I’m already off on a tangent and we’re only at post number 4. Ridiculous I know but bear with me. Unless you’re my wife, my one and only dedicated reader, you never had to read the first attempt at this subject which was multiple pages and convoluted and very disagreeable in its complexity and you won’t know this is a rewrite... except I’m incompetent enough to have just told you. Just be glad I filed the other one in the can. I’d like to look at questions. The accomplishment of Wendell Berry is most poignant because he refines the best traits of an agrarian, rural ancestry by using intelligence and education. He asks questions about attuning ourselves to both the natural and civilized worlds in equal measure. He requires an answer to the question how do we live good lives? I say, he is unique in the question he presents. He’s unique because the basic question that premises his thinking is different than the question that premises all other western philosophy from the time of Socrates till now. We ask, what is truth. Wendell asks, how do I go about being in this world.
I’m going to try and keep this short and simple. There’s been carved from our language vast landscapes of bullshit on these two subjects, being and truth so I won’t put on my irrigating boots today. At least I hope. My foundational thinking on this subject wasn’t formed by Berry but by a much older thinker – Heraclitus. However, I don’t recommend quoting Heraclitus in certain company so I won’t. His name is much too prone to double entendre when used with authority in a pub on 1st Ave much less such a seedy place as the internet. I recommend using little known Russian authors for quoting your more abstract and tentative ideas. It gives it so much more authority to say, Sergei Yesenin the great Russian modernist once said, “Men who argue with poets make an arse of themselves.” That’s a Jim Harrison trick I’ve taken to heart. Regardless, Heraclitus is a Greek, pre-western thinker and as such gives us a peak into a different dimension of the philosophical art. Read him if you dare.
I begin with this statement. Perhaps we shouldn’t ask what truth is; perhaps we should ask instead, how do I go about being in this world. Most responses to this statement resound with the sentiment: Aren’t they the same? To quote the fine Russian poet Ivan Aksakov, “No. You’re full of Govno comrade.” Truth rests in the realm of the abstract; being rests in the particular details of the world.
Here’s my piss poor attempt to define being. I’m sure I’ve stolen most these descriptions from Wendell among others but I couldn’t tell you where.
Being is living and talking about everything according to its nature, how it comes to be and how it grows, and is intuitive of the natural world’s interdependence. Being is accepting the world as it is rather than justifying and/or changing the world. Being involves a process of truth seeking but it does not suppose there to be a question what is Truth? Being is not merely acting on moral, value, judgment, or philosophical imperatives; those actions are only progeny of the reasoning that precedes them. Being is as much intuitive as it is rational. Being is as much science as it is poetry. Being is primordial. To be is to be fixed, embedded and immersed in the physical, literal, tangible day to day world, but Being is very much of the nature of water – always adapting and changing but always the same. Being is primarily an immersive relationship both with creation and with people. Its meaning emerges from this relationship. Relationship’s primary task is concern and from that emerges action of all types: doing something, producing something, attending to something and looking after it, making use of something, giving something up and letting it go, undertaking, accomplishing, evincing, interrogating, considering, discussing, and determining. Being is fundamentally revealed in stewardship, which is care.
Now truth is defined as… Just kidding. I’m not gonna give you the satisfaction because I said I wouldn’t bring my big boots today. Being is dependent on the world around you and truth, though we deny it passionately, is dependent on you. That’s my line and you can disagree with me if you want. That’s the funny thing about terribly true statements. I can’t prove it in any concrete fashion. I can, however, define with a measure of certainty what it is that my place and the world demands of me. For example, if I piss in my pint of beer it will subsequently taste like bud light. This is a true and measurable fact.
So in summary, here is the primary discrepancy between the questions of being and truth and it is one of perspective. Seeking to discover truth and applying said discovery leaves the world at the mercy and whim of my own fancy. Whereas someone who asks the question, how do I accomplish being in this world, may discover truth but in the process must attempt to adapt themselves to it. The difference, though seemingly subtle, is vast. Who is required to adapt? Who is limited? Who is accommodated? In the first instance, the world is remade according to my discovery: to my self-realization. In the second, I am adapted according to my place in this world. I am responsible to my limitations.
