Ama’s Fury
Ama
Jealous lover
Wants all of me
She’ll have no other
She robs me
Through my very hands
I love her more
For her demands
She ruins me
to the edge of death
Soon I swoon
With wits bereft
I love the flush
full feeling of a rush
I call out for it
She makes me hush.
~~
Perfection
Is
Easy
www.msu.edu/~junedan
~~
I haven’t touched up this essay much, I am thinking again of using recursivity to explore truth.
Daniel Christopher June
Mirror Test
We must ask every criticism if it is safe from itself. And again, we must ask every praise ifit is safe from itself. “Nothing is true,” is self refuting, to take an easy example. The extreme skeptics who attack our ability to know must not do this by teaching us something to know. Their skepticism only works if it is not put into words.
“Nothing in excess,” says Apollo to the Greeks. Yes, and isn’t the absolute “nothing” itself an excess? “Be moderate in most things,” is a more moderate statement, that honors its own advice.
In the same way, Freudian psychology doesn’t explain Freud himself. Every system must account for its own emergence. Religions pull this off well. They account for the scriptures that talk about God as if they come from God. The theologians have a tougher time. If they add anything to the scripture, then the question is, why didn’t God put that in the scripture in the first place? If they do not add anything to the scripture, then why are they wasting our time? For instance, Dante writes an epic that beats everything in the Testament in terms of grace and power, yet we must ask: why, Dante? Wasn’t God’s word enough?
To continue the religious examples, Calvinim, when it speaks of the forordination of God, must implicitly posit its own emergence as being God’s idea, including an account of its late arrival.
Derrida, with his deconstructive method, wrote in such a way to foil wrongful deconstructions of himself. Almost. He was Jewish enough to write himself as the culmination of history, following Freud’s decentered self, Derrida goes on to decenter centeredness itself. Yet he makes decentering the center of his discourse.
Darwin must account how evolution produced a man capable of writing about evolution.
Every system, and especially every critique, must be mindful of whether it negates itself in paradox. “Language is inneffective” cannot convince us. “The mind is impotent” disproves itself by its own “discovery.”
Furthermore, we must look to see if the critic is not projecting his own problems onto the work he is criticizing. The Jews complained of idolatry, but they themselves preffered their own private mode of idolatry.
“Judge not lest you be judged” as a saying itself implies a cynical judment on mankind—that there are many things that could be judged and condemned, including the judge himself.
William James’s Pragmatism argues, in paraphrase, that truth is what works. Is this itself a truth that works? And if the idea that “truth may not always work” itself works for those who believe in it, do we not discover a paradox?
The mirror test is a way not to banish something, but to give perspective.
When Ayn Rand preached “the Virtue of Selfishness,” how selfish was it to call herself selfish, given the reception of her critics?
If we should remain optimistic, does this not imply that there is a pessemistic reality this optimism is supposed to hide from us?
If we read a Self Help book, should we not read a biography of the writers?
If God wants you to love him or he will send you to hell, would you feel comfortable being in heaven with him for eternity?
Is capitalism the most competetive economical system out there?
Can the Bible’s occasional claims to be authored by God really be an authority?
Could the Founding Fathers of America emerge from the America they created?
Would you prefer others to treat you with the principle “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” or treat you kindly because they value you in yourself?
If giving to others is good for the soul, wouldn’t you be doing more good for others by taking from them?
If God made the world, who made God?
If the stars make our destiny, do they destine some of us to be skeptics of astrology?
If free will is an illusion, are some people determined to believe in it anyway?
If we should be tolerant of other’s beliefs, should we also tolerate intolerant beliefs?
Is “idea” itself an idea?
If it is good to selflessly love, are we yet loving other “selves”?
If Marx claims that good ideas only come from a good economical system (communism), how can he trust the ideas of his own writing?
If God is unknowable how do we know he is unknowable?
If you think you can’t trust yourself, how can you be sure?
If God is allpowerful, does he have the power to grow more powerful?
Is it reasonable to be reasonable at all times?
Should we have shoulds? To avoid paradox, we must, and therefore, we have discovered a moral absolute.
If science moves by paradigm shifts, does the shifting of paradigms also shift?
And so forth. But while these are one-liners, the mirror test can be taken further and deeper.Think of this when you mirror meditate.
To fully see a man, you must see also your reflection in his eyes. To fully see an object, you must also see yourself looking at the object. There is no escape from this. “One cannot see an object without also changing it,” is a science idea that has been metaphorized into all observings. But by seeing this truth, they have in fact changed and reversed it itself. Lament never that you did change it.
A full explanation not only explains its topic, but it explains itself as explanation, and explains all other explanations: not explained away, but explained together. This is the full word, the “Complete Communication,” which Wagner spoke of.
