Tagged: Christianity
Jacques Ellul And The Desensitizing Impact Of Our Technological World: Or, How To Reclaim Your Life From Technological Distraction
I feel out of touch–literally. Even now, pressing fingers over smooth keys I feel an emptiness of feedback. There’s no feedback in our technological world. The world of touch is a digitized landscape of ultra smooth surfaces and two dimensional images. Our only experience of this world, really, is through the eyes–the other senses are left out.
Do you know that the skin has been proven to ‘see’ colour? What about the skin in this digital world?
Have you ever done research on sensory deprivation? Researchers will take people and pay them money to have no sense of touch or smell or hearing or sight, etc. Then they’ll see how long they can go before they completely freak out. In a world of consensual sensory deprivation, is it a wonder we are feeling so out of touch with the world and each other? Is it a wonder we are all feeling so lonely?
My attention span has diminished also–it seems to be getting worse. I used to spend hours on a single passage of philosophical or poetic text, analyzing the argument, scribbling microscopic notes all over the margins in ultra-fine pencil. I can’t do that any more. Sure, part of it might have to do with age; but I know of 70 year old scholars and writers who could put me to shame. No, it’s not age–it’s that my attention is taken in so many directions when I’m just trying to read something. The quiet page is too dull, too painful, too demanding.
I talked to a friend who’s in IT. I asked him the same question:
“So, how is your attention span these days?”
“It’s brutal–” he said. “I can’t focus on anything. I used to be much more precise, analytic . . . Now I can hardly get through a book.”
I couldn’t believe it–he was repeating the same things I had been telling myself just days prior. My friend continued.
“Ya, it’s even effecting what used to be entertainment. In the past, I could get through a show or movie without distraction. Now, I get five minutes into a movie before I move on to another one, or my phone distracts me and I lose interest.”
“What can we do?” I asked. “Technology seems to have reached another phase transition–it’s speeding up. Is there a way to push it back?” He looked at me with puzzlement and nodded in agreement.
“I don’t know,” he went on. “I would like to think we can, but it seems too late. I work in this stuff. My job is to create technological systems for people to use made up of the latest technological tools. I wish we could push it back, but I think it’s too late . . .”
It was too late for Jacques Ellus back in 1964 when he wrote one of the most prescient books of our times, The Technological Society. He saw way back then that we had already lost control of our technological tools.
It was then that I started a quest to somehow reclaim my life. It sounds cliche, I know, but I want to recapture what was lost. I want to have time again. I want to feel life, beauty, the sense of wonder I had as a child–back when telephones didn’t have answering machines, TV only had a handful of channels, and I was out all day on my bike returning only when the sun went down.
The next few posts will be an attempt to share some of that reclaiming . . .
On Heidegger And What Writing Truly Is
I write as a habit; to live a habit, a dwelling place, of writing. Habito in the Latin means to dwell. We dwell among our habits. This was a point Heidegger made in, I believe, What is called Thinking? But Heidegger took the habito in Latin and showed how it led etymologically to the ‘bin’ (the ‘ich bin’) of being. Hence to be is to dwell, to inhabit; and thus our habits are ways in which we dwell, and ways in which we are. So to form a habit of writing daily is to dwell in, abide in, writing daily, and thus writing becomes a way of being. Being and doing come together in this act.
But what is the object of writing? For Heidegger, to be human is to be concerned; to dwell in concern. For Paul Tillich, taking Heidegger and pushing him into the transcendent, to be human is to be concerned ultimately about our lives, which is called ‘faith’. And so what is the nature of dwelling in writing? To work out our ultimate concerns. This is called Truth. We seek out Truth as our ultimate concern. And what ultimately are we concerned about? Meaning, purpose, existence, hope, dreams, goodness, justice, mercy. Hence our dwelling in writing is dwelling in what concerns us ultimately and therefore an act of faith, and act of Truth.
But what is dwelling in faith? What is this dwelling, this habit? It is prayer. And thus this habit of writing, this daily dwelling in writing is prayer itself, is worship. A poet and friend of mine Nicholas Samaras says it is presence that makes worship. Writing, as a form of dwelling in attention, is thus worship, is thus prayer. To write in this way is to pray to the orchestrator and finisher of our faith, Jesus Christ–Being Himself, The One Who Is. (This Being of Christ upends Heidegger’s ontic, supplanting it to the mere ontological, a mere study of being without the real authentic experience of Being Itself. It may be the case that Heidegger revised his ontology on his deathbed when the Priest came to receive his confession–we can only hope.) And this is how we dwell in Christ creatively. We dwell in Him through our ultimate concerns that we articulate in our writing, and for which we seek redemption.
And this dwelling in writing, in ultimate concern, in faith, in prayer is authentic creativity. It is connecting our souls to God’s cosmic work, to the work He is doing through all of creation as He is everywhere and filling all things.
And so writing becomes habit, becomes dwelling, becomes faith, becomes prayer, becomes creative dance with God. This is why I am so drawn to writing, drawn to the place of prayer where my concerns are articulated–and not just the negative stuff, but also the beautiful too: to be close to God in prayer, in reflection, in writing. That is what this writing comes to: what concerns me ultimately: who i am, what I am here on this earth to do, and how to do it.
To seek Love, Joy, and Beauty, then dwell in it.
This Story Of How I Met Paulo Coelho Will Make You Feel Inspired About Your Future
The First Time I Saw Paul Coelho
It was the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland. My head was down, preparing for a session we were doing on creativity and collaboration. Lionel Richie came in the room turning heads all over the place, including mine. He had charisma, even amidst other high profile figures who were there planning the future of the world. I didn’t notice the famous Brazilian writer who had entered ahead of Richie–short, unassuming, but surrounded by an entourage of fans and assistants. This man, I came to find out, was Paulo Coelho. “Who?” I asked myself.
What is Serendipity?
