(Thought this belonged here; I've been writing about the uselessness
of virtuousity, and then with the U.S. Thankgiving upon is, and then
given the rest of the world, these pieces and text came to mind.)
the virtuous city
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the virtuous, for whom to give thanks, rampage and ravage,
for whom the slaughter, for whom the last gesture of the
hands, last moment where _i hear_ such as music, as what
might be passed to you, this bonfire of pipa and violin,
this spark of genius in the ashes of auschwitz and
plymouth colony, origin of rendering for our mutual
history, read and destroyed. for whom the slaughter or
birds and other animals to fill our greed of religion,
gold, and what remains. the earth is remnant, remain,
residue, the earth is history always and already beneath
effacement, what erasure have i on the past's truncation,
why this presence of genius ego in the midst of ego, to
which nothing answers, nothing succumbs, but everything,
so much fostering left, so much allure
hands, last moment where _i hear_ such as music, as what
might be passed to you, this bonfire of pipa and violin,
this spark of genius in the ashes of auschwitz and
plymouth colony, origin of rendering for our mutual
history, read and destroyed. for whom the slaughter or
birds and other animals to fill our greed of religion,
gold, and what remains. the earth is remnant, remain,
residue, the earth is history always and already beneath
effacement, what erasure have i on the past's truncation,
why this presence of genius ego in the midst of ego, to
which nothing answers, nothing succumbs, but everything,
so much fostering left, so much allure
Virtue, faith, crisis - from Zossima the elder in Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky
ReplyDelete***
“I suffer ... from lack of faith.”
“Lack of faith in God?”
“Oh, no, no! I dare not even think of that. But the future life—it is such
an enigma! And no one, no one can solve it. Listen! You are a healer, you
are deeply versed in the human soul, and of course I dare not expect you
to believe me entirely, but I assure you on my word of honor that I am not
speaking lightly now. The thought of the life beyond the grave distracts
me to anguish, to terror. And I don’t know to whom to appeal, and have not
dared to all my life. And now I am so bold as to ask you. Oh, God! What
will you think of me now?”
She clasped her hands.
“Don’t distress yourself about my opinion of you,” said the elder. “I
quite believe in the sincerity of your suffering.”
“Oh, how thankful I am to you! You see, I shut my eyes and ask myself if
every one has faith, where did it come from? And then they do say that it
all comes from terror at the menacing phenomena of nature, and that none
of it’s real. And I say to myself, ‘What if I’ve been believing all my
life, and when I come to die there’s nothing but the burdocks growing on
my grave?’ as I read in some author. It’s awful! How—how can I get back my
faith? But I only believed when I was a little child, mechanically,
without thinking of anything. How, how is one to prove it? I have come now
to lay my soul before you and to ask you about it. If I let this chance
slip, no one all my life will answer me. How can I prove it? How can I
convince myself? Oh, how unhappy I am! I stand and look about me and see
that scarcely any one else cares; no one troubles his head about it, and
I’m the only one who can’t stand it. It’s deadly—deadly!”
“No doubt. But there’s no proving it, though you can be convinced of it.”
“How?”
“By the experience of active love. Strive to love your neighbor actively
and indefatigably. In as far as you advance in love you will grow surer of
the reality of God and of the immortality of your soul. If you attain to
perfect self-forgetfulness in the love of your neighbor, then you will
believe without doubt, and no doubt can possibly enter your soul. This has
been tried. This is certain.”
“In active love? There’s another question—and such a question! You see, I
so love humanity that—would you believe it?—I often dream of forsaking all
that I have, leaving Lise, and becoming a sister of mercy. I close my eyes
and think and dream, and at that moment I feel full of strength to
overcome all obstacles. No wounds, no festering sores could at that moment
frighten me. I would bind them up and wash them with my own hands. I would
nurse the afflicted. I would be ready to kiss such wounds.”
“It is much, and well that your mind is full of such dreams and not
others. Sometime, unawares, you may do a good deed in reality.”
“Yes. But could I endure such a life for long?” the lady went on
fervently, almost frantically. “That’s the chief question—that’s my most
agonizing question. I shut my eyes and ask myself, ‘Would you persevere
long on that path? And if the patient whose wounds you are washing did not
meet you with gratitude, but worried you with his whims, without valuing
or remarking your charitable services, began abusing you and rudely
commanding you, and complaining to the superior authorities of you (which
often happens when people are in great suffering)—what then? Would you
persevere in your love, or not?’ And do you know, I came with horror to
the conclusion that, if anything could dissipate my love to humanity, it
would be ingratitude. In short, I am a hired servant, I expect my payment
at once—that is, praise, and the repayment of love with love. Otherwise I
am incapable of loving any one.”
