Author Archive: David Artman

“The Relic’s” Hopeful Imagery

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In “The Relic,” John Donne conducts a grand compliment to the woman he loves by way of holy and hopeful imagery. The poem is based upon the central image of a holy relic used to reference a simple lock of his loved-one’s hair, a lock which, “At the last busy day” of Final Judgment, will pull him and his love together, as their bodies re-assimilate upon holy disinterment. (ln.10) The piece goes on to present additional images, primarily religious, as in completes the concepts of reincarnation, profound love, and miracle.

The first stanza’s images are essential merely poetic devices of metaphor and metonymy. The “second guest” to be entertained by the grave “bed” which he once possessed are basically metaphors. (lns.2, 4) They suggest, however, that the stay in the grave is not indefinite; guests leave eventually, sleepers in beds wake up (even lovers leave beds eventually: a more fitting parallel because of the “women-head” polygamous suggestion). (ln.3) Thus already there is some suggestion of Christian mythology of reincarnation.

The second stanza is where the religious imagery congeals to set the holy tone for the entire work. Donne hopes, upon his digging-up, if this event occurs in a superstitious, idolatrous land, “where mis-devotion doth command,” that the digger will take his and his lover’s remains to “to the Bishop and the King” (thereby pegging Roman Catholicism, by association, as superstitious) to be made into “relics.” (lns.13, 15, 16) By this elevation of their base remains, they in turn are elevated (in the idolatrous society) to holy status—a status which Donne feels they deserve. They will then become “Mary Magdalen” and he “something else thereby.” (lns.17, 18) This religious allusion and his association “thereby” to it suggests perhaps that his lover is akin to a whore, though one forgiven, and that he is guilty as well and forgiven as well. (ln.18) It is tempting to suppose, at this point, that he and the women to whom he writes this poem had sexual relations, relations which her Roman Catholic upbringing has caused undue (in Donne’s opinion) guilt in her. The “harmless miracles” which the lovers “wrought” then could be an effort to both elevate this relationship of ‘sin’ as well as show its simple kernel. (ln.22)

Yet the third stanza opens with an enumeration of these miracles, and the foremost of them is chastity: “Difference of sex no more we knew,/ Than our guardian angels do.” (ln.25) They never, then, “touched those seals/ Which nature, injured by late law, sets free:” those of virginity or chastity. (lns.29-30) So the conciliatory tone of the poem is now nothing but celebratory or complimentary; there is no persuasion going on here; though Donne feels the freedom of sexual abandon to be injured by laws of chastity, he knows also that such resistance is miraculous and holy. The way is paved for the ‘Grand Compliment’ of the piece, where he expresses language and quantification’s inability to express “what a miracle she was.” (ln.33) He abandons the poem, almost anti-climatically, with a sense that this image of her miraculous nature must be expressed by not expressing it, by not ‘nailing it down’ in language or measure (meter).

Therefore, what begins as a poem suggestive of base and worldly matters, where sexuality is set up to be lauded in spite of Roman Catholic prudery, closes with a ‘double-cross’ of transcendence. The religious imagery of the piece, at first suggestive of Judgment, death, idolatry, forgiven sin, gives way to direct, non-imaginative language, where only the satisfying “meal” of a kiss intrudes its poetic device on the stanza. (ln.28) The holy transcends into the woman who is the subject, thereby making her, in effect, transcend the transcendent; though he could speak of death, Judgment, idolatry, and their actions on the earth with holy imagery, when the time comes to speak of “what a miracle she was,” no words, images, or verse will suffice. (ln.33) By not lauding, and explaining why, more praise than is possible is rained upon the lucky woman, Donne’s love.

May 5, 1993

By You The World

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The elms of the lawn exist, surely, just for this moment;
roots, trunk, branches, grown over decades
only to dapple Ra’s gaze into golden fire in your hair,
only to orchestrate the light and soft shadow
which dances on your cheek, hips, neck.

You stride strong back into my mind,
and your recognizing smile
slays the stoic warden
which my feelings,
in fear,
had bound.

Our growing rift halts its time-devouring yawn
and cries for bridging:
a deluge of desire, hope, and inquiry
rinses lucid lines from my thought.

My dream returns,
impatient,
kindled by the gentle breath of your words,
reaching.

The wind blows, surely, just for this moment;
sun, air, brown shadows,
stirred by the wings of butterflies
only to carry the husky whisper of your scent,
only to halo your face in swirling locks
which leap to the freeing sky….

Union

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A Fictionalized Treatise On Modern Marriage

This is an essay comparing the treatment of marriage
in fiction by Virginia Wolfe, Bernard Shaw, and D.H.Lawrence
from within a fictional framing story in which the principle characters
of Mrs.Dalloway, Man and Superman, and Women In Love
meet at a dinner party hosted by the author’s alter ego.

“Everything must be exactly right, James, understand? These guests are very important people, all of them, and I will not have them disappointed by our hospitality.”

The man-servant nodded deferentially to his employer Carter Manart, commenting, “From what you’ve told me of them, Carter, I am certain that even our most lax attentions would be appreciated.”(1)

Manart considered this statement a moment, shrugging finally and saying, “True; the Tanners don’t really stand on ceremony much, and the Birkins are satisfied more by intellectual fare than pageantry. But the Dalloways… they are professional party-goers; and though never criticizing directly, laxness will be remembered by them.” He strode around the ancient oaken table, spot-checking its recent refinishing and shining the odd smudge in its polish.(2) James had just finished setting it with the simple, black edged crockery and smooth crystal glasses, and Carter could not help but admire the contrast between the placemats’ coarse and basic weave and the table’s solid ostentation.(3)

“How many years has this table been in our family, Jim?”(4)

“To be honest, Carter, I’ve no idea…. When my father taught me it’s maintenance,(5) he told me how it had been refurbished in his youth from a simpler style into these Victorian flourishes; see, this routing is newer as well as these corner pieces with the frills.”(6) The butler’s finger traced a chiseled flower from its pistole down to its swirling root at the table’s leg. “Kind of old-fashioned looking these days… especially with what you’ve done with this dining room.” He glanced about with one eyebrow arched, then fixed a wry look on Manart.

Carter was still staring at the table. “Yes,” he said, in regards to the its antiquity. “But I am afraid to do too much to it yet; it’s so old and… well, honorable, if you see my meaning, that I would not have it reworked when I refurbished it for fear of, I don’t know, denigrating it?”(7) He looked quizitively at James, to see if the older man understood his sense. The butler nodded knowingly and returned his attention to the rest of the room, inviting Carter, with teasing glances, to share in the observing.

“Yes, but I won’t hold back on more minor decoration; after all, the room can be bared without too much expense.”

They both surveyed the room’s decor, one admiringly, the other, amusedly.(8) The walls were a madman’s pastiche of Realist portraits of old men and women (not all necessarily old in the paintings themselves), Impressionistic luminary blurs and Surrealist distortions of landscapes. Manart’s prize side wall, across from the dining room’s wide, tall windows, caddie-cornered one of Rembrandt’s grotesques and Bruegel’s Dutch pastorals with Monet’s “Waterlillies”, Goya’s “The Third of May”, and young Salvador’s, “Persistence of Memory”.(9) Also adorning the walls were sconces modified into gas lamps around the turn of the century, then into electrics in 1920, seven years ago.(10) The room’s huge crystal chandelier had also been electrified, and was now glowing warmly, casting sparkling flashes on the walls through its yellowed rose crystal. The floor’s uneven, smooth mahogany panelling was covered in the center by an Oriental rug of, predominantly, grays and bright red, overshadowing blue and purple flourishes.(11) It was on this rug that the ancient table and its surrounding Indian rattan chairs stood.(12) The only other furnishings in the room were large downy pillows strewn before the windows and a brass bar of sorts, stocked with liquor — mostly gin and scotch — and sours; it also was a tea service on those occasions when Carter actually bothered with a formal tea, which was seldom.(13)

“And if my tastes should change next month, following the whimsy of this age,” he continued, “I am sure to keep most of the paintings, will profit on those I get rid of, and will always know Sergeant-Major Brighlington in the Colonies — he’s entrenched there, poor sod.” (14)

“Yes, well, I don’t know what your father would have thought–”

“Oh, he’d’ve hated it, of course; if only because I’d tossed out those dreadful trophies and beasts’ heads leering down and making one question the source of the dinner’s steaks.” They both laughed; Carter, more heartily. “But he was a kind enough old chap-” here Carter caught himself and glanced to see James’ still visage “-except to you, though…. Look, friend, I really am sor–“(15)

James’ mood lightened and he forced a grin. “No, Carter, don’t bother yourself, I’ve told you. It was the times….”

“Pathetic in so many ways, yes. I really am–”

“Enough. I must check on the hors-d’oeuvres and you’d better change; the guests are expected in an hour.”(16)

Carter watched James bow slightly, out of habit, and turn and walk out through the kitchen’s door, shutting it quietly behind him.

He turned and stepped toward the windows, his back to the table and prize wall, and stared out across the gardens.

The sun was dangling over the woods west of the house, about an inch away from hiding, casting a lurid orange haze on Manart’s young but wizenning face. He relished its glow and thought to himself how the sunset would thrill his sensitive guests an hour hence as it purpled the horizon and draped magic over the room. He would keep the electrics low until absolutely needed, set a close atmosphere for the night; for he wanted the truest confidence and advisement of these, his new friends. A few questions burned in him to be released from their spiraling, contentious gyres and he knew no better group to which to pose them.(17)

“So where exactly are these to be placed, Carter?” James held a small stack of cards, folded so that they would stand like little tents.

Manart snapped his right cufflink into place, shaking his wrist to get the loose jacket’s sleeve to lie. “Hell of a question, James; I’m not real certain of the etiquette of these things, or even if the guests will appreciate etiquette of this pigeon-holing sort.”(18) He took the cards from the black man’s pink palm. “I mean, there’s only the three couples, so if I put the couples side-by-side, then one couple must sit sort of at the periphery.”

“Does it really matter?”

“I don’t know; that’s why I’m so concerned about it. I would just seat them myself, but they’re all older than me, it would seem strange. And I don’t know if they would take to being seated by you — no offense, friend.”

“It would be their offense if they were so; relax, Carter.” He walked to stand beside the table, setting down a handful of flatware with a muted clatter. Pointing, he said, “Why don’t you have Mr. Tanner here,” indicating the right hand of the table’s head, “Mrs. Tanner here,” across from Jack Tanner’s seat, “then likewise boy-girl across from each other with the Birkins next down and the Dalloways furthest from the head. That way no couple is excluded, and age is the only hierarchy from the head –barring you, of course.”

Manart pondered this a moment, then said, “Fine, whatever; God I hate worrying over such niceties. I certainly hope they aren’t offended.”

James waved dismissively. “You said yourself that the Tanners were a relaxed crew; so too the Birkins. That should be a majority, so don’t worry about the Dalloways.”

Here Carter laughed aloud. “‘Don’t worry about the Dalloways’ he says! Richard’s ONLY an MP, for God’s sake…. Although, I don’t suspect he’d hold a grudge or anything of the sort. But it only takes a disapproving word to that meddlesome Bruton and she’ll have her ‘Cabinet’ dragging my shipyards through the mud in the press, no pun intended.”(19) He pulled out the flaring chair at the table’s foot and dropped heavily into it. “God I need a drink.” He turned to face James who had moved to stand near the kitchen door, behind and to the right of Carter. “Is it alright to serve a drink before the meal, James?”(20)

“Actually, one is supposed to do so; it’s called an ‘aperitif’.”

“Brilliant!” Carter exclaimed. “Be sure to; it should loosen our guests, and I know it will help me.”

