Illich wrote that we should know that we’re “a flame in the dark.”
Perhaps the ‘weakness’ of messianism is akin to the image Cormac McCarthy repeated throughout ‘The Road’: “Keep a little fire burning; however small, however hidden.”
I wrote this in 2006 in response to a question posed at a dinner party: "What do you see when you look ahead?"
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What do you see when you look ahead? The question echoes the White King, who asks Alice to "look along the road" and tell him whether she can see the two messengers, who have gone to town. '"I see nobody on the road," said Alice. "I only wish I had such eyes," the King remarked in a fretful tone. "To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance, too! Why, it's as much as I can do to see real people, by this light!"' [Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, Ch. VII, "The Lion and the Unicorn"]
Looking along a road is one way of looking ahead. But what if we are not traveling? If we stay put, we may still look ahead, in time. Either way, the act of looking posits the notion of change: whether we stay put or travel, time and space change. The road brings changes even to those who stand aside and look. In this sense, the question "What do you see?" merges with the question "Where are you going?", and both encompass "What is happening?" These together point toward yet another question: "What are you doing to prepare?"
If I could look ahead and see nothing, I think I would be close to the Zen master's counsel to "live completely in each moment, without expecting anything…." [Shunryu Suzuki, not always so, "Express Yourself Fully"] Anticipating the last question, he adds, "When you are involved in an idea of time—today, tomorrow, or next year—selfish practice begins. Various desires start to behave mischievously. You … worry about what your next step will be."
Alice, seeing nobody, is the butt of the King's joke. The King, seeing nobody, is the joker. The Zen monk, seeing nobody, expresses "true being." Which of these am I?
What do I see when I look ahead? I see life and death, trials and tribulations, opportunities and celebrations, repetitions and permutations of what I see behind. How can I not acknowledge these hopes and fears, straining toward the desirable and away from the fearful? All in all, I become captive of my vision. My looking and my preparation become obsessive. My present is occluded by remembered pasts and imagined futures. I forget my presence, my true being.
My way out of this impasse is whimsy—the high way, and the low—the joker and the butt. I embrace the mystery of ever-present past and future, and I joke with them as a madman or a fool. I pretend I am strong enough to carry the past, and that I am bringing the future with me. I strive to meet the road with joy, and I recite the Navajo Beauty Way: "Before me, behind me, above, below me, all around me, it is completed in Beauty."
Illich wrote that we should know that we’re “a flame in the dark.”
Perhaps the ‘weakness’ of messianism is akin to the image Cormac McCarthy repeated throughout ‘The Road’: “Keep a little fire burning; however small, however hidden.”
Where is the fire? Is it real? …
“It’s inside you. It always was there.”
Yes, and what an achingly beautiful book. The Road is nothing if not scaffoldless hope.
And as the great Walter Benjamin wrote, “It is only for those without hope that hope can be given.”
I wrote this in 2006 in response to a question posed at a dinner party: "What do you see when you look ahead?"
------------—
What do you see when you look ahead? The question echoes the White King, who asks Alice to "look along the road" and tell him whether she can see the two messengers, who have gone to town. '"I see nobody on the road," said Alice. "I only wish I had such eyes," the King remarked in a fretful tone. "To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance, too! Why, it's as much as I can do to see real people, by this light!"' [Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, Ch. VII, "The Lion and the Unicorn"]
Looking along a road is one way of looking ahead. But what if we are not traveling? If we stay put, we may still look ahead, in time. Either way, the act of looking posits the notion of change: whether we stay put or travel, time and space change. The road brings changes even to those who stand aside and look. In this sense, the question "What do you see?" merges with the question "Where are you going?", and both encompass "What is happening?" These together point toward yet another question: "What are you doing to prepare?"
If I could look ahead and see nothing, I think I would be close to the Zen master's counsel to "live completely in each moment, without expecting anything…." [Shunryu Suzuki, not always so, "Express Yourself Fully"] Anticipating the last question, he adds, "When you are involved in an idea of time—today, tomorrow, or next year—selfish practice begins. Various desires start to behave mischievously. You … worry about what your next step will be."
Alice, seeing nobody, is the butt of the King's joke. The King, seeing nobody, is the joker. The Zen monk, seeing nobody, expresses "true being." Which of these am I?
What do I see when I look ahead? I see life and death, trials and tribulations, opportunities and celebrations, repetitions and permutations of what I see behind. How can I not acknowledge these hopes and fears, straining toward the desirable and away from the fearful? All in all, I become captive of my vision. My looking and my preparation become obsessive. My present is occluded by remembered pasts and imagined futures. I forget my presence, my true being.
My way out of this impasse is whimsy—the high way, and the low—the joker and the butt. I embrace the mystery of ever-present past and future, and I joke with them as a madman or a fool. I pretend I am strong enough to carry the past, and that I am bringing the future with me. I strive to meet the road with joy, and I recite the Navajo Beauty Way: "Before me, behind me, above, below me, all around me, it is completed in Beauty."
thanks for this... esp for Benjamin's 'angel of history'