This essay caps the end of the first section about life as game. The remaining sections (the bulk of the essay) are about strategies for the game of life. This final section on the game aspect of life ponders the question “What to do if you feel like a loser?” I sometimes feel I am winning at life, sometimes feel like I’m losing – perhaps that is all part of the game. Nevertheless, even a loser can enjoy the game.
Take care, Caretakers!
Daniel Christopher June
5. This is it
Oh Mother! Oh Wife! Oh Employer!
Your words of disapproval hurt me more than you may know
I smile gently, am polite and meek
But inwardly you have lost me
I wish to be flawless as dawn
And then softly drop you
So I am stupid?
Your anger can’t make me care
I am kind as the sun
But you are far from my heart.
It is easy enough to feel one is losing at life. Knowing how to feel powerful despite this, knowing how to feel like you are winning, requires self-control, self-knowledge, autonomy, the ability to finally shut out the world and become something for yourself. We may choose what to care about; and of what we care about, what to engage; and of what we engage, what to pull intimately close. Do not pull misery close. Be polite, kind, gentle, and distant. If the outer circle of your thoughts runs counterclockwise, let that innermost thought run clockwise.
Do your ever-blessed best; that is all you ought to expect from yourself– more would be less. The square of focus and the circle of selection can be purified through metaphors and images, so that the negative ideas dare not approach your mind until they have been cleaned and interpreted. That which does not feed me can only starve me.
If ever you feel your life is out of control, organize something. To impose your will on some small matter returns you to the hero's stance. What is yours is better than what is not yours. What you are capable of is more glorious than what think you should be capable of.
I can only care about what I’ve invested personal creativity into, I can only love what I’ve put myself into. When I’ve strategized how to do a thing well, I enjoy it, even if it's as banal as brushing my teeth. Whatever is regular and dependable can be built upon. Routines give freedom.
What we can predict we can valuate. A thing is sacred when we treat it so. I can walk into my study a hundred times, but only when I take off my shoes and brighten my eyes is it the Womb of Creativity. We structure space and time always, and it is as if every day is structured like a life. There is the sad part, the fun part, the "dumb things I gotta do" part, and the part that is it. It is the thing that justifies the rest, the crown of glory. Even a prisoner who lacks all freedom, locked in a cell and put on a regimen, still has anticipation, perhaps a meal, perhaps a smoke, something, something that is his moment of release, when he can expand his spirit, sigh, and just relax. Even though this moment is preferable to the rest, it is by no means distinct from the rest, for the sting of the bad things is soothed with a promise of the good to come, and the dullness of daily chores is vivified with an image of playing the guitar later; and even the most stressful day at the job can be endured with a smile because we know we can drive home, listen to our favorite music, and kick up our legs and have a beer. If we had no job but cases of beer, our life would not be better, but much worse. In this way, the very pain we endure is immediately cashed into the hope box, so that we don't feel it sting, and when that pain comes back out, it has been transformed into relaxed joy.
The philosopher's game of analysis perhaps isn't a discipline, but a reflex. I myself never cease to analyze, can't watch a television show or read a novel without making a theory about structure, can't kiss even the sweetest face without analyzing the dimensions and shape of that face, wondering what in that moment makes her look so angelic to me. Science is the schism of dissection, cutting pith from shit, ever seeking the essence of the matter. A focused mind pushes inwards, exerts effort, stands alert. The released mind of pleasure knows how to dismiss focus and let the mind dissolve. I never learned this. In a way I admire it, in a way I scoff at it. How others can not think -- how unthinkable to me! Yet we must all play the game our equipment allows us. When I hear about how friends and coworkers spend their free time—watching television, going to dance-clubs, enjoying canoe trips, hiking, hanging out at the bar – I am amazed they can enjoy life at all. It seems so boring to me. Only ultimate things interest me. I don't know why people like to relax. I am only at peace when I am in the company of gods -- Lux Sophia, Odin Will, Hermes Logos, and Satan Desire--and these are my philosophical instructors.
The Holy Spirit, creator of all religions, is none other than Lux: language itself, the divine who on her first day said "Let there be Me!" She has a genius to her, and every aspect of her, every shade of her in each specific language expresses a new genius. Language itself is conscious, and thinks through us. The centermost word within each of us is unknown to her, and yet everything we express must be translated into her common language. These very words of ink, leaden and heavy, are only so in the material sphere; but in the mythic sphere, which you catch at a squint, they are liquid gold, the very melt of the Phoenix, whose feathers are the words of all languages. Breathe in my words and hold my spirit forever in the lamp of your lungs.
The best way to make the world a better place is to be happy within it. Conspire with me: let us transfigure the earth! Mother Earth is already lovely: each of us, when we find our center, make her more so! Just as the psychological therepist knows that to best improve his patient, he must paradoxically accept him as he already is, so do we beautify our world by looking at the beauties that are already there. Only by praising somebody who annoys you can you nudge him to become less annoying.
~~
Perfection
Is
Easy
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