Our Finitude, Our Solace

Our Finitude, Our Solace:

The elemental fact of our finitude, the cognizance of our mortality and the fear it generates is also a great motivator to fight against death and non-existence, to work together in science, to tell stories and to create art, so that while we may not live any longer than we do, we may live broader. 

Science tells us that we are the product of mindless laws of physics who just play themselves out on our substance, the matter which we consist of. To understand this also changes the way of searching for purpose or meaning in life. 

There is no answer floating about in the heavens. There is no one who tells us what to do and what to expect and how to behave to make sense of our existence. We are thrown back, after centuries of delegating this enormous questions to a higher being or into the hands of religious leaders, onto ourselves to manufacture our own purpose and meaning. 

That is not a bad thing. It simply shows that we have finally reached some state of independency and, hopefully, maturity. To finally understand that all our struggles, all our triumphs, emerge from the insensate laws of physics, does not lessen the tragedy of our finite lives, but it might make us grateful for being here at all.

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Richard Feynman's "Ode to a Flower"

In 1981, physicist Richard Feynman was interviewed by the BBC about what science can offer in regard to the magic, mystery, and excitement of life. In it he tells of a disagreement with an artist about who can better appreciate the beauty of a flower: the artist or the scientist. This monologue became known as the Ode to a Flower.

This is the BBC’s transcript of what Feynman said:

Ode to a Flower

“I have a friend who’s an artist and has sometimes taken a view which I don’t agree with very well. He’ll hold up a flower and say "look how beautiful it is," and I’ll agree. Then he says "I as an artist can see how beautiful this is but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing," and I think that he’s kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too, I believe, although I might not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is, I can appreciate the beauty of a flower.

At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean it’s not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there’s also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes. The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don’t understand how it subtracts.“

Richard Feynman (1918 - 1988)*

*Richard Phillips Feynman (1918 – 1988) was an American theoretical physicist who, for his contributions to the development of quantum electrodynamics, received the Nobel Prize in physics in 1965.

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The Everyday Enchantment of Music

The Everyday Enchantment of Music:

Art has many media in which to express ideas. Music, dance, painting, poetry, movies, architecture, you name it. All of them are equally just to explore and to use, not all of them are equally apt to express certain ideas.

For example, if one would want to represent the idea or the spirit of sensuality. How is and can this be represented in art? In which medium? 

Sculpture comes to mind, and yes, there may be moments which live up to the idea of sensuality, but sculpture is in itself a kind of inward, silent, resting media which sensuality is not. 

Painting maybe, there can be found moments of high sensuality in painting, but again, as in sculpture, painting is a resting media, which only shows a momentary, single state. 

Sensuality is hard to put into fixed contours and a set of compositorial elements, for it is a force of passion, energy and impatience which lives not in a single moment but is constantly moving in a succession of moments. If it would live in a single moment it could be painted, photographed or sculpted. Sensuality has an epic character, it has a narrative element but it does not really tell a tale, it has not reached the level of words which are able to do just that. 

Poetry, Literature, have the capability to tell a tale, they do work with words, after all. Yet, they are far too concrete to meet the ever changing, endlessly shapeshifting quality of sensuality. Language is the proper medium for expressing an idea, yet the sensual quality is reduced to descriptions of states which have lost their body and senses, are a mere recounting of experiences without the factual immediacy of bodily, sensual stimulation of the nervous system.

It seems to me that music is the only medium which is roughly able to represent sensuality. Music, like sensuality, has an element of time in it which sculpture and painting do not have. It lives, grows, transforms, changes and dies within time. And it invites us to successively take part, sensually, in these changes and developments. 

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‘The Everyday Enchantment of Music’ - poem

The Everyday Enchantment of Music

A rough sound was polished until it became a smoother sound, which was polished until it became music. Then the music was polished until it became the memory of a night in Venice when tears of the sea fell from the Bridge of Sighs, which in turn was polished until it ceased to be and in its place stood the empty home of a heart in trouble. Then suddenly there was sun and the music came back and traffic was moving and off in the distance, at the edge of the city, a long line of clouds appeared, and there was thunder, which, however menacing, would become music, and the memory of what happened after Venice would begin, and what happened after the home of the troubled heart broke in two would also begin.

                                                                               Mark Strand (1934-2014) *

*Mark Strand (1934 – 2014) was a Canadian-born American poet, essayist and translator. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Literary of Congress in 1990 and received the Wallace Stevens Award in 2004. Strand was a professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University from 2005 until his death in 2014.

