Kodak Moments
Greetings, Jazz Pickles. It’s another Sunday morning here at Rancho Bizarro in Central Mexico as I sit down to belch out another blog post about god-only-knows what. I don’t plan these posts ahead of time, I just sit down each week, allow my fingers to prance across my keyboard like happy woodland creatures in mating season, and see what turns up.
Given today’s Sunday cartoon (above) this seems like a good time to talk about two of my fave subjects: the nature of consciousness and the meaning of existence.
My favorite author on this topic of recent months is Alan Watts, a mid-20th century, English genius, philosopher, mystic, and self-described “spiritual entertainer.” I resonate so deeply with his writings on the nature of existence that if someone were to ask me that cliche cocktail party question about what person, living or dead, I would choose to have dinner with, his name would fly from my mouth with the force of a person hailing a cab in a downpour. I’d especially enjoy interviewing him on the nature of existence now that he’s dead! (I’m not saying I definitely believe in continued consciousness after death, but if it is a thing, he’d certainly know more about that than any of us reading or writing this post.)
He wrote primarily about the perspective of ancient Eastern philosophy in general, and Buddhism more specifically, though his thoughts are typically an amalgam of many of the great minds of every major culture and religion throughout history, Western and Eastern alike.
For now, let’s talk about the “finger pointing at the Moon.” Have you heard this expression? I hadn’t until recently.
The idea is that there are many gurus, prophets, institutions, disciplines, schools of thought, etc. that attempt to explain the greater truth; one that isn’t obvious to most of us and that can take years of exploration and contemplation to understand. These doctrines, philosophies, religions, etc. are the “finger” and The Truth is the “Moon.”
And the reason we’re talking about it is that since we have mostly spent our lives chasing money, prestige, acclaim, fun, excitement, sex, the latest iGadget, distractions of all kinds, we tend to mistake the finger for the Moon. In short, we accept the doctrine as The Truth, instead of what the doctrine is pointing at. As soon as you think you’ve got IT figured out (Christianity! Islam! Atheism! God! Psychology! Science! Astrology! Philosophy!) you’ve fallen in love with the pointing finger and are missing the Moon.
Watts is very good at pointing out the many ways in which we miss the Moon, but also that there are very good reasons for this; The Truth can’t be explained with language. You can be pointed in its general direction, but you have to “see” it yourself. Like an orgasm—only more so—it is something you have to experience to fully understand, and it leaves you speechless. Write-less, too, for it is far easier to describe what it is not than what it is.
It isn’t something about any of those things I listed parenthetically two paragraphs above, it’s something about you and about this moment. And I’m not saying I’ve arrived at understanding this ultimately elusive thing—no—only that I’ve glimpsed enough of it to understand why it can’t be explained with language. So let me feebly say that to some degree it is the skill of realizing in every present moment what a miracle that moment is. Whatever it’s like.
One of those tiny glimpses happened recently when I attended the funeral of a dear friend. His body had been laid, sans coffin, on a table piled high and draped with flowers in the garden of his country home. He had been a creative dynamo up until he fell ill a few weeks before his death, and his house and surrounding gardens are among his greatest achievements as a mosaic artist and sculptor. It was beautiful and moving and the perfect way and place for us to say goodbye to him.
But as I approached his body, what struck me at that moment was that he was not there. His body was there and it looked just like him, but it was glaringly obvious that he was not. Whatever it is that makes a person what and who they are, what makes them alive, was glaringly and obviously missing. This was not my friend, this was the chair he used to sit in and nothing more. His life force, his energy, his essence was more evident in the art that surrounded us in that garden, than in his corpse. What lay on that table was no more his “self” than was the table.
I’d seen dead bodies a handful of times before but this was different. This screamed at me, “Life is missing here, but what is life?” What is the force that can animate dust? Science doesn’t have anything close to an answer for this. Through science, we know how living things function, reproduce and die, but we don’t know what makes them alive in the first place. (As theories go, spontaneous animation from primordial soup is far more “fi” than “sci”.)
This experience caused a paradigm shift in me. We’re all used to seeing living things all around us and that familiarity lulls us into taking Life for granted. But since that day, I can suddenly see every living thing as nothing short of a miracle. If you’re not convinced, go ahead and arrange some atoms into an insect, give it Life, and watch it crawl away. You can’t, and neither can anyone or anything else in the world. That’s why Mary Shelley is famous. An insect is a miracle and so is every other living thing on this floating ball of rocks. (Rocks are miracles, too, but that’s a different blog post.)
And that brings us back to the Moon.
We humans have always spent our days doing survival maintenance and as the millennia flew by, we’ve positioned ourselves further and further away from our natural world. But even so, each night we could look to the sky and there were billions of lights to remind us that there is something more out there than this tiny planet we scurry around on. The night sky has always kept us wondering.
In very recent times, however, even that is obscured. The evening skies above cities are so polluted with man-made light that we cannot see one one-billionth of the stars and planets that surround us. But…there’s still the Moon; always reminding us that there is something more out there, just beyond our self-made labyrinths.
We are so busy with living that it is easy not to notice Life. But if you start to notice it, it can be spectacular. I think it can lead to a different way to see yourself and everything.
——
So that’s where my post went this week. I was beginning to wonder if it would ever end. I’m fully aware of how odd it is to find this kind of pontificating on a cartoon blog but that’s what a steady diet of Alan Watts will do to a guy. If you’re interested in checking him out, I recommend a book of essays called Be What You Are. I can also recommend The Wisdom of Insecurity as a good place to start.
If you’ve ever checked out my partner, Wayno’s blog, you know he starts each one with a photo of someone with a pipe. This week, at my request, he features one of Alan Watts! Let us chuckle now at his Bizarro cartoons from this week…
Nothing says cheese like a giant, red, snake-cow.
This is the second time Frankenstein has come up in today’s post. Again, unplanned!
And now, cue Patsy Cline.
But WILL it? Tune in next week for the exciting conclusion to Chet’s Pet (something clever that rhymes with “pet”.)
One of my favorite comments this week was on our Instagram feed. @Jennyfure recommended we do a cartoon about a manatee named Hugh. His name tag says, “Hugh Manatee.” Say it out loud if you don’t get it.
I’m a little disturbed by the concept of hair growing out of a potato.
As that clever quip sinks in, we call an end to this week’s journey down Amusing Graphics Lane. Thanks for walking past the old Laughing Cow mansion with us. It always gives us the creeps.
If you like what we do and that we don’t assault you with ads and crap, please consider tossing us a handful of beads and shells via the links below. In thanks, we’ll send you good energy, if that’s possible.
Until next week, don’t forget to include your location’s elevation when telling people how tall you are.
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