On Cooperation

Check out this sonnet.

A Momentary Update and a Mountain Range

For your information:

Jon has noticed that I missed a 7 Quick Takes. This is because I went cavorting southward to visit places like Canmore, Banff, Lake Louise, and Feild. I will do a 7 Quick Takes this coming Friday covering both weeks. I may also post some select photographs from my adventures.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Terribly Belated 7 Quick Takes (XLIV)

1. New hires at work equal lots of work. In case you didn't know. Supervising, notwithstanding the jokes, can be time-consuming and difficult, even when your supervisees are good staff.

2. I finished The Name of the Rose. In typing out the title, I realize that I have no idea why it is titled that.

It did not end as I anticipated, but then I should have anticipated that, what with the postmodernist billing and all. I'm not sure how I feel about it, now that it's ended. At any rate, I might yet see the movie, as it has Sean Connery in it.

3. And I have picked up The Mansions of the Spirit: The Gospel in a Multi-Faith World by Michael Ingham. It's about the interfaith movement, and reconciling this with Christianity. Or at least that's what it claims to be about, though I'm not sure I agree with all of its premises. In its exclusivist-inclusivist-pluralist spectrum, the book seems to favour something between inclusivism and pluralism, whereas I would favour something far more squarely in the inclusivist camp.

At any rate, it's led me to think more seriously about my underlying assumptions about interfaith relations and movements. I would like to work in the interfaith feild at some point in my life, but not if it only operates in the way Ingham describes. It seems to me that any interfaith initiative which hopes for success must be able to incorporate exclusivist positions, and Ingham's model may have difficulty with that.

(I realize this may all be jargon to some of you. I apologize for this, but if I were to explain myself without jargon, that would require more time and space than I can fairly allot.)

4. Yesterday I worked some overtime as we had our Celtic Day event at the Park. We had lots of preparations, and I worked at the barbeque, and I also had to give a speech about the temporary Burns Club exhibit. The Burns Club celebrates Robert Burns and Scottish culture, so I had to Wikipedia Robert Burns to get some basic facts for the speech, which I also had to give. It was only a few seconds long, but still...

And why, if I had put the exhibit together, did I have to research Burns immediately before giving the speech? Because I literally just placed the artifacts in the display in an aesthetically pleasing way, no knowledge required. My only understanding of Robert Burns was one of cultural sgnificance, not of historical details. For instance, I did not know when he lived and wrote (latter half of the 1700s) nor whether he composed or simply transcribed "Auld Lang Syne" (composed). So I had to research.

5. On the topic of overtime, I also worked on Victoria Day last Monday. And I've been putting in extra hours throughout the week. This will make up for future days off.

6. This afternoon I order Epicon by Globus with an Amazon.ca gift certificate. I am excited.

7. At church, during the Prayers of the People, the deacon called forward a member of the congregation who was going to the General Synod (and who happened to be his daughter) and asked a few folks to come forward to lay their hands on her while he prayed. Now I normally do not go for the whole laying on of hands thing, but this church likes it a lot and so I've been getting used to it. Not that I'd do it of my own volition or anything, and not like I'd go along with it in the sense of faith healing, but as far as praying over someone goes I guess there's no harm done in putting your hand on them while you pray. As I was serving today, and as I figure the alb means I ought to be leading in this sort of thing, I came forward to participate.

And then the deacon asks us to pray ourselves over her, as the Spirit moves us, when he's finished praying.

!!!

I'm supposed to pray spontaneously in public!? What have I gotten myself into? Of course I realize that this alb I like wearing so much signs me up for all sorts of things, but that doesn't make these moments less surprising. I managed to pray intelligibly I'm pretty sure, but let's just say that it's been a while since I've prayed ad lib before and I'll have to get over the performance anxiety again. (This may be worth a post in itself. I'll think about it.)

Who is the Dreamer of Dreams?

Warning: Long, philosophical post musing on the nature of the self. If this does not appeal to you, don't bother reading it.

Last night I tried writing a sonnet concerning the mysteriousness of the self. I didn't get anywhere on it.

The nature of the self (as a concept more than my own self) has been nagging at me lately. I intend to explore ideas concerning it in my Master's at UBC, if my thesis is approved. So as I've been reading this past year (and watching movies and so forth) I have been keeping an eye open for any ideas or philosophies or information regarding the nature of identity and the self. I am an amateur philosopher, and so this isn't unlike me.

One thing I've noticed, especially following my forays into postmodernism, is that our ideas about what the self is are confused, contradictory, and incomplete. I'm sure someone will want to point me to psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience, but last I checked they couldn't explain consciousness and, besides, I suspect that cultural and non-material forces contribute as much as mechanical ones do. So that avenue provides only partial answers, as far as I'm concerned.

