A Three Hour Tour =)

When presented with the idea of having three hours to live and the question of what to do with one's remaining time, the temptation is always to say dangerous...life-affirming things we usually would not do. "I would go skydiving, mountain-climbing....(fill in your favorite extremely dangerous activity here....)". Others seek to treasure what they know to be great and that they already have, the simplest pleasures of life we often take for granted. "I would spend time with my loved ones, finally finish that book, watch a sunrise". The reality is that most of us would probably waste our remaining moments in this world by freaking out about our imminent doom and striving to prevent it.

For me, I would like to believe that I could face the discovery of my soon-to-be end with some measure of strength. I like to believe that if it came to that, life would be sweeter to me, even more than it already is, more vivid. Even now, as I have no idea when my end (beginning??) will be, I have a sense of taking everything into myself. I used to be obsessed with the idea of capturing all the....beauty....the value of this world in art. My personal revelation came with the knowledge that one never truly captures that vision (of the intrinsic value of all things), one can never....really equate it. One can only come close. This fact disturbed me greatly because I was forced to confront the impermanence of even that immortality......immortality....framed?...in impermanence? I discovered that I did not have to capture it. I could let it move through me.


Now I don't mean to channel here any eccentric notions of energy travel or "flow"...though I will not be the one to discount these theories either. It was, rather, a certain process. I would be struck by something....the exact light of a tree-branch lit by a street lamp....the quality of the sound of a single drop falling from an icicle into a mud puddle...the divinely infinite reflection of the sky on a street wet from recent rains. Rather than seek to capture it, memorize it, assimilate that vision into myself, I would identify it. I would give it the time and the attention it deserved in that moment, and having paid that spark what it was owed, I let it go. I let it move away from me, accepting that the exact shade of the sky or the exact feeling of recognition between strangers for instance would be lost......but.....not altogether lost. I had lost the need for containment, limited definition perhaps. Call it what you will.


I would hope that my last three hours on earth would be spent with this experience or a similar one--only the beauty and richness of that experience would transcend even itself. I would hope that my time would be spent....living....because I consider this...underlying value and beauty, the framework that underlies our menial existence, I consider this to be....life.

The Storm

Continuing with the cave theme, here are some images from the cave of Les Trois Freres. The first is a description of the set of drawings as a whole. The figures overlap each other, move into one another and with one another in a swirl of activity. This abundance of action in the scene echoes the storm in the tempest, (no, I don't mean the physical storm...remember this is all an illusion). I am speaking of the storm of illusion, make-believe, and deception wrought by the magician figure in the book, Prospero. The second image in the three I have posted, is a detail of one figure in the mix, and is said to be a shaman figure with the power to shift into the mind of an animal, assume its physical shape, etc. See how the figure's hands and feet are human rather than animalistic in order to depict this synthesis. The third and final image is a hybrid of man and beast yet again and is described as a lesser sorceror with a musical bow. This figure seems to parallel Ariel whose powers in the art of deception enable Prospero to enact his own magic. The musical connection between the two can be seen here as well.

What The Tempest describes for us is the idea of submitting oneselves to be voluntarily deceived. We adopt "matrices" and other illusions, immersing ourselves in art and literature in order to achieve our own immortality to be sure. But there is another element to this willing participation in a cycle of lies and passing dreams. Why do we go out to see movies, the most literal version of the images played for prisoners in Plato's "Allegory of the Cave"? Why write great literature and subject ourselves to the ongoing struggle of differentiating or synthesizing art and immediate life? Why believe the lie, once we know it is a lie? In essence, "what's the point of stories when they aren't even true"? I feel this is a major theme presented in this class, and one that deserves our prolongued attention. Why make art? This is a question that has endured since the very conception of art, as can be seen in cave painting such as these.

There is a power there, in the deception. What strikes me time and again is the idea that we gain insight about ourselves and our world through deception. Through gates of deception, illusion, and falsehoods do we find what we call truth. Yet there is an aspect of the unveiling that must not be forgotten. Perhaps it is not the falsehood that captures us but the revelation, the epiphane achieved only through art rather than direct experience. How is this sort of revelation different than that achieved through one's own interactions with the world through physical means? Which is more valid? Can we even speak in those terms?

In this article on the caves at Lascaux, these ideas of creation, the dream, and surrogate versions of "reality" are explored in more detail. It reads fairly quickly and, I believe, raises interesting topics for discussion. Here are a few excerpts from the article:

"What is interesting about these creations is that they were the forerunners of the symbolic and sensory realm of art, drama and literature, which has become increasingly elaborate with the progress of civilization. Each in a different way, has allowed humanity to escape the literalness of its surroundings, to raise our collective noses off the ground, as it were, and produce a vision of other ways of living and other possible worlds, which are enough like this world to seem plausible."

"cave painters and their descendents had to journey inside them, and leave the rest of the world behind. The images were lit by flickering lamps, which must have added to the sense that they were in a world apart, a world modeled after their own fears and desires, and perceptions. [. . .] (and are) an expression of our desire to escape into seemingly human worlds, made lifelike through the application of art and technology, in which the landscape is that of the imagination."

"Today, as we increasingly live inside lifelike fictions, and re-create our surroundings as an endless form of immersive fiction, one has to wonder what will become of human nature. Will it change, as well, or will we end up reenacting the same things our ancestors did, but in increasingly spectacular forms?"

In this last paragraph, we see the emergence of the theme of eternal recurrence. The goal, then is to relive each cycle in greater splendor then the last, to be more, reach for more, to really "know a place for the first time". Perhaps we must also know ourselves anew. This is the key. We need to be like Miranda in that we view the world with fresh eyes in every moment. We must be aware of the cycle, be aware of the illusion (self-created or imposed on us i.e. the Matrix) yet still retain our transformative powers as creators....whether this be transforming the self or transforming one's own sphere of influence however large that may be. This is the vital importance of Miranda to the storm. We must incorporate into ourselves each of the powers here represented in order to "release them from their bands with the help of our good hands". From Caliban, we gain natural powers, from Miranda this sense of wonder and revelation, from books the power to transfrom; the list goes on. What role do we play on this stage on which we are "merely players". Are we then to become Prospero, master of our own illusion? I leave the answering of this question to my reader.