Dawn
The wind sang a song last night
One of sorrow and shame.
About how people come and go
And how they cry to the steeples their pain.
There is no star in the sky
That can hold me back tonight.
The black mist of midnight's dirge
Mourned the passing of the past morn
While the dew from daybreak's showers
Heralds the new day with a softly swimming horn.
Who is the man that will charge my soul
And plead the stoppage of love so old?
I waited on the hillside hunting for signs of life
Where shoes once tread, and dancing footsteps led
To the sound of the triumphant return
Of the clamor of Dawn's orchestra that said:
A new day rises, come and greet it
But only if you have the courage to seize it.
~
The beauty of the sunrise is something that I hold dear in my heart, and I enjoy writing about it in my poems. With every new day comes endless possibilities, and I think that is is something to contemplate.
Friday, April 27, 2012
Perception is Reality
Someone once told me that there are three ways our selves are perceived, and they are as follows: the way we perceive ourselves, the way we want to be perceived, and the way we actually are perceived. By a similar comparison, the way we as social and political beings perceive the world depends on our desires, on our hopes, and on our need for real connection with those around us.
The way we see ourselves are based on our desires, and for the most part, we don't live up to those desires. Anyone who sees themselves as exceeding all that he or she wants has an enormous amount of hubris, and thankfully, there aren't many people who think like this (if you do think like this, you probably need help, but then again, you probably won't listen to this advice if you do). So, again, most people do not live up to their desires inside their mind, and this is true as long as you have not found the secret to eternal happiness or if you do not have an incredible amount of pride.
Similarly, the way we want to be perceived corresponds with our hopes. Everyone hopes that they are the best person they could ever want to be, yet time and again, we feel that is not the case. And what do we do? We keep on hoping, despite what we perceive. G.K. Chesterton once alluded to the fact that a virtue is not a virtue unless people hold to that virtue when it is most inappropriate. When is courage a virtue if not when in the face of great fear? How can faith be a virtue when nothing challenges that faith? Likewise, as Chesterton says, "Hope means hoping when things are hopeless." We have hopes for ourselves even when we feel that we do not fulfill those hopes, and that is why we hope.
Lastly, the way we are actually perceived, devoid of all pretense, the way we actually are, is born out of a need to connect with others around us. Unlike the ways we see ourselves and want ourselves to be seen, the way we actually are is always somewhere in the middle. We are never bad as what we think we are, and we will never be as good as what we hope to be. Yet, this final way is what we need to aspire to be. This is Aristotle's "happy medium," this is what he calls true virtue. And it is a very natural need, for it leads us to connect with other people, our natural brothers and sisters.
Now, what does this all have to do with that infamous quote, "Perception is Reality"? Note my previous usage of the word perceived. This quote does indeed hold water, one just has to look at modern politics and the viral media to verify it. If one person spreads a rumor on the digital grapevine, soon everyone believes it whether it is true or not. A few years back, a few Duke lacrosse players were accused of raping a female stripper, and the media tore them apart. Later, they were cleansed of all charges by the courts as this accusation was false, but the damage was done. The public eye had long since shifted elsewhere, and those young men would always be remembered for something they did not do. Perception had become Reality. I want to delineate between Reality and Truth here. Reality can be changed by our Perception of it. The Truth, by its very definition, cannot be changed at all. Two plus two will always equal four. Truth is absolute. Truth is Truth. Reality, however, is relative, and it fluxes constantly.
Apply this observation of Reality and Truth to the observations I made about the perception of the self. The first two perceptions are locked in Reality. We will always have our hopes and desires, and both will constantly be dashed. The last perception, as a true virtue, is the one that cannot be changed, and for that reason, it connects us with the people around us; for that reason, it is the only perception we can fulfill, for people as social beings have always and will always connect with other people.
Finally though, my musings beg the question, "How do we live by the Truth of who we actually are?" and to this question, I answer that, while we cannot do away with our desires or our hopes, we can actually know the Truth of who we are. That is not to say we will succeed in achieving this knowledge, but we must still strive to know it. We must not succumb to perceptions, we must not falter to reality. For what virtue would Truth be if we could easily attain it?
The way we see ourselves are based on our desires, and for the most part, we don't live up to those desires. Anyone who sees themselves as exceeding all that he or she wants has an enormous amount of hubris, and thankfully, there aren't many people who think like this (if you do think like this, you probably need help, but then again, you probably won't listen to this advice if you do). So, again, most people do not live up to their desires inside their mind, and this is true as long as you have not found the secret to eternal happiness or if you do not have an incredible amount of pride.
Similarly, the way we want to be perceived corresponds with our hopes. Everyone hopes that they are the best person they could ever want to be, yet time and again, we feel that is not the case. And what do we do? We keep on hoping, despite what we perceive. G.K. Chesterton once alluded to the fact that a virtue is not a virtue unless people hold to that virtue when it is most inappropriate. When is courage a virtue if not when in the face of great fear? How can faith be a virtue when nothing challenges that faith? Likewise, as Chesterton says, "Hope means hoping when things are hopeless." We have hopes for ourselves even when we feel that we do not fulfill those hopes, and that is why we hope.