Anthropology is of little help; at least, the different cultures we can study say very different things. Confucianism sees people as nodes in relationship webs; Hinduism sees people as fragments of the divine covered and sullied by karma, attachment to this world; Buddhism sees people as non-entities whose attachments reincarnate until the people finally detach themselves. The followers of Songlines in Australia see themselves as unreal until they re-enact the behaviours of their culture heroes; Native Americans (or at least some of them) see themselves as organs of the organism that is their tribe; Pythagorians saw themselves as expressions of perfect mathematical laws. In the far reaches of any culture's mysticism you start to see similarities with other mysticisms, but at this point also we (or at least I) lose any understanding of what's going on. The insights and narratives each culture expresses might be useful clues to build our own ideas upon, but I certainly don't take any at face value.

So I don't think the problem is that we haven't been working on this issue. The problem is that there are too many solutions and no way of discerning which is correct. Or, alternately, there hasn't been sufficient attempt to synthesize the assorted solutions. Or we've been working at it in the wrong way. Or something.

Postmodernism's destructive tendencies become useful in dismantling whatever clunky precepts we had before, and some postmodernists have perhaps surprisingly offered alternatives. At the moment these alternatives seem fairly reasonable, but I must add a caveat to them. I am, after all, a Christian, and therefore an essentialist. (Or perhaps I am an essentialist and therefore a Christian?)

There are, as far as I can see, two models of the self supported by postmodernism. We can think of them as the "mask theory" and the "component theory."

1. Mask Theory

The mask theory states that we are composed of masks. In different situations we wear different masks, which is another way of saying that we play different roles. Usually we wear these different masks, or play these different roles, when around different people. A submissive intern might be an aggressive conflict-monger on the soccer field. We can be a goof at times, and at times respectable. We can be a father or a son, a mother or a wife. Different people, in different situations, have different expectations of us, and we try to live up to those expectations. This is why we (or many people) feel anxious if friends or acquaintances from different contexts meet and interact with us simultaneously: we don't know which mask to wear.

The final point in this idea is that there is either nothing beneath the mask, or nothing we can ever experience.. including the wearer. If there is a true, authentic self, it is hidden. So says this theory.

We can trace this idea back to Confuciansim and to social psychology. In fact, I think it was from social psychology that this idea was born.

2. Component Theory

I've never heard this called the Component Theory before, but I think it's an apt name. It's been refered to as the Artichoke View of the Self before, if the culinary arts help you process things. This idea holds that people are composed of different bits: desires, emotions, fears, physical sensations, memories, gaps in memories, dreams, aptitudes, beliefs, neuroses, and so forth. You can imagine these either as functions of different parts of the brain, or you can imagine these as nebulous non-material entities. Whatever. Put these all together and you get a person, a self. But none of these alone makes up the self, and you can replace all of the parts over time, like the atoms and cells in your body are replaced. There is no single lasting thing that holds it all together. There is no core. There is no dreamer; there are only dreams.

(That's why it's called the Artichoke View of the Self. If you pull off all of the surface pieces of the artichoke, there's nothing left. Except that artichokes have hearts, which seems to undermine the whole image. It's also sometimes called the Onion View of the Self, I think.)

Descartes famously said, "Cogito ergo sum," meaning, "I think, therefore I am." In experiencing thoughts, he reasoned there must be a thing that thinks. The Buddhists disagreed. (Perhaps their language allowed them to do so; Descartes was using Latin verbs, which come with subjects built in, so the process thinking requires a thinker. I know nothing about Sanskrit, so I can't say whether their language is freer to have a verb without a subect?) In experiencing thoughts, they sought that which generated these thoughts. All they found were memories and sense impressions. They found no thing, no self, which experienced them. They therefore deduced that sense impressions arise and give birth to memories and desires; memories and desires, interacting, give birth to thoughts and emotions. This is all we are, a bundle of components which come and go, without permanency.

Did you know that the word "individual" means "that which is indivisable"? In this view, the word "individual" refer to a person or self is erroneous.

As I've revealed already, this line of thinking can be traced back to Buddhism and to the cognitive and neurological sciences.

Reflections

I think these ideas are intriguing and revealing, but incomplete. I do wholeheartedly agree that we do wear masks and that not doing so is unhealthy. I also wholeheartedly agree that we are built of components: thoughts, drives, desires, fears, boundries, memories, abilities, language. But I cannot accept that this is all we are. I also can't convince you to believe me, and that's not my aim.

