Bailie comes at things from a very different perspective than ours, that is, more literary than metaphysical. I went through my novel phase quite some time ago, trying to familiarize myself with all the usual suspects of the western canon. This was mostly for reasons of vanity -- I wanted to appear well read -- but also because the Smart People were always saying that you could learn much more about philosophy, psychology, and human nature by reading the Great Authors.
But one has only so much time, so I prefer my philosophy straight up -- just give me the substance, not the convoluted form. Besides,
One must not read novels, profane, unhealthy, trivial literature.
That direct order is from an unpublished memo from Schuon to formal students, of whom I am not one. But there is some good advice in here that I generally heed, such as
One must not waste one's time with worldly, unnecessary and often trivial distractions.
Check.
One must not regularly read a newspaper from one end to the other, above all in the morning.
Check. I do glance at a few websites, but mostly in a spirit of ironic detachment to examine the latest effluvia of the dream machine. Also, I sometimes need to inform Dupree which way to direct his fire, since he doesn't read at all. And in any event,
It is obviously permissible to inform oneself, with measure, in newspapers and magazines.
Having said that,
One must control one's curiosity.
But I'm not a total cretin. It's certainly okay
to read books worthy of interest on historical, cultural, artistic, etc. subjects; but with measure and without losing oneself therein.
I always read these latter types of books at night, when it would be more difficult to assimilate the rough stuff such as, say, Garrigou-Lagrange or Schuon, who require my full attention and all my candlepower.
Let's get back to our review of The Apocalypse of the Sovereign Self, which, as I said, takes a literary approach to the subject, thus far a lot of Virginia Woolf, Flannery O'Connor, Arthur Miller, and now Rousseau.
Now, I personally am not going to go back and read Rousseau, no matter how wrong he is, so I guess I'm glad I have Bailie doing it for me.
More my style is chapter 2, which deals with Bob Dylan. He cites Dylan's 2016 speech upon receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature. I'll embolden some of the passages that struck me:
I got to wondering exactly how my songs related to literature. I wanted to reflect on it and see where the connection was. I’m going to try to articulate that to you....
If I was to go back to the dawning of it all, I guess I’d have to start with Buddy Holly. Buddy died when I was about eighteen and he was twenty-two. From the moment I first heard him, I felt akin. I felt related, like he was an older brother. I even thought I resembled him. Buddy played the music that I loved -- the music I grew up on: country western, rock ‘n’ roll, and rhythm and blues. Three separate strands of music that he intertwined and infused into one genre.... He was the archetype. Everything I wasn’t and wanted to be. I saw him only but once, and that was a few days before he was gone....
He was powerful and electrifying and had a commanding presence. I was only six feet away. He was mesmerizing. I watched his face, his hands, the way he tapped his foot, his big black glasses, the eyes behind the glasses, the way he held his guitar, the way he stood, his neat suit. Everything about him. He looked older than twenty-two. Something about him seemed permanent, and he filled me with conviction. Then, out of the blue, the most uncanny thing happened. He looked me right straight dead in the eye, and he transmitted something. Something I didn’t know what. And it gave me the chills.
Shortly thereafter someone gave him a Leadbelly record,
And that record changed my life right then and there. Transported me into a world I’d never known. It was like an explosion went off. Like I’d been walking in darkness and all of the sudden the darkness was illuminated. It was like somebody laid hands on me. I must have played that record a hundred times.
Now, who among us hasn't had this experience? It is clearly a "conversion experience," but from what, to what, and via what? It is what we variously call the (?!), or the celestial WTF?!, and everyone will experience it at least once in their lives, for good or for ill.
I've often thought of writing a book on this subject -- on the conversion experiences of eminent rockers, mainly the founding fathers and the first generation of early doctors. I know it happened to me on February 9, 1964, when I was zapped by the Beatles, but sometimes I don't trust my own memory: did it really happen that way, or is that a backward projection of my own personal mythology?
It doesn't really matter, because there were subsequent experiences, and my interest here is the "conversion of conversion," so to speak -- not the thing to which one is converted, but the nature of this kind of transformative experience. After all, it wouldn't mean much if I was still so immature as to idealize rock music and musicians, which I stopped doing by the age of 40 or so.
Y'all think I'm joking, but I move in internet circles filled with pathetic fanboys and Comic Book Guys who haven't moved on from February 9, 1964.
And now I'm wondering: before the modern world, what kinds of conversion experiences were available besides religious ones? Experiences of the transcendent no doubt occurred, but the scope was rather restricted. There was no one to hand you a Leadbelly record, no pop stars on TV, no electric guitars, and before the printing press, not even any books except that Bible chained to the podium.
Anyway, Bailie relates Dylan's experience to the nature of desire and longing, the latter being "a richer form of desire," in which "something distinctively religious occurs, however confused, misdirected, and even evanescent the experience might be." Like the sad protagonist of Steely Dan's Deacon Blues, whose romantic fantasies of finding himself sound like a foolish and "crazy scheme," but
This one's for real / I already bought the dream / Learn to work the saxophone / I'll play just what I feel / Drink Scotch Whiskey all night long / And die behind the wheel
To be continued...
27 comments:
Bailie has a whole course on Moby Dick, in which I shamefully have not read (yet). I do think with literature, there are definitely some books in the canon well worth the journey. But the key is to know what not to read more so. I was not much of reader when I was young, and I think that was because I didn't have a good curator and got overwhelmed with all the books out there. So I waited. I didn't want to waste my time until I found what was truly worth reading by eliminating all the junk that was not.
