It's that time of year again

To the pagans of ancient times, the end of April and the end of October were special times: this was their celebration of the beginning of Spring and Autumn, the start and mid-point of a year, the celebrations that had to do with balance.

We don't think like that anymore. One day is like the next, one season like any other, even if we all have our personal preferences. We live by the clock, not by the sun; we are aware of the time of year, but never of its significance. We moderns are so arrogant, we have no idea how ignorant we are.

Prior to the railroads, we lived by the sun. We arose when it was light and retired when it was dark. Our days in winter were much shorter than those in summer, and we acted and interacted accordingly. Now, we have not only standardized our "time", we forcefully distort (e.g., Daylight Savings Time), regardless of what it costs us financially, personally, or even spiritually.

OK, I outed myself: I'm old school. The particular numbers on a clock, the position of the clock's hands don't really mean a whole helluva lot to me. It's not because I don't care, not at all, but rather because it doesn't matter.

Six in the morning? Some people get up, others continue to sleep. Twelve noon? Some people are looking for (or enjoying) lunch, others are back at work or waiting. The evening news comes at five, six, seven or eight ... it doesn't matter. We pay little attention anyhow. The news only tells us whether we can move into evening-relax mode or have dinner or, well, whatever.

But for me, today, Walpurgisnacht (Walpurgis' Night) is always special. It is a forgotten holiday, but a traditionally mystical-magical day (night). We have retained part of that magic in May Day Dancing and festivals, but of course not in America, because May Day is also the "communist" Labor Day. Our modern, sterile, ignorant-of-tradition, and ignorant repression of the natural cycle of nature have obscured and thereby made meaningless the inspiring beauty and enlivening of nature's rhythms.

In truth, I feel sorry for all those contemporaries who can only live in a clock-determined, clock-driven world. I am saddened by all those who cannot escape their self-created prisons of time. I am disheartened that I cannot make clear to them that they have enslaved themselves to an illusion we call time.

Many people that I know are enamored by and love their radio-controlled watches and clocks, because, well, you really know what time it is. That this "absolute time" is a mere average of 11 different "nuclear clocks" should give us pause to wonder just how exact and precise an average really is. If nothing else, it is a fixation on a detail that merely obscures the bigger picture: the wonderful and wondrous cycles of nature.

This is what I think of on this particular day of the year. Not because of the absurdity of our modern obsessions, but because of the respect it gives me for those who came before and who understood.

Yes, that's our modern malady: we know, but we really don't understand.

The arrogance of ignorance

Those of us alive today and in a position to be reading a blog, like this one, are, on the whole, a rather arrogant lot. Just look at what we're capable of: the best of technology, the vastness of knowledge, the widespread access to information, the high level of our standard of living, our overall rate of literacy and general level of education. We are witness to wonders only dreamt of by our forebears.

This tends to make us arrogant, you know? Who else has accomplished so much? Who else has made as many advances as us in the last, oh, just say, half-a-century? We've deposed monarchies, de-mythologized religion, discovered some of the deepest secrets of matter, send quasi-intelligent probes to distant planets. We've globalized trade, spread democracy around like fertilizer, and are literally capable -- even if not so inclined ... at the moment -- of destroying the planet. Who has ever done what we have done? No one, ever. We're the best that's been here yet, or so we like to think. Yes, arrogance is as simple as thinking you're better than someone else.

But, for all we can do, what do we really know? Do we really understand nature? Can we explain the phenomenon of consciousness? If we're so smart and powerful, why can't we ensure that every person on the planet has clean water and enough to eat, a roof over their heads, or that we all can live free of fear? Who knows what money really is, or how it works, or how our finance systems function, or what ideologies are and which ones we're individually and personally susceptible to? Why can't we recognize injustice when it stares us in the face? Why can't we do what is right, even if we know that to do so would perhaps reduce our own power? Who knows the difference between data, information, knowledge and wisdom? When did data become more valued and important than wisdom, in fact? Who understands the difference between a society, a culture, and political system? Who of you can even describe the difference between wave and particle theories of physics, or even know that there are different theories? Why is it that in the most informed, allegedly enlightened, knowledgeable, and supposedly advanced ages the world has ever known, we have so many who don't know the sun revolves around the sun and the sun around the center of our galaxy and our galaxy ... well, you get the idea.

There is so much we just don't know, either individually or collectively, but it doesn't stop us from looking down upon those who came before us: be it just a couple hundred years (that silly Descartes still believed in a soul) or a couple of millennium (the Ancient Greeks couldn't calculate their way out of a wet paper bag) and other than piling up rocks, what do the Ancient Egyptians have to show for themselves? Yeah, nobody has ever had their stuff together like we do, eh?

We look down on those who came before us for two primary reasons: (1) we consider them less developed, rather childlike and, OK, I'll say it, primitive, and (2) we can't begin to understand them; that is, meet them on their terms. Arrogance, you should know, is simply a form of blindness, no more and no less. If you think you know it all, what can you possibly learn from someone else? Truth be told, we're neither informed nor as smart as we like to think we are, and so we're blind to what we might be able to learn from those who came before us.

No, for the observant reader of the past few posts, it should be clear that yesterday still has a lot to tell ... if we had but the ears to hear, and the eyes to see.

Out, out, damned spot

There was a time that Shakespeare was a mandatory part of the curriculum. I don't know if that still is the case. At that time -- in my time -- it was considered mandatory, as part of a well-rounded education, that one would be exposed to "classic" literature. My parents never, ever suspected how dangerous that was. I don't think any technocrat or bureaucrat has ever pondered literature as the well-spring of subversion. But good old Bill knew and told us more than most people ever want to know.

