Comments on: Still Turning To Face The Strange

By: Daniel Black

Daniel Black — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:53:57 +0000

I’m tiring enough from the enormity of the mystery to long for contentment, but a part of me feels like it’s selling out. Sometimes, though, I just realize that I could compound this muddy footing by living in Darfur, or a decrepit tenement, or have been brutalized in some fashion. I enjoy the luxury of missing out on all manner of suffering that would distract me from these worries.

By: Hg

Hg — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 22:20:07 +0000

Daniel – I’ve been pondering your question and can’t formulate any kind of satisfying reply. Which, as Whiskey implies, is inevitable – the enormity of the mystery. Yes, you’re right. No, you’re wrong.
Only pedantry can save me now… “Artificial” sounds like a pejorative, but if we say “man-made” instead it becomes more neutral and then where’s the harm in that? What if we do create our own meaning?
And as for hedonism, it’s an extreme. Sadness and happiness, pain and pleasure, they’re dualities. I prefer contentment, which is the synthesis of this dichotomy – the ability to exist in either realm.
And now I must go and re-read your fuller response…

By: Daniel Black

Daniel Black — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:11:47 +0000

I don’t mean this in that rhetorically disposable way many questions are asked, even with the same words in the same order: if we are to create our own meaning, then meaning is, by definition, artificial, so why should we continue trying?
Truth be told, I’m a little lost on this question. There’s no greater sensibility to leaving the world than staying, so at the very least, an inclination to survive keeps me going. But if the most we can hope for is to revel in the possibilities of our creative efforts (in your quite useful, broad notion), that’s kind of just a dressed-up hedonism…or no?

By: Hg

Hg — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:03:33 +0000

Thanks for the inspiration, Whiskey. You can see a small, faint echo of some of these ideas in the previous post, but your summary propelled them forward at warp speed. Now I'm considering how this ties in with my long-term affinity with existentialism: "The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart."

By: whiskey

whiskey — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 03:48:48 +0000

Hg,
It’s a privilege to have earned a small place in this insightful writing. I, too, find the shores of creativity and identity to be among the most fascinating places to wander, even if I am always left with the enormity of the mystery. There seems to be little to complain about if not knowing all the answers means that we have all the freedom in the world to be creative, and if meaning comes from creativity, then there is really nothing impossible, is there?