The first vomit of the day is done, and it’s now 5:34. If I can keep this pace up (of course I can’t, but just for the sake of hypothesizing) I should have two more done before it’s 6am. This is fun.
I really like Alan Watts reduction of complexity about the many different sort of ideological conflicts in the world into Goo Vs Prickles. There are two sorts of people in the world, the Gooey people and the Prickly people. The Gooey people are idealistic, naive, creative, vibrant, vague, romantic, soft, dancing, singing, improvising, feminine, dark, warm. The Prickly people are cold, stiff, logical, scientific, deductive, reasoning, cynical, pragmatic, specific, nuanced. They manifest in all sorts of Manichean (a new word I just learned, hehe) conflicts. Arts vs Science. Feelings vs Thinking. And so on.
I’ve always intuitively (and logically) thought that each side is awfully boring by itself. I’ve spent time hanging out in “intellectual” circles, and frankly the prickles get to me, especially when there’s a lack of goo– no compassion, no warmth, no humor, no joy. Everybody’s just attacking everybody else, or otherwise indulging in some sort of annoying jizzfest. It’s overmasculine in a negative way. I’ve sometimes tried remedying this by spending time instead in Gooey communities, but they’re always a little disturbing too. A little too much quackery, a little bit too quick to “go with the flow” when the flow might be leading us to some sort of toilet sinkhole. I don’t know, I know this sounds a little presumptuous, as though I’ve somehow figured out the balance. I haven’t. I often feel guilty, when I’m spending time in one group, like I’m betraying the other, or not doing enough justice to the other. That said, most groups are quite happy to reinforce their initial circumstances and beliefs, and aren’t too interested in taking in the Other’s perspective unless you carefully couch it in language that is friendly. Which is something worth doing, when you have the time and energy, but ultimately you have to ask yourself, where’s the balance? I think every single person has to draw a different line in the sand for themselves. And the fact that I haven’t found something satisfactory to me is proof that I need to build a space for myself where I feel comfortable. I believe in the importance of scientific rigor, and yet at the same time I believe that it’s important to speculate and have imagination and suspend judgement + disbelief when examining fresh new ideas that might still be anecdotes, imprecise, inaccurate, ugly. Our myths and urban legends tell us a lot about ourselves even though they’re fictional.
Which reminds me, I really do want to get into learning about Jungian archetypes and the whole Monomyth idea, and I want to learn more about Pagans and Animism and all that shamanistic jazz. I don’t believe that they have some sort of solution to our world’s problems, or that they necessarily have some sort of superior perspective. Just a slightly different one. And I think a lot of it is probably quackery, and the quacks in every group are always the loudest, most vocal– and they misrepresent their groups. [1]
I think science is something we shouldn’t be suspicious of or ashamed of. I think that it’s fucking silly that we live in a world where anti-vaxxers are a thing, and where people are denying climate change and so on. At the same time, I think there is room for poetry and literature and imagination and the sharing of things that aren’t quite real, aren’t quite accurate. I think there’s something interesting in the whole world of vibrations and chakras and whatnot. I think we should learn to be able to say, “There isn’t scientific evidence for this, but it’s a hypothesis we have, or a myth or a ritual of some kind that we find calming.” The Placebo effect is a very real thing, after all.
Which brings me to the conscious realization and acceptance of the fact that ultimately, these vomits are meaningless too. But if life itself is a sort of Sisyphian activity, it makes sense to me that we ought to pick our own hills and our own stones to roll up. And this is mine. It’s ULTIMATELY meaningless, but it’s relatively more meaningful to my primitive, provincal human brain. And that is real enough for me for the time being. I can do it while simultaneously considering bigger, broader questions about whether I should bother or not. But as a friend tweeted recently, deliberating between two options is sometimes time spent that could have been spent doing both. So in this case I choose not to deliberate too much– or I deliberate BY writing, BY thinking, BY doing these vomits, and if at the end of it I decide that I’m not going to bother, so be it. At least I tried. At least I developed some self-discipline and some self-governance, and that’s a useful skill to have for the remainder of my life while I’m trying to maximize my own utility function.
Now, is that a gooey world view, or a prickly one? Is it fundamentally cynical or idealistic? When I’ve done my job properly, even I won’t be able to tell the difference. And that’s the whole point.
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[1] Why does everyone have some sort of obligation to represent their groups, anyway? I suppose it boils down to the fact that we were social creatures long before we were individuals, if we can even really begin to imagine or pretend that we’re individuals, and groups matter to people more than individuals, no matter how much we pretend that it’s not the case. Or perhaps, even when there are individuals who care about individuals, they’re going to get outnumbered and outweighed by groups. Except when they stumble upon the actual truth, or a closer version of the truth than what the groups hold. Because the truth wins out in the end.