Thus it seems imperative that before anything else happens. I ask the right question in the right manner.
How do I accomplish being in this world?
Wendell, in his essay Native Hill, said, "It is not from ourselves that we will learn to be better than we are." And as usual, he said it best.
I’m going to try and keep this short and simple. There’s been carved from our language vast landscapes of bullshit on these two subjects, being and truth so I won’t put on my irrigating boots today. At least I hope. My foundational thinking on this subject wasn’t formed by Berry but by a much older thinker – Heraclitus. However, I don’t recommend quoting Heraclitus in certain company so I won’t. His name is much too prone to double entendre when used with authority in a pub on 1st Ave much less such a seedy place as the internet. I recommend using little known Russian authors for quoting your more abstract and tentative ideas. It gives it so much more authority to say, Sergei Yesenin the great Russian modernist once said, “Men who argue with poets make an arse of themselves.” That’s a Jim Harrison trick I’ve taken to heart. Regardless, Heraclitus is a Greek, pre-western thinker and as such gives us a peak into a different dimension of the philosophical art. Read him if you dare.
I begin with this statement. Perhaps we shouldn’t ask what truth is; perhaps we should ask instead, how do I go about being in this world. Most responses to this statement resound with the sentiment: Aren’t they the same? To quote the fine Russian poet Ivan Aksakov, “No. You’re full of Govno comrade.” Truth rests in the realm of the abstract; being rests in the particular details of the world.
Here’s my piss poor attempt to define being. I’m sure I’ve stolen most these descriptions from Wendell among others but I couldn’t tell you where.
Being is living and talking about everything according to its nature, how it comes to be and how it grows, and is intuitive of the natural world’s interdependence. Being is accepting the world as it is rather than justifying and/or changing the world. Being involves a process of truth seeking but it does not suppose there to be a question what is Truth? Being is not merely acting on moral, value, judgment, or philosophical imperatives; those actions are only progeny of the reasoning that precedes them. Being is as much intuitive as it is rational. Being is as much science as it is poetry. Being is primordial. To be is to be fixed, embedded and immersed in the physical, literal, tangible day to day world, but Being is very much of the nature of water – always adapting and changing but always the same. Being is primarily an immersive relationship both with creation and with people. Its meaning emerges from this relationship. Relationship’s primary task is concern and from that emerges action of all types: doing something, producing something, attending to something and looking after it, making use of something, giving something up and letting it go, undertaking, accomplishing, evincing, interrogating, considering, discussing, and determining. Being is fundamentally revealed in stewardship, which is care.
Now truth is defined as… Just kidding. I’m not gonna give you the satisfaction because I said I wouldn’t bring my big boots today. Being is dependent on the world around you and truth, though we deny it passionately, is dependent on you. That’s my line and you can disagree with me if you want. That’s the funny thing about terribly true statements. I can’t prove it in any concrete fashion. I can, however, define with a measure of certainty what it is that my place and the world demands of me. For example, if I piss in my pint of beer it will subsequently taste like bud light. This is a true and measurable fact.
So in summary, here is the primary discrepancy between the questions of being and truth and it is one of perspective. Seeking to discover truth and applying said discovery leaves the world at the mercy and whim of my own fancy. Whereas someone who asks the question, how do I accomplish being in this world, may discover truth but in the process must attempt to adapt themselves to it. The difference, though seemingly subtle, is vast. Who is required to adapt? Who is limited? Who is accommodated? In the first instance, the world is remade according to my discovery: to my self-realization. In the second, I am adapted according to my place in this world. I am responsible to my limitations.
Thus it seems imperative that before anything else happens. I ask the right question in the right manner.
How do I accomplish being in this world?
Wendell, in his essay Native Hill, said, "It is not from ourselves that we will learn to be better than we are." And as usual, he said it best.
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