Zen and the Art of Folly

Before I blog any further, let’s get one thing straight:

I have no idea what I’m doing. And I believe that is the only reason worth doing it. In this post, I’m going to explain what that means, how this Ill-Advised Blog is going to work, and why you, insert name here, should read and take part in it.

Imagine a basket of fruit. You have a picture of this basket from the front, and from the side. By looking at these two pictures, comparing them, finding the connections between them, seeing how each item looks when viewed from another angle, you can picture in your head what it looks like from the angle halfway between these two pictures. You might be able to make an educated guess about what it would look like from above. Even though you have no way to tell what it looks like from behind, you might be able to fill in the blanks and hold a nearly true picture of the whole basket as a sort of sculpture in your head.

Now imagine that the fruit basket is actually infinitely large, and all the pictures you have were taken from inside the basket, and someone’s thumb was covering part of the lens in every one of them. This is what Philosophy looks like.

I’ve made several attempts, in drafting this post, to create a concise, clear, and inclusive definition of Philosophy, as a whole, and as spelled with a capital P. The best I have managed so far is “Philosophy: the study and contemplation of the Thingness of the Universe.” I believe this may be a little too narrow a definition, but it’s the best I can do.

Now. It is not my intention, on this blog, to create or promote any grand, all-inclusive theory about the nature of Reality. I am quite certain the Thingness of the universe will go on being what it is whatever I think of it, whatever you think of it, and whether or not we agree. This is a blog about Sonder and Self-Sonder.

If you read my last post, you’ll remember the definition of Sonder, the phrase coined by the blog “Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows,” which is, in brief, the realization that every person you interact with has their own unique, important, and complex life story. I concluded that the acceptance of Sonder as a reality included confronting the fact that my (your) own story is unique, important, and more complex than it seemed on the surface.

I am trying to understand some implications of this, like “If I accept that Sonder is true, and every life is its own unique, amazing story, different from my own in ways completely foreign to me; how can I understand anyone else’s story except as a reflection of my own? Is it possible to really connect with anyone else at all? What, when you get down to it, is connection?”

Or, alternately, “If I accept that Sonder is true, and every interaction I have with another human being—and by extension, the ways those interactions influence me—is the result of years of amazing and unique backstory completely unknown to me; then how can I understand my story except as an extension of every other story it has collided with? Is it possible to really separate my story, my identity, from anyone else’s at all? What, when you get down to it, is identity?”

And of course, therefore, by extension, “If I accept that Sonder is true, then I am both inextricably connected to everyone else on earth, and utterly incapable of truly connecting with anyone other than myself. Both of these conclusions are equally logical and valid, yet also clearly at odds with each other. How is this possible? What, when you get right down to it, is Sonder?”

One can’t go far in philosophy without running across questions that are big, connected, and contradictory like these. How do you go about addressing such questions? How do you answer all the questions you don’t have? Philosophers across time have had many different ideas about the best ways.

One such method is referred to in Zen Buddhism as a Koan. A Koan is a type of riddle, an idea or story or phrase that appears absurd and illogical, but through careful contemplation, some believe, you can get a glimpse of the basket in a way that straightforward language cannot express. For example: “If you have ice cream, I will give it to you. If you have no ice cream, I will take it away from you.”

Logically speaking, the two sentences appear ridiculous and nonsensical. But if you consider them carefully, you will realize they are, in fact, accurate, and maybe even profound. I’ll explain how later.

I do not know what the right way to answer these questions is. But I’m going to search for an answer to them anyway. I did warn you this blog was ill-advised, a fool’s errand. Still, perhaps folly isn’t as bad as people tend to think. William Shakespeare, a man whose works demonstrated an understanding of humanity arguably as profound as any other in recorded history, once wrote, “A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows he is a fool.” I believe this sentiment is in keeping with the Koan philosophy: the “wise” man dismisses the riddle as folly, but the “fool,” who ponders it, finds unspeakable wisdom.