Almost as if on cue, the men could hear the voice of the maid greeting someone rather loudly, probably to warn them. Manart dealt the placecards rapidly, like their gaming cousins, while James strode to the double doors to throw them wide with aplomb just as Jack Tanner and his wife Ann reached the threshold.

“Mister and Misses Jack Tanner, Mister Manart!” announced the maid to Carter, who now stood before the doors, legs planted wide (to forbear trembling) and arms spread in a gesture of welcome.

He visibly withered as Ann cursorily said, “Mister Jack Tanner and Misses Ann Whitefield-Tanner, actually, dear.”(21) There was a mischievous glimmer in her eye as she nodded to the maid, who had only the darkness of her skin to thank for hiding the flush of her embarrassment.

Carter recovered quickly, making his first mental note of the night.(22) “My apologies, madam; Margaret did not know the proper etiquette, for which I am solely to blame.” Her took her offered hand and lightly planted a kiss on its back, looking downward. “It is so good to see you again after our too-brief meeting in the Halls. You have honored the House of Manart by accepting my invitation to this informal dinner.” He bowed deeper, with flourish.

“Isn’t he cute, Jack?” Ann teased, turning to smile at her husband.(23)

Carter’s pale-skinned face did not mask his blush so well as had Margaret’s ebony.

“Oh, don’t let her addle you, Mister Manart!” Tanner heartily cried, clapping Carter on the shoulder and seizing his hand for a single, vigorous pump.(24)

“Please, feel free to call me Carter, Mister Tanner–”

“Not if you call me by my father’s name, I won’t! Jack, agreed?” His grin was infectious.

“And please call me Ann; my surname is a bit too unwieldy for friendly conversation.” Mrs. Whitefield-Tanner’s beauty struck Carter to his soul as her smile melted from wicked to confiding; her forties were treating her no worse than had her thirties or twenties.

Again Jack spoke: “And who is this” indicating James “an African! My, but you are an oddity here in the Dales; what’s your name, sir?” He extended his hand.(25)

“James, Mister Tanner,” the servant answered, clasping hands. “It is a pleasure to meet such an outspoken champion of human freedom.”

“An it is a pleasure to meet one of its inheritors,” Jack countered, beaming with a grand blend of honor and pride. “And call me Jack, alright?” He capered toward the door, leaning into the hall to holler, “Everybody call me Jack, do you hear?!” He traipsed back, his eyes laughing. “When is the aperitif served?”

“Hear, hear!” laughed Carter; and taking the Tanners one on each arm, he strolled into the room proper, gesturing for them to sit, his nervousness melted away in their warmth.

They sat side-by side on the right of the head before noticing the placards.

“Oh, apologies, good master Manart,” said Jack, holding up Ann’s (or, rather, Rupert Birkin’s) card, “we didn’t know this was formal.”

Carter blushed again, only slightly, and replied, “Well, it isn’t, really… I’m merely somewhat new to this sort of affair, and…. Oh, sit where you will!” he laughed, “I want friends here, and there are, after all, no Rolls at the podium, right?”

The Tanners laughed at the allusion to Parliament. “Good,” Jack said, “I would hate to break my long-held habits!” For he sat on the right, an odious rank for him, were this Commons.(26)

Just then there was heard footsteps in the hall, one set Margaret’s light quick tread, the other two sets mingling, but not exactly in unison.(27)

“Mister and Misses Birkin?” said the maid uncertainly, as she reached the open double doors. She stepped to one side and Ursula Birkin strode forward, side-by-side with her husband Rupert, who was looking somewhat quizzically at Margaret as he passed.(28)

Carter moved from Jack’s side, as he and Ann rose to greet the new arrivals, and with a sweep of his arm said, “Be welcome in the home of Manart,” trying his best to achieve oxymorous relaxed obeyance.(29)

“Why thank you, Mister Manart,” said Mrs. Birkin. Then, seeing the Tanners, said to Rupert, “look, dear, it’s the Tanners. Didn’t we meet in Ausberg?” This was to Ann in particular.

“Sure, we almost crashed into one another on the south slope of Mount Something-stein; I’ll never forget what you said: ‘Destiny forces all greats into conflict’, or something like that. It is good to see you again; what a shame it took our young lobbyist friend in Commons to bring us together here.” She moved to embrace Ursula, smiling warmly at Rupert in the process.

“We’re hardly ever in Britain,” spoke Rupert, finally entering the conversation, “Europe is so full of things to experience, each day offers fifty new lives to one who would take them.”(30) He stepped forward to shake hands with Carter and Jack.

“Well, I’m glad I ran into you two at The Boar and Board last week,” replied Carter. He turned to Jack, “We had the longest talk — the three of us- about your speech at Parliament, the one on women’s suffrage, and I said, ‘So I’ve invited the Tanners to a little dinner party with the Dalloways, sort of a meeting of the camps’ and they were so delighted by the prospect that I could not help but include them, much to Margaret’s dismay — she had everything planned already.” He was babbling, but the friendly air of this group of bright minds could only loosen his excitable tongue.(31)

“Glad you did, son,” said Jack heartily, then to Rupert, “and if I may ask, sir, where do you stand on the vote — though I suspect by your deference to this fair femme that I know?”

“Oh, of course women should have the vote; they have ever been the more practical of the species,” Rupert replied sincerely, his eyes flashing at the prospect of the night of intellectual communion to come.(32)

“But they have yet to develop the experience with national issues, affairs of state.” A new voice, clear, if a bit tremulous, rang in the room.(33)

“Mister and Misses Dalloway,” said Margaret, belatedly and a bit perfunctorily. “I’ll be getting the first course ready; dinner will be served in five minutes.”

“Yes, ma’am!” said Carter smartly, saluting the maid and glowing with mirth over her obvious consternation at having her role as announcer usurped. “Welcome, Mister and Misses Dalloway.” He had tensed, but only a wee bit, at the surprise arrival and curt entrance into the debate; now, he played the perfect host.(34) “I trust you know Ann Whitefield-Tanner and Jack Tanner….”

The Dalloways nodded politely to Richard’s latest political rivals, exchanging customary murmurrings.

“And these are the Birkins,” said Carter, gesturing to Ursula and Rupert, “recent friends of mine.” Then, before any contention could get underway, he sweepingly indicated the table. “Shall we all have a seat, the aperitif is hot on the heels of the Dalloways.”

“Excellent,” said Jack, as he and Ann resumed the seats they had first occupied.

The Birkins sat across from them, Rupert at the head, laughing that his name was now ‘Ann.’ Mrs. Dalloway hitched for but a moment, finally taking her seat where her card was, beside Ursula, smiling and looking closely at her as while daintily lighting on the rattan’s motley cushion.(35) Dalloway moved to sit on her left, then noticed there was no place set there and circled the table to sit by Mrs. Whitefield-Tanner. He nodded civilly to her in sitting.

“Should be a Hell of a lot of fun tonight, Cart!” said Jack, reaching behind Ann to jovially clap Richard Dalloway on his shoulder.

Dalloway laughed politically, shaking out his linen napkin and placing it on his lap.

The first courses were consumed heartily by all, the lateness of the supper and the day’s heat having bred fierce appetites in them all. While waiting for the first entree, Jack had casually opened the discussion of suffrage which was the overt intent of Carter’s invitations of them.

As expected, the debate was heated, while remaining civil and respectful.

The Tanners, being its strongest proponents, argued the most convincingly for the vote. Jack’s combination of endearing witticisms and searing observation left the conservative Richard frequently on the defensive, a position with which he was, at least, familiar.(36) On frequent occasion, Ann would let flash some anger with Dalloway’s stubborn doubt over women’s capacities, but each time Jack calmed her with a stroking palm or redirection of the point of discussion.(37)

Ursula Birkin was, primarily, a supporter of Jack and Ann’s view, offering anecdotes from her travels which would serve to reinforce some nicety of the debate. She did, however, feel that a certain training period for women voters might be in order, if only to smooth the transition into this near-universal suffrage.(38) Rupert, meanwhile, stayed on the margins of the debate, preferring, with Clarissa Dalloway, to absorb the room and its view’s scenery.(39) At one point, he had tried to steer the conversation to the natural sublime; but this attempt had been made while Jack was marshaling a refutation of Richard, seeking it in a stewed potato, and the interruption was swept politely aside.

During this half hour of conversation and consumption, Carter had remained fairly quiet, offering only his support for suffrage –universal suffrage, a point too unwieldy to gain much interest in the heat of the smaller debate– and then reclining to watch the play of his guests. He most wanted to be assured that they were enjoying themselves, staying on friendly terms, and otherwise merely being themselves, for it was in their interaction that his true end in throwing the party was served.

As the discussion reached the impasse which it had reached for months in Parliament, he took it as his cue to open the floor for his debate. He cleared his throat, dabbed a corner of his mouth, and leaned into the group.

“Well, I can see that there is some strong difference of opinion here on this, understandable in light of our essential differences. Jack and Ann are of the radical cast — Jack in particular –, the Birkins are seemingly a bit above the issue, and our friends the Dalloways are from an older tradition of propriety and custom: something which should not too lightly be trounced.” He cast a wry look at Jack, who could not suppress a snigger, in part at Carter’s audacity, in part at his veracity.

With the debate thus closed by coming full circle, Carter continued, “But there is one point in which all of you seem to concur, one with which, lately, I have become concerned.”

The group looked to one another, trying to guess at the subject they shared, so crypticly expressed by their host.

“Why, I speak of marriage; you all agree that the institution of marriage is appropriate.”

There was a general exhalation or snort and a clamor ensued, nearly all speaking at once.(40)

“Oh, lad, you know where to push the buttons,” exclaimed Jack.(41)

“Oh, no; here we go,” sighed Ann.(42)

“It’s interesting you should say that,” mused Rupert.(43)

“There you are, dearest,” laughed Ursula to Rupert.(44)

“But of course,” puffed the Dalloways, nearly in stereo.(45)

A brief silence descended like a thunderclap on the room, everyone realizing that they were speaking over one another. Then laughter rippled around the table, and Carter said, “The reason I ask is that I’ve been involved with a delightful actress for nearly a year now, and I feel as if marriage is the next step.(46) The only rub is that I am not certain what exactly that institution is anymore, and I wish to know your opinions, being my only acquaintances who, if I may so say, are entrenched in the convention.”

“Not only may you say that,” stated Jack with gusto, “but you are most accurate in your choice of verbs.” This exclamation elicited an elbow in the ribs from Ann; she was smiling, however.

Rupert leaned forward, a penetrating look in his eyes, and replied, “But marriage need never be an ‘entrenchment’. It is possible to maintain a balance between the individuals and the union of those individuals.” He faced Carter. “You should resist with all of your soul that horrible fusion in marriage which is traditional in our heritage; a fusion which leads to such terms as ‘wedlock’.”(47)

Jack was intrigued by Rupert’s proclamation and sought deeper explanation. “You don’t feel that something is surrendered in marriage, that the forces in nature, in Life itself, which compel union forbear separate identity? Though I would like to call myself free and separate, I know full well, and accept, that a great part of my identity is tied up in this thing here.”(48) He thumbed towards Ann humorously, and had a bruise added to the one forming on his ribs. “You see? Where else but in matrimony would I tolerate the violence done on my person in just the past few moments?”

“Oh, come along, now,” countered Ursula, “you would take just such a jab from Rupert were it as good-natured and affectionate.(49) As I have come to understand Rupert’s idea of individuals in equilibrium, we enter into marriage to fulfill the individual’s purpose in being, on the one hand procreation, yet even more so self-definition.” She took Rupert’s hand.