As a writer, I love serendipity. This is why I keep a notebook and pen with me at all times–and feel empty when I leave them at home. You never know when something will come to you: a thought, idea, book title, name of a writer. Sometimes a book will come up several times in different conversations with different people, which is a kind of flag that I need to pay attention to. This is where our hearts will want something that our heads haven’t caught up to yet. It’s that place of the unconscious that is working when we don’t know it, and will flag us to things when we least expect it.
Lionel Richie Meets Paulo Coelho
There was a plenary session with Richie and Coelho. My job was to take minutes. It was an open mic for people to ask questions about Richie’s and Coelho’s lives and creative process. It was the hardest session to take minutes of in my life, for there were moments when Coelho spoke and my mouth dropped open. He was talking about creativity and the soul, and that it is love that drives our creative process, drives our writing or whatever else we do in the world. That we much approach our work with passion and discovery. I can’t remember details, but when I returned to Calgary I made a note to read The Alchemist–a book he had referenced again and again during that late-night plenary talk amidst the quiet Swiss Alps.
Writing and Passion
How do we write out of passion? Is it a mere emotional free-for-all that’s purely driven by impulse, a blind inspiration? Or is it something else? Can it be more rational, more objective, more calculated? To me, the initial writing can feel like a free-for-all in which I’m writing down at a blistering pace everything that comes to mind. But then comes the revising, the pruning, and that can take forever. I remember reading an article about Coelho: that he would stew and pace and procrastinate for hours and hours. Suddenly, the ideas would hit and he would write for 8-12 hours straight in a creative frenzy. Alas, I don’t have that luxury of time. But indeed there must be passion–there must be a vision we’re striving for, that we’re hungry to articulate. I like getting it all down, then pruning it.
The Intuition: I Am Going To Meet Paulo Coelho!
Fast forward 10 months. I found out I was going to be working at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting again. I was in bed with a stomach flu, and guzzled The Alchemist like medicine. Along with millions of others, I fell in love with Santiago and his journey to discover the treasure of his heart; the treasure that sat buried in the very place from which he ventured. The book captivated me as a writer and human being. As I lay there in bed, I suddenly had a strong sense that I would meet Paulo Coelho that coming January in Davos. “What would I say to him?” I thought. “Well, I would have to thank him for writing such a marvellous book. And I would encourage him to keep writing.” Nonsense!
Creative Time as The Temporal and Eternal
I am fascinated with creative time; with how temporality and eternity can blur in the creative process. How fast does it take you to have a book idea, to see the whole thing come together in your mind? A matter of seconds? It’s happened to me. How much time does it take to bring that vision into fruition? Seconds? If only that were so! That’s because our creative time comes from our souls, from that eternity we carry as creatures in the image of God. But we are still thrown into the temporal world, and thus bear its weight, its heaviness. Like treading through quick sand, we venture out to build what took us a split second to see in our minds; we venture out knowing we may never return, carried by the eternity we bear within us.
When I Met Paulo Coelho
Fast forward again to January. It’s been a busy Annual Meeting. My team and I were working 20 hour days for five days straight. It was not uncommon to find an empty office on the second floor of the main congress centre and crash out in between sessions. It was about 3pm on the last day, and I hadn’t seen Coelho anywhere. Seeing him wasn’t really on my mind at that point anyway. The work was rigorous, and I was looking forward to the sessions wrapping up so I could get some down time and some rest.
I was hungry, so I took a walk out to the foyer of the congress centre where there was a buffet table arranged with all kinds of food. I filled a plate and walked back to the large doors of the Aspen Room where we were holding our sessions. Suddenly, a flash of silver caught my eye. I looked back and there, unaccompanied, entirely alone, was Paulo Coelho! I couldn’t believe it. I hesitated for a moment: “Wait a minute,” I said to myself, “what am I going to do now? Should I approach him?” For a moment I thought of just letting him go, of letting that moment slip by–but how anti-Alchemist is that! So, I took took a deep breath, mustered up some courage, and walked over to him.
“Excuse me, Mr. Coelho–may I have a minute with you?” I said approaching with a fast-beating heart, and a scratch in my throat.
“Yes–sure, sure . . .” he said, smiling warmly.
“Mr. Coelho, thank you for writing such amazing books, and inspiring millions of people,” I continued. “And I want to thank you also on behalf of my wife who has loved your books.”
“Oh–” he replied, “How very kind.” He put his arm around me (did you catch that dear reader) and we walked briefly across the foyer.
I said, “Mr. Coelho, you must continue writing–you must keep going, for you inspire so many people. I don’t know where you are at these days, but you must keep on going–you must keep writing and keep inspiring . . .”
He seemed a bit taken aback, which I interpreted as having hit a spot with him. He thanked me, and I said good-bye and went back to the Aspen Room to resume work, albeit with great joy–with elation in my heart.
Serendipity is Providence
This story on the surface is about serendipity, but to me in its authentic expression is providence. I love the story of how I met Paulo Coelho, because I see meeting him as a gift from God at that time in my life. It was a time of great creative struggle; a time of struggle as a writer. It was a time when I didn’t really see myself as a writer, but held something deep in my heart–a vision for something I could not articulate. Meeting Coelho confirmed to me that writing was what my heart wanted.
And who knows what my encouragement may have done for Coelho himself–grace works both ways. Maybe he was needing encouragement at that moment, and I was the one standing by, ushered by God to do it.
We are all human. We all struggle. We all need the grace of God, even if we don’t believe in Him, which is where I was at the time. And the Lord in His great Love gives us things that let us know that He loves us, and is looking after us. It’s taken thirteen years since meeting Coelho to see this, and it’s beautiful–God is so good to us. Meeting Paulo Coelho was a way for God to say, “Here my son, meet a great author and be inspired; be inspired for the time I will call you to write.
And is this not the point of Santiago’s journey, the whole point of The Alchemist? Indeed, it is to travel out, to venture, to journey, but at all times to remember–or to realize–that what we are seeking is already right there, in our hearts.
