In Search of (Reading-Induced) Mental Patterns

I'm just now finishing In Search of Lost Time, a book with a special power to invite personal reflection.  As Marcel Proust describes it in the book's unforgettable final chapter, the novel compels readers to "read" their own lives alongside that of the protagonist. 

The way people change over time is a constant theme in the book.  Just as Heraclitus says you can never again step in the same river, Proust insists you never meet the same person twice.  Every time you see your best friend they're a different person than they were the day before, and the previous day's version of them exists only as a memory.  

Naturally enough, reading all of this got me thinking about my own life and how I've changed.  I realized my attitudes, my personality, my tastes, and even my appearance have changed less in the past year than they did the year before.  I then realized that the two years ago I'd changed even more.  Back in college, my entire worldview would shift during a single semester.  In high school, I seemed to reinvent myself every week as puberty and rapidly-acquired experience dragged me from adolescence toward adulthood.  I can scarcely imagine the yearly (and monthly...and weekly) changes my parents saw in me when I was a child. 

These observations begged analysis.  I determined that every year we change a little less than we had the year before- until old age, that is, when the changes again accelerate.  A line graph showing the rate of annual change over a lifetime would look like a V, albeit one where the second line fails to reach the initial height of the first.  

Whether this line of thinking is novel (or even accurate) I'm not entirely sure.  What I do know is that the process by which I came to my conclusion fits a pattern that, for me, represents one of the principle joys of reading.  The book spoke of general truths (personified by the characters), these general truths evoked my personal reflections, and I extrapolated on these personal reflections to compose another general truth.  My personal experience served as a conduit by which a general truth from without became another general truth forged within.  

Perhaps this phenomenon isn't unique to literature, or art.  Maybe it's the universal process by which we add what we learn to what we already knew, thereby producing what we're just now knowing (new knowledge + personal experience= new understanding).  In any case, reading is one of the principle means by which this process is actuated in my mind, and for that I'm eternally grateful to the magic of the written word.

On Wanting to Say "God Bless You"

"God bless you always."

It's a phrase I hear almost every day here in the highly-religious community of Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala- from my fiancee, from her family, from friends, from neighbors and people on the street.  It's a darn good way to express a genuine concern for another's well-being. 

I wish I could say it, too.  But, given my lack of religious faith, I'm afraid I can't.

This little problem represents a lot of what's missing in a secular, non-religious world- a world where, as Nietzsche put it, "God is dead."  Without belief in a divine being, how does one express the sentiment behind "God bless you?"  "Have a nice day," doesn't cut it. 

I might just be looking for an adequate phrase- or maybe this superficial concern covers a deeper longing for much, much more.  

Misinformation Is Inevitable in An Increasingly Complex World. We Still Have to Challenge It.

Is Covid-19 real? Are "the numbers" to be trusted? Is hydroxychloroquine a legitimate treatment option? Do masks constitute a useful public health measure? Most readers will have a firm answer to each of these questions, but those answers might be different. What we can all agree on is that the world is full of misinformation, and it's harder than ever to determine what's true and what isn't.

It's easy to blame the current situation on unscrupulous actors or the organizations they represent. For "politicized” issues, blame usually falls on politicians and news organizations from "the other side." The lies come from Republicans or Democrats, Fox News or CNN, Tucker Carlson or Chris Cuomo, Donald Trump or Joe Biden. While these people and entities deserve their share of the blame, the issue largely stems from inevitable social conditions- namely, society's increasing complexity and the massive amount of information out there to be consumed. 

In 1800, the average person could explain more-or-less the entirety of their social universe. They knew how their local economy operated, how all the machines they used functioned, and how their government worked. A well-educated individual was probably conversant with all the latest theories in science, economics, philosophy, and the arts. Society existed on a scale that was more easily grasped. 

Fast forward to 2020...How many of us really understand how the world around us works? We depend on technologies whose secrets elude us. We count on a global economy that we could never begin to understand. Even the most learned of individuals would struggle to explain quantum mechanics, the workings of the internet, and the latest theories of global capital. In a world that none of us fully understands, we rely on networks of experts and the information they disseminate to build our conception of the world. 

In a society where the most self-interested rise to the top, it should come as no surprise that those networks of information have been compromised. We all know we can no longer take information at face value. In the American context, we can't un-see Watergate or the Pentagon Papers. Even younger Americans who don't remember those scandals have absorbed their lessons. From the government to the media, neighbors to local leaders, it seems there's no one in whom we can safely place our trust. 

And yet we have to form a worldview somehow. And we can. It just requires discernment and critical thinking. We have to analyze our news sources, parsing out the self-interested from the benevolent, the mendacious from the truthful. It might not be simple or foolproof, but it's possible. 

Politicians are generally self-interested. We should doubt them. Some news sources lie, others simple deliver truth in a biased way. We should be wary. But there are institutions we can trust, information we should believe. Social progress depends on trust in these organizations. 