He continued where she left off. “Yes, and via this ‘star- equilibrium’, where the two are bright and whole and held in balance by their own gravid attraction to one another, the individual’s orbit is perturbed — not in the sense of disturbed, but in that it achieves the wobble, if you will, that it is meant to have.” He sat back a bit; then his brow furrowed a bit as he saw Jack perk and anchor to his diction.

“Wobble, son; yes, you’ve got that right.” Jack chuckled and took a sip of sherry. “Wobbling like a drunken sailor down the road, leaving the sight where he was waylaid!”(50)

At this point, Clarissa spoke for the first time in some time. “But Mister Tanner, there is something to be said for the compartmentalization of home building. A married couple is partners in life, each complementing the other and helping the other overcome hurdles which would thwart the lone voyager in the world.” She looked at Ursula, almost as if for approval. Ursula faintly smiled, depth of meaning in her eyes as they held contact.(51)

Rupert softly said, “That’s certainly another way to put it.”(52)

Clarissa continued, burgeoned by the Birkins’ support. “And further, Mister Tanner, you are, after all, married yourself, to a lovely wife. How can you be so cynical about marriage then?”

Jack, rocking back with a creak of rattan, replied, “I am at the whim of the Life Force. I must succumb to its purposes and wed and mate and contribute my share of sperm to the gene pool so that Mankind may, over the generations, become the gods they are intended to be.”

Clarissa flushed at Jack’s crude statement, and Richard took this as his cue to speak up, “Listen, Tanner, this is no place for such barbarity; surely you can make your point without reference to bodily fluids.” He glanced at Clarissa to note her reaction to his defense of the women’s honors.(53)

Jack and Ann both rumbled with mirth, and he deferred to her, letting her point out, “But, Richard, you just did so yourself. And in the company of ladies and their honors!”

Richard flushed at being so caught in his own words, and the rest of the group laughed good-naturedly. Carter, nevertheless, saw that the conversation was straying into the dead ground already trod by the suffrage debate and redirected the people’s attention by saying, “But suppose, friends, that she does not turn out to be the right one? How can I be certain?”

“You can’t, really,” Ursula answered. “You have to trust what your heart tells you. If it proclaims your love for this woman resoundingly enough, that must be your guide.”

“Plus, the Life Force will let you know,” Jack added calmly. “If it has decided, you really have no choice.”

“I dare say we agree on something,” said Clarissa, somewhat surprised, “though I don’t think I would put it so mechanisticly, so inexorably.”

“But that, good Clarissa, is precisely what it is, ultimately,” Jack returned, smiling kindly, almost condescendingly. “The ends of the Universe are far stronger than one man’s aspirations or beliefs. We merely decide whether or not to fight them, fruitlessly. I, for one, know I am to lose my battle against this dove.”(54) Here he beamed at Ann, and she at him. If he had more point, it was lost in their silent communion, and Richard took the floor.

“But that choice to fight is a freedom we have. If we love our intended, we will not choose; if we do not, the din of battle will drown out Life’s pleas and arguments.”

“And leave you a wandering, lost star, shining into the void and seeing no light to answer your song.” Rupert was aglow and tears glistened in his eyes. Ursula bowed her head, but reached over to lay her hand on his forearm.(55)

“Take it from me, that is the truth.” Everyone turned to face Clarissa who had said this distantly and with faint tears in her own eyes.(56) Richard reached past his treacle to clasp her hand and whisper something the others did not hearken to hear.

Night had completely descended and the room was suffused with the steady, yellow glow of the electrics. The table was clear and Carter was lost in thought over all that he had heard from his new friends. Marriage today, it seemed, was more a partnership than it had been in his father’s day of property and possession. His love for the actress was strong, he knew; else he honestly would not have taken his precious time to concern himself with their future. He understood the demands of the Life Force as expressed by Jack. Further, he welcomed the polarity and individuality of Rupert’s star equilibrium. The idea of another helping one define oneself, rather that defining one (as with the Dalloways, specifically Clarissa) spoke to his inner need to be his own man, while ameliorating his frightening craving for union with another, a woman, a lover. That there could still be significance in the marital relationship, without self-insignificance being a result, empowered him, spoke both to the traditions of love which formed his herital core and the urge for isolation in the soul’s core.

He looked slowly at each of his guests, marveling at their love for their spouses and, in all but Richard, their truth to their selves. The couples were silent and happy. The Tanners held hands and stared into each other’s eyes; the Birkins softly touched one another’s arms and were lost in private reveries; the Dalloways still held hands across the table, Clarissa staring at her nearly empty glass and Richard looking over her shoulder at a David on the wall.

Carter cleared his throat and, as everyone broke their meditations, said, “Well, friends, I thank you whole-heartedly for you advisement on this most important concern of mine.”

“Was it of any assistance?” asked Rupert, feelingly.

“Why, yes, Rupert,” answered Carter slowly, a soft, distant smile creeping onto his face. “Yes, it was; and I would like to take this opportunity to invite you all to my wedding”—a pleased murmur danced around the table—”which should be in the fall, if my love accepts.”

“We’ll be sure to be in the country,” said Ursula, as everyone else also stated their acceptance of the invitation.

The party broke up a while later; and as the Tanners donned their coats and passed out the front door, James came up behind Carter and commented, “It will be nice to have a lady in the house again; it always seemed sort of empty without a mistress.”

“And I will be sure she is no mistress, James,” Manart responded, turning to face his friend with a loving smile.

The butler nodded and began to move toward the dining room, to straighten it up.

“By the way, James,” added Carter, “tomorrow I would like you to help me move the dining room table into the library. Then we shall go out to purchase a round table that suits the room.”

“Very good, Carter.”

Annotations

1 ) James’s familiarity represents Modernistic rejection of class distinction and is suggestive of the relationship between Jack Tanner and Henry Straker in (A).

2 ) Throughout the work, this table will be symbolizing modern marriage, the thematic thrust of this Fictionalized essay. The refinishing and smudges in the polish represent the iconoclastic redefinitions of the institution of marriage attempted by the Modernists and their vagaries thus far. In particular, Shaw struggles with these new definitions in (B).

3 ) Basic setting symbolizes Modernist retreat from ceremony and pomp in marriage, placing emphasis instead on its practical character and ends.

4 ) The answer attempt to allude to antiquity, even Adam and Eve, for mating and marriage are as old as the humanity in homo sapien.

5 ) Suggestive of the patriarchal tradition of marriage prior to Modernism.

6 ) The Victorian refurbish is from the simple, natural Romantic past; specifically the constraint (“routing”) reintroduced by the Victorians.

7 ) Suggestive of Carter Manart’s uncertainty about the character of Modernism, specifically Modern marriage, the resolving of which is to be the frame story of this essay.

8 ) The room is symbolic of Modernism as a movement in general, encapsulating its past, influences, and character in its time.

9 ) The Rembrandt suggests Europe’s post-Renaissance; Bruegel, Romanticism’s pastoral ideals; Monet, Victorianism’s hazy, idyllic optimism; Goya, the dark side of revolution and change; and the anachronistic Dali, the quest to “make it new” and, as its title suggests, the persistent remnants of the past and tradition.

10) My ‘tip-o-the-hat’ to the Industrial Revolution’s positive achievements.

11) Grey represents the ambiguous moral posture of the Modern era, especially World War I, which is symbolized by the red. Purple and blue flourishes are symbolic of the old aristocracy, being overshadowed by the middle (gray) and working (red, for the Labor party and Communism) classes. Thus, the gray and red serve a doubly symbolic purpose.

12) Suggestive both of the fascination in the Modern period with the Orient and the fact that Britain’s society (the table, in part) rested on the backs of its Colonies, especially the non- white ones of China and India.

13) More iconoclasm; today, formal tea has become almost a joke throughout most of British society.

14) Like England was becoming complicated in the Indies.

15) James is black and old Mr. Manart was too like his Southern US counterparts.

16) James is older, and this, in keeping with Modernist semi- iconoclasm, commands respect over the employer-employee relationship. See Mrs. Dalloway and Ms. Kilman’s complex ‘bidirectional hierarchy’ in (H) for a parallel of this employer deference to employee.

17) Ha! I got you! I’m not spilling all of the frame story’s surprises at once. (Editor’s Note: please forgive such levity on Mr. Artman’s part; he is quite excited about this whole thing, you understand.)

18) The iconoclastic Carter has his reservations over which edifice to ignore: class, age, rank. One must implicitly be recognized due to the hierarchical nature of a long, square table.

19) By way of background, Manart is his own lobbyist in Commons, petitioning on behalf of his inherited shipping business. This, in effect, implies that the business is not doing very well, else he would have someone do this for him.

20) Like any busy youth in this pre-depression piece, he does not know all of the social mores and procedures. It will later be revealed that this is his first formal (though informal) dinner party.

21) At this point it should be explained that in characterizing each couple, I am trying to project their relationships into the future as would be most probable based on the thematic resolutions of their particular source authors. Subsequently, the couple’s will hold more and more similar views the longer they have been married. Thus, Ann Whitefield-Tanner is, in her choice of surname, asserting the power granted her in the relationship by the Life Force as well as her own individuality. Furthermore, she has developed more of the wry, playful humor that characterized Jack Tanner in (A) and has, it will become evident, lost her tendency to lie to cast a favorable light upon herself. This honesty only further emphasizes the fact that she has been victorious in Life’s eternal struggle between means and vessel of Its culmination.

22) This mental note is, simply, that Ann has an assertive character, even after marriage: she is the first of the Tanners to speak, and her first works are playful mockery of her host’s servant.

23) Ann has learned iconoclasm from her husband in their twenty-two years of marriage, and is amused by Carter’s bombastic formalities.

24) Marriage, for Jack, has still not come to mean deference to his wife’s whimsy.

25) Jack’s interest is far from racist, as should become evident.

26) He would, of course, sit on the left of Commons with Labor. I have had old Jack elected to Parliament, and this is, in fact, where he and Carter met on formal grounds; this party is the first informal meeting of their, thus the introductions.

27) The first allusion to star equilibrium is their nearly synchronized treads.

28) Not having been present for her previous introductory faux pas, Rupert wonders at the uncertainty Margaret evinces in their introduction.

29) As will soon be show, like the Tanners, the Birkins are recent acquaintances of Carter’s, and he is struggling to maintain a balance between the party’s informality and the reverence he feels is due to his seniors and unintimate friends.

30) The Birkin’s have remained true to their desire to break all connections with society and have been traveling in Europe the past seven years, since their union. Note also that Ursula asserts herself first. This is not an example of her sensual dominance, but rather merely indicates that she is not behind (in the sense of subservient) her husband. And unless they are to speak in unison, one of them must open his or her mouth first.

31) Here I should note that I do not, in this draft, intend to explore their opinions on women’s suffrage. Rather, this was the issue of the day and I feel it is the most appropriate one which would draw these diverse people together. It, thus, is a device more than a theme.

32) This echoes Rupert’s passion for the intellectual as portrayed in (E).

33) The only remotely respectable conservative argument.

34) This parallels Peter Walsh’s accusation of Clarissa Dalloway’s perfectionism in (H).

35) My crude, ignorant efforts at suggesting the homoerotic impulses to be found in Clarissa and which are emphasized by Jane Marcus in (L).

36) I am presuming that the obviously greater wit written into Jack’s character has proved quite difficult for Richard in Parliament.

37) This is not his dominance, but rather his matrimonial ability to sooth fruitless wrath, something I imagine he has had to do often when bringing her to Parliament’s highly formal halls.

