On Writing Requiem: Adding Yeast

John Searle has written twelve books. Every time he sends one off he wishes he could write it over. One time he got the chance. The publication was put on hold and several years later he had a new version. No difference. He then wished he could rewrite the rewrite.

So it shall be with Requiem. As a concept a book can be whatever one wishes, but as reality it falls back to earth. Choosing a sport’s metaphor excludes a literary one. Things fade; alternatives exclude. We live in a real world, not a simulation.

Previously I could imagine an endless span of time, allowing for philosophical completion. But there are limits. In medical school one gave up Gray’s anatomy for Woodburne. Woodburne was manageable, Gray’s was not. And in philosophy one does well to study a few philosophers in depth rather than many superficially. I will major in Spinoza, Hocking, Russell, Searle, Hayek, and Becker; and minor in Kant, Locke, and Hume. Any more would be planning not to graduate.

The problem here is that the process enters the physical world, and with it comes physical things, ultimately death. As an immortality project the book fails. Life goes on and it fades until it disappears. We know that, but then we do not. We subconsciously think something is always going to restore the color, although it never does. So Plan B becomes more important. My Plan B involves recognizing that biological existence is a second choice and not pretending otherwise. At least it shall attempt to connect to more than fiction. Maybe that is the whole point.

So we can just paint a big melancholy backdrop and carry it along in order to not lose sight of the fact that nothing worthwhile comes easy. “All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare,” proclamed Baruch Spinoza.

This relates to the current tone of the project. It is no longer just a daydream. I have done some reading and have an appreciation of the assistance and limitations of yet more information. One cannot just read until ideas begin to pour out. At some point the project attains a perspective, third person becomes first person. Then it is just you, the mound, and a ball in your hand. Game on.

There is no getting around the big existential issues. That is what the book is about, so I cannot avoid them. And it is a response to these issues.We live in a physical world. We are physical creatures. When the brain stops working, we stop working. I do not much like that, but it is the hand we are dealt. So play it. Ignoring the limitations of biological existence simply allows those issues to address us on their time. Better we select the time and place, even if our options are limited. Mostly it is not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game. Those who think otherwise simply fall harder when they lose. And everyone loses.

But it gets brighter at times. The world is also about living, and that option remains. I see several tactical issues at this point in time about the book. The first is that it must be entirely self-funded. By this I do not mean financially, but rather, emotionally. I experience major dissonance between how I view the necessities of satisfactory living and how other people do. Perhaps I am more driven. To me life is not a beach. We are not placed here to enjoy ourselves, and to believe otherwise probably guarantees dissatisfaction.

Few are interested in this writing. I have been helped enormously by the work of John R. Searle, and I often think are he and I the only people who realize how important his work has been. He solves the mind/body dichotomy. We can see relatively clearly what we are, and this allows us to determine more accurately what we can and cannot do. Yet no one cares. People appear to prefer illusion and distraction. So be it. No one can teach motivation. Nothing bothers me more than having to wait for someone to assume responsibility. If they do, they do, but nothing can influence that happening. A reporter once asked Lou Holtz how to motivate a football team. He answered, “Get rid of those not motivated.”

Actually, that works for me. Instead of feedback from others, which never happens on these issues, one gets the chance to implement the insights. If the system is going to work, use it. We travel best with our nose to the particles and waves, and most of that advantage cannot be taxed away. This sounds a bit like the principle of capitalism—where everyone working for their own interest best serves everyone else. The point here is not to try to influence others. They will do what they will do. But paradoxically, when the goal is more limited our influence is increased. One cannot motivate the non-motivated, but one can offer an example to those searching. So we perhaps lead by example, although that rides along for free on our efforts to walk as upright as possible.

The benefit on this path is that it increases confidence in one's algorithm from top to bottom. Intractable issues in life are more often due to emotional than to intellectual challenges. It is not that we can’t see; it is that we won’t see. Or it can be that we have two premises that conflict, both of which command our allegience. So with this plan you can stay with logic all the way up and down rather than diverting to authority. This brings you to conclusions not shared by most, but thereby not manipulated by those who play the masses.

