"Ju-nie would like your attention, excuse me." You have my attention, Junie. 🫡
I have always loved the idea of ignorance in Buddhism, that the true nature of things is a misrelation in oneself, that there is both progress but no progress: finding oneself in the same spot in a different manner. I'm interested in how you connect the Buddhist idea of ignorance to the Christian's ideas original sin and fallenness. Hmm! Hmm, I say! I love your seeing but am never totally on board...oh how you tease my meaning, orange horizon 🙈
Love to see you post, and a beatiful tribute to Junie. You guys are so cute. Thanks for this. Wishing you the best always.
Up up the catriarchy, shameless celebrations of orange cats, and imperfection too!
Neither your beautiful writing, nor the fact that the only books I'm currently reading are LSAT prep books (so no cool citations for my ideas should be expected) can discourage me from shit writing. So, there goes. Three things:
1- Juniper was absolutely right. She probably has a much better grasp on this, but another reason why a perfect cat/teacher/anything really is probably not the It is that such a thing/being--at least to me-- would be absolutely alienating. Repulsive even. Why should I care about something that is so perfect that it is also so Other (don't like this term (too continental and thus too wishy-washy) but whaddya gunno do..) to me. If the perfect cat/god does exist, well, good for her but I am quite literally just a girl; and as such I can't even imagine being interested in her. I think of this often in relation to other people: I'd take it a bit further than the above example of love to the newborn at its imperfect moments as a necessary and more meaningful love and suggest that if the absloutley perfect baby existed, I can't imagine anything more unlovable than that. Fucking horrifying. I find the idealization of loved ones equally as repulsive. In addition to the frustrating superficiality/stupidity (I am impatient and unforgiving of gaps in understanding in these areas), I take it to be a sad failure/refusal to engage with the person themselves; a preference for the idea of a non-existent perfect version of the person over the person themselves. Yeah, no. Fuck that. Sad, immature, and disgusting. I am often skeptical of capital B Beauty for similar reasons.
2- Hmm.. Not to restart our first Evans fight (the day he had us hold a trial for Boethius lol) but I am glad to see you moving, even if slightly, from your former--and at the time delightfully infuriating :D--'suffering (which I think in this context can stand for imperfection?) = evil = not real/not God/not true/nothing' stance.
Here are my two cents, and I think for once we actually partially agree?!: I wouldn't say that the unity of God (since I don't know what any of that is all about) makes the distinctions between good/perfect and bad/imperfect any less important, even if one takes it to mean that such distinctions disappear/ are irrelevant from the perspective of capital T Truth. It is necessary for Juniper to have some minimal concept of what a good/perfect condition of being in is like (well fed, with a lot of attention from everyone, say) in order to desire those things and wake her kind owners up demanding them. At least from practical considerations, the distinctions--even when, in contrast to Juniper's distinctions (in no way am I taking away from your perfect rationality, Junie. God forbid I'd engage in any such foolishness!) these distinctions are cultural/artificial rather than natural or instinctual--are important and useful. I, of course, am thinking of law and politics. Nonetheless, I really like your point about things being the way they are (Hey there Spinoza!). I think grief is a good, and not so positive :D example of what you're talking about. Where one both accepts the irreversibility of the loss and things being the way they are while still mourning it (not very clear, I know. But I hope enough of the point has been made).
