Experience
On very rare occasions, I think we’re all thrust up into some sort of third heaven where we’re granted perspective on our lives with perfect clarity. And from that position, a lot seems useless, and the formerly useless becomes sacred. And as the mist rises we can watch our lives in a random walk, occasionally stumbling upon things vastly meaningful only to be distracted toward a new course. Why? Because critical thinking is expensive and autonomous living is cheap. Because we’re deaf to the voices that will guide us to new heights. Because we all want value in our lives, but we’re avid investors of trivialities and the mundane. Because we are scared.
I’ve always been a technical person, and I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand artistic expression. It’s too easy to dismiss art as naive about the world, or too vague for comprehension and integration into our own lives. But if poetry is naive, it is selectively naive, and if music is vague it’s only because life is not discretely defined. Philosophizing exists in an entirely separate world from our own, where ideas are sent to joust for relevance and internal consistency. But rare is the idea that transistions from idea to personal identity. And at least part of this problem is rooted in their specificity. By hanging on to details and euphemizing the minute, we drag ourselves to the ground where we’re tuners of the insignificant rather than captains of the big picture.
Art and free expression, in their purest and most sublime forms, mount their attack against worldviews and trample underfoot the entangling details of the debaters and dogmatists. I think this is effectual because the weapon of choice is experience, not logic or reason. Not that logic or reason are absent, but simply that we are the product of our experiences with the heaviest of subjects. A man is not made by suggestions of should, but by examples that entrance and transform him at the deepest level. When an argument is presented, it is cast to the islands to fight against incumbent ideas and logical premises. Even if it is found worthy, the journey back is difficult and rare. But experiences cannot be ignored or torn down by trivialities. Their power lies in their clear path to our hearts, minds, and identities.
You cannot brand someone with truth. Or if you can, they will not be better off for it. But you can lead someone somewhere, and that power should not be taken lightly. The most dangerous thing we can do in this world is to wall ourselves up and sing how better we are for it. Animals can learn, but they cannot change. Our freedom is found in the contrast.
If we have anywhere to go from here, it is behind the people who manage to supercede the situations we’ve hung ourselves up on. The answers to the problems of this world are not leftist, rightist, apathetic, or centrist: they are orthogonal to the difficulties themselves. We cannot draw the perpendicular without having first walked the line. And you cannot walk a line with a foot planted firmly.
I guess what I’m saying is that there is intense value in being open to experiences, in true empathy, in allowing ourselves to completely and fully feel even if it hurts. With openness, we can be wounded, grow, and ultimately changed. Without it, we are stagnant beings: flat characters in this novel of life whose safety is illusory and whose value is unique to our minds. If both where you come from and where you’re headed are in your field of vision, you’re not walking the quickest path between the two. Let go, and let’s go.