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High Sensitivity Problem - Gift and Curse

High Sensitivity Problem - Gift and Curse:

*I was never promised a rose-garden. I still dream of one.*

Due to a biological difference persons who are highly sensitive process all forms of stimulation of their nervous system more deeply. This includes sight, touch, taste, thought and experience. As a result of that deep processing, mental overload occurs quicker.

What may be, say, a minor irritation to some, might upset or quickly drain highly sensitives of their energy.

High Sensitivity Problem is not a malfunction or a disorder, it is just the ability of processing information more profoundly.

Most common problems:

Overwhelm Is Easy

In daily life more often than not situations occur which tend to overwhelm highly sensitive persons. Life often feels like it is spinning out of control.

Noise Sensitivity

Loud noise, music, nearby discussions, these can feel like an assault on the senses. Especially when one doesn’t have control on the volume, which is usually the case when the noise is external, then one feels threatened, bothered and also made feel to be “difficult“.

Emotional Exhaustion

Many highly sensitive persons tend to absorb the emotions of others. Rather than just sense those they tend to feel them themselves.

Strong Reactions to Violence or Beauty

Watching movies with scary or brutal acts of violence is almost impossible, reading about sorrow or suffering is demanding. But the opposite is also true. Many highly sensitive persons have strong reactions to art. It may move them to tears and leave them to pondering it for days. And of course they realize that not everyone reacts in the same way as they do and begin to wonder. Sometimes they try to explain their emotional reaction and are then left frustrated because they think that they are, again, “different“. This is an isolating experience.

Overanalyzing Little Things

Persons who are highly sensitive tend to notice things other people miss. A lot of little things. Like when someone doesn’t meet their eyes when talking to them or the tone of voice doesn’t ring true when answering a question or the other person seems in general to avoid them. Then they start to wonder and tend to blame themselves for the behavior of others, the fault must lie within them. Another isolating moment.

Socializing

For many people, going to a bar, party, or hanging out with a large group of people is just what you do for fun. But for highly sensitive persons, spending a prolonged period of time in a noisy, crowded environment can simply be too much. Again they feel like the odd one out.

Brushing Things Off

Someone makes a disturbing or crude joke, and everyone laughs. Except for the highly sensitives. Even though it’s “just a joke,” they may have a hard time brushing it off. For highly sensitives, injustice and cruelty are no laughing matter.

Voice Sensitivity 

For highly sensitive people, words really matter. Tone of voice matters and deeply affects them. A raised voice sometimes can feel like a punch in the gut.

Time Pressure

Nobody likes rushing, it makes us clumsy and creates stress. But for highly sensitive people, time pressure can cause serious anxiety.

Change

Change can be hard for anyone, but it can be especially challenging for highly sensitives who find great comfort in routine. So even good changes, like a job promotion or a new relationship, can cause stress. Highly sensitive people usually need extra time to adjust to changes, even positive ones.

How to deal with high sensitivity problems. Here are some very basic rules to follow which might be useful:

Practise Self-Care

Get Enough Sleep.

Eat healthy foods regularly throughout the day.

Give yourself time and space to get things done.

Set up Boundaries

Set boundaries in your relationships, but also in other ways as well. Get more comfortable in telling people where you stand and what you need. This also means that you can choose people in your life to be part of your inner circle after they have proved themselves worthy of it, and you can put distance between yourself and those who drain you, frustrate you, or devalue you.

When you have a supportive circle of people who will listen and care when you have a problem to deal with in your life, it can be even more soothing to you if you are sensitive; sensitive people need to feel understood and supported a little more than others, and they are wonderful in their capacity to offer this back as well. 

Plan for Decompression Time

This is closely related to the idea of “setting boundaries“. It is all about setting a perimeter around your experience in life and your feelings about them. Learn to step back and observe. Learn to detach from things emotionally so you won’t get swept away so easily by the flood of emotions. 

Relaxing Zone

Have at least one quiet room or relaxing space to retreat to in your home. Try to make it conflict-free.

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The Delicate Dance Between Solitude and Communion

The Delicate Dance Between Solitude and Communion:

Solitude, how I grave you and yet, how I do despise you.

There are times when I dream of being in a light-house, living there as its keeper, being all by myself, all alone, with no one to interrupt my thoughts and deeds. I think that in everyones’s mind and heart there exists an image of the ideal place, the one true home, actual or visionary. The lighthouse is mine.

In wanting to live in a lighthouse I grave what it seems to be able to offer: the limitation on external distractions which, for example in a crowded social housing complex, would surly be difficult to find. I do think that limitation often is necessary to creativity. Creativity blooms when seemingly unrelated ideas cross-pollinate each other and breed something new. This I have learned works best when alone.

