On Self [Texte coup de coeur]

par Lu Tian Yue

A Useless Text on Self, Death, and Dancing

Because death seems to be of such widespread concern in this day and age, 

Because even us soon to be doctors – us Demi-gods – will not be able to postpone it indefinitely.

And so therefore, a tribute to death.

Now, let me first say this: don’t take me too seriously. I’m only writing this because I feel that our culture has put too much value on life, without paying the complementary due respect to its counterpart: death. You see, we all seem to have this idea that it is awfully important to live, that one absolutely must go on -

- and so we live not out of love for existence, but out of mere compulsion: One must live!

- and so the notion of death carries with it a sense of tragedy, of failure to this impetus that one has to live

- and so epidemiologists start defining death as “infinite morbidity” and start inventing such objectionable concepts as “années potentielles de vie perdues.”

And so, I want to swing the pendulum the other way ‘round and say that it’s not a serious failing to die, that it’s really “okay” - that death is not something to be condemned, but rather to be celebrated. 

The approach I take is one inspired by Eastern philosophical traditions as interpreted and popularized by scholar Alan Watts. It will consist in a series of brief essays, the main ideas of which complement each other in order to get at a new way to think about of death. 

Briefly summarized, the main ideas are

• Who are you?

• “You” are not who you think you are

• You are God

• And so, let’s dance

• And so, Hooray to death!

On you as a Car

What do you mean by “car?”

Is a car essentially – in its deepest essence- a motor? 4 wheels? A metal frame? 5 seats? Can a car still be a car if we started to take away its parts? Say we disable the motor so it can’t run anymore: Is it still a car? Most would say that “yea, it’s still a car, just broken, that’s all.” But then we take away the motor. Then 1 wheel. And then 2 wheels. Then the driver’s seat. Then all the seats. We take away the doors, the windshield, the metal frame, and so on. We take it apart until there is nothing left but a bolt. Of course, a simple bolt is no “car.” But at what point did the car lose its car-ness? At what point, during this process of taking-apart, was it no longer a “car?”

Now then, what do you mean by “me?”

If we chopped off one of your fingers, are you still you? “Yea,” you would most likely say. Now we amputate an arm. a leg. We remodel all the recognizable features of your face. We take away every part of your body and put your brain inside some faceless bionic body. Are you still you? 

What if we were to start erasing parts of your memories? your name, your childhood, all the time you’ve ever spent with your family, friends, and loved ones. In fact, we erase all the experiences you’ve ever had in life up to this point - but we leave your personality traits intact: are you still you? 

And then, we start messing with your personality. We turn your all your personality traits upside down, slowly, gradually - until you become everything you were not; until you become someone (?) that you never were.

Surely, “you” are no longer you at this point.

But at what point have “you” ceased to be?

At what point has the car lost its car-ness?

And at what point have you lost your I-ness?

YHVH The Bird

Suppose that you were to ask a bird: “who are you?”

And suppose that it was able to respond.

What would it say?

Now, I reckon that it wouldn’t tell you: “well, you see Mr. Sapien, as a matter of fact, I am a bird. That is, I am a living organism from the domain Eukarya, the kingdom Animalia, the phylum Chordata, the order Culumbiformes,” and so on.

Because you see, all these terms are man-made labels used to classify the wondrous mess we call life - into neat little labeled boxes. Taxonomy: the perfectly frivolous activity of inventing labels and thinking that these labels are really-real-real. You see, I find it good that we have come to question in recent years the validity of such fixed labels as Man and Woman - only, I want to take it further: I want to question the label of “life,” and that of the separated individual self. What if these labels too were as arbitrary as that of Man, and Woman. 

And so, here is how to be “alive” in 7 easy steps according to human beings of the 21st century:

1- Be orderly. Have some order in you. For instance, have a membrane separating you from the outside, and have different separate structures inside the membrane, each with its own function. Just.. Don’t be too chaotic, that’s all. If you were too chaotic, how the hell would we classify you?

2- Respond to stimuli:  ... Boooh! Aaaah!

3- Reproduction: PG rated

4- Regulation: control yourself! in other words: calm yo’ mammillary glands!

5- Homeostasis: remain balanced. recentre yourself. breathe in, breathe out. repeat after me: Oommmmmm

6- Energy regulation: Eat to live, or live to eat?

7- Levels of organization: be sure to have order upon order upon order. Atoms to molecules to organic molecules to proteins to organelles to cells to tissues to organs to body to organism. Complexity upon complexity- because simplicity is too boring, too “unlively.”

Think of the poor virus, declared inapt to live by having failed to meet all 7 criteria on the checklist.  Declared dead on site, never having had a chance to live.