Lastly, the way we are actually perceived, devoid of all pretense, the way we actually are, is born out of a need to connect with others around us. Unlike the ways we see ourselves and want ourselves to be seen, the way we actually are is always somewhere in the middle. We are never bad as what we think we are, and we will never be as good as what we hope to be. Yet, this final way is what we need to aspire to be. This is Aristotle's "happy medium," this is what he calls true virtue. And it is a very natural need, for it leads us to connect with other people, our natural brothers and sisters.
Now, what does this all have to do with that infamous quote, "Perception is Reality"? Note my previous usage of the word perceived. This quote does indeed hold water, one just has to look at modern politics and the viral media to verify it. If one person spreads a rumor on the digital grapevine, soon everyone believes it whether it is true or not. A few years back, a few Duke lacrosse players were accused of raping a female stripper, and the media tore them apart. Later, they were cleansed of all charges by the courts as this accusation was false, but the damage was done. The public eye had long since shifted elsewhere, and those young men would always be remembered for something they did not do. Perception had become Reality. I want to delineate between Reality and Truth here. Reality can be changed by our Perception of it. The Truth, by its very definition, cannot be changed at all. Two plus two will always equal four. Truth is absolute. Truth is Truth. Reality, however, is relative, and it fluxes constantly.
Apply this observation of Reality and Truth to the observations I made about the perception of the self. The first two perceptions are locked in Reality. We will always have our hopes and desires, and both will constantly be dashed. The last perception, as a true virtue, is the one that cannot be changed, and for that reason, it connects us with the people around us; for that reason, it is the only perception we can fulfill, for people as social beings have always and will always connect with other people.
Finally though, my musings beg the question, "How do we live by the Truth of who we actually are?" and to this question, I answer that, while we cannot do away with our desires or our hopes, we can actually know the Truth of who we are. That is not to say we will succeed in achieving this knowledge, but we must still strive to know it. We must not succumb to perceptions, we must not falter to reality. For what virtue would Truth be if we could easily attain it?
Monday, March 26, 2012
Dreaming of Reality
Dreaming of Reality
While trying all your life to live,
You forget that first, you must love.
Learning to survive without hurt
Corrupts all plans that you dream of.
Your life is meant to be greater
Than striving for apathetic
Immunity from the dying
Humanity that makes you sick.
Be careful, my love, you might just
Find, those who care, you love the most.
While everyone chooses their friends
And enemies, we kill the ghosts
Of the people we do not choose
When we strive not for unity
With them. For truly, they are whom,
In the end, we call family.
~
A poem I dug up from a while ago, I wrote it while thinking about the intellectual tendency to stray towards misanthropy. I think it speaks to that innate human desire for a sense of purpose. What do you think?
While trying all your life to live,
You forget that first, you must love.
Learning to survive without hurt
Corrupts all plans that you dream of.
Your life is meant to be greater
Than striving for apathetic
Immunity from the dying
Humanity that makes you sick.
Be careful, my love, you might just
Find, those who care, you love the most.
While everyone chooses their friends
And enemies, we kill the ghosts
Of the people we do not choose
When we strive not for unity
With them. For truly, they are whom,
In the end, we call family.
~
A poem I dug up from a while ago, I wrote it while thinking about the intellectual tendency to stray towards misanthropy. I think it speaks to that innate human desire for a sense of purpose. What do you think?
Hoplessness Abandoned
Hope is hard to come by in a dark, despairing world. Dante's Inferno takes up the motif of a senseless, hopeless allegory for life after death with his perennial call to the damned: All Hope abandon, ye who enter here. This image staggers the imagination with the unscrupulous horrors that lay within the seven levels of Hell, and it conjures a sudden, terrible question to the forefront: what does the afterlife hold? Can there be something even more sinister that lies beyond the veil? Is there even a life after death? These inquiries grip the mind in the cold, stark fist of reality. Escaping this reality becomes even less appealing when not faced with the warm embrace of oblivion. In fact, death gains a whole different meaning when it is not final. Its finality is only as certain as the knowledge behind it, as there is no person who has come back from his passing to tell of the afterlife. What can a rational man expect from a mystery so unexplored as what lies beyond death? Here, I try and open the discussion of what hope anyone can have of the purpose, or non-purpose, of life. If one can juxtapose the argument that death is final with the argument that life is filled with endless possibility, what grabs you to believe what you know, or know what you believe? It is here that these questions are entertained, with the caveat that one has to look past knowledge and faith to find an answer to the despair of life on earth. For it is now, not after death, that one must hope the most. The truth can only be found by those who hope they can find it. Forget about the afterlife, look to the here and now before you cross into the void. Abandon all Hopelessness, ye who enter here.
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