On Attention and the Flow of Time

There is this section in Sarah Bakewell's bestselling biography of Montaigne How to Live, where she writes about the centrality of attention—that one indispensable ingredient, or rather capacity, for living well that Montaigne so admiringly mastered and embodied. Along those lines, he repeatedly reflected on the connection between attuned awareness and the thickening of time’s flow. In fact, as he got older

his desire to pay astounded attention to life did not decline; it intensified…. Knowing that the life that remained to him could not be of great length, he said, “I try to increase it in weight, I try to arrest the speed of its flight by the speed with which I grasp it…. The shorter my possession of life, the deeper and fuller I must make it.” He discovered a sort of strolling meditation technique: When I walk alone in the beautiful orchard, if my thoughts have been dwelling on extraneous incidents for some part of the time, for some other part I bring them back to the walk, to the orchard, to the sweetness of this solitude, and to me. At moments like these, he seems to have achieved... an ability to just be.

An ability to just be. Synonyms: to dwell; to rest; to be silent; to be present; to be grateful; to be receptive; to be in awe; to be content;… One of the lessons I take to heart from the book of Ecclesiastes and many a Psalm, for sure...

Deliberate Practice and the Art of Living

Note: This is another blog post that has been adapted from a post in the “Students” section of the site. Given that the theme fits the theme of my blog, I am sharing it here with some modifications.

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As a high school student, I was totally into water polo, a sport of significant standing in my home country Croatia. In fact, Serbia and Croatia—both ex-Yugoslavia countries—have a stronghold on the sport's world championship and Olympic gold medals for some time now.

I still remember the brutal training sessions we had to endure. As is the case in all sports, we spent most of the time not playing the game or even shooting the ball. We swam, had leg drills, submersion drills, then swam some more, and so on. It was all about fine-tuning our bodies, fine-tuning the underlying skills needed to thrive, or even just survive, in a competitive setting. (The sport is notoriously demanding.)

One day we were slacking during a training session and so the coach punished us the next time around to have our practice session in t-shirts on. Not to be too graphic, but swimming a couple of miles with a soaked cloth dragging along will punish your body in all kinds of interesting ways. Let me just say that the guys who had the foresight to put badges over their nipples saved themselves a lot of misery.

That sadistic episode aside, the idea of repetitive practice will be nothing unusual to anyone who has been around sports (or music and arts for that matter). The basketball player who drills his free-throws, the soccer player who works on her tactics, the golf player who fine-tunes his swing—these and countless examples can be marshaled to illustrate the importance of deliberate practice (pace Anders Ericsson) for the mastery of any skill.

And so it is with life as well. There too the method of indirection implied in deliberate practice is essential for a purposeful existence. Sufficient sleep, proper nutrition, times for mindfulness and meditative stillness, regular morning journaling, empowering dialogues, and the sacrifice of service are but just some of the indirect means by which we grow in the art living. And bandages might not even be necessary!

On Wrestling and the Inconspicuousness of Reality

Initially, I had a hard time justifying the strained nature of this post title. What spiritual or art-of-living significance is there for sharing Roland Barthes' semiotic decoding of wrestling in his Mythologies? Well, I can think of several reasons. At the very least, Barthes models a punctilious askesis or discipline of noticing. Even if the "The World of Wrestling," be it as a theme or the actual spectacle of it, is not your thing—it certainly isn't mine—Barthes' interpretive perspicacity is nothing short of beguiling. Admittedly, I've had many preconceptions of wrestling, but none that distilled from it similes about the intelligibility of reality and the moral order of life. Wrestling as a saturnalia of elemental binaries—truth/falsehood, good/evil! Just add to it the aesthetics of the contest and you summarily find yourself in the realm of the three transcendentals—the true, the good, and the beautiful.