Ok. All this to say, even the concept of “life” is arbitrary; as arbitrary as the definition of manhood, the value of 1 USD, the length of a meter. Figments of the collective human mind, existing by mere conventions. You see, to me, much of science is Cosmic taxonomy: putting labels onto whatever we find labelable -

Malus Domestica Borkh (an apple)

Type 1 hypersensitivity reaction (allergies)

Dorsal Decubitus (lying on the back)

Voltage-gated calcium channel, type-L (a subtype mini tunnels among other subtypes of mini tunnels that make heart go lub-dub)

Male-Female

Life

And so, the bird would not define itself as Columba livia from phylum Chordata, nor as “living organism” – because both are human concepts, concepts foreign to Mr. Bird.

Now I reckon that the bird, upon reflecting on your question, would look back at you with a hint of perplexed confusion. It would say: “Well, what do you mean “who are you?” It’s perfectly obvious, no? I’m me! I am who I am!”

YHVH – « I am who I am »

The name of God.

And yet, if we were to ask “who are you” to any sane human being around, the answer would likely be anything but God.

You may get: I am Paul Jones. But the first term “Paul” is just a noise that you respond to, much like a dog’s name is to a dog – is that you? And the second term indicates from whom and whom you descend - is that you?

You may get: I am tall/short - fat/skinny - young/old. All terms describing parts of your observable biology, your physicality- is that you? Are you still you if you loose weight? get both your legs amputated? grow old?

You may get: I’m nice or a rascal or generous or greedy or impulsive or timid. All describe how you tend to behave. But sometimes, you act “out of character.” Have you, in those moments, ceased to be? And character changes with time: how much of your 5-year-old self is still “in you” today, and how much of it will remain when you’re 90.

Well, then. 

Who are You, Really!?

And so you say, well, I don’t know.

But isn’t it perfectly obvious?

that “you are who you are”

YVHV

God.

Now let us acknowledge that the term “God” has a very specific connotation in Western culture, for we immediately think of the bearded celestial creator God. But in many Eastern traditions, there is no distinction between Creator and creation: between God and not-God. And so, some Western scholars prefer to use such decontaminated terms such as “the ground of Reality” to refer to this Eastern conception of God; God as everything-there-is. And so, in this way, you are part of and parcel of everything there is - of God Itself. You are God just as the third epithelial cell to the left of your right toe’s toenail is, in some sense, “you.”

Apples

“Look: here is a tree in the garden, and every summer it produces apples. And we call it an “apple tree” because the tree apples; that’s what it does. Alright, now here is a solar system inside a galaxy, and one of the peculiarities of this solar system is that—at least on the planet Earth—the thing peoples, in just the same way that an apple tree apples.”

• Alan Watts -

 Now then.

Is an apple really an entity in it of itself? separate from the tree branch? from the apple tree, the soil, the sun? If I were to show you a time-lapse of an apple growing out of an apple tree, would you be able to pause it at a specific frame and say: “There! That’s when this apple began. That’s when it came-into-being.” And likewise, when did “you,” begin?

Or perhaps the distinction between “apple” and “apple tree” as separate entities is just a scientific convention, as discussed previously. Because you see, apples grow out of apple trees just like your limbs grew out of your embryonic trunk. Is your left hand a separate entity, existing by itself? distinct from you? Not you?

And so, it’s in this way you see that you grow out of the universe: organically – just as the apple grows out of the apple tree. Therefore I ask, are you really separate from the universe? Are you not the flowering buds of the Big Bang itself? Fruits on the Tree of life.

Because just as an apple tree “apples” and the ocean “waves”; our universe “peoples.” The Big Bang “peopled.” And if the distinction between apple and apple tree isn’t “real” - that is, it is just a matter of convention: then what about You. Are you a separate and distinct entity thrown into a strange and absurd universe that is not you? Alien to it. As if you came from outside It – from outside Everything-there-is. How queer an idea.

But we do feel estranged, don’t we? Alienated. I mean, there is no question that we do! Just think of the title of Camus’ most influential work: “The Outsider.” 

or, even more evocative in French, L’Étranger.

“I, as stranger and afraid

In a world I never made “

excerpt from A.E. Housman’s poem “The Laws of God, The Laws of Men”

Well, that’s ok. 

to feel lost and estranged.

For it makes the moment of realization

That we were home all along

All the more ecstatic.

Our Divine Dance

“The existence of the physical universe is basically playful. There is no necessity for it whatsoever. It isn’t going anywhere. That is to say, it doesn’t have some destination that it ought to arrive at. But that it is best understood by the analogy with music. Because music, as an art form is essentially playful. We say, “You play the piano” You don’t “work the piano”.

