I've been giving much thought to the concept of empathy, trying to develop it as a skill rather than a proclivity. I have determined, through trial and error, that it is the ability to accept another human being (or fish, if you will) as a determining factor in self judgement. This involves the investment of the self in an uncontrollable other, a supreme letting go; this, indeed, would be rather detrimental as a compulsion.
You are (if only in my head) an invaluable Devil's Advocate.
-----
It recently occurred to me (credit to HBO, of all things) just what a complex and interesting character Saddam Hussein was, both in life and politics. When I first remarked on this, my mother felt compelled to remind me that, when captured, he was hiding in a hole like a coward, the implication being that he had his bad side too.
-----
First off, as to religion. Or God, if you will. If you assume the realm of spirituality to be that of intangibles only, then all things basically spiritual become dependent on Man for any kind of existence, just as anything hypothetical is limited to the scope of an intelligence capable of theoretical speculation. God and all His angels, unknowable and undefinable, should cease to exist entirely were Man to do the same. Indeed, before Man's coming, they could no more have existed than the theory of relativity, evolution, or any other structuring we use to explain the world around us.
-----
On reflection, I think probability must be considered an area of philosophy, assuming that a mathematical foundation does not necessarily include a subject in the sciences.
To explain. Science is the formal representation of the existing natural world. Mathematics could be said to be a science of intangibles, but only insofar as letters are intangible representations of sound. Mathematical formulae at least correspond to the concrete relationships of physical bodies to one another.
Philosophy, on the other hand, is speculation of an intangible world. Morality, ethics, utility, (the question of) existence: all abstractions dependent on the creative mind. And, while some employ scientific methods in their reasoning, none ever follows these methods all the way to a measurable quality of something in the physical world; while the weight of a notebook might be employed in determining its utility, the notebook's utility could never reasonably be the basis for determining its weight.
Such is the case with probability, a field wherein a remarkably complex arrangement of equations may be used to conclude the value of an abstract concept: the future. Baring practical assumptions to the contrary, no single event ever exists with a probability of 1 until it has actually occurred. And once it does occur, it is better suited to the realm of statistics, what I would consider the scientific counterpart to probability.
-----
Truly, it's not surprising that a belief in the afterlife should inspire one to dread the end of their current one.
To begin with, one assumes the possibility that their death will mark the beginning of an eternity of pain and suffering. Further, that there are standards one must live up to in this life to avoid the pain/suffering option; what these standards precisely are has been a subject of debate for millennia, so one cannot be sure of which to follow. Only that your final exam consists of a single question with 74 possible answers, each one true in its own textbooks, 73 of which blow the test.
Is it any wonder that planning to skip the final is such a consolation?
-----
I sat before a mirror.
A simple thing, that. Though it was something of an occasion for me, mirrors being a rarity in my childhood home, I am never the less certain that such is a common enough event for the average person, perhaps even as a part of a daily ritual. To arrange their hair just so, or to apply makeup; in short, to see what they are, so that they may change what they see.
I know little enough about that. I could see what I was and, for my innocence, I could perhaps do so better than others, but I held no aspirations toward changing the figure who stared back at me. He was an absolute, as permanent as the mirror between us, and he defined me. I could no more lie to myself about what he was than he could look on as I rose and walked away; such was our bond.
I stared. What was it in me that could give rise to such a creature as this? What was I, that such a face looked back at me? Eyes which pierced and, amusingly, seemed to see more than I did. A frown, reflecting my own contempt, but showing also a trace of disgust I did not feel. I read pride in that face, but not pride in what it saw.
Such was my use for mirrors. Others might use them to see and, seeing, change what they saw, but I could use them only to know. And what I knew then, in that face, was dissatisfaction. It did not matter how my appearance might change, for it was not my appearance which gave rise to the dissatisfaction I saw.
Slowly, my hand rose to the face in the mirror; gently, I pushed.
I never felt the cracks.
-----
I often find myself suspecting that all this drama which occupies my mind, that which could be argued either as a backdrop for my real life or as the reality for which my external life is mere scenery, is nothing more than the elaboration of chemical interaction. This theory is not entirely without justification, particularly with regard to depression. I often find myself, having settled a troubling issue, remaining in the black mood it supposedly inspired, as though out of habit. Conversely, it is often the case that an hours-long depressive state is relieved, not through any mental resolution, but by the introduction of caffeine or adrenaline into my bloodstream.
Does this make all my internal monologue pointless? Am I so powerless before my own body chemistry that I must lay hands on it before I can hope to achieve anything? I think not. One thing I've learned here is how to handle depression. Not so much how to be rid of it, mind, as how to cope with it. How to be depressed without letting it cripple me. This is, admittedly, a useful skill; indeed, if I aspired to being nothing more than functional, my task would be complete. If, that is, I do not count abstract or creative capabilities as necessary to function.
I found a new cure for depression today, something as effective as caffeine or adrenaline, if not more so, but much more subtle: personal interaction. No matter how bleak my mood, a few words exchanged with another person, even just casual pleasantries, diverts my attention from my own problems and, so, makes them disappear.
-----
Your first thought was wonder, that you could notice the sticky feeling between your face and the ground through the throbbing in your head.
Your second thought was suspicion, that both of these feelings had to come from somewhere.
You opened your eyes then, and thought fled for a time, replaced by the simple absorption of your surroundings: darkness, irregular brick walls, trash cans (yours?), a cat licking something from the ground. It came to your then, slower than it should have, that this was an alley. Then you noticed, with the same frustrating slowness, something else, near the cat. An ambiguous blob, at first, a form without significance, though you easily recognized that it had blonde hair with red streaks. From this, the absurdity of finding hair by itself in an alley, you grew to recognize that the thing attached to the hair was a body. "A young girl," you thought aloud, though the cat seemed not to care one way or the other.
Your next thought was relief, for the presence of the girl explained what hair was doing in an alley; this, up to the moment, was the most distressing consideration you'd had.
Sitting up, thoughts started coming faster, and with them, questions. Why was there a girl lying in an alley? Why wasn't the cat scared of the girl? Was it her cat? Then, realizing that you existed, you began to wonder why you were there to see all these things.
Your last thought was deja-vu, thsi feeling that you had seen this girl, this alley, even this cat once before. This thought was cut off, however, by a voice from behind you. You never thought about where the voice came from, or who it belonged to, or even what it said. You certainly never wondered why you were so quick to climb over the girl, or what might be waiting at the end of this alley; less than anything else did you wonder where you were going. You were no longer composed of thoughts, but rather of the overwhelming drive to run away.
-----
This stuff feels vaguely Baton Rouge Ish, like stuff I wrote between bouts of paid insomnia and occasional naps.
No comments:
Post a Comment