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(Archives) THE BYBLOS FRAGMENTS FOR THE ENDS OF CENTURIES
A Beginner's Guide to Metaphysics
For my sons
When in doubt, drive.
byblos intro Values exist. Truth, goodness, and beauty are real, as are falsehood, deceit, and ugliness. Just as there are "levels" of reality, so too are there levels of values. The primitive mind calls its prison "truth," and seeks to build the walls outward to enclose everyone else. The less primitive mind worries about opening a door, or at least building windows. The even less primitive mind does what it does. One value bridges all levels: life-affirmation. No matter that primitive minds grasp it simplistically and destructively (opposing abortion and favoring capital punishment, both for all the wrong reasons). Life-affirmation is one of the fundaments of this chain of reality. But: you have only to look clear-eyed at your earth to see how much of it, geographically, socially, artistically, thoughtfully, is a value-sink, a smoothly formed whirlpool which is always pulling at the inhabitants. How do you escape the pull? Not by resisting, but by doing value-affirmation. One turns the other cheek and one wallks away to another place where one does one's own work. Neither you nor I can destroy that whirlpool. It is the delight of too many souls on too many levels. We can, though, erect vast cities of light and vistas of green, such that the whirlpool becomes a minor, sad tourist reminder of what can be lost.
This, then, do: fredac. Focus, rest, exercise, diet, art, communion.
1. Focus: the only thing any of you have absolute control over is the focus of your consciousness, what you pay attenion to, what you choose to pay attention to. It turns out that is quite enough. The sleepers, of course, have their focus moved willy-nilly by their own chaotic dreams and those of the society into which they come. Gentle discipline furthers farther. 2. Rest: Mind, and body. The key to all else is: relaxation. Of both mind and body. A regimen is needed. Daily relaxation is need. As we say below, in this world you form habits constantly, so they might as well be construcive ones. 3. Exercise: Mind, and body. Build the body muscles. Build the mind muscles--reason, imagination, empathy, enthusiasm, delight. 4. Diet: Mind, and body. You are what you eat. You are what you think you eat. You think you are what you eat. And so on. Choose carefully but with delight what you put in both your mind and your body. 5. Art: You are to create. Actually: to co-create. You cannot stop co-creating, so you might as well be delightfully concerned about what you co-create. Even the febrile female couch potato, even the senile male leader co-creates. Static is, and grows, as the soundtrack of the unattended whirlpool. 6. Commune: the focused power of the non-human--earth, trees, ocean, animals--is tremendous beyond all present human awareness. This power is yours to tap, to share. Unlike the whirpool, the good universe is never selfish. It is also never fragmented, though it often appears so to fearful, tired, selfish eyes. The fragments, even at the worst of times, in the worst of pain, still, still form a larger, life-affirming whole. Walk away, walk away. Many paths, many signs. The greatest, vastest truth heard in your modern times was spoken by Susan B. Anthony: "Failure is impossible." Setbacks, to be sure, occur. But "failure" is a non-concept which exists only on the shimmering, slippery wall of the whirlpool. Byblos 001-0100 Magellan's Log front page |
