The Listener
Okay, this is big. This is huge. This could mean reconceptualising everything I have thought in my whole life about what it is to be human and what's meaningful and significant and how we are to relate to each other.
One thing I've been excruciatingly missing since The Relationship Apocalypse is someone who's following the story of my life as it unfolds. I have people I see, friends, workmates, co-philosophisers, but no one's actually following the story day to day. I've been excruciatingly missing this and have been feeling really hard-done by that I don't have one.
This connects with the idea that a narrative gives one's life meaning. People are driven to put the events of their life in a narrative structure so that it makes some kind of sense. Let's grant that. BUT, then also, importantly, do you have to tell someone that narrative? Does a narrative have to have a listener in order to exist?
I'm sure I have always thought that it does, and that my key desire is to have one (or many). (Hi people reading the blog, how self-refential can a bloggist get?). Stronger than that - if having a story, or stringing life's events together so that you leave a story behind when you die, is the essense of being human, then for you to exist at all the story needs to be heard by someone. If no one hears the story you are creating as you exist yourself into each new moment, then you don't exist.
This is how I felt when I dropped off the edge of my own life and was in a void of absurd meaningless with no story.
But, BUT, is the desire for a listener an example of bad faith? Should you instead exist yourself into each new moment without any regard to what other people think (sounds obvious, doesn't it, but really think about it) - without regard to whether anyone would ever know it at all?
Well, the thing is, maybe. Maybe that craving, that drive, that essential need for a listener is a bad thing, an example of ego. Weakness, dependency, lack of self. An example of ego that should be got over if one is to live a good life.
I had a moment - well actually several hours - of egolessness on Wednesday night. I was asked to pinch-hit for a speaker who had postponed at the last moment, on that speaker's topic. So, there were no expectations on me at all, whatever I said on the topic as long as it got discussion going would be fine. (A side benefit was that as I did what little research I did, I realised that some things I always found really difficult and confusing back in Philosophy of Language class were really rather straightforward and clear - very handy when you have to explain it to a room full of people the next night.) My presentation was in two parts, and in fact the second part I got really egregiously wrong. The same kind of wrong that spun me out when I made that mistake at Adrian Heathcote's talk last year, that made me go all red in the face and be traumatised for at least a week because I had misspoken (I remember at the time recalling what bullies professional philosophers of language can be). But this time, I received a correction from someone in the crowd, very gently delivered but clear and direct, and as a result I learned something and gained more insight into the topic, but even better I didn't care that I had made a mistake. Not, told myself not to worry about the mistake but still felt bad, but really, honestly, deep in my bones, did not care at all. How on earth did that happen? How did I get that distance from the student, the young professional, even the girl at the Adrian Heathcote talk?
So, I had that moment of complete egolessness and have observed it and also sensed what it felt like. It was a result of having my sense of self destroyed in the apocalypse, I think. I couldn't have got to the egoless state where a philosophical presentation with a bad mistake in it meant absolutely nothing to my self-esteem without that ego-smashing experience previously.
But what else will I be able to achieve? Could I get over my lust for fame - or for grades and evaluation and praise? It's been with me since I can remember - could I actually get over it? And could I even further get over my need for a listener, someone to make my narrative real? I used to contrive to have them - the boys I used to meet for lunch once a week, or write long rambly letters to. I don't have anyone now who's across the whole story, everything I do in my life, everything I do each day. Could I get over it? Could I fell it not as a gap but as natural, or a liberation?
Argh, letting go of ego scares me. What if I let go and there's no me left? -- But didn't you just say that your ego was smashed and eradicated already? -- So you're saying we're already there?
-- Maybe.
One thing I've been excruciatingly missing since The Relationship Apocalypse is someone who's following the story of my life as it unfolds. I have people I see, friends, workmates, co-philosophisers, but no one's actually following the story day to day. I've been excruciatingly missing this and have been feeling really hard-done by that I don't have one.
This connects with the idea that a narrative gives one's life meaning. People are driven to put the events of their life in a narrative structure so that it makes some kind of sense. Let's grant that. BUT, then also, importantly, do you have to tell someone that narrative? Does a narrative have to have a listener in order to exist?
I'm sure I have always thought that it does, and that my key desire is to have one (or many). (Hi people reading the blog, how self-refential can a bloggist get?). Stronger than that - if having a story, or stringing life's events together so that you leave a story behind when you die, is the essense of being human, then for you to exist at all the story needs to be heard by someone. If no one hears the story you are creating as you exist yourself into each new moment, then you don't exist.
This is how I felt when I dropped off the edge of my own life and was in a void of absurd meaningless with no story.
But, BUT, is the desire for a listener an example of bad faith? Should you instead exist yourself into each new moment without any regard to what other people think (sounds obvious, doesn't it, but really think about it) - without regard to whether anyone would ever know it at all?
Well, the thing is, maybe. Maybe that craving, that drive, that essential need for a listener is a bad thing, an example of ego. Weakness, dependency, lack of self. An example of ego that should be got over if one is to live a good life.
I had a moment - well actually several hours - of egolessness on Wednesday night. I was asked to pinch-hit for a speaker who had postponed at the last moment, on that speaker's topic. So, there were no expectations on me at all, whatever I said on the topic as long as it got discussion going would be fine. (A side benefit was that as I did what little research I did, I realised that some things I always found really difficult and confusing back in Philosophy of Language class were really rather straightforward and clear - very handy when you have to explain it to a room full of people the next night.) My presentation was in two parts, and in fact the second part I got really egregiously wrong. The same kind of wrong that spun me out when I made that mistake at Adrian Heathcote's talk last year, that made me go all red in the face and be traumatised for at least a week because I had misspoken (I remember at the time recalling what bullies professional philosophers of language can be). But this time, I received a correction from someone in the crowd, very gently delivered but clear and direct, and as a result I learned something and gained more insight into the topic, but even better I didn't care that I had made a mistake. Not, told myself not to worry about the mistake but still felt bad, but really, honestly, deep in my bones, did not care at all. How on earth did that happen? How did I get that distance from the student, the young professional, even the girl at the Adrian Heathcote talk?
So, I had that moment of complete egolessness and have observed it and also sensed what it felt like. It was a result of having my sense of self destroyed in the apocalypse, I think. I couldn't have got to the egoless state where a philosophical presentation with a bad mistake in it meant absolutely nothing to my self-esteem without that ego-smashing experience previously.
But what else will I be able to achieve? Could I get over my lust for fame - or for grades and evaluation and praise? It's been with me since I can remember - could I actually get over it? And could I even further get over my need for a listener, someone to make my narrative real? I used to contrive to have them - the boys I used to meet for lunch once a week, or write long rambly letters to. I don't have anyone now who's across the whole story, everything I do in my life, everything I do each day. Could I get over it? Could I fell it not as a gap but as natural, or a liberation?
Argh, letting go of ego scares me. What if I let go and there's no me left? -- But didn't you just say that your ego was smashed and eradicated already? -- So you're saying we're already there?
-- Maybe.
posted by Ellen at 10:44 pm
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