I recall you mentioning somewhere that you considered your own life something of an allegory in respect of our human failings. Could you elaborate?
What I meant was that perhaps I am an example of how – so many times – we fail to learn from our own experience, keep making the same mistakes, and, despite some progress, some evolution, toward empathy, compassion, and the cessation of suffering, we often seem to, and often do, regress because we are still in thrall to abstractions, to desires, to our feelings which even if we understand them still cause us to make errors, mistakes, and still motivate us to interfere.
Thus, despite all my knowing, deriving from pathei mathos – from feeling and knowing the suffering I have personally caused and which is caused by pursuing abstractions, however good one’s intentions might appear to be – and despite the periods of striving to live such knowing, I have often, even in the past few years, regressed to sallying forth on behalf of some abstraction. One of the errors, the mistakes, here is pride: the arrogance of feeling, of assuming, that we as a mere individual can make a difference if we act in a certain way, if we engage in a practical way in matters which are beyond our immediate vicinity and beyond our own personal, individual, lives. That is, if we interfere in some matter which is not directly personal, immediate and rooted in the locality where we dwell and have our being.
In the past three decades, I have learnt much – about myself, people, the world, the Cosmos – and some of this learning has been because of my involvement, my many and various peregrinations (personal, political and religious, if we want to categorize them according to some abstraction). Much of this learning I have strived to express in my personal letters, in my poetry, in my writings about The Numinous Way, especially those written just prior to, and following, Francine’s tragic death.
But quite a few times over the past six or more years of this personal learning, this discovery, this coming-to-know empathy and compassion and the causes of suffering, I have reverted back to old habits, to old ways of living, stupidly angered as I often was at some dishonour, somewhere, manifest by some or many dishonourable people, and feeling as I stupidly did that things I said, things I did, things I wrote, could or might make some difference. Thus did I sometimes live a different way as often I deeply felt it was correct for me to do such things because of loyalty and honour; because of an oath sworn some years before. And thus was there much conflict, within me, because such things – such adherence to such loyalty and honour – seemed to contradict, and in truth did contradict, the simple wisdom of Wu-Wei, the empathy, the compassion, the numinosity, the humility which I had re-discovered through my peregrinations, through my three-decade-long Promethean adventure and through and because of the suffering, the death, the suicide, of loved ones.
Hence the allegory: of presumption; of weakness; of pride; of stubbornness and stupidity; even, perhaps, of hypocrisy. Of a failure to live as one feels one should. Of a clinging to abstractions. This may be human – or rather, may be part of our present human nature. But that is no excuse, especially for me, someone who has pontificated so many times (especially in recent years) about how we should and could evolve ourselves, and thus develope our human nature. Hence the personal feelings of weakness, of stubbornness, of stupidity, and even of hypocrisy.
The problem has been – and sometimes still is – three-fold. First, there is the personal desire, born out of personal character, to challenge dishonour, and in so doing to champion what is felt or believed or perceived to be noble, honourable and good. Deriving from this, there is the question of loyalty deriving from an honourable oath. Second, there is the understanding, the knowing, the empathy, arising partly from personal character and partly from pathei mathos: from a learning from the errors of experience.
Thirdly – an adjunct to the problem of honour and loyalty which I have, elsewhere, discussed several times – there has been the problem of having, for the past seven or more years, a certain perceived and public image: in not desiring to express, through various means and via various mediums, certain personal things, certain personal conclusions, which would have or which might have undermined that image and which I believed might harm a certain Way and those following that Way, and which might have given comfort and aid and even joy to those dishonourable ones who were engaged in a war against that Way and those who followed it and who strived to implement in, in the world. But: was this vanity? Foolishness? Arrogance? Presumption? Perhaps. Probably. And there was also a time when – believing this to be so – I did express, and distribute, through various public mediums, such as the Internet, some of my recent conclusions, feelings, doubts and understanding, and various recent writings about the development of my own The Numinous Way, only to sooner, or later, strive to withdraw them, or remove the dates of their writing from some of them, thus – perhaps – confusing some individuals about my own intentions, beliefs and so on.
But now, now as the second anniversary of Francine’s suicide approaches and the season of an English middle-Spring comes to lighten, brighten and warm, there is yet again the feeling of humility, a burgeoning and much-needed inner tranquillity, and a certain renewed desire to just-be: to cease worrying about or concerning myself with image, with rôles, and with consequences, perceived, imagined, believed-in, or otherwise. To speak and write what is now in my being: that which is the essence of my being, my new character, created through my peregrinations and through and because of the suffering, the death, the suicide, of loved ones. But, of course, this could be just the wearyness of age… Or even just one more change which may itself be changed again by a reversion to previous behaviour, and thus yet one more mistake, one more human, personal, failure; one more example of my pride, my stubbornness, my stupidity, my arrogance.
I hope it is not. But I have felt and said – and written – that before, and been proved wrong.
In an earlier dialogue – a few years ago now – you mentioned that you had become rather pessimistic about the future. Have your views changed in the intervening years?
I am still rather pessimistic about the future of both our human species, and the fate of Nature: of the life with which we share this planet. In fact, rather more pessimistic than I was.
Why? Because of the allegory of pride and presumption, which has led to and which leads to non-personal, an abstract, interference in the lives, the affairs, of others. The intentions behind such non-personal interference are irrelevant, for the effect is always, always, suffering, destruction and death: for other human beings; for the other life with which we share this planet; for this planet itself.