But what I didn’t know was that the day I met Paulo Coelho was also going to be the day when I met another epic writer: the great Elie Wiesel—
but that’s another story . . .
This Heartfelt Letter From Merton To Jacques Maritain Will Make You A Better Writer, Artist, Human Being
I used to get real serious about my work, to the point where I would get stressed out. Those thoughts of not being good enough, of not being smart enough, of not being creative enough, or unique enough would overwhelm me. These thoughts were part of my creative blocks and depression. Days and weeks and months would go by and I would write nothing. My strategy was to wait for the inspiration to come. The problem was, it never came. And if it did come, it would be something I would riff off in a notebook at a manic pace without any real way to connect it to anything ongoing and substantial.
One of my favourite past times is to read biographies of creative people. To me, creativity can be taught as a series of habits, rituals, and routines. I read a biography of Goethe once while I was in a major funk. I was writing a novel that was unfolding along with my personal experiences–how else do you write a novel? But it was in that verbose, serpentine biography where I discovered Goethe’s notion of the serious jest. I loved this notion–and still do. To think of writing, of creating, as a kind of play to which the artist brings a high level of intent and intensity. Jazz music is indeed a good example of this. Watch any great jazz band like Herbie Hancock and Marcus Miller–watch how they play! The looks on their faces tell it all: one time Hancock is smiling and laughing, another moment he’s cringing, wincing, another he’s nodding his head to someone else’s solo. At the end of the set, there’s typically laughter and even cheers by the band members. This is a wonderful example of serious jest.
“Goethe war gut . . .”
This concept helped me a great deal, but I still couldn’t incorporate it into my work. After my conversion to Christianity after two-decades of atheism, I was looking for an authentic way to create art. And it was here that I turned to Merton.
Merton is known for his letters to writers. He wrote endlessly. One of my favourite letters is to the English poet Evelyn Waugh found in the book The Courage for Truth: Letters to Writers. Jacques Maritain played a tremendous role in the cultivation of Merton as a writer. In fact, in Merton’s Seven Story Mountain he lists Maritain, along with St. Augustin, St. Thomas Acquinas, and William Blake, as writers who “turned him on.” Now, in this letter, Maritain is aging, and seems to be having difficulty maintaining intensity and focus in his work.
Merton writes,
“Do not push too hard with the work, God will take care of everything, and will give you strength to do all that needs to be done. The rest is in His hands.”
What is this? A prescription, by a monk no less, to not push too hard, followed up with a seeming platitude to just give it all to God? Is this not the antithesis of writing? Is not good writing pure ego towards a greater will to power? How is one to take that as advice? How is one not to see here a kind of giving up, rather than an artistic letting go?
Then Merton really lays it on thick:
“Realize yourself to be entirely in His love and His care and worry about nothing. In these days you should be carried by Him toward your destination, and do what you do more as play than as work, which does not mean it is not serious: for the most serious thing in the life of a Christian is play.”
It’s seemingly absurd to the point of being childish! Give your self to God. Rest in His love. Be carried by Him . . . Again, where’s the drive, the will, the Promethean fire?
It’s not there. Because the point of creativity is to let God do the work, not you. In fact, the more you divest yourself of your ambitions, the more you are open to receive guidance and ability from God.
But what about this play stuff?
“The seriousness of Christian play is the only genuine seriousness. Our work, when it develops the seriousness of worldly accomplishment, is sad indeed, and it does nothing.”
Do we not hear the echo of Goethe here? I would say so, but what we also see in Merton is a redemption of Goethe’s serious jest; that the serious play of the Christian is transcendent creativity. When it is at its best, it is bereft of ego, it relies wholly on God; it sees the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God as its greatest objective and focus, rather than fame and fortune. Indeed, it is the remedy for Tennessee Williams’s The Catastrophe of Success, for this authentic creativity is about relying on God and letting Him work through our pens, not our egos, whims, desires, and ambitions.
Merton continues:
“But of course it is normal to work ‘against the clock’ when one’s time is clearly measured, and to feel anxiety about not finishing. But this too is part of God’s play in our life, and we will see it in the end . . . . All life is in reality the playing and dancing of the Child-God in His world, and we, alas, have not seen it and know it.”
God is everywhere filling all things. All things are filled by God, and we are part of that interconnectedness of all Creation, especially our creative lives. Here Merton is showing how we can take part in the Creation of God through our creativity–but it takes offering ourselves wholly to Him.
This is why we see in certain areas of Merton’s thought the notion of writing for him as an ascetic practice. That just as important as the writing part is the living; living our lives for God; offering ourselves to Him in surrender saying, “Not my will but Your’s be done.” This is authentic creativity.
What Merton is also talking about here is the false versus the real or authentic self–it is classic Merton. Further down towards the end of the letter, Merton gives us an insight into this dichotomy that separates serious Christian play and inauthentic creativity.
“Dear Jacques, you are going to your journey to God. And perhaps I am too, though I suppose my eagerness to go is partly wishful thinking, for there is yet work to be done in my own life. There are great illusions to be got rid of, and there is a false self that has to be taken off, if it can be done. There is still much to change before I will really be living in the truth and in nothingness and in humility and without anymore self concern.”
There is a lot going on here in these sentences that point to authentic creativity and the connection between creativity and asceticism. The seriousness of the play is that we realize our sinfulness before God and others; that we see the “great illusions,” and struggle through the grace of God to get rid of them. There is no hope in ourselves; but we must rely wholly on God. Merton says that “the false self that has to be taken off, if it can be done.” But there’s another important tie in here, namely the objective: “living in the truth and in nothing and in humility and without anymore self concern.”
This is one of the things we read about in the lives of saints: that when we rely wholly on God, we stop caring about ourselves; we lose that sense of self-concern that we all carry around with us that causes us to feed ourselves, seek comfort, seek attention, seek fame and glory.
This is the ascesis of writing, of creating.
And the playful part?
