Make Something of Yourself

Models work to perfect their bodies, so that when they reveal themselves disrobed, the public will admire them.

Similarly, a poet works to cultivate his inner life.  So when he discloses it to the world, the world will think it is beautiful, sensitive, profound ...    Saints and preachers are like the poet.  They work to perfect their souls, anticipating a future day when everything will be revealed, and judged.

To anticipate having to disclose or reveal oneself, (physically or spiritually, to gods or men), can give birth to the highest forms of human excellence, or the worst forms of error.

Models, we know, can get obsessed with the appearance of their bodies.  They might starve and purge themselves to attain a more ideal form.  Or a poet can become disgusted with the torpor and malaise of his everyday life, and torment himself for his lack of inspiration.  Or a monk may fast and beat himself, to purge his soul of impurities.  In each case, the strenuous efforts have ironic effects:  Instead of making the body, the mind, or the soul more admirable, they make them more twisted and ugly.

If excellence is not conceived and pursued with moderation and humility, a desperate extremism can result; and the model, the poet, and the would-be saint, wind up mutilating themselves in their quests.  Striving for beauty they grow ugly and twisted...  (And eventually that gets disclosed too.)

Asperger's Syndrome

There is a man in his 30s who frequents the same coffee shop I do.  I'm pretty sure he has Asperger's Syndrome.

I think his name is John.  He never sits at a table.   He's always behind the counter, milling around and speaking constantly to whomever's on-staff.   Today, the woman working there wore a Muslim headdress.  John tried to look underneath it.  She was offended, but laughed it off.  John was surprised at her reaction and he asked her if she was sad.  So... I'm pretty sure John has Asperger's.

I have known people with Asperger's before.  Most often, I find them tedious to be around.  I once had a young man tell me for hours about the fantasy comics he was planning to write.

But observing John, I am realizing that he is actually a very charming and interesting man.  The content of what he says is not at all strange.  He talks about politics, religion, different people and personality types.  He's incredibly intelligent...  Apparently Asperger's has nothing to do with intelligence.  It's a social thing, not an intellectual thing.  So when an otherwise interesting, engaging individual also has Asperger's-- and so tells you, all the time, whatever the hell's on his mind-- what you get is a very lovable sort of person.

If we all had Asperger's I'm sure the majority of people would be blabbering on and on about a lot of boring nonsense.  But some would still be rare gems-- who enjoy others' company and have worthwhile things to say.

If for no other reason than that, I almost wish everybody had it.  After all, if John did not I would certainly know nothing about him.  He would only be another nameless face in the cafe.

Sex

I am sitting in a coffee shop in Boston trying to get some work done.

But it was warm this morning and it's raining now, so young women are coming in here with their spring outfits soaked through.  Spring outfits alone are revealing enough to distract me.  This is becoming a preoccupation. 

I have mixed feelings about sex-- or, I should say, about sexuality.  Sex itself is no problem.  In and of itself it is pleasurable and satisfying, and confined to isolated spaces of time.   But sexuality finds its way into everything.  I can hardly speak to a good-looking woman without sexuality overtaking my whole inside world.  I am sitting across the room from a wet, svelt girl about my age, maybe a little older.  I keep looking at her.  I'd like her to look at me.  I'm not getting any work done...

Even if I never plan to have sex with her (and I don't), it doesn't matter.  I want her to want me.  It would be fine with me if the desire were never even consummated, as long as she wants it-- if only I could be assured that, given the chance, she would.  Sexuality is half genitals / half ego.  The genitals are easily satisfied, at least for a time. It's the lust of the eyes and the ego that prove themselves insatiable.

Self Expression

Someone recently told me that preaching in a church is not really an act of self-expression.  It's a creative act that expresses something beyond oneself.

I can't think of anything more self-expressive than a blog.  At their best, blogs offer critical commentary on anything from politics and ideas to food and recreation.  At their worst, they are seething outpourings from a blogger's consciousness, self-expressive to the point of being alienating or intolerable.  Most are somewhere in between, I'm sure.  But in any case, they tend to be highly self-expressive.  What could be farther from the lofty communication of heavenly truth, (which preaching seeks to be)?

And yet self-expression is so seductive for exactly that reason.  In the way a diary is seductive.  A platform, a medium, to express oneself! How nice!  To give thoughts and feelings a verbal form.  To open up one's own interiority and pour it out on the table, arrange it in a meaningful way-- and hope that others read it and find it beautiful.

But what is beautiful about my innermost heart and mind?  The only things I find beautiful are those elements and events that participate in something beyond myself.  Love enacted, a truth discovered, a life lived in the light, the shadow, of a higher meaning that embraces and transcends me.

That is what is beautiful.

But none of that makes itself available for writing down or telling you about.  Its only expression is eminently practical-- Beauty has to be lived.   If it's only told, its not beautiful.  Because it's too self-serving, self-indulgent.  Too self-conscious to be artful.  Too self-concerned to be beautiful.

And so this is my blog.  Not beautiful.  Just a platform for my own privacy-made-public, interiority expressed.   How selfish.