Dec. 6, ’88
Dear Pam
This is a note about “Lust”. It came from a title of a book about Van Gogh, the insane Dutch painter who chased the Swirling Universe, which was more like Goedel’s universe than that of Einstein. I did not know this, but another author Milan Kundera argues that the word “Passion” in Christian Culture carries a certain tinge of “Guilt”, and “Lust” is a much better word. Kundera, also argue that”Love” has little to do with “Making Love”, and “Making Love” is just a minor part of “Sleeping With” a woman or man. The latter is far deeper. I guess one can go to “Living With” from there. But Kundera drew a line there and his story “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” is about “how not live with” , or rather how incapable we are to live with. We can possibly Flirt but “Living With” is difficult. As it was in the story “Sleeping With” was already too difficult to do.
From there, I tried very hard to imagine if two or more people could have the same Dream. Jung talked of “Collective Unconscious” which is somewhat like sharing a “Collective Dream”. But we rationalistic intellectual individualists do not wish to have awareness of it. Suppose we find out that we share a common Dream, we do not know what to do with it any way. But that may be the reason why we have so much trouble. So we deny Dream.
According my dictionary “Onei” of Oneida means “Dream”. Some missionary saw Oneidas as Dream People and hence the name came? I was looking for a connection/relation of Rock and Dream. So far, nothing turned up. I am in “between Rock and Hard Place”.
Tonight, I heard Guitar Concierto “Concierto de Aranjuez” by Rodrigo. The Adagio part is very famous and you may know of it. I suppose the sad music is about the pain of having “Lust”, though different sense from that of Van Gogh. Human beings are vulnerable, ephemeral, and weak. It’s all because humans are sensual. They need someone to sleep and dream with. And at the same time, they are afraid of doing that. Because that makes people vulnerable to hurts. It is a lot easier to go on a power trip. To score woman, to achieve orgasm is easier than to live with. To dream with is almost impossible. Music convey some of that pain — the expressions in music form are permitted because we can pretend not knowing what is is and hence can deny it. Stories are harder to deny. And therefore handicapped. We have to contrive disguises, half hoping that people would see it obvious and half hoping that people cannot pin it down so that one can escape. We write about sex, but not “eros”. We are only “Flirting”.
When we cannot do any better than flirting — some authors are complaining that even the “Art of Flirting” is dying in the modern ages, between two persons, we can hardly do any better between two peoples. We flirt with “Revolutionary Ideals” etc. Stories about Europeans and Native Americans are full of such “Romances”. They do “move us” alright, but we may be mistaken in feeling that we “Loved”. Our reason of “be moved” may be “Moaning” about what we failed, missed, or lost. They are telling us what we did not do. That pains us. Yet, what could we do?
I wrote 3 letters to Department of Education about Science Education, but discarded two fo long “articles” and decided to send a short note. I am very sad that there is no chance that they would read anything beyond short “memos”. I have know “pleasure” of reading books, without any care about people escape from Reality when I am hurt, that seems the only thing I can. There is a Dream World which is like a Forest without damned humans.
My name came from an ancient Chinese poem about a love affair. My father somehow picked two letters out of the poem and I and my brother got one each. But the poem ends with a scene where the emperor utters “What am I going to do with you, my darling?” They are killed as the empire was conquered. That is the end of the poem. My father must have known the inevitable end of love affair. (At least I knew, when I took a letter from the same poem to name my daughter.)
But then, what is “Lust” or “Eros”? In conscious intellect, we are thinking of Orgasm, Rapture, but the Pain, Hurt is just as important part of the affair. If one has not tasted tears, it is the same as not having experience of orgasm/rapture. To preferone side may be natural, but it seems inevitable that the other side comes with it. Whether to know/accept that or not makes the distinction between the modern intellectuals and ancient people. Sensitivity, Empathy, Compassion, Understanding, and if I may add a Christian word “Grace”, all come from there. The Success centered mentality of modern scientists (or rather Technicians) is made by cutting off the vulnerability, in Fear or in Arrogance. Native Braves did not negate one’s vulnerability. That has nothing to do with “Winning” battles. but rather they are brave precisely because they were not afraid of knowing/accepting pains and hurts. The “Sun Dance” meant that. I think Deloria is already Europeanized and could not see the meaning of Sun Dance beyond the surface of physical pain. the “Brave” of taking Inner Pain is far greater.
Listening to the sad music, I was thinking like that. The funny thing is, the World, the Universe looks different from that view point. I heard of every instrument for each and did not miss a single note that they are making in a transparency. Goedel’s Cosmology was there. I was glad that I studied Geometry which helped me to appreciate the transparency, though that means absolute “Nothingness”.
Yours
Sam K.