For example, consider the economic crisis. (Facts plus aphorism):

1. No fiat currency has ever survived. Since 1971 we have had a fiat currency, even though the Constitution forbids it.

2. We got into trouble by borrowing too much and the proposed solution now is to borrow still more.

3. Never let those who caused a problem be the ones to fix it.

The crisis is not that difficult to understand: 1) all fiat currencies fail; 2) we have a fiat currency; 3) therefore, it shall fail. How hard is that? And it can not end well. Thomas Jefferson said, “Those who expect to be ignorant and free expect what never was and never will be”. So maybe we just do not care. And maybe we have to trust authority because we cannot trust ourselves. It is hard to trust ourselves if we believe in tooth fairies. Perhaps we have to believe this “all in it together” crap because we cannot trust our own reads. Thus we ignore the crass selfishness of the ruling elite in order to keep our illusion that they care about something other than themselves. Society does not usually get what it wants, although it usually gets what it deserves.

But the economy here is only offered as an example. It is not the issue. It is all to easy, for me at least, to get lost in such distractions. Perhaps anarchy or servitude, while we can do little about them, is easier to look at than death, which we can do even less about. But death is ultimately the issue here.

If you have a fear of dying, and who does not, it does not suffice to just turn away. It appeared to work better to grab for salvation. Religion was the usual move throughout history, but it got into a battle with science three hundred years ago, and science is currently leading. Religion has lost influence. If you believe in organized religion you do so by faith, which essentially means you have no evidence. For example, some question whether the Bible speaks the word of God, to which the believers respond, “of course it does, it says so in the Bible”. But when veracity is in question that which is being questioned cannot vouch for itself. That begs the question, which means it takes as given precisely what is in doubt. And if the believers had evidence they would not need faith, trust would be sufficient. You trust that your car will start tomorrow because it generally does and companies now make automobiles to be quite reliable. You do not need faith the car will start tomorrow. You have something better, evidence. Faith might have greater effect, but then so does luck. Faith is invoked on the really big issues, where trust is not sufficient (i.e. immortality). But its dependability is in question, which is not assuaged by the fact that faith is in fact based on, well, faith. You just jump. If you trusted you could just walk across and save yourself the trouble. If you had hope you could build a bridge. But with faith you just jump, perhaps doing what you feel is expected and trying to convince yourself that doing so will have some influence on a power that apparently derives some satisfaction from your devotion.

I do not see a rabbit to pull out of that hat. But then faith is not about my doing something. It is about letting something greater act. What are the chances of that happening? Well I like the odds of there being something greater. It’s a complex and vast universe. But if that something needs constant affirmation from us we might wonder if we would do better on our own. But we can’t defeat death. So are we stuck? No, we can redefine our perspective of a higher power or idealize someone locally. But that is precisely our problem. We can’t handle finality, so we turn to someone who convinces us they can, albeit usually for a fee. But they cannot fix it either, and we are just out the expense, which might be better spent on superpails of hard red wheat—in this life, at least.

I am fond of saying that during a basketball game I can keep my mind on only one thing at a time, which usually is whether we are playing man-to-man or zone. All the rest is reaction. You can skip the above two paragraphs and apply that approach here. The point is that you are either in or out, meaning either you decide for yourself or someone decides for you. It is all or nothing. If you intend to self-direct, then nothing can lay outside your purview, not death, kings, or God. If at any point you blink, then you turn over your center to someone else. Reason and commitment has a chance. Authority and passivity not so much. We cannot delegate basic responsibilities. If only one beam is missing in our mental scaffold the whole structure becomes suspect. Hocking says we cannot be happy if there is an issue we cannot confront because we know we cannot handle it and remain vulnerable to surprise at any time. Perhaps we incur additional costs by not facing death. It is a door we cannot leave to faith.

On a different line, my frame of reference is changing. Much of my identity used to relate to work. Now, since I am retired, it relates to my reading. This works for me, but it makes it hard to imagine an audience for the writing. The vets are not interested in this except perhaps for its practical implications. Writing for therapy groups is not going to suffice. And few anywhere are interested in metaphysics. But some are.

The book keeps its value as a final goodbye present. That is a response to death, perhaps not as comforting as eternity, but genuine nevertheless. It crosses my mind that someone like me might profit from this work. Perhaps that is tautological because these are in fact my lessons. But even if no one reads it, the book must be written. It is my task. I am lucky to have found it, and the joy is in the doing. So—