And so, emboldened in my folly by two ancient wise men, I have decided to take this blog forwards following the words of a more recent wise man. Charles Fort, in his 1931 publication “Lo!” wrote: “We shall pick up an existence by its frogs. Wise men have tried other ways. They have tried to understand our state of being, by grasping at its stars, or its arts, or its economics. But, if there is an underlying oneness of all things, it does not matter where we begin, whether with stars, or laws of supply and demand, or frogs, or Napoleon Bonaparte. One measures a circle, beginning anywhere.”

No more deliberating on where to begin, then. What follows is this Ill-Advised Blog’s mission statement:

In order to fully come to terms with the idea that every life is a story, I have no choice but to recognize that my life is a story, too. My life is a story full of characters more real and three-dimensional than any I’ve ever read. My life is a story that I am writing all the time. And it’s a story in whose outcome—and in whose plotline, too—I have an extremely vested interest. And therefore, if I’m going to write this story as well as I can, I’d better make absolutely certain I understand the main character, the way he thinks, and how he relates to the other characters, as intimately as I possibly can. This is the Goal: Not to understand reality, but to examine the way that Insert Name Here thinks about various aspects of reality, and to consider how those opinions connect to each other and become Insert Name Here. I’ll do me. You do you. It’s my intention for the Ill-Advised Blog posts to be written in an open-ended fashion, so that each post becomes, not a 1,000 word insight into me, Sam, but rather, a description of an idea or concept for you to reflect upon; a koan, if you will. Hopefully, doing so will grant you a vital, maybe even non-verbal, insight into Insert Name Here.

Comments are encouraged. Guest posts are welcome.

I look forward to meeting me, and I hope you do, too.

PS: If you thought I was going to explain the ice cream riddle, then you've misunderstood how this works. But I wish you the best of luck in figuring it out!

Why I hate blogs (and why I’m starting one anyway)

Blogs are nothing but trouble from start to finish.

The principle trouble with blogs, (by which I mean personal blogs—not the sort of blogs expertly kept by people with a degree in blogging, who attend courses on the best way to use hashtags to promote a business, etc.) is that once you have one, you feel required to, on a regular basis, open your computer and jot down a few thousand words about something witty, profound, interesting, intelligent, prosaic, timely, unique, relatable and of course, grammatically correct in all aspects; all in one go and in under ten minutes because, by the way, the laundry still needs doing and you have an essay due in three days you haven’t started, someone needs picking up from somewhere, and more than likely something is about to be on fire. The cold, uncaring universe is a merciless timekeeper, and does not grant so much as an extra moment’s peace to the fledgeling blogger. Perhaps the cosmos is simply not a fan of the medium.

There are, of course, people for whom a blog is fairly easy. These people fall into three categories: 

     1) People on vacation. The internet is full of such blogs, taking up valuable domain names and untouched since all of five posts were made back in 2008. Indeed, I am guilty of perpetrating such a blog in times past, and I have no idea where it has gone. I suspect in may have been taken down due to inactivity, which is just as well. 

     2)  People with a Cause. These are people who have stumbled into some really interesting idea, such as recipes based on literature, or reviewing every Doctor Who episode ever, or putting up humorous fake notices everywhere possible. These are people who are impossibly inventive, never seem to run out of ideas, and are always have an interesting answer to the question “what did you do this weekend?” Everybody secretly wants to be this type of person, and yet you practically never meet one anywhere other than the internet. This suggests that either A) they don’t really exist, but are in fact an elaborate fiction designed by governments to keep people entertained, or B) there is a Secret Society of Really Creative people, sworn to secrecy and pretending at normal lives all around us, or C) we are all far more boring than we care to admit. 

     3) Interesting People and those who live with them. John Watson is such a person, and so is my friend Tatiana. These are people whose lives are filled with constant surprises, complications, and impromptu hilarity of the sort that tends to be distressing in the moment, but exciting and entertaining to tell people about. If a character played by Tim Allen would not be out of place in your everyday life, this is probably you.