As it stands, then, this is my conception of the self:

There is a core self, buried deep within us somewhere. I would call it a soul. You may prefer thinking of it as a shard of Sophia or a little Buddha or an Atman or a life essence or neurological predispositions (or basic programming, if you're a Cylon). In doesn't matter. I'm talking about the indivisable element unique to each of us. (Or not unique, if you prefer.)

Around this are these self-components: thought, fears, feelings, drives, neuroses, and so on. The core self is buried beneath these.

The components shift in re-arrange in patterns. Most often they react to the situation, surfacing or burying depending on the social role the person is playing. Those components fitting to a father or son or lover rise in the times the person is called to play that role. (And, of course, some components come up when it's unfitting, too, and we feel the need to control these. This feeling may also be a self-component.) These are the masks we discussed previously; the components arrange to become masks.

But the core self is capable of exerting some influence over the whole system. Sure, the self-components are unruly and often rebel against that influence (which I think we can conveniently call willpower). This is self-control. Exerting it improperly will screw up the patterns of the system and may lead to distress; exerting it properly will allow the system to play at roles better and, even more importantly, defy those roles if morality calls for it.

And of course it may become necessary to purge certain components. That cannot be easy, and you may need to turn to outside help (medication, therapy, the Holy Spirit).

There are numerous ramifications of this theory, and I'm not done working through them yet. In particular I'm thinking about people with DID, about ethics, about dying to oneself to become a little Christ (seems to me like purging the "bad" components), about playing roles to avoid stagnation. It seems to me important to develop an idea of what the self is in order to practice self-control properly.

Caveats

But I don't want you to walk away with the impression that I am certain about this theory. I'm not at all. I suspect it's wrong, actually. It's just the best I have so far. Which means that I'd like you, if you've read this far, to tell me where you think problems may lie. Either you may have personal experiences which invalidate this, or you may have read psychological or theological treatises which dismantle it, or you may be a keen logician capable of seeing some sort of contradiction. Lay it on me. This is provisional; this is what I have so far.

7 Quick Takes (XLIII)

1. Birthday stuff did occur, primarily involving eating at a local diner, visiting a museum in town (the one I don't work for), and eating vanilla cake. That is my favourite kind of cake, incidentally; one with a really nice vanilla cake part and plain-old vanilla icing. No fruit, no frills, and certainly no chocolate.
And I got a few presents, but, oddly, most of them are inaccessible at the moment; one is a gift card, one is a DVD set that is ordered but not yet released, and one is a computer game that depends upon my buying that new computer I keep meaning to get. Well. I did get the final season of Battlestar Galactica, which was superb.

2. I should also mention that my mother and I walked in the hills behind Abasand Heights. I've never explored that part of the Fort McMurray woodscape (I made up this word, by the way, which means that it is, alas, not yet real), and was happy to do so, as it's absolutely beautiful. First, it means that I got to see how Abasand, as a neighbourhood, is put together, which I've never really looked at before. Second, it means that I got to kick around the Horse River which, again, I've never done before.
Abasand Heights sits on top of a ridge, the eastern length of it defined by the Clearwater River floodplain in which Fort McMurray's Downtown (or Lower Townsite, or Old Town, whichever you prefer to call it) rests, and the western length of it defined by the Horse River's valley. Abasand approaches but does not quite reach the edge of this ridge, so that there's bush on the top, on the sides, and at the bottom; that's an OK amount of exploring with an open afternoon, a water bottle, and a camera. And bear bells, because Mom insists that the bears won't settle for hugs and perhaps a belly rub. I beg to differ, but I do what I'm told.

3. Work, with the influx of new summer students, has become all of a sudden busier. This is not true just of being rush-rush-rush, though what with my now being part of training staff I do have more responsibilities than before. No, the physical space is also busier, with more bodies moving around and more stuff in the staff room and more people to account for (ie. in seating around the lunch table, in ensuring I don't lock anyone in any of the buildings). It's exciting and exhausting.

4. I am reading The English Opium-Eater, a biography of De Quincey by a professor I formerly had, and The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco, a murder mystery involving monks in mediaeval Italy. Opium-Eater is not in my opinion a 'work book,' as I don't want patrons seeing staff reading about drug culture. Not that it's about drug culture as much as about the life of a poet (One River or lullabies for little criminals are more about drug culture that Opium-Eater, but you'd never know by the titles.) So I read Eco's mystery at work. I've read that The Name of the Rose is actually a parody of a murder mystery and one of the earliest self-consciously postmodern novels, and in this light I'm finding it far easier to read. I'd attempted it before but couldn't crack the first few chapters. Now that I have a better framework for it, I'm making good time, really enjoying it, and getting into the historical, metaphysical, literary analytical, theological, and sociological discussions in it. The Name of the Rose has been adapted into a film starring Sean Connery. I have not seen the movie, but I have no trouble at all picturing Connery as the lead.

