THE LIFE OF THE MIND

Dreams, fantasies, memories, reflections, meditations... As the body ages, the life of the mind occupies more and more of the reality of my life. 

Last night I dreamt I had become the target of criminal assassins. I lived alone--as I do not--in an apartment--as I do not--on the seventh and highest floor of a low-rise building, in some part of the world that is unknown to me. With the urgency of the hunted, I needed to return to my apartment to recover what was important to take with me on my escape. The elevator... ? No. Too dangerous and too confined a space. I devised an ingenious way to scale the building by running around the perimeter of every floor, each one tilting a little higher to take me to the next. But this design turned out to be a deceptive, M.C.Escher-ish illusion, leaving me trapped in constant motion on the same floor.

Instead, I took to the wooden stairway at the side of the building, like an internal fire escape, running up so many flights I was exhausted by the time I reached the top. Inside, my apartment was fully furnished. Everything was there. What should I take? Clothes? The closet was crammed with them. I realized I could only take what I was wearing, and changed into a pair of light gray pants, a nondescript shirt, so as not to draw attention. 

Next, the safe. A small fireproof box. I recalled having left a roll of money there, in case of an emergency. Thousands of dollars, mostly in hundred dollar bills, all rolled up neatly. But then, reaching for it, I recalled also having decided at some earlier time that it was too much, too susceptible to theft, and had taken much of it to hide elsewhere, leaving only a deceptive roll consisting mostly of dollar bills, as a kind of decoy. I had left myself a note, a hint, to help me remember where I had hidden the rest...

I wanted to tell my daughter--not my daughter; where did she come from? where did she go?--where to find that note, but didn't know what to tell her. I simply gave her the remaining cash and ran out, down the stairs again.

On the next floor down I found a room where a professor--a glib man of deceptively pleasant mien--was preparing for a seminar with a handful of students. I immediately suspected him of being the assassin, but he read my mind and gave me a not unkind smile. It's not the obvious suspects you should be concerned about, he told me. The one should worry about is the one you least suspect...

The dream continued, but faded, from that point, from my memory. 

I suspect the dream's narrative had to do with the literal and inexorable approach of death, as the years pass; and with the understanding that I will not escape, and that any money that I have and all my worldly goods will be left behind. It's a reminder that when I leave this world, it will be with nothing I have accumulated along the way.

As I say, the life of the mind increasingly takes over from the real world as the place in which I am now given to live...

FUNK

 I woke this Monday morning in a horrible blue funk, dreaming of fire lines approaching a city with a mayor who could or would do nothing, and images of a patio covered with fresh dog shit that no one had picked up. Sound familiar? The profound depression in my mind was matched by a body in pain everywhere, mostly (age-related!) aches in every joint, and muscles that felt depleted of all physical strength. 

Not a good way to wake up!

Meditation was a challenge, with words darting everywhere in my head--words trying to describe what it was I was feeling as I sat. Well, "writing." It's my mind's way of dealing with what's troubling it. Namely...

... a country in chaos, with one political party mindlessly obstructing every effort of the other to reach out and help the millions of Americans who are out of work, hungry and, too many of them, sick and dying; with a leader coming in from the golf course to issue senseless and unhelpful executive orders in an attempt to project the impression of powerful action; a leader who so badly needs adulation that he calls in dozens of his hundreds-of-dollar annual fee golf club members to applaud him loudly at a "press conference..."

... a country riven by discord, mutual hatred and mistrust, one-third of them fed on a day-by-day, hour-by-hour diet of misinformation and outright lies, and driven by a hateful fear of the invented specter of "liberals" and "socialism..."

... and a personal sense of dislocation and disorientation: what am I even doing here, in this, my adopted country, that now feels so alien? Where do I belong...? 

I breathe in, I breathe out. That's one saving grace. The other is more mundane: it is that I have enough "English" left in me to get up from my chair and head off to the kitchen to brew up the solace of a morning cup of tea.

THE PREDICAMENT

It's a predicament.  I never learned to type.  For... what... ?  More than half a century, let's say, I have managed by looking down at the keys to type, then up at the text, then down again at the keys, and so on.  The system works, all other things being equal.  I do it virtually every day, and stuff gets written.  Now, though, with a pain in the neck that doesn't seem to want to go away, it has become a problem.  Even though I prop up my laptop at eye level, as my daughter suggests, I still have to move my head fractionally back and forth to look down at the keys.  Which results in... well, this morning, after only a few minutes, a nasty and persistent neck spasm.