Ideas take centuries and millenia to unfold. Some ideas take thousands of minds to fully reveal themselves. Some ideas finally reveal that they have an empty heart. Other ideas are as full as the sun.
My boss correcting my skepticism with a quote: the true cannot be explained. I nodded for a moment—no need to discourage him!—and then added: can that very statement be explained? He should know I would recurse any truism.
It is easy for me to deflect an arrow this way—slogans are a nuisance. Its like a preacher who quotes a verse here a verse there, but has never read a full book of the bible: his sermon is like a zookeeper making a collage of body parts.
And again, the slogan is easy: sloganeers are dumb anyway, you could confuse them by repeating their phrase with a question mark at the end. I am interested in taking a book, which is always a great clay ball of two colors intermixed, like the green and blue of earth, and making a mirror of between them. This on this side, that on that side, look smart, let’s see how you really balance out. Somebody might crucify me someday.
“The Divine is Prankish” is one of Nietzsche’s best insights. Powerful and playful.
The story of the temptation of Adam and Eve is the very fruit of knowledge it describes. Reject it, and you are still whole, but accept the moral of the story and you become “naked and ashamed”: Genesis 2 the rotting apple.
~~
Perfection
Is
Easy
www.msu.edu/~junedan
~~
I write these while I’m working my mindless job. The rate of their production is perhaps a commentary on how much they are worth. Nevertheless, to be able to compose them helps me get through the day, and avoid the depression of doing something pointless.
Daniel Christopher June
The three poems of October 4th!
Interpretation
Dissecting eye
Of I-borne mind
Subtle cut
Of word defined
Thick of life
Made thread of truth
With each new feel
I think anew
Crystal eye
Divines through murk
Prism lens
Bends difference stark.
Translating touch
To conceptual forms
From guts of earth
Is Heaven formed.
Tempo Poem
Faster and mounting the task meretriciously
Bursting the bounds and fast forwarding stoplessly.
Smooth. Cool. Breath like a metronome.
Force. One. Dancing fast xylophone.
Ever increasing a feather flightfully
Arrowing eagerly feasting forth frightfully.
Tenderly centering single attention
Like a lover alone I bring joy to completion.
Draw Near
Oh my lovers, Draw near, Press a kiss,
Your love is …always so dear to me.
You were ever Such children
Its stories you’d hear from me
Today we all grow older
You keep whispering mysteries
Its time you grew bolder.
My stories are simple
If you know the gimmick
Observe the beginning
There’s logic in it.
The rest its unfolding
Like this unfolding hand
Where is that beginning?
Right there at the end!
This one is young as the day I met her
That one grew younger
She’s glad that I let her
Oh my lovers, there is still time,
still time for new stories.
The Worker
I put On my God
My flesh verbs
Into the good of doing.
The noun of pause
Dissolves in the gown
Of pure flow.
Breath of ocean’s
Coastal waves;
Tornado’s ghost
And hurricane’s eye.
Centering vortex
of all into one
Mind of nothing
by which matter is spun.
~~
Perfection
Is
Easy
www.msu.edu/~junedan
~~
Here are three poems I’ve written while working, at different times, in different moods. Enjoy!
Daniel Christopher June
The Dewdrop
The dewdrop slid
Luxuriantly down
The grassy stalk.
Paused
Shivered
Closed her eyes
And—
dropped.
Hate, waiting
Teeming flights
Of my seething brain.
My flush, it bites
From a cry deranged.
Gnawing thought
From clenched tight teeth
It bites for you
Your flesh it seeks.
Stamped, my legs
Are anchored here
I clear my mind:
It will not clear.
I lust to thrust
My hate in you
Into your blades
To drill these screws.
Structuring Order
I stand central
Agent of structuration
Back, Bubble arched
Fingers flying lines
Of grids, spider fine:
Crack of creation
In the jet black night;
Urge of relation,
Logos of Light.
~~
Perfection
Is
Easy
www.msu.edu/~junedan
~~
I sometimes wonder over this Idius, of which I have so far dedicated a decade of writing, hours a day. The conception of it came in a moment of insanity, perhaps the strongest conviction a man can have is in such a moment! I began writing down my stray thoughts on pieces of paper, for over a year– only later did I see a movie where the aspiring author carried blank books, and what a difference that made! But for the first few months, I wrote on coupons, dollar bills, napkins, book, whatever. After I had hundreds and hundreds of these ideas – when and how I decided my spare thoughts were so important, I don’t know, probably part of my grandiosity – I bought some folders which would stand for chapters of my book, and sorted through them. This too a week.
Then I sorted through each folder, and came up with a bunch of sections for each chapter. This took a lot of time too. Meanwhile, my summer job was doing a lot of sorting too: I was hired to sort through piles and piles of papers for the downtown hospital. It was boring work, which gave me oppurtunity to think of more thoughts.