38) In this dichotomy between the Dalloways and the Tanners, the Birkins are naturally assuming a middle ground, as would be appropriate for their rather distant association of late with Britain and its issues. Further, as the intellectuals of the group, they must seek the harmonious compromises, the balances which can satisfy both sides… much like their marriage arrangement.

39) Conversely, a middle ground can be found by leaving the field of battle all together….

40) What follows (while also being reminiscent of Churchill’s dialogging) is a succinct summary of the characters’ general attitudes towards the subject of marriage. While not exactly a thesis statement, the passage is a tone-setter.

41) Mating is Jack’s favorite subject in (A).

42) See the last lines of (A): “Talking!”

43) Ever the intellectual’s introductory statement.

44) An acknowledgment of Rupert’s ‘authority’ on this complex point. She has, I am assuming, come to his camp on the issue of star equilibrium while, in keeping with that idea, maintaining her individual self; later, she, too, will have her say on the subject, as is meet.

45) A good score for this stereo statement would be Fiddler on the Roof’s “Tradition.”

46) That actress is the first non-tonal hint at my Shavian leanings in the character of Carter, my analog.

47) A blending of nearly verbatim quotes from (E) and (G).

48) “Thing” is in part a jocular statement, and in part an expression of the embodiment of the female drive in woman, a drive which is the spawn of the Life Force.

49) Ursula is, now that they are married, no stranger to Rupert’s desire for a union with the other, a semi-homoerotic interaction with another man.

50) A jocular expression of the deterministic qualities of the Life Force’s press into mating.

51) I am really trying for homoerotic overtones here; be gentle in your mockery of their crudity. Woolf made Mrs. Dalloway into a woman with a bright memory of a past female love, and I am merely trying to show how an older woman can anchor this glimmer of the past in the present, giving it a new lease on life, if you will.

52) Birkin is not quite satisfied with this practical expression of his more idealistic belief in equilibrium, one which would not necessarily involve complementation, but more likely, reflection.

53) Note how it took an offense to draw Richard into this intellectual debate; he is no powerhouse of thought, but he will be riled by a affront to his conservative ideals of propriety and honor. The next sentence parallels his ‘love for effect’ which he practices in (H) with the surprise roses.

54) This note is here just because I had to toot my use of contrast between the metaphor of battle and the reference to dove of peace. Clever, eh? (Editor’s Note: Once again, I am force to make an apology for Mr. Artman’s levity….)

55) Suggestive of Rupert’s continuing pain over the loss of Gerald and also of Ursula acceptance of his need for the Other.

56) Clarissa shares Rupert’s sentiment for a lost other.

Bibliography

Bernard Shaw

  • Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman. 1903
  • “Preface to Getting Married”, 1908 (Ayot St. Lawrence Edition of The Collected Works of Bernard Shaw)
  • St. John Ervine, Bernard Shaw: His Life, Work and Friends. Morrow & Co.: New York, 1956.
  • Anthony S. Abbott, Shaw and Christianity. Seabury Press: New York, 1965

David Herbert Lawrence

  • D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love. 1920, 1922
  • David Cavitch, D.H. Lawrence and the New World. Oxford University Press: New York, 1969
  • Mark Spilka, The love ethic of D.H. Lawrence. Indiana University Press: Bloomington & London, 1955 (1966)

Virginia Woolf

  • Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway. 1925
  • Jean Guiguet (transl. Jean Stewart), Virginia Woolf and Her Works. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: New York & London, 1962
  • Hermione Lee, The Novels of Virginia Woolf. Holmes and Meier: New York, 1977
  • Jane Marcus, Virginia Woolf and the Languages of Patriarchy. Indiana University Press: Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1987

Isolation Of The Builder

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There are few men in the galaxy for whom life is an exhilarating surprise, a merciful relief.

One of these few was Technician Thrace Soleman (ID# Astro.A159FC6B) as his ship, the Willie Mays, reentered normal space. Though living all his life in space—tesseracting hither and yon, withstanding gravities from nil to seven times Sol.Earth norm—he had always held his breath right before breaching essential space due to an almost unconscious foreboding that, for some reason, this tess—out of all the hundreds occurring at the same moment throughout the Milky Way, out of all the millions having occurred in the past—would go wrong.

He was, put simply, glad that sense experience had resumed; and he exhaled noisily, a grin teasing one corner of his mouth.

Technically, from his perspective the trip had taken no time as he was not psychically sensitive; there was no real (i.e. four-dimensional) interruption in his life. Yet, the Willie Mays had just completed an 8700 lightyear journey away from the edge of the Milky Way. Reclined on his cot, Soleman was staring through one section of the ship’s hull which had been left transparent; it revealed nothing but a few specks of light to the “north” of the ship and a slight glow of the Milky Way bleeding from the down side. So where is the rock?

Thrace extended the foot-hand of a wiry leg towards the cot above him and, grabbing its sideboard, swung himself into an upright position. He, with a startled yell, kept swinging up, around and back down onto the upper bunk. Only his mercurial flexibility and reflexes anchored his other foot to the bunkframe, preventing him from rebounding off its netting and back around into his cot again. His green hair swirled about his face in mockery of Great Newton.

“Where’s spin, for Its sake!” he bellowed into the intercom. He was accustomed to three gravities of spin when in a holding pattern. Stupid of me, really. After all, the view outside is obviously standing still.

There had been no reply from the pilots.

“Hai, Coordinator!” he called to the ship’s supervisor, Illyana Melder (ID# Astro.A15933C4). “C’mon, Illie, we couldn’t’ve lost you, Vrandium-mind.” The tight shades of worry began creeping onto his square, lined face.

Coordinator Melder was reputed as having the strongest will of any ship coordinator in the Human Stellar League. She had logged over five hundred tesseracts and had lived at least seventeen thousand years of subjective time during those breaches. Admittedly, at times she seemed distant and cold to others; those among them who were pilots understood perfectly. Nevertheless, the cyber-media had sensationalized her achievements by nicknaming her after the hardest metal known to Third Epoch human science; a metal which reflects all warmth cast at it.

There was still no reply.

Oh, man, after all those years, to snap now! Of course, this is probably the most uninvolved tess she’d ever made. Sailing one gravitational curve would’ve gotten pretty damned boring, I bet. Wait a minute! I’m already thinking in past tense, give them a chance. And them it was, for no one had responded to his hail; not the coordinator, neither of the sailors, and not the engine manager. If none of them were responding then most likely something had gone very wrong in tess-space. They were all psychically linked, as well as linked cybernetically with psychic circuits to the tessdrive, prior to breaching; little problems could become quite big with this intimacy. But, no. Nothing could have taken them all out.

And yet, there was no reply at all.

Anxiously, Thrace thumbed open the iris door and floated into the corridor outside the crew’s quarters. The rounded, functionally decorated hallway ran “eastward” to the commissary and “westward” to the recreation facilities and gymnasium. Across from Soleman were the labs, but there would be no one in them as there were but five people, including himself, on the ship. A short way westward, half of the hall split into a laddered chute running vertically through the ship. Leaping up to grab a rung on the ceiling, he pulled himself, foot over hand, towards the chute, bounding and covering the thirty meters like a fleeing rabbit. He arced upward and yanked himself bridge-ward, travelling so quickly that the floor-iris into the room above barely got out of his way. He soared into the control room, bending and flipping to grab the ceiling and absorb his momentum in his legs.

The clash of opposites in the room numbed his senses; it was not for several seconds that he truly perceived the carnage.

The ceiling was mostly transparent, but let in only a milky glow, there being no stars above it within a few million light years; this haze blended soothingly with the bridge’s lighting. The room’s graceful symmetry and efficiency starkly contrasted with the obvious tragedy that, with the quiet, cruel air of broken assurances, had occurred here. The simple room’s metal walls held only dark panes of acrylic in various sizes: either scanners or viewing screens. Furnishings were sparse at the moment; there were only four couches extruding from the floor which hid a plethora of other possible furnishings. The coordinator’s couch was central, just north of the vertical axis of the ship. South of the axis was the couch from which the engine manager manipulated the delicately massive tesseract drive in its starts, millisecond bursts, decade-long calibrations, and soul-wrenching stops. Finally, to the east and west of the axis, close to the room’s walls, lay the two sailors’ couches. They were the most gruesome to behold.

Three quarters of a body was reclined on each of the plastic and foam couches. Where the remaining quarter, the heads and necks, should have been, there were only large, brown, viscous stains and white shards stuck into the chairs. The globular gel smoked slightly and the charcoal smell of burnt synthsteaks filled the room. The occupants of the other two couches seemed whole in the dim cyan light emitted by the phosphorescent tracklights on the walls. They were, however, sprawled like two discarded rag dolls and their eyes were wide and burnt black, their faces frozen in agonized caricatures of laughter.

A scream would have found its way out of Thrace’s mouth had his jaw not been reflexively clenched against the rising bile in his throat. Instead, only a strangled grunt echoed in the silent chamber. He stared, wide-eyed and unbelieving, instinctual fear and repulsion at the scene causing the pores of his skin to dilate (but not to sweat, that was engineered out of his race eons ago). Perversely, the only clear thought to come to his mind was Hope that doesn’t get into the steering circuits; I can’t fix psywires. A futile hope for someone incapable of piloting tess-space.

He was finally broken out of his shock by a soft pinging noise and a sharp pain in his right cheek. He grabbed at the spot and found a small bit of bone stuck there. Shit, there’s shards ricocheting all over this room. Better get some gravity going to settle it and clean up. He did not consider the irrationality of the idea of cleaning so soon after witnessing such horror; it was something he could do in a situation over which, he was beginning to realize, he had next to no control. He pushed off towards the south of the room and gripped a rung embedded there. The stickiness of it surprised him, and he fought hard not to consider the reason it was so. He pressed his hand to the acrylic pane set in the aluminum wall… and nothing happened. He used the arm of his jumper to wipe the pane clean and tried again.

Still nothing happened.

Panic hit. the systems burned im a dead man oh jenny oh it oh shit what am i gonna do no power no food nothing dead It went on for some time, waves of fear and loss, regrets, images in his mind, their contrast fuzzed by retrospection, forgotten intentions, and confused underpinings. His Youth and all of its freedom, irresponsibilities and passions. That older brunette who had shown him the sweet benefits of Maturation. The years he spent as Student, deciding on his lifework. The implant surgery to allow him to interface with ComputerSpace, the reflex wires that gave him control over peripheral devices. Years of study in cyber-school and space school. His spouse and her funny laugh and arousing accent. His boy, oh, his young Zephyr, just one standard year from Maturation and school. His friends among the Astros as well as landborns. He thought of all of these things and others in the few minutes he spent feverishly jamming his hand against the palmscanner. As he slid off the crest of emotion into a trough of numb despair, some reason returned to him and he looked at the tracklights in the room.

He giggled with relief; a suppressed laugh filled with gasps and breaks. The power was not gone. Rather, he was too excited for the security scanner. A little measure against hijacking: the scanner would not verify someone’s scan, even if they were in the “approved” register, unless his or her pulse rate was at a median level. This conditional kept severed hands, frightened hands, and manic hands from being of any use for gaining entry to the ship’s computer system.

Smiling shakily, Thrace intoned his mantra for a while until he could feel his muscles relax and his heartbeat soften and slow. He touched the pane again and was answered by a faint click as a section of wall slid away. In the alcove behind the panel, a coiled cord ending in a fiberoptic male connector hung on a hook much like a pay telephone cradle. Upon removing the cable from the cradle, a rounded chair inflated up from the floor behind him. He dropped into it, a faint whisper reminding him that it had a pinhole leak somewhere. He relaxed and inserted the cable’s plug into the jack behind his ear.

