A few brief (HA!) comments on hope and epistemological skepticism ...
I've had hope on the brain lately, or more precisely the paradox of hope and occurance. Perhaps this paradox is unique to my own world's metaphysics, or perhaps its more universal. Thats where the skepticism comes in. i don't even have any certainty that other people exist outside of my perceptions of them (this isn't some sort of pathological arrogance, its just a philosophical view), much less if they inhabit worlds unique to themselves or if we all walk in one, but thats fairly besides the point.
i wanted to talk about hope, because i know nothing more dangerous.
Seymour talked about hope, but i'm not sure he'd approve of my take on it.
'Could you try not aiming so much?' he asked me, still standing there. 'If you hit him when you aim, it'll just be luck.' ...
'How can it be luck if I aim?' I said back to him.... He didn't say anything for a moment but simply stood balanced on the curb, looking at me, I knew imperfectly, with love. 'Because it will be,' he said. 'You'll be glad if you hit his marble - Ira's marble - won't you? Won't you be glad? And if you're glad when you hit somebody's marble, then you sort of secretly didn't expect too much to do it. So there'd have to be some luck in it, there'd have to be slightly quite a lot of accident in it.'
Wanting something, someone, anything, anyone, is the most dangerous kind of hope, because its invites the opposite. As seymour would have it, you'd be happy when you got it or them, and thus there'd have to be quite a lot of accident in it. Perhaps its just my luck, but i've found that in such cases, hope doesn't just invite accident, it invites failure. To desire a thing is to ask to be dissapointed by the lack of it.
I think Beauvoir was close to this when she said, famously, "Love in the renunciation of possession". The fact that i think she was in pretty strong denial at the time, effectively making this a sarcastic statement, only adds to the perfection of this quote. Sartre was off boffing his american heiress, and left berefit of his presence, she wrote that her love was superior because she renounced her possession of the man. She understood the metaphysics of desire.
The desire for a thing necessarily increases the likelihood that you will not get it. the buddha would have said it simply increased the likelihood that you'll be upset when its gone. he understood suffering, but i don't think his world had quite as much capriciousness in it as mine does.
ive been thinking a lot about hope and desire lately. i wonder, and worry (lamentably) if trying to restrain ones hope, for the purpose of increasing ones chances of success, is self defeating. problematically, its a black box situaiton, ie the mechanics of it is concealed from me. if its some sort of law of interpersonal dynamics, and thus an external phenomenon, i'm inviting disaster. But if its an internal principle, some sort of psychological thing that i cannot remove but i can be aware of and work around, then perhaps i've got a chance.
to crib the aforementioned existentialists again, "les jeux sont faits". Loosely, "the chips are down". I've layed my bet. theres naught left to do, at this point, but hold to it.
postscript: this is seriously what goes on in my head. its no small wonder i'm not crazy.
I've had hope on the brain lately, or more precisely the paradox of hope and occurance. Perhaps this paradox is unique to my own world's metaphysics, or perhaps its more universal. Thats where the skepticism comes in. i don't even have any certainty that other people exist outside of my perceptions of them (this isn't some sort of pathological arrogance, its just a philosophical view), much less if they inhabit worlds unique to themselves or if we all walk in one, but thats fairly besides the point.
i wanted to talk about hope, because i know nothing more dangerous.
Seymour talked about hope, but i'm not sure he'd approve of my take on it.
'Could you try not aiming so much?' he asked me, still standing there. 'If you hit him when you aim, it'll just be luck.' ...
'How can it be luck if I aim?' I said back to him.... He didn't say anything for a moment but simply stood balanced on the curb, looking at me, I knew imperfectly, with love. 'Because it will be,' he said. 'You'll be glad if you hit his marble - Ira's marble - won't you? Won't you be glad? And if you're glad when you hit somebody's marble, then you sort of secretly didn't expect too much to do it. So there'd have to be some luck in it, there'd have to be slightly quite a lot of accident in it.'
Wanting something, someone, anything, anyone, is the most dangerous kind of hope, because its invites the opposite. As seymour would have it, you'd be happy when you got it or them, and thus there'd have to be quite a lot of accident in it. Perhaps its just my luck, but i've found that in such cases, hope doesn't just invite accident, it invites failure. To desire a thing is to ask to be dissapointed by the lack of it.
I think Beauvoir was close to this when she said, famously, "Love in the renunciation of possession". The fact that i think she was in pretty strong denial at the time, effectively making this a sarcastic statement, only adds to the perfection of this quote. Sartre was off boffing his american heiress, and left berefit of his presence, she wrote that her love was superior because she renounced her possession of the man. She understood the metaphysics of desire.
The desire for a thing necessarily increases the likelihood that you will not get it. the buddha would have said it simply increased the likelihood that you'll be upset when its gone. he understood suffering, but i don't think his world had quite as much capriciousness in it as mine does.
ive been thinking a lot about hope and desire lately. i wonder, and worry (lamentably) if trying to restrain ones hope, for the purpose of increasing ones chances of success, is self defeating. problematically, its a black box situaiton, ie the mechanics of it is concealed from me. if its some sort of law of interpersonal dynamics, and thus an external phenomenon, i'm inviting disaster. But if its an internal principle, some sort of psychological thing that i cannot remove but i can be aware of and work around, then perhaps i've got a chance.
to crib the aforementioned existentialists again, "les jeux sont faits". Loosely, "the chips are down". I've layed my bet. theres naught left to do, at this point, but hold to it.
postscript: this is seriously what goes on in my head. its no small wonder i'm not crazy.