And then there are times when I have enough of this self-enforced solitude and want to be out, out in the world, out in life, as I then think of it, somehow implying, all of a sudden, that I have lived not in life, but in some sort of limbo, bardo, half-life. After too much of solitude I want new energy to feed on. Otherwise I think I will go mad. Too much solitude, surely, is isolating and stifling to the creative spirit. Like all good things, solitude is only nourishing in moderation and can be deadly in excess. The dose is of utmost importance. Like with almost everything else in life, finding the right balance is the prescriptive remedy. But to apply it, I have learned, is not at all easy. 

Solitude means I am alone with myself, with my thoughts, with my ideas and I communicate mostly with myself, my inner theater. This inner dialogue is of great importance but carries with it the risk to un-learn communication with others, with the outside world. At best of times, after leaving my solitary home and going out to meet people, I find that I somehow grew stiff and awkward in communication. Most of times, though, I simply shy away from the onslaught, the overload on information. I have to get re-used to it and I do, but it takes time. 

Making the transit from one state to the other, from solitude to company, that is the hard part.

So far I have not found the ultimate right approach to lessen the stress of transit. The only agent I can rely on is time and repetition. But since I am dependent on both, solitude and communion, these are the labours I am willing to undergo. Iris Murdoch once wrote that “we became spiritual animals when we became verbal animals“. And this verbal animal here has to communicate, solitarily and in company.

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‘The More Loving One’ - poem

The More Loving One

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well

That, for all they care, I can go to hell,

But on earth indifference is the least

We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn

With a passion for us we could not return?

If equal affection cannot be,

Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am

Of stars that do not give a damn,

I cannot, now I see them, say

I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,

I should learn to look at an empty sky

And feel its total dark sublime,

Though this might take me a little time.

                     

                                                      W.H. Auden (1907 - 1973)*

*Wystan Hugh Auden (21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, anad religion, and its variety in tone, form and content. Some of his best known poems are about love.

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Love and Desire and Fear of Loss

W. H. Auden: “If equal affection cannot be, / Let the more loving one be me”, (THE MORE LOVING ONE). 

Augustine wrote that love is “a kind of motion, and all motion is toward something.” 

What makes us move into the direction of something is our graving to possess this something which we deem as Good. We want this good for we hope it will make us happy and it is because we know happiness that we want to be happy. The distinctive trait of this good that we desire is that we do not have it. Once we have the object our desire ends, unless we are threatened with its loss. In that instant our desire to have turns into the fear of loosing.

A generous and unpossessive love seems to be almost impossible. Those who are able to love in this way are short of superhuman. A love which relies on possession, though, inevitably turns into fear, the fear of losing what was gained.

A known cure/ prevention for heartbreak is the acceptance that all things are perishable and therefore even love ought to be met cautiously and nonattachment might be advised. Even the greatest love exists only for a time.

So long as we desire temporal things, we live constantly under the threat of loosing them and so the future, unknown, threatening, strips the present moment of its calm, and we are unable to enjoy it. The future destroys the present because we allow it. 

The trouble with human happiness is that it is never stable, it is constantly at war with fear, the fear of loss. Death is the ultimate loss, of life and love and it is the deep source of our fear. Life’s mode of living, since we know it will end sometime, irrefutably, is that of constant worry. 

So it would seem that to get rid of fear, of worry, we simply would have to aim for freedom from fear. Only in the calm that can no longer be shaken by events expected of the future are we able to experience this fearlessness. So time is an important agent. Cast aside the future and focus on the present. Only the present, the Now, is real, things in the past and things in the future are not.

Like lives, like books, like the universe itself, love is finite, always. It is sad but it is like it is. Once we accept this we are prepared to plunge into the next adventure and try, again, to find love, for a limited time. So there is no use in fearing the future and let it spoil the moment. Rather live the moment, live the beautiful experience of being bound to someone, of loving someone, as long as it lasts, enjoy it. This is what it means with Now. Now then becomes strangely, not now, but outside now, the fleeting moment of simultaneous past and present. Time stands still, becomes eternity, becomes hope and promise, becomes happiness.

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Proprioception* and Existence

Proprioception* and Existence:

The main sense of living, that what makes me truly feel alive, feel I exist, comes from the interaction between my body and the environment. There is Me, my body and there is the environment, which is not Me but forces me to interact with it in order to go on living.

Only in this interaction do I truly experience what is myself and what is not myself. There is a boundary which tells me that what is within it, that is Me and that, what is outside of it, that is Other. To realize myself for what I am means that I exist. 