The stained, glowing wall before him faded to be replaced by a small city sprawled out below him. From his “aerial” vantage he could see that most of the ship’s systems were automatically functioning and doing so quite normally. He gave these systems—life support, reactor dampening, gene monitoring, biot growing—only the most cursory inspection. They were critical to his immediate survival, but not the most important functions of the Willie Mays from Soleman’s perspective. He soared above the towering sub-directory icons, across the mainframe, until he reached a cityblock-sized red icon, in the shape of an umbrella, vaulting an apparent kilometer above the “ground.” He landed at its base and touched it.

It ceased to be. In its place was a meter-high question mark: the universal iconic symbol for “System not present — Error.”

“Willie!” cried Thrace; “what happened to the tess-sail manual control system? I need spin and a tess-comm link to HSL.”

A computer-imaged persona of an android in a baseball uniform appeared before him, its hands behind its back.

“That system has been deemed useless. I was going to remove the icon, but security monitoring on the system delayed me. Someone with a hand like yours but not a temper like yours was repeatedly requesting access.”

Thrace’s head began to practice Forthanik’s Ballet for 0.5 g in D min. Somewhere above his right temple he could swear he heard a blood vessel pop, even though that would be impossible in Compspace. “Why was the control system deemed useless, Willie?” he asked in a trembling voice that seemed to want to hide in his mouth, not actually ask that too-important question.

“Because the drive no longer exists, Technician Soleman.”

The computer, of course, had absolutely no idea what had happened during the tess; it was not psychic either. There were, however, a number of cyberlectures on the subject of tesseract emergencies. In one of them, Soleman learned that several daring experiments had been conducted during the tessdrive’s conception in the Tenth Eon, First Epoch, which involved planned detonations of the drive during a breech and while tessing. Nothing was ever learned: the earlier tessdrives were not sailed, but shot “ballistically,” to their destinations; most of the scientists gave up searching the fifty lightyear test area after the first ten years of doing so. The most widely agreed upon theory was that there was a 84.78% chance that the whole ship would be destroyed with it, in spite of the 400 kilometers separating the drive from the ship, and a 13.46% chance that the ship would never again enter 4D space. In a way, then, Thrace was lucky to be alive. Great. Just fabulous for me, he had thought after learning that gem of information. Soleman also discovered a space opera simsense which depicted a group of colonists isolated by the unlikely loss of sanity by all the piloting psychics of their vessel. It was typically, if not subtly, thrilling and he could not resist making love to the (typically) stunning heroine, as consolation, during one of her more touching strophes of angst. He never bothered to figure out who he actually was trying to console; what did it matter? For that few hours, they had been the only reality, and they needed the closeness to hold back the hungry vacuum waiting patiently outside.

He realized halfway through the second week of travel under the Willie Mays’ fusion drive that he simply did not have ten thousand years to spare trying to get into the Milky Way’s shipping lanes. For the past sixteen days he had been idling about the recreation room, working out occasionally on the zero gee machines to keep fit WHY?, experimenting with the more esoteric selections on the ship’s meal synthesizer WHAT’S testicles???, scanning the documentary and technical files of the computer Why isn’t there a passage on Growing Tesseract Drives out of Matter Reclaimation Biots, or Genetically Breaching Essential Space?, and experiencing way too much simsense. On this second week, however, he awoke on Sixday with the dire paralysis of apathy. He felt cold, in spite of the life-support. He had been dreaming of his spouse and was hoping that the stark ship’s ceiling was the dream instead.

Jenny and he had been walking through the Yorkshire Dales on Sol.Earth, exploring Middleheim Castle. They climbed to the top of the southern tower and stared over the green, forested waves of the surrounding country, devoid of any other signs of man (Sol.Earth had been discovered as sentient and almost immediately declared a Refuge World). Holding each other against the chill wind, whispering insued: sweet sentiments he could not now recall, craved to recall because he wished they were true, prayed he had broken past his unpsychic genetics, had communed with his only love one last time.

He did not rise from his bunk for several hours, and then only to plug into the lavatory. His blood began flowing from this activity, and other activities began to seem appropriate. A wide grin and furrowed brow smeared his face into a cruel visage.

He had no reason to keep fit, so he threw the zero-gee trainer through the commissary, laughing loudly, echoingly; there were only twenty-one varieties of synthmeats from which to choose, so he jacked into the computer and launched a File Burn program at the synthesizer’s master program (it did the best job it could defending against its Prime Priority User’s wrath). There was no one to impress with his knowledge of Pre-Diaspora politics, so he set the technical files to teaching the simsense’s Drama sub-system how to do quadruple integrations, thereby generating fierce trinary debates throughout the ship’s Compnet. Finally, he had experience every It-damned simsense in the entire database and at least half of their plot variants and, quite literally, thought he was still in simsense half of the time he was doing something else on the ship. Earlier that week he had once tried to ‘stop program run’ while sitting in the commissary, throughly bored, in front of a bowl of some horrid concoction from the meal synth’s Traditional Menu called “grits.”

The next week he spent pacing the ship, staring through its now totally transparent hull. He had felt, at first, a dizzying sensation of shrinking when he had first cleared the hull to view his new domain. The Milky Way was SO far away; it looked like egg on the vast pan of the universe: an egg which he would never again taste thanks to some mysterious, capricious whim of fate. He felt minuscule… then realized that he was. The coffin-like atmosphere of an opaqued hull had been worse, however.

During these uneventful days he spoke to many people; only one, his wife, ever spoke back, and that was towards the end of the week. He raged first at Illyana for failing in her duty. She must’ve zoned during the tess and steered the sailors off the polarity-rhythm into some freaky wavelengths, the dumb bitch with her snotty ways and her too perfect lips and the way she insists on announcing every bloody minute for a half hour before tessing… Then, of course, it was the sailors, Uthor and something-with-a-P, who had zoned and failed to avoid some quirky perturbation Vrandium-mind had ordered evaded. Next, Manager Hurdles (ID# Astro.A1596115) had clearly failed to keep the drive in harmony and had fried them all in the backlash.

“And what about the fucking League with their half-assed regulations and shoddy inspection teams?” he inquired loudly of the first bowl of food he had synthed in four days, failing to recall the hassles that the Mays’ crew had gone through to con their way into this mission.

Fringe.BB20 was the first Grade G congealment to be spotted escaping Mother Milky’s possessive pull. Until then, only the occasional Sol.Mercury-sized mother lodes were intercepted in the really cold depths of space to be reclaimed by humanity. This body they had been going to intercept would have fetched them at least 20,000 stresshours apiece for only three months of crystal harvesting with the massive robotic drills and the microscopic biots. Then a small fusion-fission charge to send it back to the galaxy to be retrieved in a millennium or so, and the crew would have tessed back, retired, and done some pleasure touring of their workplace, the Milky Way. All that privilege: up in smoke. IT-DAMNED, BEAST-BRAINED…. Several long-haul teams had bid for the mission and the qualifying criteria had been intense. The Willie Mays Mining Cooperative was so very, damned lucky it was driving Thrace very, damned mad.

Then came the Solution. It took only a few feverish, ecstatic seconds to conceive and fifty-six days to effect. It was, after all, an ambitious project—if “ambitious” can describe the dreams of a doomed man.

The first thing Technician Thrace had to accomplish was to negotiate peace in Compspace between the Technosupremacists and the Aesthetics Liberation Faction, who had escalated the conflict he had initiated in his malicious, feeble vengeance a week earlier. The technical files had achieved the upper-hand with their knowledge of the Compnet’s systems, but the Dramatic files were passionately holding their own. He felt like a fool when he jacked in as a peace-keeping force. He spent several days untangling the various attack programs binding the two systems and disarming databombs. Fortunately, with peace declared, the two file systems were more than willing to provide what help they could in this task.

The next month was spent designing and building a robot which would automatically build and install additional memory to the computer. He also redesigned the food synthesizer. He cleared the majority of its database, leaving only the core formulas for synthesizing what he called the “Tree of Life Elixir,” a serum of fundamental proteins, enzymes, carbohydrates, and polyunsaturated fats. Then, Soleman modified the dispenser so that the bland syrup would be slowly and steadily drip-fed through a IV. Perfect! With the germ and biot banks to draw on, and their synthing capabilities, there should be about a hundred years of this stuff… more than enough, most likely.

The final two weeks were spent almost entirely in Compspace. He toured every alley and sewer, each database and slave node, wreaking nothingness on every inessential system. Lighting… Let there be NO light! That’s good. Fusion drive: slow burn; open all accesses to reserves. Should be a few thousand years of operation. Climate control: bridge only; seal remainder of ship. Laser distress beacon: ah, what the Hole, On. All this simsense shit: GET THEE BEHIND ME! Ooh, that’s very good. Auxiliary file systems: Good night, sweet prints. All except computer maintenance files for the robot.

Then, finally, it was finished, and with the end of frenetic activity returned morose passivity. Thrace sat on the bridge, reconsidering. There was a slim chance that the inevitable search team would stumble upon him before the ten year MIA period was over (tradition, from the early days of “spit-tessing”). 8700 lightyears is not all that much. Shit.

He spoke a soft prayer of farewell to whomever happened to be listening. The IV went into his arm with a slightly painful jab, and Thrace snickered over the irony that his last real sensation was one of pain. The eight weeks of isolation had inured him to stimuli, but somehow this faint prick seemed to wash swells of tension and melancholy up his arm and through his floating body. He thought once more of Jennifer and Zephyr and hoped they would have fun with his insurance/pension. Concluding with a particularly blurry-eyed sentiment of Love, he wished Homo Stellari a fruitful being. Then Technician Thrace Soleman jacked into Compspace.

It was dark, quiet, odorless, empty. The systems which were to be saved—life support, Tree of Life, the robotic chipper, fundamentals—hid themselves behind a masking program so sophisticated even its designer stood little chance of unveiling its secret wards. All extraneous systems were not. It was a Void… save for the One, Thrace. The One floated without buoyant support, perceived Nothing, felt the effluent of thirty-nine Standard Years of emotion swirling inside. The extensive memory crystals were limited (but growing) yet infinite, lacking a measure save the One. And cloistering, so crowded with nothing but the One. And piss-boring, lonesome. The One meditated a moment, reached out…

And It spoke a Word.

Let Them Eat Cake

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Let them eat cake:
The common, coupling hordes;
We dine on honeyed bread:
Sweet and sustaining.

Let them babble of summer days,
and the latest vogue passion;
We commune through rain, sun, and fall,
Speaking of life, all.

Let them beg of their gods,
Cement their fragile union;
We are our lords and servants,
Self-blessed architects and masons of love.

Let the world of bitter weakness
Eat its tear-stained oaths;
We hold our quarrels straight
And find, through them, a stronger bond.

Let them write their perfect verse,
Measured and foot-weary as their love;
I show to you my heart undraped,
Its passions unfit for a mold.

Let them doubt with every stumble
The true peace of their dove;
You have stayed through all my doubt
And are my life, my dream, my love.

The Degrees Of Being

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A Linguistic Framework

Metaphysics is primarily concerned with the nature of being. Unfortunately, debate in metaphysics is often frustrated by the circular, imprecise semiotic handed down by ancient philosophers and their hope for obvious symmetry and coherence in the universe. Too frequently, strong minds chase one another around in circles during debate because they do not share identical meanings for critical words. For example, one person may argue with another for days in favor of the existence of God, only to find that the other person agrees with his observations of the world and the inference of a creator. The time was spent struggling with definition after definition: clarifying and equating (if possible) the body of connotation unconsciously tacked onto the people’s words.