That is why reading (the early) Barthes on this point is so rewarding. It gives you the feeling not unlike one of being enlightened by an art connoisseur to perceive compositional elements of a painting that have escaped your analysis. Personally, I stand in need of guides who prompt you to attentiveness; who give you interpretive tools to uncover the unapprehended, the inconspicuous. (That partly explains my attraction to Iris Murdoch). A thinking concerned with "practices of everyday life" (de Certeau) must, at the very least, begin there. And wouldn't Jesus, as one who stood attuned to the symbolic actions of foes and friends, be a prime exemplar in this regard too?

In any case, in the concluding section of his essay, Barthes notes, somewhat convolutedly, but quite brilliantly, how wrestlers

who are very experienced, know perfectly how to direct the spontaneous episodes of the fight so as to make them conform to the image which the public has of the great legendary themes of its mythology. A wrestler can irritate or disgust, he never disappoints, for he always accomplishes completely, by a progressive solidification of signs, what the public expects of him. In wrestling, nothing exists except in the absolute, there is no symbol, no allusion, everything is presented exhaustively....

When the hero or the villain of the drama, the man who was seen a few minutes earlier possessed by moral rage, magnified into a sort of metaphysical sign, leaves the wrestling hall, impassive, anonymous, carrying a small suitcase and arm-in-arm with his wife, no one can doubt that wrestling holds that power of transmutation which is common to the Spectacle and to Religious Worship. In the ring, and even in the depths of their voluntary ignominy, wrestlers remain gods because they are, for a few moments, the key which opens Nature, the pure gesture which separates Good from Evil, and unveils the form of a Justice which is at last intelligible.

A Dream and a Moment - Initial Craft of Living Sparks

During an amazing England trip with good friends of ours, Debbie and I ended up at the Oxford Divinity School, built between 1427 and 1483. The building is physically attached to the Bodleian Library and is a stunning specimen of medieval architecture. Incidentally, its gothic vaulted ceiling was used as Hogwarts Infirmary in the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone movie.

In any case, I was able to grab some time amidst the commotion and jot down a few words concerning some cross-roads I had been facing.

As it turns out, the event took place 15 days after a dream, an actual sleep dream, that would end up providing an inspirational spark for the Craft of Living Youtube channel.

The Humbling of Genuine Knowledge

The following excerpt from George Steiner's autobiography Errata about his University of Chicago student days strangely touched me. It carries the simple lesson that some of the most important insights in life are to be had only as a result of dogged persistence, humility, and willingness to be stretched.

Provided they kept mute, undergraduates were allowed to sit in advanced seminars. Enter Leo Strauss: “Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. In this class-room, the name of . . . who is, of course, strictly incomparable, will not be mentioned. We can now proceed to Plato’s Republic. Who is, of course, strictly incomparable.” I had not caught the name, but that “of course” made me feel as if a bright, cold shaft had passed through my spine. A kindly graduate student wrote down the name for me at the close of the class: one Martin Heidegger. I trotted to the library. That evening, I attempted paragraph one of Sein and Zeit. I failed to grasp even the briefest, seemingly straightforward sentence. But the vortex was spinning, that ineradicable intimation of a world new to me in depth. I vowed to try again. And again. This is the point. To direct a student’s attention towards that which, at first, exceeds his grasp, but whose compelling stature and fascination will draw him after it. Simplification, leveling, watering down, as they now prevail in all but the most privileged education, are criminal. They condescend to the capacities unbeknown within ourselves. Attacks on so-called elitism mask a vulgar condescension: towards all those judged a priori to be incapable of better things. Both thought (knowledge, Wissenschaft, imagination given form) and love ask too much of us. They humble us. But humiliation, even despair in the face of difficulty — one has sweated the night through and, still, the equation is unsolved, the Greek sentence not understood — can lighten at sun-up. In those two years at Chicago, one as an undergraduate, one in graduate-school, the mornings were prodigal.

A Way of Dislocation

What does it mean to think of theology as a way of life? What does it mean to see theology primarily as a pilgrimage, a search for de-centered authenticity, a way of coming to terms with doubts that riff through every human heart? Would not the goal of such a theology be a perpetual unknowing in the face of ineffable Mystery? A way of reckless abandon to the claims of the Other?