To exist I need the absolute certainty of this boundary, the boundary that separates myself from the space around me and tells me what I am still and what I am no longer. If this distinction would not exist then everything would be one and therefore indistinguishable. There would be no individuality, no singleness, no uniqueness, no perceivable existence.

To exist means to step out and to see the limits of my being in relation to others and to my environment beyond the body. The constant attempt to determine my own position in space is reminiscent of the search for the meaning of life. An unsolvable question that always remains open and is in flux.

*** Proprioception, also referred to as kinesthesia, is the sense of self-movement and body position ***

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The Tyranny of Vulnerability

The Tyranny of Vulnerability:

Now, still in the Crisis, although the worst first onslaught seems to be over, at least until the second wave reaches us, the mind goes out to art, wants distraction again, experience, aesthetic challenge and performance. And is immediately thrown back as if hurled against a wall. The sad fact remains, that Art, specifically art in music, concerts, theater, dance are still among the things we are not allowed to enjoy in public or together with many people. For this joy we have still to wait. I very much miss having these “profound experiences of Art“ and long for the time they are to be enjoyed again. 

And so it is doubly sad to be forced to observe a tendency in recent years, ever becoming stronger, of groups in society, in social behaviour, to criticise, condemn and even ban art (painting, photography, video, film, theatre, opera, literature) for alleged insults and injuries to sensitivities.

It is sad to see this tendency coming from a mostly young, internet affin clientele, from people who seem to define themselves solely by being “different”,  by belonging to an assumed minority (vegan, gay, trans, feminist, gluten intolerant, birdsong allergic ...) and therefore feel entitled to claim more rights for themselves than others. Their sole purpose of living seems to be being a victim or being just “different“. Sadly the fact that usually a person is much more complex than just being gay, vegan, trans, (… you name it), seems to be forgotten. 

I call this The Tyranny of Vulnerability.

If everything which could evoke a feeling of insult would lead to a ban, then the door opens to an unsustainable state of things, since potentially everything could be insulting to someone. This development would be the end of all freedom of art.

In a society like ours one has to learn to live and endure contradictions. Not all of them are solvable, some of them we just have to learn to live with and thus continue living the absurdity of life.

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‘One Art’ - poem

One Art

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

— Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident

the art of losing’s not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster

                                      Elisabeth Bishop (1911 - 1979)*

*Elizabeth Bishop (February 8, 1911 – October 6, 1979) was an American poet and short-story writer. She was Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1949 to 1950, the Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry in 1956,  the Naational Book Award winner in 1970, and the recipient of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1976.

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The Joy of Baking

The Joy of Baking:

This is not another food blog. Or is it?

Well, it is about food, yes, specifically about baked food. But it is more about the process, the deed, the action, the activity of baking and how I came about to so get into it lately. The main persuasive power has been Corona, of course. With it came all we experienced in the last weeks and months. The lockdown, the isolation, the shortfall of external distraction and the rising need to counter these blanks with new stimulus.

What is one to do when at home most of the time. This might sound like an excuse but is really meant to be only an explanation. In search of something "to do", apart from all the other things I already do and which are always part of my way of living, I discovered baking as a form of creative meditation. So another perfect way to find my inner self and additionally produce something delicious for my tastebuds.

There is something almost erotically sensual in kneading a dough. Not only does it please my tactile receptors but it also brings back memories of playing in the playground, as a kid, in the sandbox. Dirt and water, the main ingredients for a sand cake then have been exchanged for milk, butter, flour, chocolate, sugar and vanilla. The feeling stayed the same. 

If I’d be a yoga teacher I’d open a yoga class “Yoga and Baking“. Or “Connect with the Cosmos: “Bake a Cake”. 

The satisfactory feeling of having created something extraordinary is the same every artist experiences when having finished a piece of art. In addition this “delicious farinaceous compound” ( Henry James) can now be eaten, a delightful if short moment of happiness. 

And I have to admit, mostly I am proud of what I succeeded in doing. Therefore, a little galery:

Irish Cream Gugelhupf

Traditional Lemon Cheesecake

Miss PACMAN Cake (Chocolate-Walnut-Raspberry)

Russischer Zupfkuchen (Russian Pluck Cake, a cheesecake with chocolate dough chunks)

Traditional Plum and Rhubarb Cake with yeast dough

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Murdoch on Suffering and Morality

Murdoch on Suffering and Morality:

All of the following is out of The Black Prince, Iris Murdoch‘s strange, funny, frightening, enlightening and deeply probing pondering on the shapeshifting machinations of the human mind when in Love and Extremis, a sort of re-enacting of Hamlet (the Black Prince of Denmark):

...“There are times of suffering which remain in our lives like black absolutes and are not blotted out. Fortunate are those for whom these black stars shed some sort of light.

