Nothing is More Real
I hope I haven't become boring with my logic series. I will be continuing it, if just to have a bit of direction and an means to flush out my own opinion on the matter. But I figured I'd pause here for a catch-all update.
I submitted my Quantifying Qualities paper to the Mid-South Philosophy Conference. It would be amazing if I got accepted, as it would both look good on a CV and be a fun experience. It's in Memphis, too, which is within driving distance for my parents. I don't know that they'd enjoy a philosophy conference, but I'd like them to see what I've chosen to do in my life, all the same. The downside is that it's the weekend of February 24th and 25th. For those friends of mine not from Tulane, this is the weekend before Mardi Gras and, hence, the Saturday of Shopping Cart Day. I know, I know...but no worries. Seeing as I'd be a graduate student presenter, I'd hope to be placed on the Friday schedule and then drive the 6 hours Friday night to get into town in time to claim my cart along with JMD, SLC, and all my other best friends. But, that's only going to be an issue if I get accepted, about which I should be contacted by late January.
Winter break has been good to me, but it has been rather uneventful, so I won't drone on about that. I did get the Chronicles of Narnia box set, and I'm now getting into the 6th book, The Silver Chair. My favorites so far have been The Horse and His Boy (3rd) and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (5th). These stories remind me a bit of The Great Divorce, also by Lewis. Like many works of fiction regarding these deeper themes, the author makes some humorous point to explain that this is only a work of imagination from their own head. Yet, it makes you think.
I was talking with a good friend up here, Tristan, about this tonight and I think we came upon the reason I rate these books so highly. Even though it's a work of fiction, for the author nothing could be more real. I don't know how many of my readers consider themselves mystics, but I'd wager a great deal that most have at least had a mystical experience (regardless of what you called it at the time). As most of my readers probably know, I meditate often. And though I don't think one's own meditation is an appropriate topic for conversation, it does allow ready access to these type of experiences. It can come on as a vibration of energy that slowly builds then passes or can come in a blink of eternal light, but by whatever medium is passes, it leaves you with a sort of unspoken wisdom. You don't want to move or do common place things or even see other people for awhile afterwards. You just want to sit and experience the afterglow of a realization that had been waiting for you for some time. And, though it takes an exceptionally gifted writer to put those realizations into words, it makes perfect sense that it comes out best in a work of fiction. But the truth of the matter is that these sudden insights don't just seem more real but are as if awaking from the in-between state into actual reality. There's a point in The Great Divorce where Lewis describes just this relation of our existence and reality. In his book, he describes the experiences of the newly ascended beings on their first encounter with the low-lying plains of Heaven. He describes the beings as being almost ghostlike, and though they are just as real as they had been on Earth, they cannot so much as bend a blade of grass or lift a fallen leaf in this new place. The grass has so much reality compared to them that it even pricks and hurts their feet by refusing to bend under their shadow of an existence. Well, that's what it's like when returning from these 'mystical' experiences and why, at least for me, the thing I most refuse to do when returning is anything commonplace. Even so much as sitting in a chair (as opposed to my zafu cushion) or turning on the lights if it's gotten dark, all these things seem so empty and besides the point of existing in reality.
So, though that may have been a bit deeper inside my head than you cared to travel, I hope it's at least brought a little random relief to what some consider the dull subject of logic. My point is that I have a high opinion of all of Lewis's writing and I highly recommend the Narnia series to those who had fun reading the Harry Potter books. It's light enough to remind you of your childhood yet deep enough so that you don't feel like you're wasting time reading fiction. And, at least in my opinion, if you relax into the book, listening while you read, you just may sense the reality in the imagination.
Post Scripts...
I submitted my Quantifying Qualities paper to the Mid-South Philosophy Conference. It would be amazing if I got accepted, as it would both look good on a CV and be a fun experience. It's in Memphis, too, which is within driving distance for my parents. I don't know that they'd enjoy a philosophy conference, but I'd like them to see what I've chosen to do in my life, all the same. The downside is that it's the weekend of February 24th and 25th. For those friends of mine not from Tulane, this is the weekend before Mardi Gras and, hence, the Saturday of Shopping Cart Day. I know, I know...but no worries. Seeing as I'd be a graduate student presenter, I'd hope to be placed on the Friday schedule and then drive the 6 hours Friday night to get into town in time to claim my cart along with JMD, SLC, and all my other best friends. But, that's only going to be an issue if I get accepted, about which I should be contacted by late January.
Winter break has been good to me, but it has been rather uneventful, so I won't drone on about that. I did get the Chronicles of Narnia box set, and I'm now getting into the 6th book, The Silver Chair. My favorites so far have been The Horse and His Boy (3rd) and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (5th). These stories remind me a bit of The Great Divorce, also by Lewis. Like many works of fiction regarding these deeper themes, the author makes some humorous point to explain that this is only a work of imagination from their own head. Yet, it makes you think.
I was talking with a good friend up here, Tristan, about this tonight and I think we came upon the reason I rate these books so highly. Even though it's a work of fiction, for the author nothing could be more real. I don't know how many of my readers consider themselves mystics, but I'd wager a great deal that most have at least had a mystical experience (regardless of what you called it at the time). As most of my readers probably know, I meditate often. And though I don't think one's own meditation is an appropriate topic for conversation, it does allow ready access to these type of experiences. It can come on as a vibration of energy that slowly builds then passes or can come in a blink of eternal light, but by whatever medium is passes, it leaves you with a sort of unspoken wisdom. You don't want to move or do common place things or even see other people for awhile afterwards. You just want to sit and experience the afterglow of a realization that had been waiting for you for some time. And, though it takes an exceptionally gifted writer to put those realizations into words, it makes perfect sense that it comes out best in a work of fiction. But the truth of the matter is that these sudden insights don't just seem more real but are as if awaking from the in-between state into actual reality. There's a point in The Great Divorce where Lewis describes just this relation of our existence and reality. In his book, he describes the experiences of the newly ascended beings on their first encounter with the low-lying plains of Heaven. He describes the beings as being almost ghostlike, and though they are just as real as they had been on Earth, they cannot so much as bend a blade of grass or lift a fallen leaf in this new place. The grass has so much reality compared to them that it even pricks and hurts their feet by refusing to bend under their shadow of an existence. Well, that's what it's like when returning from these 'mystical' experiences and why, at least for me, the thing I most refuse to do when returning is anything commonplace. Even so much as sitting in a chair (as opposed to my zafu cushion) or turning on the lights if it's gotten dark, all these things seem so empty and besides the point of existing in reality.
So, though that may have been a bit deeper inside my head than you cared to travel, I hope it's at least brought a little random relief to what some consider the dull subject of logic. My point is that I have a high opinion of all of Lewis's writing and I highly recommend the Narnia series to those who had fun reading the Harry Potter books. It's light enough to remind you of your childhood yet deep enough so that you don't feel like you're wasting time reading fiction. And, at least in my opinion, if you relax into the book, listening while you read, you just may sense the reality in the imagination.
Post Scripts...
posted by J.B.P. at 11:36 PM
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