3- A little bit of nationalism never killed nobody. So, that the West has no concept of Siesta is CRAZZYY to me. At least growing up, and 'in my culture' (lol), the worship of hard work and endless improvement as ends in themselves are taken to be strands of foolishness. Restlessness and limitless ambition being traits to be mocked, symptoms of a lack of appreciation for the true, necessarily imperfect nature of life, a tragic inability to be content. A good part of this is the classic belief that this life is not the ultimate one and stuff, but I think there's more to it than just that. A general " whaddya gunno do" attitude that has more to do with an, if you want, enlightened (I'd say based :D) humor than it is to do with resignation. I think it's a fucked up understanding of potential as an obligatory thing. I think it must be something like 'if I am capable of doing x then I ought to do x', x being a supposedly better action than one is currently engaged in. A statement like 'I can be doing x now', is always going to be true, and so for someone with this pattern of thinking, there's not a single minute when they are just fine doing whatever it is that they're doing. No just sitting or catching some zzz in peace. Yikes. Must be tough (:D). I sometimes have to stop myself from cruelly remarking "you do know that you still die/experience loss after all this, don't you? :D" to anxious, aggressive self-improvement pitches (I don't know what it is about me that brings out people's desire to make such pitches and comparisons, but hey, more fun for me :D). As I told you before, I really enjoy the humbling moments when life says "No." to us. In addition to what you called 'Sadism' (Jesus!), I think it's a reassuring reminder that it is perfectly tolerable if not even better for things not to go one's way sometimes. One should just sit and, you know, eat it. It's taboo for young people to say this, but I don't care, often times, and I write this just as a matter of fact (and not as a nostalgic and good god not a tragic thing), these are really one's only options. And that's that.
Seriously, free you guys from the shackles of this illusion of perfection thing and bless you with a sense of humor, and long live lovely Juniper, of course. Amen.
Ebtsam - sorry I took a little while to respond. Yes, all wisdom, as I predicted. I (radically) think we tend to agree more frequently than we realise, and perhaps that misunderstanding is due to the strange experience of meeting someone for the first time in a philosophy class. I don't know that it's always best for the spirit to spend the opening weeks of a relationship debating ideas that tend to be very close to one's heart. Alas.
I think the format and time of Evans' class was a little limited, and so I wasn't able to convey much about the reality - and so the necessity of acceptance thereof - of sin and suffering. It was more an attempt to defend the metaphysical principle of privatio boni, which I will admit I am reconsidering a little after reading Schelling but to which I still maintain my allegiance. In a way, though, the extremity of discourse was sort of necessary for my viewpoint: in one sense, I believe one must speak very strongly about the vacuous and privative nature of suffering (I find the idea that it really does have a say in the Grand Scheme of Things most repulsive of all, rather than merely being a catastrophic mistake), whilst at the same time also speaking very strongly to its absolute acceptance, as I say in this and the last article. It is perhaps easy to think me on one side or the other as a result, but I try to insist on both in equal measure, even if my Protestant heritage sometimes skews the scales.
I do love the idea of a culture that knows and loves siestas and 'sitting and eating it', whichever nation it belongs to. It is a very mature philosophy which allows that sort of thing. And I also agree, on a very important level, with your point about life saying 'no'; it really is that which shakes us away from egoism, and allows us to realise the Divine will or 'hukam' (to borrow from Sikhism) which always unfolds infinitely beyond the petty attractions and aversions of individuals. But I'm doubling down on the sadism comment (so long as you know it was a joke) :)
This is adorable, and you are a fantastic writer. Cats have a way of expressing divinity that I think us human beings generally do not see; I think we could benefit from more folks with perspectives like these. Right now I’m reading Feline Philosophy by John Gray, and while a generally lighthearted text, it does make me think existentially about the nature of owning pets, and how that dynamic might be better if we did not imagine ourselves as owners at all. Disciples, even. I think of Anna Kingsford, a woman who, Henry Olcott claimed, denied human conceptions of affection except in the context of her Guinea pig. A new favorite of mine is Mary Olivier: A Life by May Sinclair, and I’d be lying if I said my preference for it wasn’t at least subtly influenced by the hundred-year-old pictures I found of the author and a black cat. The realm of the mystical and the realm of the feline, I think, are intertwined for all those who have ever awoken in the hours before dawn to find a familiar furry shape asleep directly atop their ribcage— for all those who have seen strays with the same color eyes or same flash of fur as a beloved childhood pet. Oh, I miss my cat! Thanks for this post, Sam. Your writing is always a joy.
Thank you, Cara! Perfectly put - the feline is one more of those realms (alongside laughter and inebriation, of course...) where the Divine speaks with a tad more clarity.
