I have resolved to write some sentences in an attempt at communication. Some of it might seem narcissistic or sad. But I trust myself, and I trust there is nothing wrong here. The worst thing that can be said is that I am raking over some old coals. Well, I would be happy if some new stories came along, and I do my best to start them. I am left, still, with these. Nothing more than Twitterish grunts in the dark really, and to that extent I am sorry. It is harder to think good thoughts than to do good deeds, as my friend Cesare Pavese said.
***
Recently I said with some heat to a family table, “I despise my contemporaries.” And my humorous brother said using his not-much-noticed acting ability, with a tone of mock-rueful regret, eyes cast down, “Well, we are the best of a bad bunch.”
***
One of the things that happened to me, in my “lyrical age” (up to 22-3), was fancying a girl who, as it turned out, was only interested, with her friends, in mocking me: I was in a Malvolio situation. My last response was the one he promised at the end of his play. But that was not all. It turned out she had been fucked up: Mummy left Daddy, and that was why she was fucked up. That was interesting to me, besides some of the moral lessons I drew from it: to see things working, unacknowledged, through time.
***
I am always impressed by those systematic thinkers whose big works you can read and follow, but can’t remember really, except that you were convinced or unconvinced by them: I mean Hegel, Steiner, Meillassoux, to some extent my admired Dr Barfield. (And I can’t remember much poetry or the Bible either.) Actually, to be honest I don’t read too many such writers. If I can’t remember them, how did they come up with the ideas? Because they’re geniuses. And we still absolutely need them. I’d like to think I at least live with their thoughts though. This paragraph relevant to the next one.
***
I live with the idea, in various forms, of “contingency”. For me it’s a big word, and a feeling, rather than something I have articulate thoughts about. But I admire books that deal imaginatively with it, such as After Finitude by Quentin Meillassoux, and, I am not ashamed to say, Miracles by C. S. Lewis. And I admire books that construct a kind of necessity on the back of it, such as Saving the Appearances by Owen Barfield.
***
I read a sentence recently, I can’t remember from what or by who or on what grounds it was being said, to the effect that we should not be so interested in origins. I absolutely disagree. But I don’t mean that I can find out by my own efforts, or to deny that such inquiry can involve some painful (as well as pleasant) reflection. For example, natural evolution. No matter how it came about, it should be a matter of trauma in thought: whether as brute natural selection, or as the real story behind the one for public consumption: the Garden. Am I very wrong? But apart from trauma, it can also be a matter of exhilarated reflection, like the shortness of life. I will just add that I do not understand what Darwin means by there being “grandeur” in his view of life: this is a difference of personality where I happen to be “right”.
***
Like the pious man Blake, I am of the Devil’s party. I have to be careful here, because I am not a great writer. Few enough people in our time have an orthodoxy, and I am in their number. My reasons for this are indeed not unselfish. It is simply that by an accident of circumstance, an extremely beautiful - no joke - young woman suggested that we should get married. It couldn’t happen because I was no believer, I was a nice agnostic boy, and we were too bloody different; though both, I think, genuine innocents - by which I mean, not at home in the world as it is - a relatively rare thing. (Incidentally, because of all this, I have “high standards,” which is hell.) She married a nice evangelical church lad. Of course I felt jealousy. But I would still want to say at least to two of her stupid friends, “At least I don’t have to believe what you lot do.”
And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.
***
An interlude on the girly front: glancing at two pictures recently I realised Germaine Greer is right: girlies with “boyish” hips seem to be “in” for media consumption. Nothing wrong with that, but not my cup of tea.
***
I was editing an article for the webpage I have made, www.owenbarfield.org/articles (I am proud of this little page) in a café recently. I got to talking to an elderly man, about my “study,” and I said, as I usually do, that Dr Barfield’s main reason for (not “claim to”) fame is as a friend of C. S. Lewis. My new friend had just read about Lewis. “Are you a Christian?” he said, and I nodded my head meaningfully. The first time I have really done so. We talked about a few other things, and he said “People have changed. You’re not enough old enough to know it.” I said I had a good imagination. Incidentally I think the changes, while not all welcome by any means - some kinds of bad behaviour go unreproached which shouldn’t, and so on - are not all bad, and certainly not fatal. “My mother used to say to me,” he said “‘Charlie, God save your imagination.’” And the following sprung out of my mouth, without even time to regret it: “To pull you back into the real world.” Or something like that. It didn’t take long to say. It took me a while to realise that it wasn’t even true: the effect of it might be that, but it is an affectionate comment of enjoyment at something he would have said. Our friendship will only with luck go any further. But I guess the root of my comment comes from the fact that I find the real world so hellish at the moment.
***
Since I mentioned Barfield, a quote from Worlds Apart, a Platonic dialogue he wrote. Sanderson is the Socrates of the piece:
SANDERSON: If only we would go on to a new concept of sincerity, instead of trying to creep back to the outmoded one, which will no longer have us in its lap, we might in the end reach a rather different relation to our own feelings. instead of having an uneasy sense of insincerity because we remain aware of something in us which exists apart from, or alongside of, or outside of them, we should dwell in the midst of them, guiding them perhaps and enlightening them, but no more needing to disclaim them than the sun needs to disclaim the planets.
This would still hardly be consistent with an irony epidemic.
***
I also like the science fiction-y, implausible, detail in Night Operation: rock music, in the 22nd century is called “radionic music.” Who knows why.
***
Actually, what I grandly called “contingency,” is a lot of the time, the question I ask myself, “What the hell am I doing here [in this particular ridiculous situation]?” and, with real desperation, in my mind, and to others: “I don’t know what to do!” And I have thought that I would be having the same thought in a war, unless it were very clear why we were fighting. What’s war about? It is pretty stupid really.
***
I really need a girlfriend. And I would like to be consistently selfless. Enough of desires.
***
A matter of personal good fortune, and I wonder if I ought to mention it, is having good reason to believe that Lorna Byrne is the real deal. I can be a terrible bore about this, and have written two pieces about her, which I will give to anyone who asks. I should add here that Peter Stanford of the Daily Telegraph, and Tariq Ramadan are signed up also. What is interesting is that in one of those pieces I make an abductive argument to show she’s the real deal - and that everyone in their 20s doesn’t really get it, but people in their 40s and beyond do. It is a matter of desire, and kenosis (having had the stuffing to some extent knocked out of you). I wasn’t looking for total engagement, merely the recognition of a logical argument. Once again, enough.
***
I wasn’t looking for total engagement with that, but I am seeking total engagement, for myself, with life. I do have brio, I wish it were noticed. For various reasons at the moment this is hard for me to do. But this is at least a part of it.
