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Nov. 21st, 2008 01:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
proximoceptionHow in the world does one deal
With this dissipation of zeal?
I've read comparatively little Bloom the last two or three years, essentially since coming to agree with him completely. That was a strange effect, a strange, spasmodic string of realizations--almost amounting to the externalization of my own opinions, which perhaps created a sense of freedom from them (since someone else was in charge of them and fighting for them better than I ever could), maybe one exaggerating a natural late youth/early middle age aversion to the very concept of opinion? Not that I don't still have a billion knee-jerk ones, but suddenly they are largely knee-jerk. Once I've uttered them I regard them with some bemusement and wander away. Creative, violent, spontaneous opinion-making has died down a bit, doubtless to the greater delight of everyone I know. No, this too seems wrong. I may not wonder more, but how I wonder does feel different.
It seems to me that when you're young you pick, or something picks for you, either the route of ignorance or certainty (each requiring tactical deployment of the other one now and then for self-maintenance, of course). You can know exactly as much either way, this is more how you frame your knowledge against your lack of knowledge. I picked certainty, which I'd defend as not necessarily the worse of the two: it does involve the assumption you've settled profound issues based on as-yet superficial experiences, but the more wildly you do this the more you butt into reality, the more you learn to defend. And the first lesson of defense is to give up what's indefensible. I guess this is what people mean when they offensively suggest that everyone who isn't religious/an atheist/a Democrat/a communist/whatever at 15 is lacking, but anyone not the opposite by 30's even more so. Arbitrary self-approval allows you to experience more errors from the inside--combined with the ability to learn, which also probably erodes the more dangerous appendages of self-approval, this can create an impressive amount of knowledge of what to avoid and why. But maybe you'd have had that anyway if capable of this much mental engagement, just by seeing the errors of others.
I doubt it, though. I think we fill the circle best by scribbling madly, then erasing carefully as needed: Blake's path of excess leading to wisdom, Kafka's line you know only by tripping over it.
But there's certainly more to learn once you're wise. And whatever cabin in the woods or base underwater the line takes you to, there you are, still alive. How's this second verse go?
With this dissipation of zeal?
I've read comparatively little Bloom the last two or three years, essentially since coming to agree with him completely. That was a strange effect, a strange, spasmodic string of realizations--almost amounting to the externalization of my own opinions, which perhaps created a sense of freedom from them (since someone else was in charge of them and fighting for them better than I ever could), maybe one exaggerating a natural late youth/early middle age aversion to the very concept of opinion? Not that I don't still have a billion knee-jerk ones, but suddenly they are largely knee-jerk. Once I've uttered them I regard them with some bemusement and wander away. Creative, violent, spontaneous opinion-making has died down a bit, doubtless to the greater delight of everyone I know. No, this too seems wrong. I may not wonder more, but how I wonder does feel different.
It seems to me that when you're young you pick, or something picks for you, either the route of ignorance or certainty (each requiring tactical deployment of the other one now and then for self-maintenance, of course). You can know exactly as much either way, this is more how you frame your knowledge against your lack of knowledge. I picked certainty, which I'd defend as not necessarily the worse of the two: it does involve the assumption you've settled profound issues based on as-yet superficial experiences, but the more wildly you do this the more you butt into reality, the more you learn to defend. And the first lesson of defense is to give up what's indefensible. I guess this is what people mean when they offensively suggest that everyone who isn't religious/an atheist/a Democrat/a communist/whatever at 15 is lacking, but anyone not the opposite by 30's even more so. Arbitrary self-approval allows you to experience more errors from the inside--combined with the ability to learn, which also probably erodes the more dangerous appendages of self-approval, this can create an impressive amount of knowledge of what to avoid and why. But maybe you'd have had that anyway if capable of this much mental engagement, just by seeing the errors of others.
I doubt it, though. I think we fill the circle best by scribbling madly, then erasing carefully as needed: Blake's path of excess leading to wisdom, Kafka's line you know only by tripping over it.
But there's certainly more to learn once you're wise. And whatever cabin in the woods or base underwater the line takes you to, there you are, still alive. How's this second verse go?
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no subject
Date: 2008-11-23 06:41 am (UTC)people should talk more about wrestling with books. That's where everything happens.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-23 08:04 pm (UTC)In principle, Bloom would be quite easy to refute. Just write a skullexplodingly major poem that was not reliant on prior figurations at crucial moments.
Stevens, not so much. You can say he left out various things, and I'm sure he'd agree. Maybe you could say that his poetry went too far in the direction of explaining what poetry should be, while leaving behind certain elements necessary for being it? Explaining the rules of the imagination is hard to do while imagining, for example. Though I'd say his skill at doing so is one of the reason all our eyes are still wide at this very, very white guy. Because you just know he had special little dishes for every kind of egg.