I had a wonderful dinner two nights ago with some new friends, Simone, Michael, Brianna, and Zach, along with Mike and Donna, up in the posh Los Suenos resort in Herradura... Lots of awesome philosophical discussion. Brianna writes and records songs, and has an amazingly soulful voice that you can check out here, if you are interested: http://www.myspace.com/brireitano. Mike is an artist as well (http://www.savlenstudios.com/), and so we had some interesting discussion especially about maintaining purity of art when you are also using it for a source of income or to become "successful." It seems to me that, as soon as your definition of success, in ANYTHING whether artistic or otherwise, depends on other people (for money, fame, "living forever", popularity, power, control), you immediately give up some of your freedom, and therefore "purity" in whatever you do. It seems to be no longer from your spirit, but instead an intellectual approach to what might appeal to someone else. Some good discussion, though, about needing to afford paint to paint, followed by a quote about how a truly free man can be free even when in prison. In any event, it was wonderful conversation.
Are we all artists? I guess I'm kinda defining artists as those who use creativity in action, although that may be incorrect. I had trouble coming up with the "otherwise" in the sentence containing "artistic or otherwise" above, because it occurred to me that, in a way, if we're doing something that comes from our spirits, it's literally creative... Created. Not caused. Created. Everything else is caused by a long chain of programming. Coming from the spirit, though, seems to be just, well, created.
But here's where I was stuck for 28 years... creation is intellectually impossible. The Causal Theory, which is a fine piece of logic that I may be horribly misrepresenting, states that everything is either caused or is random. If something is not caused by something else, how can it be anything other than perfectly random? Actually, if you want to get into it, randomness is intellectually impossible as well. I'll try to explain, knowing that I am not good at this. Imagine a needle that swings back and forth between the red side and the blue side. This needle can be caused to stop on blue or on red. If it is not caused to stop on blue or red, the only possibility is for it to randomly stop on one or the other. Otherwise, why did it stop on one and not the other? We, like the needle, are either caused to stop on one decision, by experiences, evolution, or some other long or short chain that lead us to be pre-disposed to the choice given the circumstance, or the choice is made randomly. It can't be anything else. However, if there is perfectly even odds between red and blue, neither can ever be chosen. SOMETHING must cause the needle to choose one or the other. There must be SOME reason for it to stop on blue instead of red. Which leads us to only one real possiblity... that everything is caused. Creation, literally, is infinitely impossible (sorry God), even in randomness. The beginning of the universe, for example... If it was random, why didn't it set something in motion that eventually made me have three arms? We know it didn't, and if we start to explain, we start with "Because..." Reason. Cause. Precedence. Every question of why is answered with a cause or an "I don't know," which simply is our inability to list the causes back to, well, interesting...
And my God does this fit in well with everything else I've been thinking about lately (maybe it's time to stop thinking again). Intellectually, all is caused. And yet how many of us believe in free will! How many of us feel that we actually have control over ourselves, our actions, our thoughts, our emotions, our world, our future, our fate!
Here's my feeling, and I can't explain it logically or rationally. I've stopped trying to rationalize things, because it doesn't work on the spiritual plane. Just because we can't explain it, and it defies our logic, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. There must have been a start. I believe that perhaps the causal theory fits here in our human experience, but with a minor difference. Everything is either caused, or is spiritual. Creation lies in the spirit. Free will lies in the spirit. Most of what we think of as free will is actually still part of the long chain of causation, programmed into us by some force outside of ourselves. We can explain how we chose one thing or another, but the vast majority comes down to things we have been taught. It is only those things that we have not been taught that are truly creative. Only those things that come from our spirit are uncaused.
But now it's late, and I'm tired. I believe everything happens the only way it can happen, and yet I believe in free will. I believe in creation, in spite of my intellect telling me that it's not possible. I think these are the reasons why the mystics have found it so difficult to explain happiness and love. You can't. They can not be brought into the human experience. Perhaps like "pure art." As soon as art is brought into the human experience, it is no longer created, it is caused.
That's a leap I didn't intend to take. And I don't know if I believe it. There's probably middle ground here. But it's too late to go further, and this train of thought blog has to end somewhere.
Did you hear that Mike got stung by a scorpion?
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