Two Hundred and Eighty One

The book I’m reading has been a pleasure to read, until now.  The author understood his subject, and explained it clearly and concisely, in its early chapters.  But not in the chapter I’m reading now,

I had to reread this chapter to understand what he was trying to say.  Not because he introduced new ideas in this chapter which are more complex, and more difficult to understand.  After rereading it, I realised the ideas he introduced in this chapter are no more than the logical consequences of those he described in previous chapters.  But he described these over and over again, each time in slightly different words, which leads me to believe he found them difficult to understand, and assumed his readers would, too.

Am I arrogant to assume this chapter was difficult for me to read not because I don’t understand what Boltzmann said, but because the author didn’t understand what Boltzmann said?  I don’t think so.  I can see, through his confused and confusing narrative, how ideas the author introduced in this chapter follow logically from those he described in earlier chapters; but he didn’t seem able to see, and explain, how they do, no matter how many times he tried.  He seems to have memorized Boltzmann’s ideas, but couldn’t follow the reasoning by which he arrived at those ideas.  He only repeated what he remembered without understanding it.  I’ve had many teachers like him, who only repeated what they remembered without understanding it.

Most of the people who attempted to teach me about the world, whether inside or outside a classroom, didn’t understand it as well as I did, and only repeated what they’d been taught.  But instead of congratulating myself on knowing more than my teachers did, I was always painfully aware of how little I knew, and always hoped to find someone who could teach me what I—what we all—need to know.  But I never found that teacher.  So I got into the habit of studying a subject on my own before I was scheduled to study it in school.

I usually couldn’t understand what a teacher was telling us in class unless and until I studied the subject on my own; whereupon it became clear to me.  After that, I became one of the best, if not the best, students in the class.  Other students came to me instead of the teacher for help.

Some teachers resented me for knowing more than they did, and took petty revenge on me.  Some said I cheated, because any student who claimed or seemed to know more than his teacher must be a liar.  

Nowadays many people assume that anyone who claims or seems to know more than they do is a liar.  Some people who claim or seem to know more than others do are indeed liars, but they lie to themselves as well as others.

There’s a difference between ignorance and stupidity.  The ignorant know they’re ignorant, and can be taught what they need to know, if they can find a good teacher.  The stupid can’t be taught, because they think they already know all they need to know—which they think qualifies them to teach others.

Two HUndred and Eighty

I dreamed of war last night.

Not modern war—a game soldiers play, sending drones to kill civilians who are to them no more than blips on a computer screen—but war in which soldiers fight each other hand-to-hand on a battlefield.  The war of all against all. 

I woke with the cries of the wounded and the dying still ringing in my ears.  What must I do to silence these cries?

We all know too much, but not enough.  We know how to kill and die, but not how to live. 

We used to admit we’re ignorant, and trusted the wise and/or the gods for whom they speak to teach us how to live.  But the wise didn’t trust us; so they taught us instead to obey those who they said were our betters, and sent us into battle to kill and die for them.

Eventually we lost our trust in those we called, and called themselves, wise, but not our trust in the gods for whom they claimed to speak; so we stopped listening to what the wise told us about god and his world, and studied that world ourselves, hoping to see the creator in his creation.  But god never spoke to us as the wise claimed he spoke to them; and now most of us have lost their faith in god, as well.  Now it’s our community, and its collective wisdom, in which we put our trust; or rather in someone who claims to speak for our community, but seems as superior to it and us as a god. 

But no one person can know what everyone knows, and is able to speak for all of us; therefore no one person can inspire the same trust that an omniscient god once did.  So the fears we once allayed by putting our trust in the wisdom of men and/or gods have returned, and they're driving us mad.

We used to seek out the wise, hoping to learn from them how to live.  But we learn nothing from others.  Everything we know, we knew from the beginning.  Not because we’re wise, but because we know so little.  Those we call wise are only a little less ignorant than the rest of us.  They’re wiser than we are in that they still know they’re ignorant. 

The ignorant no longer admit they’re ignorant.  Now they tell themselves that although they don’t know everything, they know everything worth knowing.  Such illusions are madness, but we need illusions to live in a world going mad. 

Am I going mad?  Of course.  I may not be going mad in the same way everyone else is, but I am in my own way.

Two Hundred and Seventy Nine

I’ve started reading again.  Apparently I can read if the subject interests me.

The subject is suicide.  Specifically Boltzmann’s suicide.

Science in his day had arrived at an impasse, and couldn’t progress.  He found a way by reviving and revising Leucippus' atomic theory.  But it was out of fashion, so Boltzmann was ridiculed.  In despair, he killed himself.

We're finite beings with a finite repertoire of ideas.  We progress by reviving and revising old ideas.  From time to time we think we’ve outgrown one of them, only to discover new information that seems to confirm it.

Our ideas don’t change. Only the criteria by which we decide whether they’re relevant to us change.   

We’ve arrived at such an impasse now, the greatest in our history.  It began with the death of god. 

God was never an idea with explanatory and/or predictive power.  It had value for us because when every desire is gone, even the desire to live, we still ask why we live.  God saved us from driving ourselves mad asking questions we can’t answer.  Now we think there’s no question we can’t and won’t eventually answer, so we’re driving ourselves mad.

Two Hundred and Seventy Eight

Why is there something rather than nothing? is the question scientists and philosophers supposedly ask themselves.  Is something better than nothing? is the question I ask myself.  I ask it because I am a thing, a self.