Finally after work, I would go directly to the break room and write out my ideas and notes for a few hours each night before going home. After a summer of this, I finished the first draft of my book.
My mother’s reaction when I presented a copy of my book was to ask “how much money has it earned? Talk to me about it when it has earned some money.” Both my parents were suspicious of philosophy, which was unneccesary since all the answers we needed to know were in the Bible. My coworkers at the hospital, whom I scarcely got aquainted to, also asked why I was writing philosophy, and one of them quoted an epistle of Paul where he condemned philosophy.
Throughout the years my parents advised me again and again to write novels, since nobody cared what I had to say, being a child, and that people like stories better anyway. My mother once gathered up all my notes and copies of the book and threw them in the garbage. I did, however, have a backup on my computer.
Over the years I always kept a blankbook on me, and read and read constantly, and talked constantly of my ideas. My friends did not understand why I did this, and did not read what I wrote. I tried to give copies of my book away, I would print them out, but nobody would read it. Later I told my philosophy professer about it, but she said nobody would take it seriously since I lacked credentials or the proper training to do serious philosophy. I had one friend who was training to be a philosopher, who was deeply into Nietzsche, tell me I was wasing my time, and to give it up. He was the only intellectual I knew at the time.
Years later, my wife, who finds the book difficult, once read an essay and started crying, saying that my work would never be published, there was no market for it. Evidently she felt pity that I had put such high value on it.
And so my great resolve to write, and especially this book, which is now 2,700 pages, which I constantly revise, review, edit, and reconsider, has been a resolve with no external recommendations, no living models, no encouragement from friends, teachers, or parents. It is sui generis. And it is the most important thing in my life. It is my passion. And being something completely my own, with no indication it will ever be published or read, I love it dearly. This book is my second self.
~~
Perfection
Is
Easy
www.msu.edu/~junedan
~~
These eight virtues which I knit daily into the fabric of my life come to bloom with a fivefold laurel, the virtues of Pride, Perfection, Passion, Poetry, Possession, and Allness. I wonder what another would feel aiming for the same virtues? Since virtues are so personal, built into instincts and needs, there can be no universal virtue, let alone crowning virtues.
And yet Aristotle was right to call megapsuchis, or Great-spiritedness the crown of virtues. As it is sometimes translated: Pride is the crown of the virtues. And this it must be, when we follow his definitions and qualifications. For pride is the virtues recursive. When the person considers his virtues through the eyes of honesty, when he reflects on his own character carefully, if he is great, he is even greater to know that, and change his expectations of life. Pride is recursive even to itself as a virtue. If a man is proud of his pride, he will never be arrogant or bragging, since this would be to cheapen his deserved self-respect by attempting to impress it unto the minds of others. It will rightly be said, therefore, that pride alone allows for honest and nonhypocritical humility. Only when you are certain of your worth are you willing make no show of it. So where Aristotle’s pride expects the honors that are its due, the Emersonian pride is willing to live of self-honor, lacking a worthy audience.
Pride is deserved self-respect; and since respect is different than love, since respect is a fear and honor of power, and love is a joy and intimacy of beauty, we should not quickly define pride as “self-love,” and leave the virtue of self-love for a different name.
Perfection is always choosing what you believe to be the best decision. Once one is able to do this, to choose what is best, and to admit that sometimes what seems best isn’t, because he simply lacks the power to choose it, then the guilt and inferiority of imperfection is lost.
Passion is the combination of love and fear, love and power, into one forward thrust. Passion is the vitality of the emotions that charge the system, and give the will energy to use. Passion is more important than intelligence, for though women are plenty intelligent, men are plenty passionate, and thus the great geniuses of history were men of great passion first, and of intelligence second.
Poetry, which along with passion and pride, were the great virtues of Odin, is to speak always with a trope, with a thick multivity of meaning. This requires a man to pause before he speaks, to practice his words, to reflect, to think before he utters, and to think often, of the best words to say.
Possession is the ability to use everything you own, to put so much of your will into it, that you possess it. A man with self possession therefore masters his passions with a strong will. A man ought to own his face, to emote what he wishes, to own his anger, his desire, his routines. A man with self-possession, and possessions of his property and family, will have the flexibility and wisdom to own even people, not in a way that lessons them, but which allows them to flourish in their own freedom. As the Tao says, the king acts with such cunning that the people congratulate themselves on the success of the kingdom.
Allness is another word for what is called Enlightenment, or a mystic connection with ultimate reality. Those who experience this call it the most important of experiences. There are many ways to feel one with the all, but self-possession is especially important.
~~
Perfection
Is
Easy
www.msu.edu/~junedan
~~