It’s becoming more of who we have been created to be; it’s taking on more of the likeness of Christ, which elevates our whole lives, and, not least, our creativity, our writing, our Art.
Neil Simon And Why Writers Aren’t Safe At Parties–Or Pretty Much Anywhere
It remains a secret–well, a partial one. To those who know me, I’m a hack writer: I haven’t published yet, and depending on what day or time of day you talk to me I won’t mention writing at all.
Writing In Cognito
Then there are those who don’t really know me, and, because I rarely talk about it, have no clue that I have a very precise routine for writing 5-6 days per week. They don’t ask, I don’t say anything.
So there are two groups of people who are completely unaware that I am constantly monitoring for information everywhere I go. To me, the perfect line could drop in mid-conversation at a dinner party; a line that could change everything. Just last week, I was at a dinner party when out of nowhere came this brilliant line–it was slung across the table and smacked me right between the eyes! It was brilliant! I laughed my head off, gave the friend all the respect and admiration he deserved, then filed it deeply into my long-term memory.
Those around the table, other than my daughter, have no idea I’m a writer, and thus have no idea that part of my bantering and getting “into the issues” was trying to dig up good information for the next morning. And yes, I had a catch. Now reservedly it wasn’t a brilliant catch–I’ve had greater–but a catch nevertheless. I would say it was a good small mouthed bass, which, if you’ve only been pulling in small perch for a while a small mouthed bass is a very nice catch, and definitely one to keep in the boat with you.
You see, that’s the whole point: that with writers, there’s nothing purely subjective–we’re always mining for information.
The Neil Simon Volumes
One day I was at the library with my kids. It was one of those overcast, windswept late March days that draws one in-doors with a heightened state of awareness of comfort and even intrigue–a perfect time to hunt for books. My kids took off into the kids’ section, just outside of which, in the hallway, were several shelves of bargain books. My eyes scanned the shelves swiftly but carefully, picking up three volumes of Neil Simon’s Collected Plays–what a catch! They were fifty-cents each. But what I realized after cracking open the first volume was that Simon’s introduction was alone worth the price of the books; for it’s all about his secret life as a writer.
The Writer Is Loose!
“A look, the sound of a voice, a stranger passing on the street–and in an instant the transformation takes place. The mild-mannered Human Being suddenly dashes for cover behind his protective cloak called skin and peers out, unseen, though two tiny keyholes called eyes. He stands there undetected, unnoticed, a gleeful, malicious smirk on his face watching, penetrating, probing the movements, manners and absurd gestures of those ridiculous creatures performing their inane daily functions. ‘How laughable that woman dresses . . . How pathetically that man eats . . . How forlornly that couple walks . . .’ The writer is loose!” (Collected Plays, Vol. I, Pg. 6-7).
And this is why we’re not safe–but aren’t we?
Leo Tolstoy On Art
What are we as writers trying to do anyway?
I would say we are trying to capture the essence of what it means to be human. We are trying to find truth. We are trying to disclose the meaning of existence. We are trying, struggling, to create symbol that transcends daily life.
In Leo Tolstoy’s “What is Art,” he states that art is a struggle between the artist and the divine. God places something in the heart of the artist, and the artist is trying to get what’s in, out. This spiritual struggle between the artist and God is the creative process. And so when I am mining for information in my seat at a dinner party, or sitting in a meeting, or walking the street, I am in a struggle with God over what He wants to show me and what He wants me to communicate. It is indeed a struggle for Truth. And so as a writer, I would argue I’m one of the safest people to have around; for I am always looking for something bigger than me; always looking for redemption; always looking for Truth; always trying to find that light at the end of the tunnel.
Writing In Cognito–Then Lying About It
It’s evening. My friend and I have been travelling all day from Toronto to Calgary. We’re at a hotel in Regina. The drive was a gong-show. My friend was receiving calls from people who are highly respected in their respective fields, but so hilarious. At one point I was so distracted by my friend on the phone next to me–he had burst into laughter so loudly that he started choking. I thought he was having a heart attack–that I lost track of my speed and was pulled over by the RCMP. That night, while he was watching “Call the Midwife” on his tablet across on the other bed, he looked over at me. I was frantically writing down everything I had heard and witness before it had faded from memory.
“What are you writing?” he asked.
“Nothing.” What else am I going to say?
“So . . . you’re not writing down all that stuff that went down today are you?”
“Nah . . . Just stuff. I try to write a little bit every day–that’s all.”
My only consolation in lying to him was that he knew I was lying to him. He is one of the few who knows I’m a writer. He chuckled, slipped his earbuds back into his ear, and left me to it.
Now that stuff, that stuff I was frantically jotting down, that was pike material; it was game-changing stuff. And when you’ve been catching perch and suddenly have a pike at the end of your line, you’re going to do everything you can to reel it in, and take it home. That stuff I wrote down in that hotel room in Regina has gone directly into my latest manuscript. It was a game changer because it opened up a whole new set of truths in the book, and created the leitmotif I was after–because it was all about redemption, about truth, about Being, about God, about mercy, and transformation.
And that’s why it can be a very good thing to have a writer at your dinner party.
This Is How Victor Hugo Inspired Me To Get Myself A Wolf
The Library
It was the day after my birthday. My family had flown out ahead of me to Calgary where we were planning to move. I had spent the night of my birthday alone–just me, the dog, left-over Chinese food, and a book I had picked up on sale at Value Village on Hemingway’s boat (a truly aesthetic thing to read Hemingway when alone on the night of one’s birthday, don’t you think?).
The following day, my aunt invited me over to have lunch with her. She had prepared a decorated table in my late uncle’s rare book library. Being a prolific internationally acclaimed author himself, the place is a writer’s dream. After lunch, my aunt gifted me a leather bound six volume set of Victor Hugo’s Collected Works–exquisite!
Victor Hugo’s Wolf
One of the stories of Hugo that I can’t stop thinking about is found in the book, entitled The Man Who Laughs. The opening story is about a man named Ursus and his wolf Homo. The two live together in a trailer that the wolf pulls around from village to village.