As a predicament, it may not seem like much.  I think, for example, of Ram Dass and the catastrophic stroke that deprived him of his greatest gift, the ability to speak extemporaneously to eager listeners with wit, insight and wisdom.   But it's similar in that it challenges my deepest and most ingrained sense of identity.  I'm a writer.  This is what I do.  And when I can't do it, or can do it only at the cost of severe, not to say excruciating pain, this small predicament leaves me confronted with the prospect of not being able to be the person that I thought I was.  Even for a day--though it has been a full week now, not being able to write leaves me feeling empty, worthless, good-for-nothing.

Oh, I can manage to squeeze out a couple of paragraphs, like this entry.  But, worse than the mechanical problem I have described, the pain seems to drive all thought out of my head.  This morning I had intended, for example, to review an art show that I saw yesterday, but that requires the kind of attentive and sequential thought of which I seem to be incapable right now.  The attention is constantly diverted from the paper (I mean, of course, the screen) to the pain, and the mind blurs with lassitude in a kind of self-defense.

I don't mean to complain, though I'm sure this sounds like a complaint.  My purpose was merely to describe the predicament as best I could, so that I might better come to terms with it.  Like every other human predicament, it offers me the important (if unwelcome!) opportunity to learn...  I notice how I cling to that identity.  So what would it be like not to be "the writer"?  And what would I need to do to adapt to that new reality?  What happens if, and when, I begin to lose my writer's curiosity and intelligence?  The writer's ambition, which gives me a sense of purpose in my life?

These are tough, scary questions.  I have my neck to thank for bringing them so forcefully to my attention.

THEY: AN ANSWER

GARY LLOYD at CSU CHANNEL ISLANDS

Confrontational art proved itself alive and well at California State University Channel Islands, where the Art Department sponsored an installation and accompanying performance by Gary Lloyd last Thursday, March 13, in a small gallery at their Camarillo campus.  “They: An Answer Driving the Problem, Revisted” took an updated look at work that has preoccupied the artist for many years, in an “interactive multimedia exhibition probing climate change and the impact of technology.”

“They,” as the exhibit and the artist’s gloss make clear, is actually “Us.”  The human species.  The overwhelming evidence—a good deal of it documented through a variety of media in the current show—is that our planet is in serious trouble.  With species disappearing at alarming rates, the ice cap melting, droughts, floods and fires in many parts of the globe, and so on—it’s a depressingly familiar list--the preponderance of credible science tells us that we are in danger of rendering the earth uninhabitable before the end of this present century.  Worse, we are rapidly approaching the tipping point beyond which all human efforts will be in vain.  This dire situation is compounded by the stranglehold in which the global ecosystem is held by corporate powers whose priority is profit, not the welfare of the Earth. 

Lloyd is convinced that we, the people of this planet, have “the answer”, if only we can find the will to use our technology in ways that benefit the earth rather than exploit it.  The technology, he insists, is simple, user-friendly, and as close to hand as a smart phone.  His performance gave him the opportunity to demonstrate his thesis, using Skype to instantaneously link like-minded people in China, Southern California and New York, in texts delivered in Mandarin Chinese and Spanish as well as English, in an offhand display of already ubiquitously existing systems we can use to facilitate communications and deploy our critical human intelligence in the resolution of our common problems.     

Intertwined with the communications issue is that of our energy consumption—and that’s not only the fossil fuels we Americans devour in vastly greater quantities than are our share as global citizens, but also the source of protein we use to fuel our bodies: meat.  The freeze-dried “meat axe” Lloyd created many years ago makes its doleful reappearance in the current show, reminding us of our ancient dependence on this food, and the only recently understood effects of its attendant demands on our natural environment.  Juxtaposed with his curiously “primitive” use of advanced technology, Lloyd’s trademark axes, skulls, and dug-out “book boats” remind us of the early roots of our human technology, and of the relatively short journey on which it has led us to wreak such havoc on the planet we inhabit.

Conscious that his performance was addressed primarily to college-aged art students, the artist was at pains to leave them a coherent, urgent and incontrovertible message: “I’m committed to this work; the planet expects—demands—no less of you.”  The performance ended on a deeply personal, confessional note, whose emotional intensity was unmistakable.  The father of two teenage boys, Lloyd made clear the responsibility he feels not only to the fragile and sorely tested Mother Earth, but to the family that is his own natural heritage.  It’s a responsibility that he poignantly required his audience to share. 

photo: Janice Tieken

SLOW PAINTING!