Even before you can start a blog, you have to come up with a name and a domain that nobody else has taken. (Hint: every possible name you can think of has already been taken.) This name must be short, easy to remember, and include no words that are unusual, misspelled, or include random characters, unless you want to spend the rest of your life spelling it out to people. It must also perfectly relate your “angle,” the unique and narrow subject or approach that all of your witty, intelligent, polished, and hastily-written posts will follow. If you don’t have an angle, it must instead sum up your entire life and everything you are as a person, in five words or less.

Given all of this, why would anyone start a blog, unless they were one of the Chosen, destined from birth by holy prophecy “And Lo, he shall run an immensely popular blog about his cat, and the angels will rejoice at his posting”? What could have spurred me to take such an ill-advised course of action?

That’s…much harder to explain.  It starts, I suppose, with Johannes Vermeer.

Johannes Vermeer was born on Halloween, 1632, the son of a Dutch innkeeper, and died December 15, 1675. In between those dates, he was himself an innkeeper, then an art dealer, then a master artist. He had 11 children, a modestly successful though not particularly widely famous career, became the local guild master several times, and died in poverty age 43. And that’s pretty much all we know about his entire life. There are no surviving records of how he lived, who the people in his paintings were, or how he felt about anything. Birth certificates and guild rosters are the only documents that prove he existed, aside from the paintings hung in art galleries around the world.

Vermeer, one feels certain, would not have kept a blog. Heck, he didn’t even sign half of his paintings.

By contrast, consider Vincent Van Gogh. He was also a Dutch painter. He also died in poverty. He also has paintings in galleries around the world. But we know much more about Van Gogh, about his struggle with what was probably undiagnosed bipolar disorder; about the artists who were his contemporaries, mentors, and inspiration; about that one time he got really drunk with his mates and cut off part of his own ear; and about his violent death, generally thought to be suicide.

Van Gogh is considered by some to be the greatest painter the world has ever known, whereas at best, most people have heard of Vermeer at some point.

By complete coincidence, Vermeer’s name is strikingly similar to the English word ‘veneer’. A veneer is a thin decorative covering, like a varnish. It also means something pretty that lacks depth. Is there a connection? Most likely not. Yet undoubtedly Van Gogh’s work is enhanced by a knowledge of the pain and passion behind them in a way Vermeer’s will never be.

What does this have to do with me, though, you may be wondering. You may be pointing out that I am not a Dutch painter, and probably never will be. If so, you are correct. Well spotted. I am an amateur Anglo-American poet, actually, and I doubt my work will ever be known around the world, or even around the country. Why would my random musings be worth preserving then?

There is a word that has gained some notoriety on the internet. “Sonder.” It was invented by the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, which is a blog clearly run by one of “the Chosen,” (see above.) “Sonder” is defined as follows: Sonder, noun. The realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

Sonder is a beautiful word, and I have experienced moments of Sonder in my own life. But I also recently have been having moments of Self-Sonder: Moments of realizing that my life is a story, too, full of worries, craziness, a cast of the most diverse supporting characters and recurring extras; and an ongoing search to define myself, to advance my story, to reach towards some half-seen future self in whose presence I would feel as much in awe as I believe myself of six years ago would be to meet me now. I am real. I am alive. And however uninteresting each day of my life might seem to passersby without sonder, however unoriginal or scattered or ill-conceived my ideas might appear when lined up on a free webpage, they are mine, and for that alone, they are worth preserving.

There is no word for Self-Sonder, but if there was, I suspect it would sound something like “Blog.” And so, I have decided to ignore my doubts and attempt bloggery. Who knows how many posts I will actually write, or how many people will read them? I may give the whole thing up before next summer. I may write posts that are short and uninteresting, or worse, badly spelled. But I am not certain that any of that matters. Even a short-lived, Ill-advised blog can be a source of sonder.

I hope you will follow along, and share your thoughts with me, so I can join the Sonder too.

Well, here goes.