That's a good approach, and you also need a knowledgable guide or psychopomp. I dove in without any discrimination, and was limited by the meager resources I brought to the enterprise.
For example, I tried to read the Divine Comedy but didn't get any of the jokes.
I did enjoy Herman Hesse, who was one of the go-to guys for hippies, along with Tolkien. I avoided him, however, because the print was too small.
... the Smart People were always saying that you could learn much more about philosophy, psychology, and human nature by reading the Great Authors.
Depends on the authors, I guess.
Now, who among us hasn't had this experience? It is clearly a "conversion experience," but from what, to what, and via what?
Heh - indeed.
Re. Moby Dick, my entire class refused to read it in high school (not that the teacher ever caught on). After Vanderleun's prompting some years ago, I tried it again as an adult and enjoyed it very much; part fish story, part allegory, part National Geographic: Whale Edition in a time when there was no National Geographic and the written word was the only way to convey the image. Which isn't a bad tradeoff, considering the limitations of mere imagery.
before the modern world, what kinds of conversion experiences were available besides religious ones? Experiences of the transcendent no doubt occurred, but the scope was rather restricted.
I wonder about that. Compare any great or even just mundane works of art or architecture in the pre-modern to post modern worlds, it's clear something has gone hideously wrong. Sometimes if anything people went a little overboard with the things they accomplished, which had to have been inspired by something outside of themselves. They may not have had albums, but popular songs were still able to be shared far and wide. Just think of Bertie hammering out the latest jingles on his piano; even Jeeves couldn't keep the music out...
I recently read some Tolkien, and was struck by how much time he spends describing the trees, leaves, landscape, etc. -- like high def TV, minus the TV. I suppose these descriptions helped make the fantasy world real, but it's harder to appreciate it now that you can just look at a screen.
I agree for a lot of the surface of things. For the ineffable - say, for instance, someone describing the feel of going swimming for the first time - only words can really take you inside someone else's experience. Even then, only in a very incomplete sort of way.
With Tolkien as an example, when we moved to Florida there was a very visceral experience of walking through the Mirkwood in the park by our house. Seeing it on the screen is nothing like walking down a dark forest path and seeing a palm-sized spider apparently hanging in the air at face level...
Ever seen lizards dropping from trees due to the cold?
Imagine back when there were pterodactyls in the trees...
I did not, but the iguanas were massive and everywhere. I was once stopped at an intersection, and glancing up saw a really big one just casually ambling across a powerline like it was his own personal tightrope. Surreal.
That's one thing I actually miss about Florida, the sheer dumbfounding abundance of every imaginable type of life is something I haven't seen anyplace else I have lived. Every day was like living in one of those wildlife safaris. Water plus warmth equals life.
I still don't understand how the early European explorers managed to starve themselves to death there.
Conversion experiences:
--Most magic is a trick, an illusion. But this was real. Man oh man, was it real.... you just knew it, sitting in your living room, that everything around you was changing. It was like going from black-and-white to color. Really.
--one Sunday night at home, watching the family’s black and white TV set, when The Ed Sullivan Show was on, and I saw The Beatles. That changed my attitude. I knew then what I wanted to do with my life. Seeing them made something click in my soul.
--I wasn’t prepared by how powerful and totally mesmerising they were to watch. It changed me completely.
--it was like being struck by a lightning bolt. Instead of wanting to marry a Beatle, I wanted to be a Beatle.
--I went into school the next day and nothing was the same. The world changed.
--I remember exactly where I was sitting. It was amazing. It was like the axis shifted.
--Rock'n’roll came to my house where there seemed to be no way out, and opened up a whole world of possibilities.
--it was a life-altering event. In a single weekend everything had changed.
Again, I'm not so much interested in the object as the pure experience itself...
It has the same form as when Jesus simply says "follow me," and the apostles drop what they're doing... Based on what? Obviously some sudden insight into the nature of reality and the self.
It's like the simultaneous recognition if "I know who you are" and "I know who I am."
of "I know who you are" and "I know who I am."
That which comes in a flash of recognition...
Speaking of albums, we popped in the local Barnes & Noble yesterday. They don't have the music department anymore, but there was a whole section of tables in the middle full of actual vinyl albums. Some things never get old.
Darren Allen is slowly coming up with his best 100 album list. Interesting choices.
I think you need to restrict yourself to separate genres, otherwise it's like trying to pick the best athlete irrespective of the sport. Who's better, Wayne Gretzky, Tiger Woods, or Shohei Ohtani?
I blame music streaming and the lack of record stores for mish-mashing.
My TV cable service must have a hundred music stations with sub-genres within genres within genres I've never even heard of.
You want genres!? Go here
WTF?!
Exactly!
I credit Linda Ronstadt for knowing how to pick a song.
Gary White's Long, Long Time and Jimmy Webb's The Moon's a Harsh Mistress. For lyrics and emotion, it truly wrenched the longing from my young soul. Ever since I've marveled, along with Shakespeare, how men's souls can be hailed from sheep's guts.
Music is a spiritual medium unlike any other. In fact, hearing is a spiritual experience more than visuals. It's said that losing hearing is more isolating than losing sight, and that really is the mystery of all the senses and the one we abuse with just any old noise. Or any old word. Not many can convincingly say it cold, unannounced, unknown: "Follow me."
The same spirit that goes into a creation, comes out when others experience it. Have a care!
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