I suppose many people daydream about some idyllic, pastoral kind of Paradise - and when we are young, perhaps we believe it may potentially be attainable on this earth and during mortal life?
Over the years I have had several such daydreams - including The Shire, and Lothlorien from Middle Earth; being a married writer with kids in a rural retreat among friends; and a particular era in Concord, New England at the time of Emerson and Thoreau.
Such daydreams have a fuzzy quality, are often little more than a snapshot - or a particular mood state; and are utterly detached from the practicalities and realities of the situation - such as how it might arise, and how it could be sustained.
As I have said before; paradise implies not only an ideal place, but our-selves changed such that we would be able to enjoy it. I could not experience The Shire as in my daydream unless I was also a hobbit; nor Lothlorien unless an elf; not Concord c1840 unless I was a man of that time, place and class.
In another sense, we would have to become a better person (better in the sense of better-fitted to the daydream); and when young we tend to assume that this can and will happen. But anyone who is realistic and honest soon realizes that this doesn't happen.
We change, yes; but we don't really get better overall.
Even when we eliminate some besetting sin, or some horrible antisocial trait; this always comes at a negative cost.
That cost may be necessary, and worth paying - but there will always be a significant cost...
In his Exegesis: After listing 24 ways in which he has been changed and improved by his religious experiences of February and March 1974 - and writing some year and a half later - Philip K Dick concluded [from page 226 onward]:
The only problem is, I am in no customary sense - maybe in no sense whatsoever - spiritualized or exalted.
In fact I seem even more mean and irascible than before.
True, I do not hit anybody, but my language remains gungy and I am crabby and domineering; my personality defects are unaltered.
In the accepted sense I am not a better person.
I may be healthier (maybe not that; vide the blood pressure). But I am not a good person, even though my emotions and moods are better under control.
Maybe I just have a long way to go...
In the end, if we pursue this to its conclusion; we will realize that paradise can only be post-mortal; and that any "paradise" that does not entail the retention of our-ultimate-selves is not a paradise at all (because it would be somebody else enjoying it) - yet the ultimate selves must positively and qualitatively be transformed, in a way that never truly happens in our experience or knowledge of this world.
7 comments:
Heaven or hell depends on the state of mind. If mind is peaceful and attentive, you start to be present and see beauty in everything around. On the other side, low-level conscious mind is irritated by default, can't be present, constantly seeks for a next stimulus, produces negative thoughts and overall empty thinking (i.e. endless self-talk)
@Alexey "Heaven or hell depends on the state of mind. "
Much *more* than that is required - I would say.
At least, to attain and sustain the Heavenly "state of mind" is something that depends on resurrection.
Not only do we need to appreciate paradise, circumstances in this world need to align so that paradise is preserved.
For example, I was just reading yesterday about how there is evidence that for around 100 years, Irish hermits lived on the Faroe islands (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Faroe_Islands). That's solitude which pretty much can't be had now and along with that freedom from most of the things that have plagued humanity, along with a climate more congenial to Northern Europeans than the Egyptian desert.
Yet, the hermits were driven off by Norse raiders. The Irish monks appreciated their paradise, but the Norsemen didn't.
@@NLR - Yes, it has always interested me that - for hundreds of years - the "Celtic Church" hermits were apparently left-alone; by their own warring warlords, and then by the Anglo Saxons. And then came the Vikings, and they weren't.
In a very different way, nobody nowadays is left alone. Everybody must conform to the Ahrimanic programme. Dissent is sought out and eliminated.
I was raised in paradise. A small farm in the middle of nowhere with miles and miles of forest behind our farm. My grandparents and great grandparents raised me and my brother.
It's all gone now the state dried up both our creeks 'improving' them, developers built houses in all the wrong places, they cut down our orchards, and our timber. Nothing is left but my memories. I'm the only person still alive who remembers it like it was, but it was perfect.
@TWS - I understand what you are getting at, and could say something analogous; but I would suggest that you need to think more deeply about the implications of what you have just said - rather than supposing that there was something uniquely and inevitably paradisal about your specific situation. The situation is only ever an element in the whole.
@Bruce, You are right. I recognize that short of our hoped for reward, we will never truly know paradise. I think I was more replying to your comment about being a hobbit in the shire, or elf in lothlorien. It was and still is the best place in the world for me, but it shouldn't be. I should be happiest now, I have my family, I am wiser, or maybe just better educated.
For me, it was paradise. But I later found my grandmother was unhappy during my childhood because she associated the farm with losing my uncle. Maybe we get glimpses of the emotional associations we will build later?
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