“On hard roads and ascents, when there was too much rut and too much mud, the man buckled the trace-band about his neck, and pulled fraternally, side by side with the wolf.”
It says that the wolf never bit, but the man bit sometimes. And the two grew old together travelling from place to place, the man giving monologues, impersonations, and even providing the services of a herbalist treating people of various ailments.
It says that Ursus found the wolf by a river deftly catching cray-fish. Ursus saluted the wolf and the two became friends.
“Homo was more than a companion to Ursus, he was a counterpart. Ursus tapped his hollow flanks and said, ‘I have found my second volume.’ He also said, ‘When I am dead, he who wishes to know me will only have to study Homo. I shall leave him behind me as an authentic copy.'”
The Hugo Volumes
The volumes were so beautiful: leather bounded, gilded spines, marble flyleaves–the works. I couldn’t wait to get them home. The house was empty, but the volumes immediately warmed the place up. The dog followed me around the house as I was moving books from one shelf to another and from one box to another, making room on my living room shelves for them–their new home. My uncle had exquisite taste in books, and these were no exception. I put them up on the shelf, lining them up perfectly, the gilded spines capturing the dim lamp light from the living room. I wanted to dig into them, but where does one begin with almost 2000 pages of Hugo?
The Mystery Of A Man And His Wolf
So I want a wolf. A friend of mine lives out in Ghost Lake, Alberta. He had a dog that was half-something, half wolf. When his wife gave birth to their first child, the wolf-cross was out. What is it about a wolf?
Again, reading Hugo my mind is captivated by this mendicant and his wolf sharing a book-stuffed, candle-lit hut together; the wolf sprawled out on the floor, the man working away on some obscure manuscript or herbal remedy. My mind goes to those stories of St. Francis of Assisi and the wolf; how he made friends with it, and brought it back to the town it had been terrorizing to apologize. The town forgave the wolf, and the wolf became the town pet.
“Ursus had imparted to Homo a portion of his talents, –standing erect, diluting his wrath in times of ill humour, growling instead of howling, etc.; on his part, the wolf had taught the man what he knew,–to do without a roof, to do without bread, to do without fire, to prefer hunger in a forest to slavery in a palace.”
What is this paragraph? So brilliant and mysterious! There is a reason here why the wolf is called Homo, or ‘man’: He and Ursus are almost one and the same–the wolf is Ursus’s double, his second volume.
What does this say about ourselves and creation? There is this affinity we read about with certain characters and their wolves. I go back to the wolf in the Laurus that plays a mysterious role. Yes–mystery! The wolf shows the mystery of creation; that we are not cut off from creation, but can become one with it as God is there filling all things.
I Was Inspired To Get Myself A Wolf
So I read through Ursus and Homo several times captivated by it, but needing time to process. Then suddenly one day, and I’m not sure how it happened, but an inspiration hit: I need a wolf! This is the time, and the manuscript is the place!
For the longest time I have had this thing about wolves in stories, and now it was my time to write one into mine. Just this morning, as the clock was nearing 6:15, I picked up my pen and began to write my first wolf scene infusing it with all the mystery that I love about characters and their wolves. It felt so good.
It’s amazing, the timing of a book–the way it inspires seemingly out of the blue. It’s a cold February day, and I’m 3000 kilometres from my aunt’s house and the old family house we moved here from. It seems like years since I brought these volumes home from my uncle’s rare book library. And I remember the first time I brought them home wondering if I would be inspired by them. I’m only on the first story of many, and all ready I am filled with wonder.
Wow–my own wolf! I finally have one of my own.
This Is How Kierkegaard, Merton, And An Obscure Book On Spinoza Helped Me Become A Writer
Where does the writer begin and the self who was there prior to becoming a writer end?
This is a question I ask myself from time to time, especially when reading or having read a biography. When did Steve Jobs become Steve Jobs, or Mozart become Mozart, or Hemingway become Hemingway? To me, there seems to be a point at which there is a leap from T0 in which one is not, say, a writer, to T1 in which one is. My writing coach (who does not know he is my writing coach) Steven Pressfield calls it “turning pro”: that time when you go from the amateur hobbyist to the persistent unflagging professional writer.
An Obscure Book On Spinoza
My first discovery was that of reading somehow leading to writing. I was taking a class in modern philosophy in my first undergraduate year at the University of Toronto, for which I took out a book on Spinoza: an obscure work entitled, Behind the Geometrical Method: A Reading of Spinoza’s Ethics But in this book I found something I didn’t expect to find: a simple quote on reading and writing:
“It is a general observation that people write as they read. As a rule, careful writers are careful readers and vice versa. A careful writer wants to be read carefully. He cannot know what it means to be read carefully but by having done careful reading himself. Reading precedes writing. We read before we write. We learn to write by reading. A man learns to write well by reading well good books, by reading most carefully books which are most carefully written” Leo Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing.
This was it! I didn’t know at the time that I would become a writer, but this quote took me into another world–this simple quote haphazardly stumbled upon while looking up something for my modern philosophy class! I hadn’t read anything like this simple passage; and it became some kind of rite of passage for me, for I knew then that I had to become a reader, and a careful one at that! I printed the passage out and stuck it on my wall and read it daily.
Why did I do this? Did I know I wanted to become a writer? I would say my heart knew, but I was not aware of this–all I knew was this opened me up to another world and gave me a sense of meaning and purpose. “Reading precedes writing. We read before we write . . . .” Unbelievable! This, and Kierkegaard’s journal entries, were the opening to my calling to be a writer. Later, I would be drawn to the little work by the Emerson scholar Robert D. Richardson, entitled First We Read, Then We Write.