Perhaps the rhythms of such a theology could be defined as follows: “inversion, dislocation, turning to the direction of the inexplicable resurrection of everything that exists; to that which resists the parameters of the majority and the tastes of mediocrity. Such a conscious, prayerful facing away from the compromises of experts, from the preferences and interests of elites that in the name of fake security subtly take away freedom—that is the beginning of theology” (Gunjević, Raspeti Subjekt).

The Will to Unhappiness

In these surreal and harrowing moments for our country (the US)—COVID-19, George Floyd protests, etc.—the seemingly academic question "What drives history?" brims with acute significance. To that end, I am reminded of Costica Bradatan’s article “Our Delight in Destruction” that takes its page, in turn, from Dostoevsky's unsurpassable "Notes from Underground" to pose the following questions:

What if reason is not the driving force of human history and, just as often, we act irrationally, out of resentment, anger, spite, frustration, envy, even out of self-destructive impulse? What if there is even such a thing as the pursuit of unhappiness? Or, in the underground man's own words, 'What if it so happens that on occasion man's profit not only may but precisely must consist in sometimes wishing what is bad for himself'? What if we in fact take delight in destruction? 'I'm certain that man will never renounce real suffering, that is, destruction and chaos,' proclaims Dostoevsky's hero in one of his more philosophical moments.

That will to unhappiness—that masochistic, self-destructive impulse—is but one of humanity's shadow sides. So, some introspective questions might be in order. How do I subvert my own interests? In what way do I minimize the graced nature of my existence? Why do I struggle so much with gratitude? What is this thing in me that pushes me to make self-destructive choices? How do I get a handle on my fabulations about future disasters?…

As per a prompting of my good friend AK, an Erich Fromm quote might be apropos to round off the points raised here: “The more the drive toward life is thwarted, the stronger is the drive toward destruction; the more life is realized, the less is the strength of destructiveness. Destructiveness is the outcome of unlived life” (Escape from Freedom, 182). Right!

The image is taken from the linked NYT article.

C. S. Lewis, Narnia, and the Stories We Tell Ourselves

Jill, one of the children from C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia who newly arrived in Narnia for the first time, is alone and desperately thirsty. She realizes the presence of a stream nearby but is shocked to notice a Lion lying next to it. “If you are thirsty, come and drink,. . . are you not thirsty?” says the lion. “Will you promise not to—do anything to me, if I do come?”; she asks; and the Lion replies, “I make no promise.” Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.

“Do you eat girls?” she said.

“I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms,” said the Lion. It didn’t say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.

“I daren’t come and drink.” said Jill.

“Then you will die of thirst.” said the Lion.

“Oh dear!” said Jill, coming another step nearer. “I suppose I must go and look for another stream then.”

“There is no other stream,” said the Lion.

Rowan Williams in his book The Lion’s World – I am much indebted to Williams for some ideas and wording here – notes how the Aslan of the Chronicles makes no promises to assuage our need for assurance; nothing can make him safe, and there is no approaching him without an overwhelming sense of risk. He cannot pretend what and who he is, continues Williams. He cannot be other than truth. And confronted with truth in this shape, there may be no promises, no rewards and no security, but there is nowhere else to go. “Aslan cannot make himself other than he is; he cannot make salt water fresh, and if we elect to drink salt water, he cannot make the consequences other than they are. He will do all he can to persuade us not to drink, but that is something else. There is no other stream. The way to life or reconciliation or forgiveness or renewal is always a path through what is there” (68-69).

This respect for reality, this commitment to truth, is the reason why Aslan confronts us concerning the stories we tell ourselves. In fact, the theme of self-deception, the lure of self-dramatizing that is so central to Dostoevsky and to the Gospels is also very prominent in Lewis’s writings. He movingly depicts this inordinate struggle to face the truth, the pain of letting go, the anguishing to hold on to that what destroys us. He often depicts individuals, as he does inThe Great Divorce, who present themselves in a certain light, or explain themselves in a certain way, or who tell their own stories with a certain twist, and in doing so remain cut off from the reality of God. They cannot hear his voice. They find his light to be unpleasant and disturbing. They want to crawl back into the suffocating space of the false self. They are truly, as Augustine put it, incurvatus in se, curved inward on oneself.