Thus, according to this old way of being, there is always, always, some “enemy” who has to be fought but who has not dishonoured us in a personal matter, or nor affected us in a dishonourable and personal and immediate way, and which enemy is or becomes demonized and depersonalized. There are always, always, “sacrifices” – involving suffering, destruction and death – which have to be made in name of some abstraction, such as some “nation”, or some ideal (such as democracy and/or “freedom”). There is always, always, a striving for some impersonal abstract “progress” – or some fashionable “change” – which always involves us distancing ourselves from immediacy with Nature, which always is hubris-like and involves a loss of empathy, and which almost always seems to undermine the numinous. There is always, always a following of our own desires, our own perceived needs, our greed, often regardless of the consequences to other human beings, to the other life with which we share this planet which is currently our home.
I am pessimistic because while the causes of suffering are known and understood, while we feel or know the fragility of life, of Nature, while we feel or know our greed, stupidity, arrogance and pride, we keep making the same errors, the same mistakes; keep striving after the same failed ideals and abstractions; keeping stupidly believing that “this time, it will be different…” Thus do we continue to slaughter and maim individuals in impersonal war after impersonal war. Thus do we find some justification – or invent some lies – to invade and occupy another land, or to use brutal force to impose “our” vision, our ideals, our way, upon others, believing we are right. Thus do we give eloquent speeches or write fiery tracts and articles and propaganda to convince and persuade others, appealing to their emotions, or their base instincts – or, slyly in a manipulative way, appealing to their “better nature”.
Thus do we continue in our hubris, our greed, to exploit Nature, as thus do we continue to exploit other human beings and the other life with which we share this planet. More life – human and otherwise – has been destroyed by us in the last hundred years than in the whole of the last five thousand years.
It is as though, as a species, we are flawed: that the individuals, the minority, who clearly see and who clearly understand and who speak and write about compassion, empathy and suffering – a minority which arises every generation, every century, generation after generation, century after century – is swept aside, engulfed when the fever, born of our flaws, yet again flows within us and we, en masse, sally forth to war, or go forth on some crusade or other, or follow some leader or other, or sally forth to exploit some new resource, or adhere to some cause or other, or demand revolution, change or the implementation of some recently manufactured ideal or abstraction.
Thousands of years of literature, philosophy, poetry, music, Art – thousands of years of examples of human love, of adversity, suffering, misery, fortitude, death, thousands of years of allegories, of the presencing of the numinous, of culture – do not seem to have made much difference to the majority, except sometimes as examples which the propagandists, the hypocrites, the sly ones, the dishonourable ones, may use, from time to time, if it suits their purpose, their cause, their abstraction, their desire, their greed, their crusade, their war.
For the inescapable truth seems to me to be that – despite all our words, spoken and written – we are still animals: that all our pretences, all our pretence at being “civilized” or “cultured”, is just that, pretence; mere show at worst, and at best, just a brief interlude, a brief following of a more evolved way of life; an interlude, a way, which ends, which is forgotten, when we revert back to type, to being animals who walk upright, in human form, barbarians who can speak, write, talk and who manufacture and use machines.
Perhaps we human animals will just continue to ravage this planet, continue to be barbarians – predators on each other and on the other life which lives on this planet which is our home – until we move toward extinction or until Nature is so harmed, so damaged by us that we destroy the home, Nature, we depend on and which gave and gives us life.
Yet it is tempting to hope, to hope that we can and will change; even more tempting to believe there is a purpose, hidden or otherwise: that there is an existence after our death, a God, Allah, or some supreme or supra-personal Being. The crux here is believe. To assume; to presume. And if we cannot so believe, so presume?
As I wrote recently in a missive to a friend:
Who is there to hear the cries of anguish, of sorrow – who to know our knowing of our mistakes, experience – if there is no God, no supra-personal numinous Being or beings beyond this causal realm where we, mortals, but so briefly exist?
What is there, of meaning? Except that, perhaps, we give ourselves or that which we, believing, accept. Or that which we impose, upon ourselves, upon others – Life – through manufactured, unreal, abstractions.
What is there, then, but the briefest of brief numinous moments captured in one moment of joy; in some precious presencing of music, of Art, of sharing, of a personal love; of a moment perhaps perchance prolonged when we, living, surge forth beyond our causal selves to touch: something.
What is there left of such moments when the years, the decades, have worn away each immediacy of each moment until only the haze of memory remains, as of those warm Summer days of youth when by the forded river we rested, our whole world that gurgling river replete with stones, the garden of play and our welcoming safe home?
What is there of meaning in such moments recalled? Only, perhaps, the meaning felt, possessed, then – which slowly, slowly leaves us as age begins to wear us, down.
What is there to do but continue to live, to seek, search, for such moments, again: drifting with, perchance against, the flow until one feels that Life again which lived so – by, in – such rushing of a causal Time. And when the energy of our one life begins to flow away – away from seeking, searching, feeling, away toward that waiting fated Winter - then we, alone, steady ourselves to sit, recline, or lay-adown, to dream, to feel again, those memories that so suffused us, then, in that precious Time of Living.
Yet, and yet I cannot in my own weakness, in my own dreams, cease to hope: feeling that each numinous poem, each numinous piece of music, each numinous work of Art, each tale of tragedy and remorse, each deed of love, each act of expiation, of humility and compassion, each awakening of empathy, has meaning and gives meaning and is thus an evolution; one more example for one more person somewhere, sometime, and that in the not-too-distant future each and every such singular presencing of the numinous will merge together to form a global culture that has the allegorical power, over causal time, to transform us, as human beings and en masse, thus beginning our evolution into compassionate, empathic, human beings.
David Myatt