I must ask it because when every other desire is gone, even the desire to live, the desire to know why we live remains.  Asking questions seems to give our lives purpose   But how much can we know when life is all we know?  Things seem to be a small part of a universe that’s mostly nothing, and the things we call living are even smaller.  We may be the only living things that ask why we’re living. Obviously this universe doesn’t exist for us, as we once imagined.  Just as obviously, we don't exist for it.

Most of us move through life as dreamers do through their dreams, unaware that we’re chasing creatures of our imagination, that we are ourselves such creatures.  If something's better than nothing, it's not this thing that asks questions we can't answer.  Better not to ask.  Better not to live.   

Two Hundred and Seventy Seven

Another dream.

I work at a company that’s a mash-up of all those small companies where I worked at the beginning and the end of my working life.  We all sit at long tables, like the ones on which I sprawled when drawing blueprints at Bendix, and later at Modern when reading them.

Everyone is casually dressed except me.  I realise, to my dismay, that I’m wearing a white shirt and tie because I’m one of those old(er) men whom employees at small companies tease and mock because they used to work in an office at one of the big corporations, but are now on a downward spiral and clinging to the past.

There’s a young apprentice at this company who takes special delight in teasing and mocking me (Surely I wasn’t like him when I was a young apprentice.  The older employees did seem to resent me, so I took special care to win them over and learn from them).  One day he comes to me and apologises for having teased and mocked me.  But I don’t know whether he’s serious, or this is the prelude to yet another of his pranks, so I ignore him.

Attempting to make conversation, he asks me how I like working at the company.  I reply “I hate it with all the fury of a thousand exploding suns”, which surprises me as much as it does him.

At lunchtime, the owner of the company walks in and tells us he has a special treat for us; something both interesting and educational.  A professor of history is going to show us his collection of antiquities.  Then a scruffy man, looking like a homeless person, walks in.  He’s carrying a battered suitcase, which he sets on one of the tables and opens.

It contains small clay figurines which, he says, were made in ancient Sumer.  Only now do I realise, as I write this, that they looked like the clay figurines I used to make when I was a child, and kept on my bedside table.

The other employees make the desultory sounds of admiration which they know will please our boss, and go back to work.  I stay behind, and when they’re out of earshot I tell the scruffy man his figurines don’t look like any Sumerian figurines I’ve ever seen in a museum.  He readily admits he made them himself, and was selling them on the street when our boss passed by.

I awoke, thinking that everyone knew Trump was a con man and elected him because of it, not in spite of it; but they didn’t know that consciously.  Most of the things most people do they do for reasons they don’t know, and take care not to know, consciously.  They move through life as through a dream, taking care not to wake.

Everyone knows we're in a downward spiral, but chose to believe Trump when he said he’d Make America Great Again because they don’t want to wake from the American Dream.

Two Hundred and Seventy Six

Another dream last night.

I live and work downtown, the rotting heart of the city.  One day, I crash my car.  I buy another car, and crash it as well.  Where was I going?  Obviously nowhere. 

One day is like another.  The only change I can expect—that any of us can expect—is that things will get worse.

We are retreating into a fantasy that everything will change for the better when Biden becomes president, even though he’s a hack who tried again and again to win his party’s nomination, and always failed.  Biden became the Democrats’ candidate of last resort in 2020 for the same reason that Trump became the Republicans’ candidate of last resort in 2016: neither party had anyone else.

Biden is not our future, but our past.  He’s not even another Obama.  He's another Trump, promising to make America great again.

Two Hundred and Seventy Five

I had another dream last night.

In it I'm young, and starting my first job, as an apprentice.  My boss tells me to go to one of our vendors and pick up an order.  He assumes I know the way, but I've never been downtown before.  Reluctant to admit that I don’t know the way, I ask another employee—a older woman who's been friendly to me—for directions.  She offers to come with me and show me the way.

We get in my car.  But instead of giving me directions, she puts her hand on my knee.

I realize she thought I had invented the story of not knowing the way as an excuse to be alone with her.  I apologize for misleading her, but she refuses to believe it was unintentional. 

Then the scene changes. 

The pandemic seems finally under control.  The opera house has re-opened, so I drive downtown to buy tickets.  But it’s been so long since I’ve been downtown that I don't remember the way.

I see a well-dressed distinguished-looking older man walking down the street.  I pull over and ask him if he can direct me to the opera house.  He offers to come with me and show me the way.

He gets into my car and I drive off.  When we arrive at the opera house, he gets out of the car and goes inside with me.

I ask the ticket seller for a season’s brochure.  The man and I examine the brochure together.

I tell him I’m looking for an opera my wife would like.  He looks startled, as if I’d struck him.  I realize he's gay, and thought I was, too.  I apologize for misleading him, but he refuses to believe it was unintentional.

Two Hundred and Seventy Four

I had another dream last night.  In it, I seemed to be in a government building, being shuffled from room to room because I lack identity papers.

I thought at first it was a hospital, because my clothes (and papers) had been taken away and I was wearing some kind of robe.  But instead of white gowns and surgical masks, everyone there wore black, and masks like dominos that covered the upper half of their faces instead of the lower. 

One of them looked like the woman who strip searched me the last time I crossed the border.

I woke depressed and ready to reconsider suicide.