Kierkegaard On The Vocation Of Writer
Another turning point for me, albeit a hazy one, was when I was first exposed to Kierkegaard. I still remember the lecture hall at University College at the University of Toronto. It was a night class on existentialism from 6-9pm. The hall was packed; and I know I wasn’t the only one who anticipated it would be all Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. But the instructor surprised all of us with a roster of unusual suspects: Martin Buber, Soren Kierkegaard, Nietzsche (ok ok, this one wasn’t unusual), and Gabriel Marcel. I was outraged: “What are all these religious philosophers doing in existentialism class!”
But it was Kierkegaard who really got to me. I hadn’t read him before, having just been introduced to philosophy through western theology: Barth, Tillich, Kung–those modern protestant usual suspects. We read in class Philosophical Fragments, and while at times confused, I fell deeply into Kierkegaard’s musings about his life and his vocation as a writer. I still remember when I read that one journal entry of his in which he wrote that,
“I need to get straight what I am to do; what is the life that is true for me.”
It was this vocational cry to God that really struck me; this struggle to somehow get straight who he was not only as a human being, but a human being with a calling, a purpose–to understand that life that is true for him. This is no relativistic claim, but rather a subjective one–and not in the subjectivism that is a mere smoke screen for relativism, but a subjectivism that, for Kierkegaard, is the necessary condition for the possibility of finding God, and therefore Truth itself.
I was hooked: I read more of Kierkegaard’s biography, and relished those parts of his story when he realized his calling and couldn’t turn back–he wrote endlessly and prolifically in the short time before his death at 42 years old.
But I still didn’t understand what this vocation was for me. I wasn’t a writer, and certainly didn’t even know what that meant.
We Read Before We Write
It’s 2001, and I’ve graduate from the University of Toronto and I’m preparing my grad school applications. I am inflicted with a cold flu that has me in bed for 3 full days. During that time I read like crazy: Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance, Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, and a couple of others. And suddenly I am struck with a story, a plot, a novel! It caught me off guard, for my writing ambitions at that time were simply academic or scholarly–but here in a hazy way was the formation of a vision for a novel. It caught me so off guard that I didn’t know what to do. I know I held it for a long time; but the more I thought about it, the more beautiful it became.
Fast-forward two years. I have just begun my Ph.D. studies at Stanford with a focus on Martin Heidegger with some Kierkegaard and Kant thrown in for good measure–a little Nietzsche too–and in a crisis: my wife wanted something different for our lives, and I wanted her, so . . . .
I remember when I made my decision to leave Stanford, I took my advisor’s bike (his wife’s actually–he was kind enough to lend it to me), and rode to my apartment. I remember just coasting in the warm dry California sunset thinking, “Maybe I’ll write that novel . . . .”
The Crisis Of Faith–Kierkegaard Style
Now fast-forward a decade: I come to another Kierkegaardian crisis–that of faith; that teetering on the edge of rationality staring out over 33,000 feet of water. I had tried to live my life in a rational way; I tried to be self-reliant; I tried to be a free thinker in that Heideggarian sense of pursuing truth without religion–but it didn’t work. I stood on the precipice of crisis and had two choices: death or Christ.
I cried out, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me and save me a sinner!”
And that was that . . . my life was changed.
There was, and remains, a whole process to it, a process of repentance, but my life as I knew it and as I practiced it had changed. I was a new creation–the old had gone and the new had come. I was a new being. And what happened in that time of metanoia, that time of turning 180 degrees to Christ? He gave me back all that I loved: my wife, my children, my friends (some old friends from whom I had become disconnected), and my vocation, my calling.
He gave me a story, and then another one, and another.
He gave me that life that I was called to live.
It doesn’t mean it isn’t without struggle–spiritual practice is a struggle–but I am not alone. And I look back to those milestones in my life, to those places where I had inklings–true inklings!: Kierkegaard, Merton, Spinoza, Camus, Sartre, Heidegger, Emerson, and many others, and see a process of becoming.
It is said that one of the most terrifying things that can happen to us at the final judgement, when we stand before God, is that He asks us this one question:
“Why did you not become the person I had created you to be?”
Vocation As That Narrow Road Away From The Crowd
This goes right to the heart of our vocation, our calling; that calling that takes us away from the crowd, as Heidegger does such a good job at explaining; that calling that takes us down a narrow path, through a narrow gate, that leads to our true selves, but takes a lot of struggle, a lot of prayer, and the grace of God to get there.
Another inspiration just prior to my conversion. The story of another conversion that was mystical and beautiful and surprising, I’m sure, to those around him: Thomas Merton. Like many, I loved the Seven Story Mountain, but could only love it through a glass dimly, for I hadn’t yet tasted that powerful conversion that Merton wrote about. But the more I entered into conversion and tried to understand it in light of creativity and art and beauty, Merton was, and remains, a tremendous help. And thus, I’ll end with one of his most well-known prayers.
The Merton Prayer
It is a prayer for me, and I hope it is or becomes a prayer for you. We are all children of God. And we have all been created for a purpose in this life. There is a reason why you are here on this earth at this particular time in history. But you can’t realize that calling alone. You need to open your heart and receive Jesus Christ–the One Who Is, the True Being, the One who gives you breath.
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
Therefore will I trust you always though
I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”
What Stories About Befriending Wild Animals Can Truly Teach Us
There’s a story of a monk who loved animals. He had many dogs and cats in his hut, and in spite of being a rather bullish man, his love of animals seemed to radiate through.
One day he went to a house in the village for a house blessing. As he came through the gates, he was met by the family’s massive German Shepherd that was known throughout the village for being aggressive and vicious. The dog was the size of a small pony! The family stood in shock as the dog ran up to the monk and jumped up on him putting its paws up right on his burly shoulders. The monk just laughed. “Want to wrestle?” he growled at the dog with a chuckle. The dog replied by licking the man’s face. The monk looked toward the stupefied family and laughed. “Aw he’s my friend now! He knows how much I love animals–these dogs are very sensitive, you know!”
