Escaping the depths of prescribed thought is a matter of importance among those who fancy themselves to be individuals. Enveloped in an ocean of others’ thoughts and attitudes, those who fancy themselves to be individuals believe they breach the surface, lifting the veil of dark water to see un-refracted sunlight. But propelling oneself into the sunlit air above the sea is typically only a temporary act. And then there’s the problem of fundamental composition: Even those who fancy themselves to be individuals emerge from an ocean whose primary component, water, is the dominant component in their own makeup. I think of lines from the Guru Granth Sahib:
Thinking avails not, how so hard one thinks;
Nor silence avails, howsoever one shrinks
Into oneself.
Those who fancy themselves to be individuals often fail to see the unity in variation. Variation might be a breach, but variation is always “of something.” Something, some way of thinking is what is being “varied.” Is individuality merely a matter of cleverness?
Of a myriad cleverness, not one works.
How then to be True? How rend the Veil of sham, untruth?
Why do we fancy ourselves to be individuals? Is our motivation for individuality the unveiling of sham and untruth as we understand the thoughts of all those “individuals” who preceded us? If so, then mere cleverness doesn’t really help us breach the surface. Is there some way to escape the water when each of us is primarily composed of water?
Now it’s your turn: “Look, the world has changed dramatically, particularly after the Renaissance and the rise of modern science. We are no longer bound and submerged in a sea of ancient presuppositions. We are free to think as we wish. We’re ‘modern.’ We no longer dwell in a world of myth.”
Okay. You make a valid point. But you’re not the first. Martin Heidegger saw the problem in philosophy: Essentially, philosophy was largely Greek—ancient Greek—thinking. Philosophers temporarily breached the Adriatic of thought for two thousand years, but always their cleverness plunged into the water. Yet, even Heidegger’s form of existentialism had to be built on the fundamental component that enveloped all those between him and Plato and Aristotle: The question of Being.
Being is the underlying component. Being is the universal. What advance in understanding do individuals make that is not a clever variation of understanding? In every variation another individual attempts to breach the surface of a single ocean.
Want to breach the surface, to rise at least temporarily above the ocean? Answer the following: What untruths do you want to unveil? Is your attempt to “unveil” merely a matter of cleverness? Is your attempt to discover your individuality a matter of “shrinking into oneself”? Can anyone, even you, truly escape the sea in which we all seem to swim? Do you fancy yourself to be an individual? If so, how do you keep yourself from plunging back into the sea from which you believe you emerged?
Thinking avails not, how so hard one thinks;
Nor silence avails, howsoever one shrinks
Into oneself.
Those who fancy themselves to be individuals often fail to see the unity in variation. Variation might be a breach, but variation is always “of something.” Something, some way of thinking is what is being “varied.” Is individuality merely a matter of cleverness?
Of a myriad cleverness, not one works.
How then to be True? How rend the Veil of sham, untruth?
Why do we fancy ourselves to be individuals? Is our motivation for individuality the unveiling of sham and untruth as we understand the thoughts of all those “individuals” who preceded us? If so, then mere cleverness doesn’t really help us breach the surface. Is there some way to escape the water when each of us is primarily composed of water?
Now it’s your turn: “Look, the world has changed dramatically, particularly after the Renaissance and the rise of modern science. We are no longer bound and submerged in a sea of ancient presuppositions. We are free to think as we wish. We’re ‘modern.’ We no longer dwell in a world of myth.”
Okay. You make a valid point. But you’re not the first. Martin Heidegger saw the problem in philosophy: Essentially, philosophy was largely Greek—ancient Greek—thinking. Philosophers temporarily breached the Adriatic of thought for two thousand years, but always their cleverness plunged into the water. Yet, even Heidegger’s form of existentialism had to be built on the fundamental component that enveloped all those between him and Plato and Aristotle: The question of Being.
Being is the underlying component. Being is the universal. What advance in understanding do individuals make that is not a clever variation of understanding? In every variation another individual attempts to breach the surface of a single ocean.
Want to breach the surface, to rise at least temporarily above the ocean? Answer the following: What untruths do you want to unveil? Is your attempt to “unveil” merely a matter of cleverness? Is your attempt to discover your individuality a matter of “shrinking into oneself”? Can anyone, even you, truly escape the sea in which we all seem to swim? Do you fancy yourself to be an individual? If so, how do you keep yourself from plunging back into the sea from which you believe you emerged?
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