kaleidoscope truth

Towards the end of To The Lighthouse, James faces a battle of perception:

The Lighthouse was then a silvery, misty-looking tower with a yellow eye, that opened suddenly, and softly in the evening. Now—
James looked at the Lighthouse. He could see the white-washed rocks; the tower, stark and straight; he could see that it was barred with black and white; he could see windows in it; he could even see washing spread on the rocks to dry. So that was the Lighthouse, was it?
No, the other was also the Lighthouse. For nothing was simply one thing. The other Lighthouse was true too.

He is able to reconcile the image of the lighthouse of his childhood with the lighthouse he sees before him. As such, he has a complete vision of ‘truth,’ which accounts for subjectivity. Similarly, Lily Briscoe finishes her painting at the end of the novel and ‘completes her vision.’ Her perception is an artful one, including the story of both past and present,  actual and representational. So this is truth, then? Idealized, misconstrued as bright or dark, in shades of grey, with rainbow colors, with cloudy moonshine, with infintesmal variation — this lighthouse is the truth, a fluid kaleidescope of ‘real’…

Is it worse to be the meanie or the baby-beanie bam-sack?

I’ve just reached Part II in Anna Karenina, and Kitty has fallen ill — a physical manifestation of the guilt she feels after rejecting Levin:

She raised her bright, truthful eyes to Levin, and, upon seeing his despairing face, hastened to reply :

“It cannot be — forgive me.”

How near, how important for his life she had been for him, but a minute ago! And how strange and distant she was now for him!

“It could not be otherwise,” he said, without looking at her.

Whose drama is Tolstoy writing in between the lines? Is it the quiet, self-deprecating Levin whose pain deserves an exclamation point? Or can we also see Kitty’s sadness, as she regretfully pushes away the man she loves? No matter, she will soon face her mistake, sick at home, while Levin continues to dream of possibilities and a love that might still be. After the fact, Kitty is certainly worse off.

True, it is awful to be a victim, but it is perhaps worse to be the meanie. The meanie has to live with the feeling of having hurt someone else, which means Guilt with a capital G. While the injured fellow can crawl into the corner and wallow in self-pity and outward blame, the persecutor is forced to sit in the sty of their evil-doings without excuses. Alas, out go the tides of pride, karma and love — the baby-beanie is much cuter, and in much better shape than the meanie-weenie.

Detachment, love, imperfection

Once, I told my Buddhist father that his non-attachment philosophy was senseless. I said, “Don’t you love Mom?” He carried on about the beauty of unencumbered clarity and the murder of the ego, making no counterpoint to my attack. Alas, I was left to wonder, what’s with this detachment mumbo-jumbo?

Reading Orwell’s essay, Reflections on Gandhi, I was struck by these remarks about the psychological roots of saintliness: “the main motive for ‘non-attachment’ is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work.” I felt a small, less-than-holy, triumph over my father upon reading this. But then it occurred to me that I didn’t agree. Selfishness as the main motivation for saintliness? Um, no. While the essay’s argument is thorough, it still comes down to a rather moralistic attack on Gandhi. I like Gandhi. Non-violence, truth, simplicity… I still believe in spiritual heroes. And I believe in my dad, and he loves my mom, and kumbaya.

Of course, I couldn’t help cuddling up to this line: “No doubt alcohol, tobacco, and so forth, are things that a saint must avoid, but sainthood is also a thing that human beings must avoid.” Yes, Orwell, we are imperfect. Amen, it’s happy hour.