I had a dream in which I had a school assignment to read chapters in a disturbing book, something called the Book of Passions. The first six or seven were (in retrospect) sort of designed to hijack you and shock you, make you uncomfortable with your emotions, squirmy, yikky. First-person erotic narratives by people turned on by being stalked by aggressive coprophiliacs preventing them from getting to a bathroom and making them have diarrhea in their pants and then making them eat it. Me as reader wanting to throw the book hard against wall and stop reading. Awful, disgust. Followed by a chapter on vomit. Self-inflicted pain as erotica, with details. Etc. Really gicky shudder-making stuff.
Somehow a segue into frustrated political passions. Caring deeply, going down in defeat, optimistic hopes for how things could be, ought to be, driven into the mud. Everything one might ever want from the smorgasbord of societal possibilities, all the hopes and dreams, all the idealism, even all the pragmatic possible practical attempts, all of it, in ruins before bad outcomes and fear-driven reactions and power-grabbing and hatreds. The horrible sense of frustration. Experienced, magnified, until as reader I was forced to understand it to be as horrible as the seamy nauseating prior chapters.
Next chapter: Anger. That all that is good going down into mud, the sense of good nontriumphant. A huge molten fury, at universe, at God if you do “God”, at “provisional God” if you don’t believe in God but wish there were a God nonetheless. That which embodies The Good. How dare you. Why can you fail why must you fail. Why must the world be like this why can’t it be as we were once taught to believe that good would somehow sometimes triumph? All the hidden anger, passionate anger, let’s judge God, let’s judge “good”, let’s pass judgment on this sense we’re cursed with, this sense that there’s a good way for things to be, a right way for things to be, if it can’t be triumphant.
Keep reading: Nauseating horrible emptiness, vacancy. Nothing has meaning because the good stuff doesn’t mean anything. That we feel and care about these things and all, and because it doesn’t, because it’s a cosmic sick joke, nothing. Misery, aching void. No good to believe in, anchor on. It’s all whatever we were raised with, which is training of our predecessors who in turn train us, tricks to get you back on your feet with a smile, fooling yourself, as if it matters. When nothing matters. You only care about being alive rather than dead because you were programmed with a survival instinct. All you care about is programmed into you and none of it counts or matters.
Turn page to next chapter: Rebellion refusal rejection NO persistent pugnacious fervent insistence that there be meaning understanding NOW more anger at the good the God NOW meaning NOW and there is happy passion the inverse of every previous chapter things click into place make sense are explainable there is a REASON things are as they are in all their sadness, there is a VISION of how things are reconciled you are the one who sees because you asked you demanded you pleaded you cared. How it can be, why it is as it is. Yes the ultimate forbidden passion, you are the Messiah, it’s you, it’s true, you take responsibility and get to see the promised land and know that it will all be OK, it will all be true, just carry this to my people, God needs a secretary, a messenger, and it just kinda happens to be you.
Turn page: Frustration, inadequacy, limitations, unsufficiency. Not measuring up. Caring, seeing, having the vision, unable to impart it. Awkwardness, lack of leadership. Lack of salesmanship. Damn cynical society. Things one would have to do to package the message, make it catch on, market it. Lack of skills as huckster. Cynicism. Evil wicked people who can only be brought to the point of perceiving a message by embracing the advertising tactics of PepsiCola. And when they do, will they understand it, will they embrace it because they understand it or because I’ve whored myself and the message out and turned it into the new PepsiCola? I’m not winning, I’m not a marketeer, I do not have these skills, I am insufficient.
New chapter: New dull grey acquiescence, emptiness. Someone somewhere will get the vision. Jesus could’ve gotten kicked by a camel when he was 13, we’re looking for the talented, the visionary, those who care, yes, but those with the skills to market the vision, sorry thanks for playing. Thanks for caring. Don’t be so down on yourself. Messiah-prospective, go into retirement, you tried hard. Thanks for playing. The rest of this life is yours (not that it matters), do with it whatever you see fit. Quitcherbitchin’, dude, most folks have far less opportunity for meaning in their lives.
Chapter: Manning the trenches in the obvious places, not trying to Save The World just be on the right side at the right time like anyone else with a social conscience. A sense that things are coming together for a particular event, an election, a crucial axis of decision-making. A choice to be made, as just another citizen, donate some wages to the campaign. This is the direction to go, fits the old vision, makes sense. This one matters, forces are arrayed, coercive belief-systems making their stand. Watch things to awry, that which is good once again going down in flames, deja vu. Yes I allowed myself to care about this like others care about a football game, an athletic championship, I know that, but passion, it matters, if I can’t be leader charismatic one fine but why are we losing?
Chapter: Why why why why why? Why is it so? Why must things matter and then hurt and go wrong? Why can’t good triumph? Why can’t the damn symphony of passions reconcile into a final triumph where all the suffering can finally be understood to be part of getting there, at least the suffering of those who tried with all their energy and capabilities and intensities to make the good happen, unless we are wrong, are we seeking the wrong things, how can we know, why won’t you teach us, why why why why why? Is there any meaning? Are there any answers? Should we stop wondering, asking why? Is this sense that something is “right” useful and legitimate or should we ignore it and ascribe it to upbringing or whatnot?
Chapter: Perspective. The passion for political/social perfection is a good passion to have. It is not the only passion: there is the passion for the ultimate perfect sexual relationship liaison, and all it might potentially offer. If you know truth you know that that passion is of major importance. And yet at the same time you know it is not EVERYTHING – that is, you cannot effectively devote your life to attaining it, ignoring everything else, or you will miss out on that thing and everthing else because as means and ends it just kind of flunks. It sends its tendrils into everything else, it resides at the center of most things, and yet sometimes it is best thought of as just one thing among many that constitute life. Pursue it single-mindedly and you will not attain it, and will miss out on many many things. You, having gotten this far, know all this. I will now tell you that political/social reality is just another passion. Don’t stop caring but it also is not EVERYTHING. You cannot effectively place the welfare of all people including yourself as the center of it all. It isn’t. It remains important but it isn’t. It isn’t “the purpose of life”. Maybe in part the purpose of life it to taste the passions. You would not have come to this chapter if you were not willing to experience passions, including severely uncomfortable ones. The days to come may subject you to intense passions and not all of them will be comfortable ones. Live. Be there. Be passionate. This is what is asked of you.