"Ju-nie would like your attention, excuse me." You have my attention, Junie. 🫡
I have always loved the idea of ignorance in Buddhism, that the true nature of things is a misrelation in oneself, that there is both progress but no progress: finding oneself in the same spot in a different manner. I'm interested in how you connect the Buddhist idea of ignorance to the Christian's ideas original sin and fallenness. Hmm! Hmm, I say! I love your seeing but am never totally on board...oh how you tease my meaning, orange horizon 🙈
Love to see you post, and a beatiful tribute to Junie. You guys are so cute. Thanks for this. Wishing you the best always.
Up up the catriarchy, shameless celebrations of orange cats, and imperfection too!
Neither your beautiful writing, nor the fact that the only books I'm currently reading are LSAT prep books (so no cool citations for my ideas should be expected) can discourage me from shit writing. So, there goes. Three things:
1- Juniper was absolutely right. She probably has a much better grasp on this, but another reason why a perfect cat/teacher/anything really is probably not the It is that such a thing/being--at least to me-- would be absolutely alienating. Repulsive even. Why should I care about something that is so perfect that it is also so Other (don't like this term (too continental and thus too wishy-washy) but whaddya gunno do..) to me. If the perfect cat/god does exist, well, good for her but I am quite literally just a girl; and as such I can't even imagine being interested in her. I think of this often in relation to other people: I'd take it a bit further than the above example of love to the newborn at its imperfect moments as a necessary and more meaningful love and suggest that if the absloutley perfect baby existed, I can't imagine anything more unlovable than that. Fucking horrifying. I find the idealization of loved ones equally as repulsive. In addition to the frustrating superficiality/stupidity (I am impatient and unforgiving of gaps in understanding in these areas), I take it to be a sad failure/refusal to engage with the person themselves; a preference for the idea of a non-existent perfect version of the person over the person themselves. Yeah, no. Fuck that. Sad, immature, and disgusting. I am often skeptical of capital B Beauty for similar reasons.
2- Hmm.. Not to restart our first Evans fight (the day he had us hold a trial for Boethius lol) but I am glad to see you moving, even if slightly, from your former--and at the time delightfully infuriating :D--'suffering (which I think in this context can stand for imperfection?) = evil = not real/not God/not true/nothing' stance.
Here are my two cents, and I think for once we actually partially agree?!: I wouldn't say that the unity of God (since I don't know what any of that is all about) makes the distinctions between good/perfect and bad/imperfect any less important, even if one takes it to mean that such distinctions disappear/ are irrelevant from the perspective of capital T Truth. It is necessary for Juniper to have some minimal concept of what a good/perfect condition of being in is like (well fed, with a lot of attention from everyone, say) in order to desire those things and wake her kind owners up demanding them. At least from practical considerations, the distinctions--even when, in contrast to Juniper's distinctions (in no way am I taking away from your perfect rationality, Junie. God forbid I'd engage in any such foolishness!) these distinctions are cultural/artificial rather than natural or instinctual--are important and useful. I, of course, am thinking of law and politics. Nonetheless, I really like your point about things being the way they are (Hey there Spinoza!). I think grief is a good, and not so positive :D example of what you're talking about. Where one both accepts the irreversibility of the loss and things being the way they are while still mourning it (not very clear, I know. But I hope enough of the point has been made).