Today's entry comes from my friend Cynda Valle Rogers, a fine painter, in response to her reading of Slow Looking.  It's a marvelous description of her painting process, and one that I think many artists share.  It echoes my own writing process which, as I often say, honors this familiar adage: How do I know what I think 'till I see what I say.  Since Cynda wrote this as a comment to be published on TBD, I'm assuming she won't mind to see it featured on the blog itself.  Here she is:

Dear Peter, 

I recently got my copy of “Slow Looking” and was surprised and delighted to hear you describe a process that is very like the way many painters see.

Everyday, when I am done painting I bring the current painting home and spend hours looking at it. My family has often teased me about my “infatuation” with my paintings, not realizing how important it is to spend time looking rather than actively painting, …. Ideally this “slow looking” evolves into a painting that tells me something about myself that I didn’t already know and moves me in directions much more interesting then where I THOUGHT I was going... When this starts to happen I experience the most wonderful sensation of becoming the medium, rather than the author of the work. The painting starts to direct me, rather than the other way around. This is a truly heady sensation, one that, more than any other, feeds my soul and gives me the reason to paint. In order to be willing to spend the time “just looking” I have had to develop faith that the process will work, and that faith gives me the tenacity and patience I need to sit and simply look, no matter how long it takes for the “Muse” to speak.

The process reminds me of those old lava lamps from the 60’s; The subliminal (unconscious) mind bubbles at the base of the lamp. Given time and a quiet mind, (“unhindered,by preconceptions or mind sets”) and influenced only by the colors, shapes, textures, and images in the painting in front of me, a bubble of an idea will detach from the base of the lamp (subliminal mind) and slowly rise through the viscous liquid to pop into the conscious mind (top of the lamp) complete and fully formed and presenting such an obvious and simple direction for the painting to move that I am always surprised that it took so much time looking to discover it. I get that magical sensation that I didn’t think it up myself, merely grabbed it when it popped into my consciousness. 

The Quakers too, understand this phenomenon. “The still small voice within” requires the quieting of your conscious mind and sufficient time to focus in and hear the voice. Even so we often try to deny the voice, it is so subtle, and we can easily drown it out… But over time it will bubble up again and again, quietly burst ing into our consciousness until we “see.” 

Thanks to Cynda for this wise, insightful piece!

GRATITUDE

Just an update on Slow Looking, for TBD readers.  As you know I have been much preoccupied in recent days with putting out word about my new book and this is a good moment to acknowledge the help you've given me, some in very significant ways.  Just yesterday, my friend and fellow-blogger, the painter Gregg Chadwick, wrote a lengthy entry about the book on Speed of Life.  Thanks, Gregg!  I'm grateful, too, for the long and thoughtful article by Liz Goldner , the Orange County-based writer and art critic, on her blog, Contemporary Art Dialogue.  And then, quite unexpectedly, there was a fine article in Slow Muse, a blog authored by the east coast painter Deborah Barlow.  Thanks, Deborah!  How about a "One Hour/One Painting" session in your studio one day?  The paintings you post on your blog look like excellent subjects!  And thanks, too, for Facebook postings by Fiona Robyn, Robin Chan, Morrie Warshawski, Pat Riley,  and others--as well as to all those who "liked," forwarded and tweeted links.

This has been my first experience with POD (publish on demand) self-publishing, so I'm more than ever aware that it's this kind of support that's needed if a book is to rise above the horizon line in today's saturated market--and I hope it goes without saying that it's the ideas I'm interested in spreading, not the commerce!  One thing that's puzzling to me is the stats on CreateSpace. As I've noted before, there have been annoying glitches in the ordering process--now hopefully ironed out.  I'm also told that there's a time lag in CreateSpace's reporting.  But I still would have expected more of a spike that I've noticed to date and I'm concerned by what seems like a discrepancy between the stats and the feedback I've been getting.  But I don't have my own numbers, not even bare estimates.  So you'd be doing me a great favor if you'd simply drop a line to my email address (peterclothier@mac.com) to let me know 1) if you placed an order and received a copy; or 2) if you tried to place an order and gave up in despair.  That information would be very useful as I persist in my efforts, so my best thanks in advance if you have it in your heart to help.

I'd also love to hear from you if you have a readership with whom you'd like to share some thoughts about Slow Looking.  I still have a (rather limited!) number of review copies to send out, so please feel free to ask.

I have often expressed my gratitude for your readership when posting on The Buddha Diaries, but it bears repeating.  I have been writing for many years and have published in many different arenas, but it gives me more pleasure than I can say to know that there are hundreds of people throughout the world who check in on these pages, whether regularly or only on occasion.  To know that I can actually publish what I write on any given day and that what I have written will be read on seven continents still seems miraculous, and continues to provide me with a somewhat incredulous thrill.  I send out metta to all, along with my gratitude...

 

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