There’s something wonderful about these stories of humans encountering and befriending seemingly vicious animals. There’s a teaching here that we can gain insights from about how to become truly human. In the case of the monk, the seemingly vicious dog has an encounter with this man as if it is encountering God; and, it seems, the same can be said about the monk.
Here’s another from a favourite novel of mine, Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin. The novel traces the spiral-life of Arseny: a physician, nomad, and holy fool. As a young boy, Arseny is taught by his grandfather Christopher the medicinal use of innumerable herbs. One day walking through the forest, young Arseny and his grandfather came upon a wolf.
“Once they saw a wolf while they were gathering plants. The wolf was standing a few steps form them, looking them in the eyes. His tongue dangled from his jaw and trembled from panting. The wold was hot.
“We will not move, said Christopher, and he will leave. O great martyr Georgy, do helpe.
“He will not leave, Arseny objected. He came so he could be with us.
“The boy walked up to the wolf and took him by the scruff. The wolf sat. The end of his tail stuck out from under his hind paws. Christofer leaned against a pine tree and attentively watched Arseny. When they headed for home, the wolf set off after them, his tongue still hanging like a little red flag. The wolf stopped at the border of the village.”
The wolf eventually becomes Arseny’s house pet, lying with him by the fire. There is something magical about this world, something evocative somehow. I will not go into more detail about the wolf without ruining the plot of the story, but the wolf becomes an icon in the book of what icons are supposed to do: bring heaven and earth together.
Arseny’s befriending the wolf, or any stories about monks and wild animals for that matter, is an icon of this real connection humans share with all of creation. And that it’s not the animal’s fault that there exists at times this vicious barrier between it and a human being, but that it is really our fallenness that gets in the way; that if we were actually saints in the true sense of the word, more of these kinds of interactions would be happening. Hence, these stories of wolves and other wild animals are icons of what we all need to become, what we all as humans need to strive and struggle toward by the grace and mercy of God: to become more and more in the image of the One by Whom we were created.
These are the kinds of stories I love; the kinds of stories that reveal how the grace of God can radiate from one so much that even otherwise vicious animals are at peace. Whether it’s the well-known story of St. Francis of Assisi and the wolf, or stories of hermits in the forest who feed bears, these stories show that in Christ we are connected closely to all of creation. “Be at peace with God, and a thousand of others around you will be too,” to awkwardly paraphrase the saying of a desert father.
These stories encourage us to reach beyond ourselves, to reach beyond our fears, our anxieties, our immediacies, our possessions, our mandates, our intellects to something beyond: to tasting heaven here on earth and bringing all of creation along with us.
This Is How You Beat Failure And Find The Razor’s Edge Between Disaster And Perfection
I’ve been thinking about a post for the past couple of hours. There are different avenues I can go, but instead of hitting those, I’m choosing to write on something whimsical–ooh…
Why We’re All Afraid Of Failure
My day job is in education. And one of the most difficult things about it is to see what learning is (mis)construed to be, and what it actually is. I read an article today that children’s imagination is taught out of them by a system that is test-based and self-perpetuating. There is a well-known longitudinal study done on creativity, presented by Sir Ken Robinson in a famous TEDTalk, that showed that the longer one stays in school, the more one’s creativity is arrested. One of the main reasons is that students are taught linear rather than divergent thinking (one way in which creativity is measured). But another reason is that students are not taught to risk. As children we’re taught to play it safe, stay organized, don’t risk, and whatever you do don’t fail!
In watching the Mogul competition last night on the Olympics, a maxim struck me that I can’t get out of my head: The closer one gets to disaster, the closer one gets to perfection.
Creative Versus Karaoke Culture
It reminds me of a talk I heard once by the contentious Malcolm McLaren, called Authentic Creativity and Karaoke Culture. He was recounting his first day in art and design school. His instructor, disheveled and bearded, sat down and asked, “Who here wants to be a successful designer?” A group of young students raised their hands. The instructor’s response: “Then there’s the door–because everyone knows that as an artist it’s much better to be a glorious failure than any banal success!”
The closer to disaster, the closer to perfection.
Do you ever just dive into something without looking before you leap?
Do you ever just follow a hunch not knowing where it’s taking you?
Do you ever get off track, run the car off the pavement and off-road it for a while pushing the machine to its limits on unfamiliar terrain?
If You’re Working On Something That’s A Struggle, It’s Probably The Right Thing
My writing coach is amazing–it’s Steven Pressfield (though he doesn’t know it). I get his weekly newsletters. He writes the Wednesday posts, and he has a team of writers contribute the other days. There was one post–it wasn’t written by Pressfield–that struck me, and that came to my inbox right when I needed it. I don’t remember the specifics of it, but the main message was that if you’re writing something that is nothing but a struggle, that you have no handle on where it’s going, and that you want to quit writing every other day, then that’s the book you have to write.
Why?
Because you’re taking the risk, you’re hitting that tension between disaster and perfection, and in so doing, you are digging deep into yourself and pulling something out that is unique to who you are.
It’s that razor’s edge between disaster and perfection–it’s the sweet spot of creativity.
But let’s not be melodramatic here. The great disaster, the glorious failure, is really just a piece of paper. When you crash and burn, simply pick up a new snowy white sheet, and begin again.
This is How Dostoevsky Shows The Way Of Transformational Love In The Brothers Karamazov
Dostoevsky has a way of invoking emotion. His scenes are so carefully built up, and his characters often so heavy and burdened and emotional that you the reader can’t help but feel them.
The Way Of Atheism To Christianity
In a previous post, I commented on a scene from Dostoevsky’s hagiography of the Elder Zossima, namely the conversion of his brother Markel from atheism to Christianity–a conversion so deep and transformative that the once hardened atheist was now weeping for the birds and asking for their forgiveness! Dostoevsky is so beautiful in these scenes, taking the rational to the crazy and showing that the crazy is actually the rational–he takes human life and turns it upside down revealing truth itself. That what the Greeks thought foolishness is actually the real, the true, the good. To some, the elder’s brother is a madman–this kind of reader would fall into the character of the doctor who diagnoses Markel with a kind of madness resulting from his illness and proximity to death. But for others, those who believe that a love for God and creation is an important kind of crazy, a humanizing foolishness, this is an expression, indeed a revelation, of truth itself.