This is the planet where cancer reigns, where people regularly and automatically and almost without comment die like flies from floods and famine and disease, where people fight each other with hideous weapons to whose effects even nightmares cannot do justice, where men terrify and torture each other and spend whole lifetimes telling lies out of fear. This is where we live.

The world is perhaps ultimately to be defined as a place of suffering. Man is a suffering animal, subject to ceaseless anxiety and pain and fear, the endless unsatisfied anguish of a being who passionately desires only illusory goods.

If the suffering of the world were, as it could be imagined to be, less extreme, if boredom and simple worldly disappointments were our gravest trials, and if, which is harder to conceive, we grieved little at any bereavement and went to death as to sleep, our whole morality might be immensely, perhaps totally different. That this world is a place of horror must affect every serious artist and thinker, darkening his reflection, ruining his system, sometimes actually driving him mad.“...

                                                              Iris Murdoch (1919 - 1999)*

*Dame Jean Iris Murdoch (15 July 1919 – 8 February 1999) was an Irish and British novelist and philosopher. Murdoch is best known for her novels about good and evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious. 

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Standstill - Stillness - Silence

Standstill - Stillness - Silence:

One cannot help but register the effects and implications this Corona crisis has on all of us and on literally every aspect of our lives.

What is most remarkably felt is the standstill, the pause, the rest of the hurly-burly. Therein lies a chance.

Out of T. S. Eliot’s remarkable poem, “The Four Quartets”, come these few lines:

“...At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;

Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, ...”

We so greedily embrace the busyness of our normal exhaustively led lives because this makes it so easy to forget oneself, to forget the constantly in the back of our head implemented thought of the “big why”, the purpose and reason for all of what we are doing. 

This is, I readily admit, the human condition, the sadly hopeless but also invigorating question which drives us onward, the motor on which our existence thrives and relies. 

But it is also a dangerously disheartening thought, this probing for revelation, for answers which truly cannot be either found nor given. We will never fully understand why we are what we are and why all is as it is. To some it is a consolation then to forget themselves, to ease this anxiety, which really is fear of the future, in the hurly-burly, the distracting chaotic busyness which daily life consists of. 

Now something forced us to hold still, to rest, if we are willing or not and as frustrating this seems and feels, there is this small element of hope and confidence that lies within it. 

People start to complain that nothing is happening anymore, nothing of value to experience, to enjoy. No concerts, no exhibitions, no movies, hardly any social interaction anymore. Nothing is happening! This is a misconception. Something is happening, after all! Namely Silence and Stillness. 

Stillness is a form of action. Stillness is an energetic quality of being. Stillness allows us to find back to ourselves, to get in touch once again with ourselves, because it eliminates outside distractions. There is a spiritual necessity of stillness.

Even when nothing is happening, something always is happening. Almost every creative person feels that. Even when not actively creating something there is always something going on inside. Any artist knows of this space between the stage where the work is yet too unformed in the mind to be presentable and the stage where it is ready to be physically manifested. Stillness is a most welcome tool to allow the work to solidify and be born. I think this is true not only for artists but for all of us, in almost every respect. 

Do coming events throw shadows? If so I think I feel shadows which tell of a slightly different approach, a change in attitude, towards life and the way we live it. There might occur a shift in evaluation of certain aspects of our lives which up until now have rested unquestioned. 

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Recipe for Fig Bread

A (moderately) healthy recipe in which most of the sweetness comes from the figs. I love it.

Dough:

150 g dried figs

2 eggs

1⁄2 teaspoon cinnamon 

60 g brown sugar

1⁄2 package baking powder

1 pinch of salt 

50 g apple puree (Apfelmus)

50 g butter (or alternatively vegetable oil i.e. sunflower, rapeseed (Rapsöl) or coconut oil)

60 g joghurt 

30 ml water

1 tablespoon grounded almonds

100 g spelt flour (Dinkelmehl)

100 g wheat flour (Weizenmehl)

(or just 200 g wheat flour)

appr. 20 g chopped pecans or walnuts

For the decoration:

1 - 2 fresh figs, sliced

Preparation :

Heat the oven to 160 °C.

Chop figs and together with apple puree, joghurt and water puree figs in mixer, then put in big bowl and together with all other ingredients (save nuts) mix to a homogenous dough, then fold in the chopped pecans/walnuts. 

Put dough in a small fattened springform or loaf pan (cake tin, rectangular) and decorate wird fig slices.

Put in oven and bake for 40 minutes, then control with the aid of a stick if it is done. If dough still sticks to the stick, bake for another 5 minutes. Take out, let cool and serve.