As a prepubescent teenager steeped in my father’s library of Greek Mythology, it was not abnormal for me to explore the abundant metaphysics of the 1960s - drug induced or otherwise. My misfortune was to have been quite so young as to accept on face value flummery that was easily vetted by older humans with more personal experience, and not. I read Carlos Castaneda’s “The Teachings of Don Juan” at the same time it was possible to purchase the Peyote Buttons described in those stories and spent a memorable afternoon (though like all psychedelic insights - none made the return trip) in the tide pools of South Laguna - two of those friends have since died which is entirely incidental to this essay. Try as i might that afternoon, i was unable to dislodge my reality to the separate reality espoused in that very profitable literary enterprise. However some few years later on an uptown bus in Manhattan, it struck me dumb what the author had accomplished - sifting through the recorded annals as a sociology professor, the professor simply “cherry picked” principles of philosophy across the spectrum of world history and inserted them as the spoken wisdom of a Yaqui Shaman, making millions and million of dollars in the process.
That my friends is the sacrificing of learning at the alter of greed - nothing more · nothing less. A man in the building i lived in in Hollywood was determined to do a documentary about my stone carving - the stresses of such a collaborative effort across cultural boundaries eventually rended our friendship asunder · but not before he expressed his greatest fear to me, “being laughed at.” I share this not to divulge a confidence, for you can never know his name or find the documentary, but because it was a common fear we shared. The idea of this professor leading impressionable minds by their existential noses down fictional rabbit holes, which i am certain he meant as edifying, but in reality was nothing more than a deposit slip in his account · he laughed all the way to the bank at my expense. It was a lesson i will never forget, i can almost picture the point in the bus ride when i had that epiphany - that would be 40+ years ago.
How many other delusions do i nurture with nothing more than faith - there is a song from the late Leonard Cohen when he is parsing similar reservations singing, “I didn’t know I had permission to murder and to maim”, this coming from an ordained buddhist monk, gives pause to every tenant i hold sacred about violence and harm, as i’m sure it did him when he wrote it. Yet we are witnessing the manifestation of George Orwell’s vision of the future - “Picture a boot stomping on a human face forever.” I don’t take abuse well, ask any of my last three wives, but i like it less when i find those i love suffering at the hands of bullies. My father was a valiant fellow striving for the underdog to his dying day; i don’t think we ever spoke regarding Albert Einstein proclaiming himself, not just a pacifist, but a militant pacifist - i wish we had. Pop usually found a way to de-escalate conflict, and if he didn’t find one · he just kept searching; he was that kind of hero.
That was then, and this is now - i am sucking down vegetables and elixirs as best i’ve learned, following regimens of habit i understand to stave off illness and stress · i search for ways to relieve the suffering of my brethren, but feel mostly unwelcome at their tables which i am only now beginning to realize is more my doing than anyone else’s; and i am content. The heat grows daily and the sun is back out after of few days of relenting overcast while in the back of my mind i remember Pop’s kindly admonition - “ya’ get burnt worst on overcast days ‘cause the clouds don’t filter the UV rays · that had to have been 60 some years ago, always a man ahead of his time. He also told stories of the horse owners bringing the horses to the beach to strengthen their legs for the races - a notion confirmed by one of my carving teachers saying, “if you can cut granite, when you get to marble it will be like cutting butter.” Were it that simple.
The same teacher could not understand why i had to “come up on the stone” rather than position the rock like any practical stonecutter would and simply cut downward like s/he were cutting a piece of steak. Perspective is everything, and he had no real clue what a challenge it was for me to tease 3 Dimensions from stone as though i could see anything but a flat surface, no matter how round it got. So the prospect of leaving a violent world a little closer to peace and a little freer from greed is no great stretch - an aerospace adage comes to mind · “we who have done so much with so little for so long are now qualified to do anything with nothing. How’s that for a little philosophical cross-pollination¿ stealing from the Masters of War to train the Guerrillas of Peace?
jts 06/08/2020
http://stoanartst.blogspot.com
reprinted with permission - all rights reserved
∞
No comments:
Post a Comment