and I know I shouldn't have. Dammit I shouldn't have. But I looked at the guy. And of course, he's about a hundred years old too, just looks like the guy from the movie Up. Yeah. This sweet old man is dropping off his sweet old wife at the grocery store, and because I had to wait a nanosecond for them, I laid on the horn. What an asshole, right?
But get this, I drive by, and the old time smiles at me. And it wasn't a "how you feel now you prick?' kinda smile either. It was a genuine "how you doing today, isn't it great to be alive, getting groceries, dropping-off my wife" kinda smile. Not even kidding you, this old man laid a smile on me, like "hey young feller, how bout that ball game last night?"
Well, as I'm creeping by in this car, this old timer smiling at me, I see it. A hearing aid, in his left ear. And it dawns on me, that he didn't hear the horn. Yeah that's it, the old timer and his cute old wife, they didn't even hear the horn. I tell myself they couldn't hear an AC/DC concert with front row tickets.
"They never even heard my horn," I tell myself. Saved. My day was saved.
My day was saved. But that wasn't why.
He heard the horn, he heard me blaring it because I had to wait a nanosecond. He just didn't get angry about it. He didn't feel insulted and he's not mad at the world and he doesn't trod this planet with a chip on his shoulder, waiting to be offended, and judged. He has perspective, and he shared it with me, with a smile from ear to ear. A smile to say: what is this in the big scheme of things? A smile to say: why does this offend and anger you when the sun in shining and you draw air into your lungs? A smile to say: what are you so pissed off about when you have so much?
I heard all of this, though he was the one with the hearing aid.