Of all the disciplines in philosophy, metaphysics is the field most constrained by closed semiotics and insidious, ignorant tradition. Therefore, I have developed a system of space-time classification, a hierarchy of being which can serve as a framework for a linguistic reconstruction of sorts and perhaps streamline the web of meaning in which driven thinkers frequently are tangled.

All metaphysical systems must begin with certain fundaments which are often taken from science but usually go beyond the ostensive proofs offered by that diligent discipline. I resign myself to the immediate refutations which will be attempted by those who hold different fundaments than the few with which I must begin. To those, I can ask only that they hold their javelins to the close, when I will have completely circumnavigated the basic cycle of philosophy (as I call it) and have given them a niche in my theories.

The first assumption I make is that you exist. In writing or stating this assumption, two resultant meanings can be translated. The first is the fundament of Skepticism. The only means by which a wholly subjective metaphysics can be communicated is in the second person, because to explicate skepticism in the first person is incoherent. The reader, if attentive, should doubt the author’s existence, thereby doubly doubting its claim that it exists. Further, the writer hamstrings himself by writing long essays intended to be read by that which he believes to be illusory or in doubt. So the skeptics have now been served their first morsel; fitting as theirs are the most devastating claws. The second resultant meaning is that, for me (as writer/speaker), you exist; that is, have a real being in space-time. At the moment, I am not concerned with what composes that reality; I only assert that the (Aristotelian) efficient cause of my perception of you is localized and external to my being. From this assertion, my existence can be affirmed; in order to make a statement about you—whose existence I assume—I and my perceptions of you must exist. (This is a relief!) In a sense, this denies the posture that skeptical readers will be holding; to them I say that I exist as a phantasm of themselves whispering to them through these pages. They cannot deny their perception’s existence.

So, with one assumption, your existence, I have generated the existence of space-time—if only for you. Your perception is sequentialized into discrete instants—you did not read “you” after you read “exist” in my initial premise, “you” preceded “exist”. Further, you did not have an innate knowledge that the phrase “you exist” was eminent—it’s origin was external to that part of you which says “I”, your self. Thus, since the originator of the phrase “you exist” can not share the same location that your self can, there must be an intervening position, however infinitesimal. (Even if you assert that the originator and experiencer can share position, the medium of communication then becomes the ‘external’ element and still necessitates SOME concept of space.)

I now move to the aforementioned system of describing the various derivations of your space-time… for your convenience.

I am forced to begin with what may be a boring synopsis of basic geometry. I do this in order to describe the progression of dimensions in geometry. At zero dimensions (0D), the only describable thing is a point. It is raw location, nothing but some arbitrary site, a unity, a totality, a singular no-thing. The next progression, to one dimension (1D), describes a line and therefore points. In a seeming paradox, 1D is an infinite sum of densely packed nothing: points. A line is therefore nothing but an infinite, dense series of locations, or a range of locations. At two dimensions (2D), a plane is described, lines and points as well. A plane is the aggregate of a infinite number of lines, densely packed, side by side. Finally, Euclid leaves off with three dimensions (3D), which describes space. Space is an infinite number of dense parallel planes. With these three progressions, a pattern is evident. Integration of this recurring idea leads to the following: for a given dimension X,

a) where X <> 0D, X is composed of an infinite series of dense (X-1)D things;
b) where X is 0D, it is a spatial unit.

Thus far, this essay has endeavored to be descriptive of the abstract sub-dimensions of this space-time; this is in keeping with the descriptive nature of language. Henceforth, I will shift gears to a prescriptive analysis of being utilizing the above Observation A and a Principle of Harmony. As electrons orbit their gravid obsession; so does the earth, the sun; the Milky Way’s arms, the galactic core. As the balancing of an equation is to the balancing of a see-saw, as polarity of thought and language is to polarity of sub-atomics and ions: thus am I willing to assert that the abstract principle derived above can be applied to the concrete world of time and energy.

At four dimensions—the first temporal progression—I introduce reality to the hierarchy, for it is an inviolable fact that reality is “immersed” in time. Understand, however, that the reality from which I am writing is a human reality. In an absolute sense, beginning reality at 4D is a purely arbitrary decision. A 2D being would begin its reality at 2D, because that is the degree of being at which it exists. Yet I nonetheless must prove that humanity is real at 4D. To do so requires describing the nature of 4D.

The fourth dimension is a temporal unit or temporal instant, just as a point is a spatial unit. It, through Observation A, is composed of an infinite, dense series of 3D things. In other words, because 4D supervenes on 3D, it must have space inherent to its composition. In order to harmonize the idea of a dense infinite series of spaces composing each temporal instant, I am lead to believe that this density of space generates energy and subsequently, through the laws of quantum physics, matter.

At this point, I must introduce my final assertion. Because each event requires an efficient cause, there must be, at the core of being for humanity, a source of the causal energy which initiates a given person’s actions. I will not delve into the nature of this efficient cause in this work; I merely require its existence at the 4D level to proceed with the prescriptions of the higher abstract dimensions, or super-dimensions.

At any given instant, an individual has the option, basically, to act or not to act. The result of that decision defines the next temporal instant for that person. In that next instant, the action (or non-action which, because it shares efficient cause with action, is essentially the same) is propagated; action potentials in neurons flow, muscles contract, shaped sounds are uttered, another’s heart is broken. There was a cusp in the individual’s life, and one potential path was taken. Somehow, however, the causal connections must be made; Xeno defined this problem millennia ago. How, then, can a person’s efficient cause, or will, move from temporal instant to temporal instant? Fifth dimensionally.

Moving on to the fifth dimension simply requires another integration or unification through Observation A. 5D is composed of an infinite, dense series of temporal instants. This leads to the conclusion that a given thing’s reality is infinite, which is true, for energy is neither created nor destroyed, it simply changes form and location. You were once, in part, soil to nourish corn which fed your mother and so forth. The energy which composes your efficient cause is eternal. This does not necessarily mean that your mind is eternal, just the energy which forms it. Therefore, your will can be said to flow through the fifth dimension, receiving input and generating output at temporal instants (psychiatry tells us that this seems to occur about every quarter of a second). Whether or not this kernel of efficient cause is free or determined is, at the fifth dimension, irrelevant; the quality defined as free or determined is a 4D concern, for at the fifth dimension all time for a particular timeline is defined. In a sense, therefore, our being can be said to be “determined” 5D (which it must be) or 4D (which is arguable): this is one of the damning ambiguities of the language.

Keep in mind also that Observation A states that 5D is but one infinite, dense series of 4D. Remember that, as 4D, an individual retains a range of possibilities; only one emerges in the next instant. Thus, an integration to 5D is of a particular series of events for a thing, infinite in length. The possibilities of the past instants which were not chosen do not, however, cease to exist. They had to exist to maintain the causal stream at the time of choice; there is no reason to believe that they cease to be once not needed by a particular 5D. In fact, there is good cause to believe that they still exist -always exist- for, if one’s kernel was to be able flow into them, they must have an energetic reality and energy is neither created nor destroyed. Rather, they exist in the sixth dimension, the last temporal integration.

6D is the aggregate of all that is, has been, will be, could be. Though we meager men live our civilization in but one timeline, we have, at thousands of millions of instances, been a choice away from a different one. If you have a passion for alternate realities, in 6D do they exist. It is a dense, infinite series of temporal lines. This induction provides the arena for debate on subjects ranging from Universals to God.

The question then remains, can integration continue? Are there another three levels of being to be inferred?

Humanity must manage itself through cognition. Typically, a 5D segment is contemplated, or a number of similar 5D segments are compared, to provide some insight into the relative possibilities of different resultant 4Ds occurring in future instants. This is proven by behavioral psychology and mere introspection. For example, if you look to the sky one day and notice cirrus clouds forming, you consider your body of 5D causal “streams” within your consciousness 5D line of being concerning meteorology to induce that—most likely—it will rain later that afternoon or evening. So human cognition is of, at least, 5D things (or, more accurately, nearly-5D things, as no one can consider an infinite series; being constrained to 4d prevents us). Often, and certainly within this work, human cognition will grapple with 6D. Any quest for absolutes is, at least, a search for that which is inherent to the sixth degree of being. Yet, beyond the basest fundament of energy, not much that is integral to 6D in all of its permutations is accessible to human science. Merely assuming that energy pervades 6D is an induction, because true integration to 6D requires an infinite number of 5Ds to be complete; we have but one in which our consciousnesses flow. To even collect data on two 5Ds would be infeasible and approaching null possibility in the foreseeable future. Once again, the skeptics have their ignorant absolution.

The basic consequence of this strictly abstract, hind-sighted relationship to those dimensions supervening upon ours is that we can have little or no relationship with dimensions beyond our space-time, our 5D. Perhaps once we have elevated our beings, our subjective realities, to fifth dimensional things, we may concern ourselves with God’s gods.

So what good, you may be asking yourself, is this hierarchy? As I stated in the opening of this essay, I hope that this system of regularizing the various levels of abstraction and being, and deriving a consistent progression, will reduce—at the very least—the number of arguments about chaps going back in time and killing their grandfathers. One, using the above system, could respond to such seeming paradoxes by explaining that, if a person can exit his 5D line to reenter it at a past 4D (which would, I agree, still exist), it is then the case that the man’s arrival in his past changes the flow of 4Ds in that timeline, thereby taking his consciousness on a sidetrack into a wholly alternate 5D and never meeting his actual grandfather. Theological arguments are radically streamlined because this system realizes the fact that all deific ideas are 6D, for they grapple with absolutes, and are, therefore, unknowable now. The animist and the materialist can sit at the same table without offending their guests, because the animist Oversoul, or Logos, or spirit performs the same basic function as the materialist’ gravity and inertia and radiation. Both are 6D abstractions of the interrelatedness of observed 4D things and derived 5D segments. Determinists and free-willers can stop their bickering, for this system shows that the former is assuming that the kernel of will is determined and the free-willer is arguing that it is not. Neither have studied these kernels directly; neither are qualified to presume. More often though, and regrettably, their dispute is due to the determinist beginning with the 5D sense of determined and assuming instants share the same quality that their aggregate does, while the free-willer begins with the moment, which seems to be laden with choice. There is no grounds for argument when the opponents base their premises at different levels of being. In similar manner could I show the incompatibility of continuum (6D), linear (5D), and quantum (4D) time theories to be mere inequity of degrees of being from which the views begin their assertions. Finally, as should now be apparent, interrelating the basic precepts of various philosophies can be effected through this hierarchy.

Examples:
animism: a cosmology which recognizes, at least, the continuity of 5D;
paganism: a theology which departmentalizes 6D into a satisfyingly complex bureaucracy and then worships them;
monotheism: a theology which worships 6D;
atheism: disbelief that 6D can be compressed or integrated into a unity -OR- disbelief that 6D is intentional;
idealism: a cosmology which begins reality at 6D and whose proponents frequently place their realities at 6D as well….

I therefore offer to you an explication of your being. Essentially, it is merely a definitional matrix which clarifies the subtleties of time, its influence on language, and its apparent nature. The fact that little is asserted in this essay is, I feel, one of its strengths; it is intended, after all, as only a tool for seeking answers, not the answers themselves; it is a legend, not a map. It provides a clear starting point for any philosophical discourse or discussion, and finally, and most admirably, diffuses some of the more annoying paradoxes spawned by our linguistic legacy of ambivalence.

The Two Sides Of The Same Coin

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Throughout history, the rational, scientific perspective of the world has come into bitter conflict with the predominant theological or idealistic views of the time. Religious leaders have struggled to insure, under the shadows of doubt cast by empirical discoveries and ideas, the continued faith of their followers. Conversely, rational thinkers have striven to convince the masses of their new-found truths. Both sides of this classic struggle, however, have usually tended to miss the real failings behind their beliefs.