Why? Music differs from say, travel. When you travel you are trying to get somewhere. In music, though, one doesn’t make the end of a composition - the point of the composition. If that were so, the best conductors would be those who played fastest. And there would be composers who only wrote finales. People would go to a concert just to hear one crackling chord… Because that’s the end!

Same way with dancing. You don’t aim at a particular spot in the room because that’s where you will arrive. The whole point of the dancing is the dance."

• Alan Watts –

Now then, we have seen why “you” are not who you think you are - and so therefore shouldn’t take yourself (your self) too seriously. What I tried to convey is this Advaita Vedanta (a branch of Hinduism) idea that everything there is - is one with the Divine, and so are you. What “you” are is not some creation, but more like an action- a doing of the universe: the ocean “waves,” the apple tree “apples,” the universe “peoples.” 

It “yous.”

It Calvins here and Andreeas there. It trees here and birds there.

In other words, you are not a sculpture of the Divine, but a dance – a work of art defined by momentariness and transience. You might do ballet on one day and hip hop on another, just as the universe might dance the me and the you today, and change for something else tomorrow, when it gets bored of always dancing the same way.

♫♩ Alors on dance ♩♫

And so you see, it is in this way that the world is renewed: at each birth, a brand new way of dancing life. It’s funny, a friend of mine once plugged into one of our convos the comic remark that some biologists make:

“A chicken is an egg’s way of making other eggs.”

The humour in this is that we always think of the chicken as the culmination, the summum, the most developed point of an egg. But what does a chicken do? It lays more eggs. And so, where is the culmination point? On the circumference of a circle, where is the end?  which points are closer to the end – the culmination point- than others? Well.. All points on the circumference of a circle are at the center of the circumference.

In the same way, what if the adult is just the child’s way of becoming other children? I mean, don’t you remember just how marvelous the most banal things were? How you could just stare at a plethora of scratches on a wooden floor and see all these faces and landscapes. How every tree encountered on a mountain hike felt like a sequoia - waaaa. How a stop at Dairy Queen after a soccer game was just so - yesssssss!

At every birth, new eyes to see everything for the first time, all over again. To hear, smell, taste, touch – to learn, to discover, to experience- everything! for the first time, all over again. On the circumference of the cycle of life, which is the superior point? The baby, or the adult? Of course, none – there is no superior point. But if your fun is to keep on saying that it is the fully developed, responsible, rational  adult; then let me have fun correcting this bias by saying that, no, it is in fact the naïve clueless baby. Because what do (some) adults do? They make babies. And what does a healthy well-balanced society, for which we are all working towards, want? 2.3 babies per household.

The idea is this.

God is not a sculptor

And you, his sculpture

God is a dancer

And you, one of his moves

Because the very beauty of dance lies in its transience

The ever-changing postures, the grace of motion in between

Movement

Change

An arm is lifted, a foot is dropped

An infant is born, a body is buried

Now, if the artist were to choose a posture, and pose

Pretending to be a mere sculpture

Then the dance would cease

And God would die.

And so at each new death, just as at each new birth – life is renewed. Because you see, the process of renewal is one of final endings and new beginnings, one of eternal forgetfulness and new memoryless minds. We have accumulated memories all our lives, and that’s okay- but there comes a time where we just have to let it go. To forget everything in the name of life and its renewal. Eternal forgetfulness: death. Memoryless minds: birth.

And so, Hooray to death! for all are equally .. beautiful? Marvelous?

Worthy of celebration. Worthy of reverence.

Post-scriptum

I end by saying once more: don’t take me too seriously, because I only write for fun- that is, to play. I entertain ideas that I find entertaining simply for the sake of entertainment, and I hope that you too were entertained. That being said, I do believe that what I say is, in some sense, “true” – that our conventional Judeo-Christian concept of self is mistaken and that we are, in some deep sense, God. 

Not God Himself, but God Itself. 

And let me also acknowledge that this is a perfectly useless text. You have been warned, after all, by the title. I don’t expect it to cure anyone of his or her fear of death – because it simply isn’t a disease to be cured. I believe that the fear of death and the mourning of our losses are part of the Human dance- of our divine dance. 

So, let’s be afraid! And let’s feel sorrow. There’s nothing wrong about it.

But I do hope that in the future, when the tenderly melancholic thoughts of a deceased loved one crosses your mind, you will be able to smile and think: “thank you for the dance.”

*Texte en anglais selon les règles du concours. Les textes du Pouls sont habituellement en français.