I'm partial to Macbeth, I'll admit it, not because it the shortest of Shakespeare's tragedies, but because it is, as I see it, the most intense. To me, Macbeth is tragedy with all the fat cut off. There's not a lot of philosophical speculation of "maybe this" or "maybe that" options. Macbeth, as I like to think, is Shakespeare's most "down and dirty" play: you can want what you want, regardless of what reasons, but in the end, you have to make do with the consequences of your actions. Yes, at bottom, we're responsible for what we do. All the magic, all the witches, all the noble and other aspirations mean nothing. When all is said and done, reality takes its toll.

Of course, Lady Macbeth plays her part. Behind every successful (or doomed) man, there stands a woman. This isn't belittling to women, far from it. A man without a woman is a mere shadow of a human. It takes two to be one. (And if you don't know what I'm talking about, maybe in a future post, I'll get around to explaining it.) Of all the characters in this particular play, I have to say that Lady Macbeth is my absolute favorite. Without her, we don't have a tragedy, no, we don't have a play at all.

But, literature always tells us something about life. Macbeth, like all Shakespearean heroes is doomed. And, in this case, his accomplice, is doomed as well. It is Lady Macbeth who, long before her husband even suspects it, knows that it is all going to end badly. Most literary scholars like to think she simply loses her mind under the unbearable pressure of her guilt, but it would seem that she is the only one who really knows that her own motivating actions set the switches for the route to perdition.

What Shakespeare shows us, clearly and vibrantly, is that while we think we're doing one thing, in truth, we are doing something else. When we, further, believe, we are doing good (i.e., what needs to be done), in truth, we are undoing ourselves, we are undermining our own ambitions. Why? Because, just like Lady Macbeth, we confuse our personal ambitions with those of the general populace, of the masses, of, well, everyone else.

Lady Macbeth implodes not so much because she can't bear her own guilt as that she breaks under the burden of ego-centrism. She wanted more. She encouraged her husband to want more. But the desire for "more" is an insatiable desire. We can want what we want, but we can't have it all. At some point, the individual implodes.

There are those who would say that Shakespeare is not longer relevant to us today, but I disagree. We're living in an age in which some folks want it all and, like Macbeth and his Lady, are willing to do whatever's necessary to get it. What's different today is that it is a system (in a manner of speaking), not a person that is making the decisions, but, in the end, the results will be the same. Unlike then, there's going to be a lot of collateral damage, death, and destruction this time around.

There's a Grand Scheme of Things

We moderns, as I said before, like to think that life started with us, but it didn't. We like to think we're the smartest version of the species yet to appear, but I certainly have my doubts. I'm not saying the Ancients were smarter or cleverer (though they did figure out that fire and wheel thing, and whether we've really improved on either is open to debate), rather they were, in their own way, every bit as intelligent and insightful as we are today. The Ancients weren't errant, trial-and-error-driven, superstitious, child-like, simpletons. They were highly evolved, curious, interested and adventurous people. They didn't figure everything out, and neither have we, and if we took them half-seriously and were not so condescending in our attitude, there could be a thing or two we could learn from them.

Some archaeologists, for example, are convinced the Sphinx is much older than the Great Pyramids. It is obvious that the Sphinx has a lion's body, and it's just as obvious that the head has been resculpted. How old could it be? Well, if the body has anything to tell us, I'd start thinking perhaps as much as 12,000 years old. That's long before most archaeologists believe humans were capable of such constructions, but there's hardly a day that goes by that new evidence does not appear that humans have been acting like humans much farther back in history than expected, at least based on what we "know". And, to come back to my Creationist friends, could it be that the world being only 6,000 years old has something to do with the beginning of recorded history? It was the so-called People of the Book who first introduced the notion. Could it be that not t-h-e world, but a, or their particular world (understood as a way of accepting reality ... much like was say today that some people "live in their own world") came into being then?

Off track? Maybe, but maybe not. One of the hallmarks of modernity is its insistence on facts and factual knowledge (even if lots of folks prefer to ignore the same if these facts don't fit into their own little "world", like climate-change deniers, etc.). One of the hallmarks of our ancient ancestors is that to them, the story was more important, for it was the story that communicated meaning and made sense of their lives and the world in which they found themselves. Our incessant appetite for facts kills meaning. Facts are like sugar calories: they're fine every now and again, but you can't live off sugar, you need other nutrients to keep yourself alive and healthy. Myth -- true myth -- provides a rich variety of intellectual and psychological nutrients that help us find meaning in this otherwise hunger-producing world in which we live.

Hardline science wants us to believe that we live in a coincidentally and accidentally, created, formed and evolved world, that we ourselves are the product of blind chance, that there is no meaning to be found and when we think we have found some, it turns out we only made it up to placate our own fears. Why we have fears and why we can make things up to placate them doesn't matter to hardline science for that is outside the purview of their interests. This is why the state of science today, the state of our knowledge, is in such bad shape. If nothing else, our ancient forebears were trying, and it would appear to me, making some progress in understanding their (read: our) relationship to all that surrounds us. Sculpting a bull because it links us to observed natural, astronomical phenomena hardly seems like a random act to me, especially when I think it could take years to finish that sculpture.

For me, given the choice, between haphazard, meaningless chance and a meaningful relationship to the world around me ... I'll opt for the latter every single time. I think we owe at least that much to those who came before us.