3- A little bit of nationalism never killed nobody. So, that the West has no concept of Siesta is CRAZZYY to me. At least growing up, and 'in my culture' (lol), the worship of hard work and endless improvement as ends in themselves are taken to be strands of foolishness. Restlessness and limitless ambition being traits to be mocked, symptoms of a lack of appreciation for the true, necessarily imperfect nature of life, a tragic inability to be content. A good part of this is the classic belief that this life is not the ultimate one and stuff, but I think there's more to it than just that. A general " whaddya gunno do" attitude that has more to do with an, if you want, enlightened (I'd say based :D) humor than it is to do with resignation. I think it's a fucked up understanding of potential as an obligatory thing. I think it must be something like 'if I am capable of doing x then I ought to do x', x being a supposedly better action than one is currently engaged in. A statement like 'I can be doing x now', is always going to be true, and so for someone with this pattern of thinking, there's not a single minute when they are just fine doing whatever it is that they're doing. No just sitting or catching some zzz in peace. Yikes. Must be tough (:D). I sometimes have to stop myself from cruelly remarking "you do know that you still die/experience loss after all this, don't you? :D" to anxious, aggressive self-improvement pitches (I don't know what it is about me that brings out people's desire to make such pitches and comparisons, but hey, more fun for me :D). As I told you before, I really enjoy the humbling moments when life says "No." to us. In addition to what you called 'Sadism' (Jesus!), I think it's a reassuring reminder that it is perfectly tolerable if not even better for things not to go one's way sometimes. One should just sit and, you know, eat it. It's taboo for young people to say this, but I don't care, often times, and I write this just as a matter of fact (and not as a nostalgic and good god not a tragic thing), these are really one's only options. And that's that.
Seriously, free you guys from the shackles of this illusion of perfection thing and bless you with a sense of humor, and long live lovely Juniper, of course. Amen.
Ebtsam - sorry I took a little while to respond. Yes, all wisdom, as I predicted. I (radically) think we tend to agree more frequently than we realise, and perhaps that misunderstanding is due to the strange experience of meeting someone for the first time in a philosophy class. I don't know that it's always best for the spirit to spend the opening weeks of a relationship debating ideas that tend to be very close to one's heart. Alas.
I think the format and time of Evans' class was a little limited, and so I wasn't able to convey much about the reality - and so the necessity of acceptance thereof - of sin and suffering. It was more an attempt to defend the metaphysical principle of privatio boni, which I will admit I am reconsidering a little after reading Schelling but to which I still maintain my allegiance. In a way, though, the extremity of discourse was sort of necessary for my viewpoint: in one sense, I believe one must speak very strongly about the vacuous and privative nature of suffering (I find the idea that it really does have a say in the Grand Scheme of Things most repulsive of all, rather than merely being a catastrophic mistake), whilst at the same time also speaking very strongly to its absolute acceptance, as I say in this and the last article. It is perhaps easy to think me on one side or the other as a result, but I try to insist on both in equal measure, even if my Protestant heritage sometimes skews the scales.
I do love the idea of a culture that knows and loves siestas and 'sitting and eating it', whichever nation it belongs to. It is a very mature philosophy which allows that sort of thing. And I also agree, on a very important level, with your point about life saying 'no'; it really is that which shakes us away from egoism, and allows us to realise the Divine will or 'hukam' (to borrow from Sikhism) which always unfolds infinitely beyond the petty attractions and aversions of individuals. But I'm doubling down on the sadism comment (so long as you know it was a joke) :)
This is adorable, and you are a fantastic writer. Cats have a way of expressing divinity that I think us human beings generally do not see; I think we could benefit from more folks with perspectives like these. Right now I’m reading Feline Philosophy by John Gray, and while a generally lighthearted text, it does make me think existentially about the nature of owning pets, and how that dynamic might be better if we did not imagine ourselves as owners at all. Disciples, even. I think of Anna Kingsford, a woman who, Henry Olcott claimed, denied human conceptions of affection except in the context of her Guinea pig. A new favorite of mine is Mary Olivier: A Life by May Sinclair, and I’d be lying if I said my preference for it wasn’t at least subtly influenced by the hundred-year-old pictures I found of the author and a black cat. The realm of the mystical and the realm of the feline, I think, are intertwined for all those who have ever awoken in the hours before dawn to find a familiar furry shape asleep directly atop their ribcage— for all those who have seen strays with the same color eyes or same flash of fur as a beloved childhood pet. Oh, I miss my cat! Thanks for this post, Sam. Your writing is always a joy.
Thank you, Cara! Perfectly put - the feline is one more of those realms (alongside laughter and inebriation, of course...) where the Divine speaks with a tad more clarity.