Almost Not Being There
Reality is unmoored…
I am floating away…
It’s all going by like a mirage…
Nothing matters anymore…
It’s almost like not being there…
This is what I’ve been hearing from my students – and, frankly, my own experience is not that much different. Reality is coming apart and a lot of us are feeling disconnected. It may be worse for those of us in the north where a long, harsh winter has made the social distancing even more oppressive, and those students and teachers in remote learning where there is no human interaction at all.
We are social creatures and contact with others is, in many ways, like the gravity that holds us in our orbit. Without those bonds we are like creatures on an alien planet with no gravitational pull, floating out into space. It’s asking a lot of us, but we must use our own capabilities to create a center that will hold.
The early 20th century Welsh philosopher, John Cowper Powys, wrote a book called A Philosophy of Solitude which I’ve been re-reading. He comes out swinging in the first chapter with this declaration:
“We need, just now, a certain fierce, bitter, indignant philosophy. We need a certain bone-to-bone austerity in our mental vision combined with a new emphasis upon the power of the will...”
He is railing against the all-too-familiar, feel-good philosophy of the romantics and the transcendentalists – echoed today in many new-age affirmations and optimistic self-help talks – that everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds. He feels we need more of the Stoic’s attitude that life can be hard and wretched and miserably unfair and filled with disappointments. Instead of retreating to whimper and lick our wounds or hibernate until it’s all over, Powys commands us to create “a clear cut, hard, resistant nucleus of consciousness.” This consciousness of an “undefeated self” is like a diamond, made hard by the terrible pressures pushing against. Through the ability to remain fiercely defiant in protection of this nucleus of consciousness called the Self, and our willingness to take creative authorship over our attitudes, we have the tools necessary to forge ahead through all difficulties.
In a rather dramatic gesture Powys asks us to imagine a person imprisoned in a small room, without any immediate hope of release or a change of routine, with nothing but a tiny window facing north from which the gloom of intermittent rain and a few dry leaves are all that can be seen. In such an environment, he asks, how can such a person experience sufficient happiness to find the will to go on living? Powys answer is the cultivation of “the defiant and undefeated self.”
“In its complete isolation, stripped of all its antennae a contact, it is still itself. Nothing can prevent it saying to itself “I AM I.” Nothing can prevent it thinking its defiance, nothing can prevent it remembering. It has become like a stone on the riverbank, like a pebble on the seashore, like a stricken but yet living tree by the wayside. Even in this naked isolation the self retains the power of setting in order the machinery of its mind.”
This may strike you as cold comfort, but the situation described by Powys as belonging to a wretched prisoner is, in fact, pretty much what my winter has looked like. How about you? Imprisoned in a room without outside contact, nor any hope of early release, staring through a north facing window at a few leaves tossed by the wind…
When things are this bleak, we do need a much fiercer philosophy than the romanticism which is so American in its optimism and cheerfulness. At times such as ours that amount of hope is not a tonic but rather a poison that can do real damage. It is just at such a juncture, suggests Powys, that we cannot wait for external circumstances to change. We must turn away from the false hopes and the romantic yearning for a promise from someone or somewhere else that will save us. We must sternly tell ourselves that there is no aid coming from outside. This is it. We are the only one that can make the change, and the change begins inside of us.
This is why the development of the inner life, “the examined life” as the Greek philosophers called it, is so critically important. We have been trained to be so externally focused, so socially driven, that we have neglected this central task of becoming a human being, of growing a Self.
The “I am I” for most of us is not a hard and polished gem, capable of withstanding the pounding currents of flood or drought or alienation or being unfriended, it is rather a flabby, flimsy, half-hearted whine on our social media page; a plea for more likes or thumbs-up to give us a sense of reassurance. All of that nonsense must be banished. To thrive one must first endure the difficult task of embracing solitude and move through the phases of loneliness and resistance to isolation to the point where one positively yearns to be alone; to find delight in pressing one’s nose up against the cold windowpane; taking glee in watching the dance of the fallen leaves against their somber backdrop.
Here is what we can do, right here, right now: by pressing down and pressing in on the need for outer encouragement and making it smaller; by fortifying oneself with greater focus on what is truly within our control - our ability to observe and record detail; the capacity for reflection and contemplation; the satisfaction of simple rituals that we establish within the confines of our daily life; the deliberate acts of small kindnesses paid to ourselves and other creatures; the quiet diligence of small tasks undertaken for a sense of order or beauty; the deepening appreciation for the rhythms of the natural world and the abundant novelty happening all around us. All of these things are within our reach and belong to our rightful kingdom of selfhood. Within this field of influence we can slowly, methodically, and with that fierce application of the will, begin to come down to earth and find our moorings once again.
It is not grand but it is noble, and it represents the very best of what a human being can do in the face of overwhelming odds. We can sit down, read something worth reading, write in a journal, take stock of what really matters to us and those under our care, make a short list of things that we could do today that would make a tiny bit of difference for the better, choose the first one on the list and do it. And that’s all. This is the application of will in the face of insurmountable difficulties.
It is surprisingly effective in taking oneself off the wheel of hope and despair. By stubbornly refusing to become inflated by the overpromising of politicians, lovers, social media, New Age hype, pulpit preachers, and all the other sellers of dangerous wares - you may actually arrive at the point predicted by the gloomy Welsh philosopher where you will be able to find ecstasy in noticing, in a crack in the pavement, the small, straggly upthrust of a green bud. In that moment you may realize, as the equally gloomy existentialist, Albert Camus, once surprisingly noted:
“In the midst of winter I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me there is something stronger, something better, pushing right back.”
R.D. Armstrong, March 11, 2021 - Commemorating one year of the global pandemic lockdown