Without trust in modern medicine, life expectancy would not have improved. Without trust in accredited, non-partisan news organizations like the Associated Press, we would have no idea what's happening in the world. Without trust in the scientific method and the organizations that use it, we couldn't fly in planes, drive cars, or advance our technologies. 

What we need to practice is qualified trust. We must determine which individuals and organizations can be trusted, and which can't. With this basic, general ground rule, we can develop an understanding of the world that at least somewhat reflects "reality."

So here's my take on the questions from the first paragraph:

Is Covid-19 real? Yes. In this case, I can count on personal experience (friends who have had it and a distant relative who died). 

Are the numbers to be trusted? Yes, because I believe the governmental organizations releasing the numbers to be non-partisan and invested in the truth. I also believe the scientific studies that suggest the actual case counts are probably higher since these studies are conducted by legitimate research institutions. 

Is hydroxychloroquine a legitimate treatment option? No. The advocates of the treatment tend to be self-interested politicians (Trump, Bolsonaro) or rogue doctors with little institutional credibility, while medical professionals have formed a near-consensus against the treatment. 

Do masks constitute a useful public health measure? Yes. This one's a bit more complicated, because many of the organizations I trust initially advocated against masks and have since changed their outlook. All the same, the consensus among public health experts seems nearly unanimous, and so I've adjusted my thinking accordingly. 

I know some readers might not agree with my own conclusions. I get it, and I won't turn nasty in defending my positions. While uncertainty abounds and trust remains low, we need to be mindful of our own discourse. Calling someone ignorant never made the world a better place. We live in unprecedented times, with global airwaves and local communication networks inundated like never before with information (and misinformation) about an increasingly incomprehensible world. Belittling others for their views won't get us anywhere. What we need to do is develop standards to gauge the accuracy of the information we receive, build the truest conception we can of the society we inhabit, and encourage our friends, relatives, and fellow citizens to do the same. 

The Art of the Unsettling

Feel-good art is nice, isn’t it?  Who doesn’t enjoy settling down into a lovely melody, gazing at a gorgeous landscape painting, or losing themselves in a pleasant book?

But such uplifting works only comprise a portion of humanity’s artistic production.  It can’t all be butterflies and rainbows.  In art, as in life, there’s a dark shadow beneath the prettiest of clouds.

Take Kafka, for example.  His fiction shows the powerlessness and inanity of a human existence lived not only within the confines of birth and death, but also in a labyrinthine hellscape of our own creation. Give it Up!, a story of just a few sentences, offers an exemplary look at the helplessness he so skillfully captured.  

In music we have Schoenberg, that modern maverick who composed music with a devastating, atonal dissonance that doesn’t merely describe anxiety, but actually recreates it.  Check out his Drei Klavierstucke for a taste.  

We can imagine the creator of uplifting works lying on their deathbed thinking, “Well I can rest easy, knowing I made so many people just a little bit happier, their lives just a touch more pleasant.”  But what can Schoenberg, Kafka, and co. claim to have done?  Injected anxiety into unsuspecting victims?  Catalyzed the fear and existential unease in us all?

And yet we feel instinctively that this art deserves its place in the cultural pantheon.  Why?  Because we appreciate how it captures aspects of life and human nature that have always existed.

Take Schoenberg, for example.  As much as we enjoy soothing melodies and consonant tones, we know life is more than a walk through a breezy meadow.  There are emotions we feel that the gorgeous cello of Brahm’s Third Symphony (third movement) just couldn’t possibly represent.  In fact, no tonal, consonant, pleasing music could ever match the emotional pitch of certain moments and situations.  Schoenberg realized this and composed music that embodies the manic, the nerve-wracked, the nightmarish, the insane. 

The key is that these artists don’t create these feelings of anxiety and pain- they don’t conjure them out of thin air.  What they do is capture those feelings as they already existed.  That is why we appreciate their work.  It’s also why we need them. 

We can’t eradicate the pain and stress of life.  We’re all going to die.  Life is hard.  None of us know what the hell we’re doing.  There’s no changing all that.  What we can do is strive to understand our predicament, and that’s where this hectic art proves useful.  Identifying the painful sensations we so often feel in a work of art outside ourselves, letting it pass through us, and sensing it come out the other side is, in some way, a spiritual and healing event.  It fires our brains and sets our own humanity glowing.  Once we’ve experienced it, we can’t imagine living without it. 

Art isn’t a narcotic; it’s a psychedelic, and sometimes it takes you on a bad trip.  But that’s alright.  In fact, it’s perfect.  We wouldn’t have it any other way.  

All that being said, there is, of course, relief to be found in a well-rounded selection of books, songs, and paintings.  The pain-capturing and pain-inducing works serve a useful function, but so do more uplifting pieces.  Spending your whole life reading Metamorphosis, listening to Le sacre de printemps, and looking at Saturn Devouring His Son probably isn't healthy.  Give all those works their due, then put your feet up, take a glance at Monet, put on some breezy Brahms, and open to the first page of a nice beach read.  In the art of life, a true master wets their brush with all the colors of the emotional pallet.