logic and magic
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart,
and you shall see that in truth
you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
- Kahlil Gibran -
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My friend Melei from Maui posted this. I’ve always loved Kahlil Gibran because just like everything else in this world, he reminds of things I already know but have forgotten, right at the moment when I need it.
Yesterday I was walking down the escalator in the subway just as my ride to Harvard Square was screeching to a stop, and in my iPod, Johnny Cash was singing in my ears: ’I hear the train a-comin’...’
... I thought that was pretty cool, too.
When you’re grateful for the things in your life, it seems there is a fine line between such a thing being a blessing and a curse. I guess it has something to do with nostalgia. It’s hard to love the moments and experiences in your life in such a way that you do not mourn them when they are no longer there, but I guess that’s the whole point of it... compassionate detachment is where it’s at, if it is at all possible.
There is something eery and inhuman to me about one who does not ’miss’.. it’s not that I don’t think it’s a human characteristic... it just doesn’t seem to be a quality I can relate to. I am a very nostalgic person.
Can you be nostalgic, while at the same time appreciating the present moment?
Can you love the life you’ve lived, while at the same time loving the life you are living, and loving the thought of living the life you are about to live (and is that confusing enough for you?)
Can you love it all?
... I’m going to say ’Yes.’ I may be nostalgic, but I’m no pansy. I’m chock full of ambition.
I am, at the same time, currently full of joy and sorrow. It’s not supposed to make sense. It’s magic.
I got a call from my best friend Amanda the other day saying she had to talk to me right that second about Logic (the philosophical approach, not the audio software) and Magic. So I rolled a cigarette and left my desk for about an hour to talk to her... because I am responsible like that.
She said she’d been trying to put together a discussion about the logic/magic dichotomy... how the world of tangible, linear calculable and defineable elements is related to the world of serendipity, coincidence, intuition and fate.
’I’m having trouble,’ she said, ’describing magic in any sort of adequate way.’ It made me think about the Philosophy of Mind course I took in college many years ago, where we spent an entire semester trying to logically prove the statement ’Consciousness is a process of the brain.’
The short-comings of logic itself bear naked when we try to prove something that is self-evident, but epistemologically impossible to prove. This is why so many people turn to God... or one-ness.... or magic.... or democracy.
I told her it was impossible to explain with words because both ’explanation’ and ’words’ are inherently Logical parameters, and not Magical ones.
It’s like trying to measure your height in gallons. Trying to explain ’magic’ in words is like trying to figure out how fast the universe is growing with a thermometer.
She told me that she hasn’t since experienced the kind of magic that we felt almost two years ago when we were sitting on the rooftop of the tantra school the first day I’d arrived in Maui, and we sat in silent tears together because we were quite literally, overwhelmed with the perfection of that single moment in a way that words (coincidentally) could not explain.
We find it hard to say that magic does not exist after that moment. In a lot of ways, it might be one of the few completely real moments in our lives.
I am grateful for the realization that a truth exists beyond the parameters of logic. I can’t prove it, I just know it exists. Another word for this (if you want to be logical about it)... ... is faith.
We underestimate the power of believing in something we have no control over, or understanding of because it seems unreasonable to do so. While it is unreasonable, it should not be underestimated.
Amanda was wondering where the magic was, why she didn’t feel it anymore, wondering where to get it or whether she (we) were doing something wrong, and maybe that’s why we can’t feel it right now.
I told her, that I think it’s always there, just that we don’t always see it. That I truly believe that it is possible to find beauty in even the ugliest things, and to find magic in the most mundane, darkest, and dead-est moments of our lives. We just have to know it’s always there.... even though we can’t see it, even if there’s not a single sign of it. We just have to have faith, we have to believe, and that that belief has REAL power.
The mythology almost all humans have grown up with tries to tell us this in so many ways by drawing logical pictures around it, like throwing sand on invisible object so that we can see its shape.
In two seperate discussions with two seperate people, the movie ’Neverending Story’ came up- probably because it was one of the great contemporary tales of our own childhoods. In the movie, the very existence of an entire Universe relied on belief itself. No one believed in Fantasia anymore... and as a result the Nothing (they were quite literal with the naming of things) swept over everything, killing everything in its path. As her empire crumled, the child-like empress said to Sebastian, who (at the time) was just like you or me, and nothing special: ’All you have to do is believe’.
Flying dog dragons and wild 80s synth music aside, the Neverending Story was incredibly deep. In my childhood, it illustrated to me something true that couldn’t be proven...
... that without faith, we have Nothing.
So what are we doing when we mourn, and feel sorrow for the delights in our life that have come and gone... and where does this sorrow come from. I think part of me, as I feel nostalgic for past Magic that is no longer with me, is having a hard time seeing that it never left in the first place.
All our sorrow, everything we lack, is our Nothing. It’s not there, because we believe it’s gone.
We fear that the magical moments in our life have past, that our chance at love, or bliss, or of living the Perfect Moment has come and gone.... but every breath we take, every gaze straightforward is the start of a new adventure.
Every time we look for it, not because we can’t find it, but because we KNOW it’s there... then we will see. It’s magic.
I think the trick is knowing you have everything you need, even when you have nothing...That even though you may have wants, nobody can take away your ability to be aware of and appreciate any and every experience that comes your way, no matter how difficult that experience may be. Until you draw your last breath, it’s all you’ll ever need.