Religion, to begin with, invariably dictates to its followers an explanation, as Douglas Adams put it, of “life, the universe, and everything.” All, from Christianity to Zen Buddhism, try to explain man’s purpose in the grand scheme of things. In any given religion, be humanity bestial or divine in the religion’s eyes, some justification and guide for our lives are always given; holy writings, parables, or scriptures offer the religious their answers. Also, all try to explain the creation of the universe. Genesis, Ptah’s whim, the Earth Mother’s divine conception, Odin’s debauchery: all religions offer, for their followers, the “truth” concerning where everything began. Yet, there is ever the demand for faith. No religion stands alone on irrefutable proof of its views. All require the ubiquitous leap of faith to become a part of them. If one takes a Descartian epistemology (the accepted Western theory of knowledge), one concedes ignorance of matters one can not soundly explain. Subsequently, the religious can never know their truths, for they can never prove them.

This failing is the principle venue of attack taken by the rational philosophers (not to be confused with religious philosophers). Yet, the leaders of empiricism undertake the same task as theologians of the world. They try to offer alternative explanations, through logical proof, of the workings of the universe and man’s place in them. They scoff, hypocritically as will be shown, at the concept of faith. There is, however, an adamantine wall deterring them as well. There exists, as a constant frustration for philosophers, the infamous infinite regress. This idea, simply put, requires retrogressive proof of each thing which a person claims to know. The infinite regress demands continual, causal justification for every protocol statement. There are only two ways to stop a infinite regress. The first requires that a self-evident truth be reached during the regress. Yet, every self-evident truth can be doubted because, barring linguistic axioms (like, a triangle is a three-sided, three-angled polygon), every concept’s falsity can be imagined; and, therefore, every concept is conceivably variable. So, because humans can only be certain of their own instantaneous existence, their imaginations are the only power they can trust. Since this power can realize the falsity of every “truth,” this ‘self-evidency’ solution to the infinite regress is useless. In other words, if some philosopher claims discovery of a self-evident truth and another philosopher can imagine an instance, no matter how hypothetical, where the truth would be false (which can be done by someone in every case), then the “truth” is, in fact, corrigible and untrustworthy. The power of imagination is the only testing grounds, and an idea, failing truth there, can find it no where else. The only other solution philosophy offers is containment. Containment simply involves agreeing upon a place to stop in the regress for practical purposes. But finding the nature of the universe does not allow for convenient arrest. Therefore, philosophical inquiry ends with the same concept or acceptance as religious proof: faith.

Now, it is obvious that the empiricists and religious are actually different sides of the same coin. Both try to give answers concerning the nature of the cosmos; both turn to faith in the end; both damn the other. Though their conflict is deep-seeded, their results are the same. For some, faith is fine to which to concede; most, however, want to know. Why? Most seek some external truth. Why? As stated above, all that man can be certain of is himself. The religious and the philosophical should realize, then, that truth is relative. That belief which gives one man comfort is his religion, his philosophy. If it differs from another man’s beliefs, or another world’s beliefs, it is no more incorrect than its counterpart; neither, conclusively, can be proven. Essentially then, the conflict, the warring, the debate between the rational and the religious has been, and continues to be, wasted effort, except for the result of pushing forth scientific inquiry into the basic truths of the practical world. After all, how can the Pope say Martin Luther is wrong when His Eminence can not know what, ultimately, is right. All should simply realize their ignorance, find a belief (if they choose to believe anything at all), and be content in its security, without attacking another’s peace.

This subjectivist argument seems to lead to the result of noone being allowed to discuss “higher matters.” This riposte hinges upon an implied premise that all communication must be useful. Certainly, this seems true for matters of science, politics, resource management, and, in general, normative life. Must, however, metaphysical debate have a culmination, or, put differently, must it come to an end of concession by one side? To help answer this, I ask that you consider art. The truths of aesthetics are as slippery, if not more so, than those of metaphysics—hence the reason that aesthetics is a field of metaphysics. Noone would attempt to dictate another’s aesthetic reaction to a work of art. Yet, people discuss new art and new artists all the time; what do they hope to accomplish?

Nothing.

The discussion of art is done for the same end as the perception of it: pleasure. Thus, I believe that philosophy is done for the end of pleasure, and not raw truth. People discussing philosophy, like those discussing art, are merely expressing their faiths. The pleasure comes either from the equation of the people’s view, or from the mental exercise, the “brain-endorphine buzz,” generated by trying to defend one’s view or find inconsistencies in another’s.

Some may now dispute that people interested in art read art critics for the end of learning something; and in my metaphor, that philosophers write for the end of augmenting human knowledge, i.e. to accomplish something. This paralleling of philosopher to art critic is correct in my metaphor, but the interpretation of the job the critic does is false. The critic is there to provide his interpretation of his perception of the art for those who failed to experience it. True, many people look to critics for information, but this is really a laziness on the reader’s part; he assumes the critic’s opinion because everyone else says that the critic is good. So those who read philosophy to learn truth are really just too lazy to seek their own truth; likewise for religions (since they are but philosophies of one sort).

Once again, the only reason one should “do philosophy” is for the pleasure gained by the exercise, not to be told the truth.

Thus, rather than an expression of the real nature of the cosmos, philosphies or religions, rationalists or theists, are really just artforms.  They have their medium—the written word and debate—their audience, their artist. Far from a denegration of philosophical pursuit, I show that, because it lacks the solid grounding it would like to think it has, it is freed for expression. Every treatise on philosophy need not be written with rigorous logical babble—this is shown clearly by the profound, yet logically inconsistent and at time incoherent, writing of the existentialists. Their influence on the current of ideas in Western society in undeniable, yet their work, under the bobastic demands of most philosophers, is useless, incomprehensible.

Percy’s Rebuke

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Author’s Note: The following essay is a fictional analysis of the recent Walker Percy novel Lancelot. Its aim is to present, in the first and second person, Percy’s thematic thrust by picking up where the novel ends: with the word “Yes,” the first spoken by Percy’s analog in the work.

Yes. Yes, I certainly do have something to tell you. For the past five days, I have patiently heard you, withstood your derision towards my faith, suffered your rationalizations of your crimes and sins, listened to your hopeless solution to this sad sphere’s plight—No! Do not interrupt me; you claimed two days ago that I was the only one with whom you could talk, and that my silence is the only conversation you can listen to. Well, Lance, your monologue, broken only by my infrequent prodding to keep your crippled discourse directed, was not conversation. No; now you will listen to me, you will receive my words and your silence is the only conversation I will tolerate.

Oh, now! Now who is pacing the room, staring out of the window? You would mock my “watered down” faith, you expect my vestment to be ceremony for my surrender. But I am not ‘acting’ today, Lance, and you know it. Christ may have lain down His sword, but He has not bound His hands. There is still a sense of human significance in Christianity; it needs nothing concrete and terrific to prove its importance—unlike yourself. Transcendence is the one distinguishing mark of human existence, and unfortunately you are incapable of such belief.

Silence! Do not dare to deny your triviality, you who would denigrate the human ideal to sweaty copulations; you have no sense of humanity’s magnitude! If you but knew how you fail your own standards of power and monochrome distinctions, you would kill—or should I say rape—and damn yourself. Silly man. To confuse orgasmic iterations of The Lord’s name with the transcendent and then turn around and reduce sexual intercourse to a mere rubbing of nerves defeats your own premise. Your illogic robs you of your own “rational” faith.

But what of that thin faith, that prayer to the holy orifice? Is that really all that is important to you, my child? What of the intellect, which you pretend to engage in yourself with your petty historical essays about a dead Southern ideal, which you attempt to marshal to make reasonable murder and rape? You would use your mind to explicate your base, physical profundity yet you do not see its necessary supervenience to the body to be able to reason so. You are a slave to the aesthetic who ignores the very faculty which delineates it: the mind, the ethical, rational, human mind. Yet, even more than this you fail. You also live your desperate life with no sense of the spiritual. You think you have found the answer with you perverse creed of rape as human purpose, but you fail to see that, by merely stating such an ethic, you need its cause, its fundament. These answers are only sought in despair—I should know—and are only attained through a blind leap of faith. But you have no legs to leap with, child; you are still crawling on your knees.

Yes, Lance, in your simple world, ruled by the almighty fuck, you drive yourself from moment to moment of forced allure, preaching a destitute profundity twisted by your obsession with evil. Look at me! Look here, in my eyes, not at my robes or the body they drape. This deification of sex and obsession with extrinsic evil has twisted your purpose of life to a destructive physical analogy: rape. Good God, Lance, even Anna knows better! You tried to elevate her as the New Woman simply because her mortal body was raped by villains such as yourself. But your Unholy Grail is not in this crass act; it is in the heart which cannot care enough about another human being to simply let them live. Anna’s rapists’ hearts, not their acts, are sin’s throne, just as your murdering, ignored heart is.

Oh. Oh, I forgot that you can do no evil because you are working for the New World. Yes, the ultimate justification for heinous deeds committed by a hopeless, shallow man: some ludicrous ideal framed by his base fundaments. This jihad you propose, it will have as victims of its righteous violence those of this world who plod through everyday life wasting their power, their gifts, on the trivial? Why do you have to think about it, Lance? Ah, you nod; you line these sheep up for slaughter by your sword. Well, then, join their ranks, mouse! Your whole New World Order hinges on simplicity, getting back to Man’s immature, wrathful basics, living for the moment you can ask your pretty beau if she needs a wrap… or a rape. Your ubermenschen must become kamikazes. You yourself have wasted time in this cell, destroyed your heritage, trodden every root of your being all because your wife—whom you professed to love, although now I know how thin this word’s definition is in your mind—all because your wife diddled some director! I’ve heard of triviality in action before, but you define it with what you have done or, more accurately, why you did it. You believe some apocalypse is pending, probably because of a suggestion in your mind which you acquired from those ridiculous movie people. Well, you are right; an impending doom does loom… over your own head.

You think that you will be leaving here today. I have something else to tell you, Lance. As the reviewing psychiatrist in your case, I have no choice but to deny your release from this facility.

What!? Oh, surely you are not that surprised, surely your humanity is not so buried in your delusions that you cannot see why they are detrimental to the rest of society!? You are unscrupulous, Lance. The void where your heart should be is not a pitiable excuse for your crime; it is your crime. You expect me to let you out into a society which you loathe and feel justified in slaughtering? Without even a significant guide in your being? You think I am going to let you pursue your dark lucidity without you even being lucid yourself? You believe I can let you wreck all the purposive work of Man to replace it with some Virginian ideal you plucked from a presumptuous porn film? You want me to proclaim you healthy when you cannot see past your own irises, feel beyond your own skin; when you think spreading pain and rape is the auspicious end of Humanity?

Forget it, boy.

Oh, don’t rail about, Lance. You may think my restriction of you wrong, my views and ideals slavish; just remember that my word has the power, now, and trust that I, too, have seen the Grail. Not a cracked, drained one: a mere shaped clod of earthenware; but one whole, and full enough to quench all men’s thirst. To be free in society requires responsibility. Look out there at your sign around the corner. “Free &…” responsible. Until you know that sign’s other half, you will never leave this cramped confessional.

November 20, 1991

Where Lies the Jina?

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In studying and analyzing various religious sects and traditions, scholars try to draw parallels between faiths in an effort to categorize and relate religions. Using such restrictive methods as a guide, some theological scholars have described the northeastern religion of Jainism as being somewhere between Hinduism and early Buddhism. Geographically, the Jainist faith is between the largest areas of southern Buddhist and mainstream Hindu population; does it, then, deserve to be spiritually wedged between these two?