Take a look at the thoroughly obnoxious Eustace in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. “He is censorious, vain, and cowardly.” He makes us smirk and squirm because his character reminds us of people we know. Lewis is pulling no punches in describing his unlikability, using him as a poster boy for many present societal ills. What happens is that Eustace suddenly finds himself turned into a dragon after stumbling upon a pile of enchanted gold. He is subsequently rescued by Aslan. “Although Eustace tries to shut his eyes against Aslan’s gaze, he cannot resist his call to follow. He is taken to a garden where there is a well in which he is told to bathe; but first he must undress. He scratches off his scales, so he thinks, peeling off his outer skin—and then sees his reflection realizes that he is still wearing the dragon’s hide. He peels off another layer and another, but to no avail.” “Then the lion said… ‘You will have to let me undress you’.” Eustace, having reached the pitch of full desperation, consents. The Lion’s claws cut so deeply that the hurt is “worse than anything I’ve ever felt.” The dragon’s skin is at last peeled off completely, and the Lion tosses Eustace into the well and re-clothes him. He is human again, conscious of the rawness of his skin yet delighted to see his own body once more.

To message here is brutally clear. “In the presence of Aslan no blame and no excuse, only the summons to strip, to be exposed. Aslan cannot spare us that. He cannot protect from who he is, and he cannot spare us from who we are.” He needs to make us aware. Mere introspection, self-analysis, or journaling, will not do the trick. The rediscovery of human identity is not something that we can do in our own strength; we will always be tempted to stop before we get to the deepest level and so imagine that we had “arrived” when we haven’t. Only Aslan’s claws can strip away the entire clothing of falsehood with which we have surrounded ourselves. Only Aslan can lead us to conversion. Eustace needed to learn that. Adam needed to learn that. And so did Abraham, and Jacob, and David. And so do we. Williams writes:

What or who are we “under the skin”? Lewis is reluctant to give any room to the idea that we could ever answer such a question. In a very specific sense, he is as hostile to the notion of a real self underlying the flux of experience as any deconstructionist critic or psychoanalyst. . . . It is only in relation to that Truthfulness that we can be said to have a real self – not a hidden level of consciousness that, once we find it, will show us what we really ought to do, but a hidden story, the narrative of our lives as seen by the eye of God. In the nature of the case, we have no access to this except in the eye of God. (88-89)

I have to agree with Ludwig Wittgenstein’s observation that “nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.” Dostoevsky reminds me of that, and so does C. S. Lewis. But most importantly it is Jesus who confronts me with that reality. It is he who stands before me and invites me to surrender to the Spirit of truth. It is Jesus who knows exactly what is in me and who alone is able to cut through my protective shields. It is Jesus who is aware of how various innuendos and half-truths figure into my various self-justifications. It is Jesus who cannot be tricked by sanctified prejudices that fuel my cynicism and sarcasm. It is before Jesus that my clothing of falsehood is exposed. And that’s that. There is only Truth. Only the summons to strip. There’s nothing more to be said. Only the voice of Jesus: Repent!

To conclude with another quote from Williams, but this time in reference to Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov:

What he [Dostoevsky] does in Karamazov is not to demonstrate that it is possible to imagine a life so integrated and transparent that the credibility of faith becomes unassailable; it is simply to show that faith moves and adapts, matures and reshapes itself, not by adjusting its doctrinal content (the error of theological liberalism, with which Dostoevsky had no patience) but by the relentless stripping away from faith of egotistical or triumphalistic expectations. The credibility of faith is in its freedom to let itself be judged and to grow. In the nature of the case, there will be no unanswerable demonstrations and no final unimprovable biographical form apart from Christ, who can only be and is only represented in fiction through the oblique reflection of his face in those who are moving toward him (Dostoevsky: Language, Faith, and Fiction, 10).