Bitácora 28 de octubre de 2023: Vision and Decision

 

For Lucas

Man is a cursed animal. He is cursed with the same thing that he is blessed with – vision. Man can see and, thus, apprehend the world through his vision. Not only can see with his eyes, but he is also blessed (cursed) with the ability to see with his mind. Vision extends into the past as it also does into the future. He has no need to walk backwards, between the strings that vibrate into time, to make present what now is not (Saint Augustin). He can play with time, bringing into existence an intentional image of a caressing hand or the lament of disappointing words with a single thought.[1] He can also point to the future, really seeing the rain fall before it does, a dish fall and break or letting go off a tear before it escapes the eye. Vision is, in itself, part of the beauty and the zenith of the human condition. Never has a bird flown as high as man, since even the bird that flies with the highest clouds flies beneath the sky (Kierkegaard).

Nonetheless, we are inextricably cursed.

Even if man can see far beyond the eagle or even see that which is beyond the eye, atoms and formulae, he cannot see what is in front of him. The order of existence is inverted in his view. Man’s first vision is “the visible and the perishable” which “imprisons him” into looking only at the material and the instant (Kierkegaard). He sees bodies but cannot see the soul. He sees sensuality but cannot see beauty. He sees words but cannot see corpora of ideas. His eyes can never see that far away, and his vision is trampled by whatever deficiency our souls received at some point – attaining knowledge is an ordeal for him. Thus, even if man can see yesterday, in its glorified mythification, or tomorrow, in its utopian splendor, he cannot see today. Today, for him, is the biggest mystery possible. And, ultimately, he is condemned to live today. He can never live tomorrow, because, even if lies down to rest, hopeful that the sun will rise early as always, he will not wake up tomorrow. For him, it will already be today. He may dream with the days of yesterday and live for some short oneiric time what feels like a lifetime, he will end up waking up today.

It is in that context that the ultimate idea of the subject exists: the impossibility of escaping the ordeal of only being able to see today. It is only today that Sisyphus and Raskolnikov, don Quixote and Othello, and you and I exist. The constant weight of being incapable of seeing beyond passions and desire, angst and absurdity stems from the relationship between subject and time, between the ego and today. Although the anxiety born from the sole condition of existence is present in every man to some extent, the impending weight from existence is never as present as for the blind man that is cursed (blessed) with only one vision – the vision that he is to decide today. In that moment, under the dome of the paradoxical, man is confronted with the inescapability of freedom – “l’homme est condamné à être libre” (Sartre). This realization of the human condition, of blindness and freedom, ruptures man into two. He may either live blindly knowing that he walks in the shadows of his own limited vision or descend into lunacy searching for the light of reality under the daylight. Nonetheless, there is no escape from the knowledge of his own condition. Once you know something, you can never “unknow” it – “and once you are awake, you shall remain awake eternally” (Nietzsche). Thus, man, after knowing that he knows something about himself, participates of the Christological agony expressed in the following words:

“Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head” (Mt 8, 20). Now, there is no place for you to rest. Decide, you have no other choice. There is no rest for men.

Man lives throughout his life in a cyclic appreciation of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata no. 14. He is taken to for a walk to the Golgotha, baffled by the blood broth that sprouts from the earth. He then walks into the green fields of ignorance, pleased to be free, skipping every now and then in Fortunato’s shoes, until he ultimately descends into lunacy realizing that he is condemned to be imprisoned by his own existence. Man lives a Shakespearean narrative. If he is lucky enough, he lives a Quixotean life, always under madness, under the felicitous absurdity of being a noble without lands and a knight without strength and youth. Either path man undergoes, lunacy awaits him. Can you see it?

Camus is able to see this path to lunacy. That why, for him, “there is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide”. He chose to descend into dementia, going against the natural desire to persevere in being [the conatus], and asking the question about the ultimate subjectivity – la raison d’être. The ultimate decision for him is between choosing to continue choosing or choosing to stop choosing. Before any metaphysics should be done and answer to the question of why should you do it is necessary. Why should the “unique man” continue choosing (Kierkegaard)? There is no cowardice in Camus’ question, but the extreme valor in front of the paramount decision: “le lien direct entre ce sentiment [le divorce entre l’homme et sa vie] et l’aspiration vers le néant” (Camus). Once the necessity to choose is revealed to man, his whole worldview changes radically. He realizes that decisions really matter and, either way, as the lowest beast in every instant of his existence chooses without trembling, until he does. At that moment, when he is to choose between taking his life or embracing it, he is alone. Nobody can give him an answer since it is only in his heart (Camus, Kierkegaard “subjectivity is truth”). And even when God has reached down and placed himself as an option between millions, man still needs to choose him (or not) in his impaired vision. He is lonely, in the darkest of nights, when life is void and the old gods have left and the new have not arrived (Hölderlin). Will he choose his blindness, now that he has vision of it, or will he choose walking in the light with a lamp, since what he should do is still obscure even under the sun?

If the absurdity is left behind by decision and, indeed, man finds some sense in life, then he still needs to choose according to it every day, every moment. After deciding to continue deciding, yet another immense weight is thrown upon him – given that “deciding is deciding yourself” (Kierkegaard). Who is the “unique man” choosing to be when he chooses? For that question, I have no answer. I am the blindest of all men. I decided to write today, but I know not what I chose. Who am I if I write? Who did I become when I chose to write this? Maybe tomorrow (today) I will know. I do not know. What does becoming even mean?

And, now, we are confronted with the last paradox: “L’enfer, c’est les autres” (Sartre). Sartre finds Hell in the Other, which renders decision powerless to some extent. Until this point, we could be whatever we chose to – speaking truth made you honest, killing, an assassin, etc. Nonetheless, you are also chosen to be [someone]. You are chosen to be loved or hated, desired or despised. After being chosen, you are “what you choose to be with what you were chosen to be” (Sartre). Although, in my limited knowledge about Sartre, maybe the most important aspect in Sartre’s idea on the Self’s construction is found on the “unchosen”. The “unchosen” escape the dichotomies of loved and hated, desired and despised, embraced and cast away. The unchosen are those in between, not loved and not hated, not desired but not despised, not embraced but not cast away: unloved, undesired, untouched, inexistent. The real solitude is found in the unchosen man, who needs to choose [himself] without being chosen: master of his liberty, but a slave to his solitude. He desires to be chosen, but from the infinite possibilities in his mastery, he cannot choose to be chosen.

Man’s vision is limited. He sees love and desires it. He desires the fruits of love, its joy and pleasure, but cannot consider prima facie the hardship of loving. One should first love and, only afterwards, desire to be loved. [But] The heart cannot see that far: it longs to be loved.

So, what should the “unchosen” do?

I do not know. Love without being loved. Be alter Christus, ipse Christi [another Christ, Christ himself]. Walk as Diogenes with a lamp at plain daylight, you cannot see without it. You may find what you are looking for [or not]. Ultimately, choose: you are not free to not choose.

 

 

---

[1] Intentional from the latin in tendere or that which it tends towards. Intentionality tends towards something, but is not that which it tends to. The mental image of my young mother “tends” towards the concrete existence of my mother, but is not her.