Clearly, Jainism shares many beliefs and practices with Hinduism and Buddhism. The basic goal of the Jains is to achieve moksa similar to that of the Hindu way of jnana, or knowledge. They seek to be freed from the wearisome burden of karmic residue, to be liberated from the endless cycles of life—which they view to be as equally as full of suffering as the Buddhists believe them to be. Furthermore, Jains even worship some Hindu gods when needing earthly favor and assistance in everyday life. Even many of Jainism’s moral codes mimic those of Buddhists. Their monks maintain strict vows of no killing, no stealing, no telling of lies, no owning property and poverty, just like Buddhist monks. Even the prophets of the Jainist tradition have similar histories as the Buddha. In fact, all the way down to the monastery’s relationship to the laity, Jainism mirrors Buddhism. The monks beg for their food, and the laity willingly and happily gives it. The monks conduct the significant ceremonies of the year and the laity dutifully attends. The monks take stringent vows and the laity does also, but not quite as strictly. Therefore, many facets of the Hindu and Buddhist traditions have found a home in the 2500 year old Jainist religion.

These similarities do not, however, warrant dooming Jainism to a second-grade slot between the two “big boy” religions of India and Asia. There are many qualities about the Jainist cosmology that earn it equal billing and representation as an independent faith. First, the Jains are fundamentally transtheistic; they accept the possibility that gods exist, but they strive to go beyond mere deity worship in their quest for ultimate salvation and liberation from painful life. Second, the Jains revere their own set of powers: the Jain spirits or Tirthankaras. These spirits are the once-living “finders of the ford” across the river confining man to life and suffering; they are teachers whose efforts have bridged this gulf, and each Jainist does his best to cross as well. Finally, their view of world order is, quite unlike Buddhism, very straight-forward and commonsense oriented. It consists of a simple three-tiered realm of reality containing a heaven for gods and the good, hell for the evil, and Earth for the undecided. This universe, further, is eternal and uncreated, lacking a supreme being overseeing it all. Therefore, Jainism has many distinctions from Hinduism and Buddhism, but they are well-blended with the borrowed views of the two.

In conclusion, then, Jainism does not deserve to be squeezed in between two older religions of India simply due to some parallels in belief. These parallels may, after all, exist because some fundamental truth spawned them. It is then irrelevant to relate the three faiths just as it is pointless to deductively assess the rating of three different intuitive interpretations of the same fact. Since no religion is neither more justifiable nor more truthful than another, to accuse Jainism of merely being a Hindu-Buddhist puree is demeaning to its uniqueness and separateness as an ideology.

April, 1991

Energetic Triadism

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Perhaps the most popular points of discussion among philosophers of metaphysics consist of theories on minds and matter. Throughout the course of Western philosophical thought, a number of noteworthy thinkers have endeavored to present their views on these subjects in the hopes of providing insight into the workings of the universe. I also, being a thinker on such matters, have developed a theory on minds and matter which is more precise in explication and more cohesive with modern scientific discoveries than any other I have studied thus far. In this work, I intend to present and support my view while pointing out its similarities—and, more importantly, its differences—with the most popular metaphysical schools to date.

To begin with, I call my view an Energetic and Triadic view of the universe. These names denote important elements of my theories; the words imply the two fundamental beliefs in this view. The first, Energetic, introduces my compositional theory of matter (as well as minds, but to that… later). It is my belief that all matter is actually energy, monads of congealed immaterial energy held into form by the natural laws of polarity, magnetism, and so forth (more energies). The theory that energy is the base stuff of matter is nothing new to physicists; metaphysically, however, I may as well claim the Earth to be round, so unheard of is this fact in popular metaphysical discussions of which I am aware. As to the issue of a type of monad being that which is made by the congealing of energy, no reductive materialist (which is the most common sense view among the metaphysics) would find much argument with it. Because I hold a view which is essentially a refinement of materialism and being of a similar mind as my cousin materialists who refuse to buy into the highly dubious non-reductive theories, I must accept (which I do) the idea of there being a material building block (ergo not immaterial, like the universal energy) out of which everything else is composed. To balance the yin and yang of this apparent contradiction, I turn to science for some confirmation of my views; current atomic theory holds the belief that, although electrons and protons are not the monads which Leibniz described theoretically, there is much evidence in favor of sub-atomics being the lowest sub-basement in physical constructions. It seems that quarks and positrons and such ‘approach’ (to use a calculus term) masslessness; this could result either from insufficient measuring devices (quite improbable) or, as my theory states, from the fact that energetic monads, being congealed energy, weigh only as much as the physical “energy platelets” or “atomic solvents,” if you will, which are catalysts for the congealing process. My metaphorical platelets represent what I dub the Natural Law which, when physically applied to the raw energy that actually composes the universe, congeals it into these near-massless sub-atomic particles. How the Natural Law is actually applied and what exactly is its nature (specifically, its mass producing quality; I already know that gravity and magnetism, examples because they are permutations of the Natural Law, have no mass) is only Creator’s knowledge, so far. Therefore, the most I can theorize on the practical level is that the phenomenon of mass is created during the energy congealing process; I must wait upon physicists to provide the explication of this.

The second fundamental of my theories is implied, as stated above, by the word Triadic. Triadism is, in a way, an off-shoot of Dualism in that it poses a theory of the mind which separates minds from matter. The tri- prefix is used, however, to denote a third element, a “middle man” for minds and matter. This third element is nervous systems—but that I shall come to after describing the primary two. The first, matter, has already been described as congealed energy. For the sake of focus of argument, matter is dealt with only on the monad level—my theories on substances are largely Aristotelian in that they consist of both matter (objective reality as monads, ergo energy) and form (subjective/observer-determined qualities or systemic relations resulting, as per Natural Law—energy—from the myriad orderings and patterning of these monads). The second category in the triad is composed of minds. Being Energetic, I hold the view that minds are energy as well, somehow held in ‘lattices’ by Natural Law, but (in this application of Natural Law) not congealed (as matter is). Minds, then, are pure energy, immaterial. Since physics tells us that energy can be neither created nor destroyed, I must contend that minds can be neither created nor destroyed and are, therefore, immortal… eternal. The proof of this is difficult, however. It, admittedly, involved a degree of intuition on my part, and I shall attempt to explain this as much as it is possible to describe intuitive impulses.

When I introspect (introspection which, I humbly contend, is more exacting and controlled than David Hume’s) I apprehend, as Hume did, a complex interweaving of sense experiences held as memory. Exerting control to look past these, however, I also perceive something more in meditation. There is what I call a ‘motivating kernel’ that is also a part of my mind. This is the “soul” which plucks, from non-existence, my ideas and dreams and plans. This energy (the energy lattice that is me) is the one which conceives interrogatives; it is that which asks, “Why?” Furthermore, after asking, it is the energy matrix which “stores” (for lack of a better English term) my ethics and which compares these ethics to its intentions for moral analysis. Also, to focus better upon its nature, it is that which decides what impulses will be heeded and which will be ignored. In all, then, it is that part of my self which can perform creative thought, which can vacillate between degrees of control of emotional expressions, and which can perform inductive thought. Put figuratively, it is the captain which determines at what time its vessel (my body) will depart and arrive, how it will be sailed, and whether or not it will be steered into or out of the wind of my emotions and the current of my experiences. Lastly, the eternity of it is, admittedly, initially believed out of mortal fear but is, later, verified by a number of experiences. The Iowa farm wife who, under hypnosis, speaks a dead dialect of French; the revived heart attack patient who recounts an out of body experience; my own single, isolated incident of accurate, specific precognition; my own vague “sense” that I have had (many) previous lives: these experiences lose their unnatural, and therefore superstitious and suspect, reputation with my theory. They are even –if true in their recounting– explained ONLY by an extemporal theory of the mind coupled with reincarnation beliefs. Finally, attributing these qualities to the mind explains a wide range of theological and supernatural beliefs so prevalent in human existence which cannot be explained completely by most metaphysical postures.

It is also possible, however, that the total mind of a human requires some physical (material energy) support from the body. Concerning the ethical qualities of this energetic kernel, their normative applications could be retained in the brain (which is clearly materialized energy). Nevertheless, the kernel is energetic in its being; it cannot be destroyed. Thus, one’s initiative and meta-ethics, being contained at the core of the kernel, cannot be destroyed. you, John Doe, may die, but it is impossible that you essence will cease to have a real existence.

So now I have shown what I feel makes up matter and minds. But what about the aforementioned third element of the triad? What is it? The third major component of my triad is the nervous systems of all bodies connected to minds. As I have said before, minds are pure energy while matter is congealed energy. If I stopped there in describing necessary components of (living, human, self-realizing) things, I would be a mere Dualist of sorts and open to the same attack posed years ago by Queen Elizabeth. In an effort to prove there can be nomological connections between immaterial energy (the mind) and material energy (matter), I must account for the “middle man” mentioned above. I have decided that the nervous system must be this middle man, for it, we are told by science, is composed of both electricity (immaterial energy) and cells (matter, as above). Unfortunately, there is still the matter of deriving, scientifically, the law-like connection between our minds and our brain. We accept that our brain is the “multi-tasker” for our body; but how does the mind input tasks into the brain, how does our CPU route our multi-tasker?

The description of this phenomenon is perhaps the weakest link in my chain of logic because it requires exclusive logic. Science can tell man for what every part of his brain is generally responsible, except for the pineal gland. This gland, near and beneath the center of the cerebrum, is a mystery to science; all that is known is that it is closely linked to the emotional centers of the brain. It is here that I will place the ‘user port’ of the human physical body. In some way, a way which adheres to Natural Law, the mind down-links to the body via the mysterious pineal gland. Whether the link is formed by some type of induction or by force of will on the part of the mind—Perhaps these are identical? Perhaps a combination of these is required?—is a question I must depend upon more knowledgeable men of science to answer. Suffice it that this gland somehow relays emotional states generated by experiences—and the sense experiences themselves—to the energy lattice which is the mind. There, the kernel of this lattice, the cohesive stuff (unmentioned by Hume) of bundles of experiences, decides what shall be done here-now. The mind then downloads these tasks to the multi-tasker, the brain, which then goes about activating groups of muscles and so forth. Therefore, though this view of the brain has no concrete evidence to support it, it does explain yet another mystery of humanity, just as an Energetic view of the mind answers a plethora of supernatural questions.

In conclusion, my Energetic Triadism may seem quite a departure from the worn and dusty ruts of traditional metaphysical thought. This it is, but not by virtue of outright differences. Rather, I have taken the prevailing trends of Idealism, Materialism, Dualism, and science and have bred them together into what, I feel, is a higher synthesis, a meta-metaphysics, if you will. Our perceptions of the world are contained in bundles of sense impressions (as in Idealism) but there is a real, physical, independent world out there stimulating our senses (Materialism). The matter of this world can be boiled down into basic component parts (Monism) and these parts exist apart from and in harmony with minds (Dualism), being of the same substance essentially. I simply have viewed the flaws that each individual theory contains and have answered them as cohesively as possible. In this vein, I have accounted for the connections between minds and matter (Triadism) while avoiding developing two distinct metaphysics, one for how minds are constructed and one for describing the monads of my substances, my matter (this latter accomplishment was done via my Energetic theories). On these pages, my motivating kernel, my soul, has assessed my experiences as well as my inner feelings and then manipulated my body over my word processor to write this theory. I welcome, whole-heartedly, exacting and rigorous criticism; it merely makes my views more precise and more strong.

April 3, 1990