Modesty As An Art

☯ In my youth I read somewhere that one of the Hindu chants (I'm guessing, maybe it's Hindu) is a universal sort of mantrum to sing. It goes somewhat like "Om ne padme om." I sing it over and over with as many variations as I think of in the moment. Sometimes I actually go into a deep trance that can be quite wonderful in feeling, but it doesn't matter. I go there in the same way if use the Protestant hymn, The Lord's Prayer, just as handily. It really comes down to making a joyful noise before the Lord. If I can develop a flow, I can't not get joyful. Alexander Pope purportedly wrote, "Modesty is the art of power." I keep remembering this saying because I find it useful for dealing both with the external world of the senses, and internal world of nonsense. One is plural and the other is not. That's counter-intuitive isn't it? It's usually the other way around. One mostly means non-plural. The Other is legend. The external world is perceived by the senses. There are five of them plus a lick and a promise some call "the sixth sense". Inside, however, everything is nothing but the idea that it's something, or, in the specious present, no thing at all. Inside somethingness there is only no-thing-ness. Sartre wrote about nothingness as if he were redundantly chirping the same rationalizations many people already understand in other words. The end game for me of reading Sartre was discovering that I only seem to understand Sartre while in the act of reading the translated English version of Being and Nothingness. When I get through reading, usually reading aloud, I don't understand what I just finished reading. I read out loud to make sure I am not senselessly skim reading. Reading Sartre is a game I play with myself. It needs no meaning other than what arises in the moment... and then POOF!... it's gone. The back cover of the paperback book, amazingly, is still intact. Owning a hardback edition would be a joy. Maybe what I need is one of those text tablets the big bookstores are selling. They might be just the ticket for reading in bed. Especially if they don't need to have a reading light on, and a time for the device to go to sleep if I do. Like, if it falls out of my hands and don't move for a while it turns itself off. Reading aloud helps me relax some nights and gets me good and sleepy. It doesn't seem to matter what the content is. The complicated style of Sartre really requires focus to grasp on my best days. When I read just prior to sleep, however, attempting to cope with complex ideas to ward off the temptation to sleep means sleep usually wins. I started reading late at night to discover if falling to sleep from reading Sartre would help me to grok his philosophy. If it happened that way I can't remember what happened consciously. That's the whole point of "going to sleep". I lose consciousness. I don't necessarily lose consciousness as much I lose my awareness of it as a faculty. During one period of my life I attempted to stay conscious during an entire ninety minute sleep cycle, and emerge at the end of the cycle full conscious of what transpired at every level of the sleep pattern. There is a difference between losing consciousness and becoming unaware of consciousness. Being unaware of consciousness seems to be the default state. Currently, I'm astounded by Sartre's notion that consciousness only "is". It doesn't do "is not" in the same way personal maids don't do windows. It's the reasoning behind his claims about consciousness that causes me pause. I can only assume I grasp his reasoning correctly. I seem cowed to always be taking chances that what I think is true in my interpretation of his meaning when I write it here on the internet where any competent person can easily prove I'm a fool and an idiot to have my own take on Sartre's work. Read the disclaimer at the top of the page. My personal take on his intent is only true for me. Albeit that my rude interpretations may be composed more of my own approximations than Sartre's. He's dead. Maybe we'll talk about it when I join him. The reason consciousness only is and doesn't do "ex-is", is that consciousness doesn't require a ground of being for doing it's is-ness trip. Humans do. Probably all forms of life does. If being is the great primordial soup, then individuating out of the primal soup into individuality requires ex-is-ing (existing). To ex-is by maintaining your identity as an individual requires a ground-for-being. It is a compound form with a dual nature. I am is IT, and IT is me. The third element is unspeakable. '-)