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The Passive Subject Falls Down a Lot
Apr. 26th, 2009 09:30 pm(Inspired by the NYT magazine article, obviously.)
I've been thinking lately about how, if Buddhism works, it requires you to walk a very fine line between letting an emotion run away with you and putting it out of sight. Practitioners insist, anyway, that it is not just escapism; but for myself, I don't know what "sitting with" can mean in this circumstance other than "detaching from," or "floating above."
Detaching from thinga and floating above them are important; but I would never call them anyone's ideal state. They're like fevers that immobilize you until you're healthy again. Important in emergencies, as long as there's some determination that will take over and drag you along, some transcendental ego that's all-muscle. It feels almost comforting to be able to rely on it.
That said, when I am in this state, I spend most of my time thinking about how to be myself again. I imagine and reimagine, write and rewrite every feeling, go through my old journals, set myself projects having to do with them, wander around in my endless memory. I've wondered whether that re-imagining itself does any work; whether it might not be a kind of illusion, since there can be no set facts about myself when I'm in that state. I could wander around forever in there, like the stereotypical character stuck in a world of illusion, who, however much she explores it, will not find the missing sense of "reality." I've susepected that what is required to spring out of it is something of another kind entirely. (And having done it many times, I still can't say how it happens. Not unlike the beginnings of actions generally.)
But I wouldn't recommend becoming aloof from oneself as a primary way of life; it's negation, to use a Sartre word, and as such is a little dangerous. The ability to ignore suffering in oneself is at once beneficial and disturbing: the same ability applied to, or by, others could be disatrous.
I've been thinking lately about how, if Buddhism works, it requires you to walk a very fine line between letting an emotion run away with you and putting it out of sight. Practitioners insist, anyway, that it is not just escapism; but for myself, I don't know what "sitting with" can mean in this circumstance other than "detaching from," or "floating above."
Detaching from thinga and floating above them are important; but I would never call them anyone's ideal state. They're like fevers that immobilize you until you're healthy again. Important in emergencies, as long as there's some determination that will take over and drag you along, some transcendental ego that's all-muscle. It feels almost comforting to be able to rely on it.
That said, when I am in this state, I spend most of my time thinking about how to be myself again. I imagine and reimagine, write and rewrite every feeling, go through my old journals, set myself projects having to do with them, wander around in my endless memory. I've wondered whether that re-imagining itself does any work; whether it might not be a kind of illusion, since there can be no set facts about myself when I'm in that state. I could wander around forever in there, like the stereotypical character stuck in a world of illusion, who, however much she explores it, will not find the missing sense of "reality." I've susepected that what is required to spring out of it is something of another kind entirely. (And having done it many times, I still can't say how it happens. Not unlike the beginnings of actions generally.)
But I wouldn't recommend becoming aloof from oneself as a primary way of life; it's negation, to use a Sartre word, and as such is a little dangerous. The ability to ignore suffering in oneself is at once beneficial and disturbing: the same ability applied to, or by, others could be disatrous.