She was in a very paroxysm of self-castigation, and, concluding, she
looked with defiant resolution at the elder.
...
“It’s just the same story as a doctor once told me,” observed the elder.
Delete“He was a man getting on in years, and undoubtedly clever. He spoke as
frankly as you, though in jest, in bitter jest. ‘I love humanity,’ he
said, ‘but I wonder at myself. The more I love humanity in general, the
less I love man in particular. In my dreams,’ he said, ‘I have often come
to making enthusiastic schemes for the service of humanity, and perhaps I
might actually have faced crucifixion if it had been suddenly necessary;
and yet I am incapable of living in the same room with any one for two
days together, as I know by experience. As soon as any one is near me, his
personality disturbs my self-complacency and restricts my freedom. In
twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he’s too
long over his dinner; another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing
his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But
it has always happened that the more I detest men individually the more
ardent becomes my love for humanity.’ ”
“But what’s to be done? What can one do in such a case? Must one despair?”
“No. It is enough that you are distressed at it. Do what you can, and it
will be reckoned unto you. Much is done already in you since you can so
deeply and sincerely know yourself. If you have been talking to me so
sincerely, simply to gain approbation for your frankness, as you did from
me just now, then of course you will not attain to anything in the
achievement of real love; it will all get no further than dreams, and your
whole life will slip away like a phantom. In that case you will naturally
cease to think of the future life too, and will of yourself grow calmer
after a fashion in the end.”
“You have crushed me! Only now, as you speak, I understand that I was
really only seeking your approbation for my sincerity when I told you I
could not endure ingratitude. You have revealed me to myself. You have
seen through me and explained me to myself!”
“Are you speaking the truth? Well, now, after such a confession, I believe
that you are sincere and good at heart. If you do not attain happiness,
always remember that you are on the right road, and try not to leave it.
Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood, especially falseness
to yourself. Watch over your own deceitfulness and look into it every
hour, every minute. Avoid being scornful, both to others and to yourself.
What seems to you bad within you will grow purer from the very fact of
your observing it in yourself. Avoid fear, too, though fear is only the
consequence of every sort of falsehood. Never be frightened at your own
faint-heartedness in attaining love. Don’t be frightened overmuch even at
your evil actions. I am sorry I can say nothing more consoling to you, for
love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams.
Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in
the sight of all. Men will even give their lives if only the ordeal does
not last long but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as
though on the stage. But active love is labor and fortitude, and for some
people too, perhaps, a complete science. But I predict that just when you
see with horror that in spite of all your efforts you are getting farther
from your goal instead of nearer to it—at that very moment I predict that
you will reach it and behold clearly the miraculous power of the Lord who
has been all the time loving and mysteriously guiding you. Forgive me for
not being able to stay longer with you. They are waiting for me. Good-by.”
***
I don't know what virtue we can have, or virtuosity, given our situation. Avoiding them alltogether might leave you closer than pursuing any. You didn't want to be virtuous but came out as one. Even awkwardly by having no special characteristics.
DeleteVirtuosity by Bankei, Impromptu poem:
Not angry when abused, not happy when praised
A great blockhead of the universe!
Going along as circumstances carry me - north, south, east, west
Without hiding my ugliness or clumsiness between heaven and earth
Love the Bankei of course and it reminds me of Clement Rosset's statement that reality is idiotic; I use the word obdurate or inert, so as not to carry that emotional baggage. But yes! On the other hand, Dostoevsky - I lost faith in him the more I read about his Slavophilia, and texts in his magazine arguing that Russia should retake Constantinople - not to mention his take on "The Jewish Question" - which of course for Jews is no question at all. In other words, I see the passages as applying to "native" Russians by a "native" Russian which goes back for me to the idea of exclusion and inerrancy - and the Pale itself is a good example of this. I'm arguing that what seems open and free is actually nationalisticaly and ideologically closed - and this closure is in fact entangled with openess, it undermines it; in my own writing, I stress the abject as burrowed and corrupting beneath the surface. I do like the ending of the passage you quote - "Forgive me for not being able to stay longer with you. They are waiting for me. Good-by." - And in my own mind this connects with my fear of death, and always already wanting, from almost the origin (under erasure) to believe in _some_ meaning beyond what I or we can bring to the world - but then I fall flat with this...
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