The Way From Erotic To Agape Love
There is another crazy scene in the Brothers Karamazov that I couldn’t believe when I read it. It is the scene when Alyosha, the young monk and symbol of faith in the book, has a crisis of faith after the death of Elder Zossima, and flees the monastery and goes directly to Grushenka’s house. Grushenka is known as a prostitute, a shrewd business woman, and a mesmerizing one at that. In his heart, Alyosha seems to know that Grushenka is waiting for him–at least there has been some encounter with her that if he wanted to, he could have relations with her and vice versa. So off he goes, and he’s joined by fellow monk Rakitin who is a victim of his own spiritual crisis from which he has not been able to recover.
They enter Grushenka’s house, and Rakitin mocks Alyosha who is gloomy and reticent. Grushenka can’t make sense of it all, and finds her moment to possibly seduce Alyosha. Here’s the scene:
“Will you let me sit on your knee, Alyosha, like this?” She suddenly skipped forward and jumped, laughing, on his knee, like a nestling kitten, placing her right arm tenderly around his neck. “I’ll cheer you up, my pious boy. Yes, really, will you let me sit on your knee, you won’t be angry? If you tell me, I’ll hop off.”
Grushenka confesses that she loves Alyosha with all her soul, but “in a different way” than the others, including her suitor Mitya who is another brother Karamazov. She claims that in the past she has “had sly designs on you before. For I am a horrid and violent creature. But at other times I’ve looked at you as my conscience. I’ve kept thinking, ‘how any one like that must despise a nasty thing like me’.”
But here’s where the scene shifts and the magic begins. The tensions been set: the voluptuous Grushenka is seated on the young monk’s lap. Alyosha is in a spiritual conflict: on the one hand he feels protected by God from temptation, but on the other he is feeling attracted to Grushenka (indeed a normal emotion given every other male character’s response to her). But now the shift:
Rakitin breaks to Grushenka that the Elder Zossima had died that day and had crushed Alyosha in sorrow. To this Grushenka reacts in a surprising way:
“So Father Zossima is dead,” cried Grushenka. “Good God, I did not know!” She crossed herself devoutly. “Goodness, what have I been doing, sitting on his knee like this at such a time!” She started up as though in dismay, instantly slipped off his knee and sat down on the sofa. Alyosha bent a long wondering look upon her and a light seemed to dawn in his face.”
And now the arrow of love that pierces the darkness!
Alyosha to Rakitin and Grushenka:
“Rakitin,” he said suddenly, in a firm and loud voice, “don’t taunt me me with having rebelled against God. I don’t want to feel angry with you, so you must be kinder, too. I’ve lost a treasure [Elder Zossima] such as you have never had, and you cannot judge me now. You had much better look at her–do you see how she spared me? I came here to find a wicked soul–I felt drawn to evil because I was base and evil myself, and I’ve found a true sister, I have found a treasure–a loving heart. She spared me just now . . . . Agrafena Alexandrovna [Grushenka], I am speaking of you. You’ve restored my soul just now.” Alyosha’s lips were quivering and he caught his breath.
Rakitin takes it all in with a mocking vituperation:
“She has saved you, it seems,” laughed Rakitin spitefully. “And she meant to swallow you, do you realize that?”
The Way of Crazy Repentance
And now the moment of Grushenka’s repentance:
“Stay, Rakitin.” Grushenka jumped up. “Hush, both of you. Now I’ll tell you all about it. Hush, Alyosha, your words make me ashamed, for I am bad and not good–that’s what I am. And you hush, Rakitin, because you are telling lies. I had the low idea of trying to swallow him, but now you are lying, now it’s all different . . . .” All this Grushenka said with extreme emotion. “They are both crazy,” said Rakitin, looking at them with amazement. ” I feel as though I were in a madhouse. They’re both weakening so that they’ll begin crying in a minute.” “I shall begin to cry, I shall,” repeated Grushenka. “He called me his sister and I shall never forget that.”
The crazy scene continues leading to Grushenka sobbing on the couch repenting of her sins and Alyosha having nothing but love and forgiveness in his heart for her.
Crazy Love
But what happened here? What is Dostoevsky revealing to us?
He is revealing to us none other than a simple truth, a truth that if we all lived it–according to Markel in the Elder Zossima scene–we would bring heaven down to earth: That all of us, no matter how dark or sinful or distorted or broken, all of us are made in the image of God. And if you look closely enough at a person–any person!–you will see that image born out of their eyes. And when we see one another as created in the image of God, then objectivity becomes subjectivity–we cease seeing one another as objects, and instead engage as subjects, as icons of God Himself. This is the beauty, the broken distorted beauty, of Dostoevsky. This is truth unfolded. And this truth is a beautiful truth, for it turns the world upside down to where a “nasty thing” like Grushenka becomes a sister of light, a sister of truth. Further down you will read that in fact Grushenka had paid Rakitin to deliver the young monk to her for the purpose of swallowing him. And this is part of her confession and repentance. But Alyosha is full of the transforming love of God. He cannot see her as anything but a saint.
Cynical Rationality vs Transformational Love
And what of Rakitin?
He is the voice of reason. He is the cynic in all of us who don’t want to believe such stories, who don’t want to go to the place of crazy radical love, who think it’s all too messy and crazy and messed up. His is the voice of reason; the place of reason that the love of Christ overturns like the money tables in the temple. There’s no place for the rational, the careful, the risk-free in this crazy love that is the Kingdom of God. In fact, it’s fair to say that we all must drive the Rakitin out of our hearts if we are to enter this crazy love that is the Way of truth and light and love.
What power. What vision. What radical beauty!
Prefaces 