5. It seems my takes are hardly quick this week. Apologies; what I've been reading lately must be ornate and complex, as my sentences reflect. To too much of an extent do I chameleon other writers' language. I must control that impulse, or at the very least direct it.

6. A death in the family has my folks out, attending the funeral. So I have been on the buses and have been having the house to myself. I have taken advantage of this by watching Battlestar and Corner Gas and by writing letters. Such secrets I hide.

7. These past few days have been gloomy and rainy. I have usually said that those in British Columbia should not complain about their rainy winters; those winters are nothing compared to the Fort McMurray cold. However, I realize that I might prefer the cold to miserable wet cold sloppy rain, which is said to be the standard weather in British Columbia. Well, for the sake of not being a hypocrit, I must not complain, but I may also ease up on my judgements now, too.

And that was my week. Please visit Jen, the host of this fine meme.

Once Again, On Hope

The days seem ever dark'ning; ev'ning sweeps
In earlier without a sign of solstice.
Fluorescent lights in living rooms are poultice,
Perhaps, to growing gloom, but ever weeps
The war-time widow; martyrs' mothers cry,
And oaks fall groaning down, while minds are frayed
And newborns' parts are badly misarrayed
And genes with last and lonely beasts will die.
But if we find a light sufficient strong
To pierce that dulling darkness, would it blind?
Would we who see that beam therefore not find
The horrors still alive, and hope in wrong?
Activity sees clearer worn with care,
But hope's a better star than cold despair.

Karen asked me to write another post on hope, and, lacking much to say about the matter, I decided to write a sonnet on it. The sonnet's structure (octet, volta, sestet; 8-4-2; abbacddcefefgg or variant) often helps me give structure to my own thoughts on a topic. Anyway, what I produced perhaps gives the feel as well as one can hope in an hour's endeavour, but it doesn't much illuminate the logic, which I feel I must go into here. I warn you that my discussions of hope are not as "hopeful" as Karen's or Jon's.

I am of course indebted to Yolanda for my current thoughts on hope; specifically, she linked an article which discussed the pros and cons. The fear I have is three-fold: first, that hope is in the end vain, as we're doomed; second, that hope blinds us to problem errors which we then don't address; third, that if we give too much to hope we rely on it, and on luck, to make things better, and not work ourselves. The trouble is that despair or apathy don't do much good, either. As Karen points out, attempt is a prerequisite to success, and as Jon points out, hope is sometimes all that gets you out of bed in the morning. (A sense of duty, actually, is what gets me out of bed, but I recognize that some people might need something a little less old-fashioned.) Despair is blinding, too; either we give up altruism and become selfish, or we give up entirely and await destruction.

I was discussing this with a friend in Ontario, sitting in the sun and drinking a Chai Latte. In the face of defeat, do we give up? What is our cultural drive? Tolkein thought that we lacked the Scandinavians' determination, the sheer will that allowed Thor and Odin to plunge into Ragnarok, the final war, knowing full well that they would lose. He tried to elaborate on this ethic in The Lord of the Rings. My friend said she thought this was not absent but in the cultural mindset, a persistance inspite of overwhelming odds, and I wonder if perhaps this means that Tolkein succeeded. At any rate, I think that there is something to be said for trying utterly despite entertaining no hope that you will succeed. Trying in spite of defeat. The trouble is that we will survive our defeat; Odin had the luxury of dying at the end of the world. We may live to suffer the consequences of environmental apocalypse, continuing war in the Middle East, continuing tyranny in China, etc. We cannot afford to let hope to blind us to the possibility that we may fail, and we must be prepared to deal with failure when it comes.

But Huston Smith said that heroic fortitude is not something you can prescribe upon the masses, and I must agree. Many of us--myself included--need hope to let us go on each day. What we then must do is be aware that our hope is perhaps misguided, that our hope can blind us to real problems, that our hope can convince us to relax when we can't afford to. If we are aware that hope can do this, if we can hold hope in one hand and urgency in another, perhaps we can manage to do what we need to and remain sane. I'm not sure.

But note that it must hope and urgency, not hope and despair. Despair is destructive. It can therefore destroy our complacency, but just as we mustn't let it keep hold on us. It is only good if it destroys what is deadly to us and allows us to build anew, build with hope.