joy and exclusion

Is it a human law that joy occurs in small, exclusive groups?

I was complaining to my friend Yuri that Jews are too intellectual. At Sukkot, the most joyous of the Jewish holidays, there is a lot of discussion about why we must be joyous on this occasion. All that discussion kills the joy for me. Join the Hasidim, Yuri told me. They are continually joyful.

How strange. The Hasidim seem dour. I once saw two Hasidic men walking down the street in Miami Beach. Despite the heat they wore full black robes and large black hats. They walked in opposite directions, on opposite sides of the street. When they came abreast, they stopped and stared at each other silently for a several seconds, and then walked on. They must have been from different sects, and the street wasn't big enough for both of them. Did these men hate each other, and also know the secret of joy?

Those American pioneers, living miles from civilization, who stare stonefaced down through time at us in old photographs, did they know the secret of joy?

Lenox MA

The Set Piece

I live with two cats and several plants. I like being reminded that most things live their entire lives saying little or nothing at all. In the woods you are surrounded by things that don't say anything but were living there before you came and will continue to live after you leave. In the academic world it is publish or perish: your survival depends on your production of words. The trees in the woods have forgone an academic career to live just as trees, in the woods, silent and anonymous.

As Randal's listening exercise proved, the woods are full of sound. There are many chattery little fuckers in the woods: birds, insects, frogs. Their chatter is part of their private commerce. It is a quiet sound, even a species of silence. It is not the sound of the great strivings of men. The blue jay is listening only to the sounds of other blue jays and is deaf to the calls of other birds, like the old locals in Lenox who get their morning coffee at O'Brien's General Store and have no traffic with the newcomers next door at the Haven Cafe. The buildings, O'Brien's and the Haven, sit silent like trees, side by side.

The woods remind me of this stanza from Hopkins' sonnet:

Each living thing does one thing and the same
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells
Selves. Goes itself. Myself it speaks and spells
Crying, "What I do is me, for that I came."

We know from the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard that each person contains inside himself an entire woods, a population of selves. Someone on the hike mentioned that Saturn was passing out of her chart. According to my friend the Jungian, Saturn is the archetypal judge. The lighter side of judgment is discernment, which suggests openness, variety, life. The darker side is verdict, which suggests closure, death.

Randal asked us to notice the vibration of open space and the response of our souls to this vibration. City life is cramped. There is not enough space for all the living selves inside me to do their one thing and the same. One in particular clamors for space at the table, and it annoys me, like a bumptious country cousin. In the wide open, in the woods, the table suddenly seems spacious. The vibration of open space is like the thin atmosphere of Mars, and I am like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Total Recall, eyes popping out. The left-out self rushes in. It stakes my entire soul with claims of unmet demands. I am like a cursed Jew of the shtetl. A demon occupies my body and speaks through my mouth.

The only way to respond to such a demon is to assume that it is the dark side of something that is part of me and that has a light side, too, and to acknowledge the demon's claims but to reestablish occupation of my own soul. And after all, if it is a real demon I may as well bluff.


The Discussion

What is the metaphysics of inner selves? Are there stifled impulses trying to find expression, or are there indulged impulses going on a rampage? Is life like a bottle that needs to be uncorked, or is it like a bicycle wheel that needs to be braked? How do politics work in the city of the soul? Do some interests express themselves at the expense of others? I think not. I think that within a limited budget the city either allows all interests to express themselves, or else it represses all interests and all work stops. In some cities, however, there are certain classes, gypsies, say, of whom nobody expects much. The city considers the gypsies a nuisance, but it also doesn't think the gypsies are its problem. The feeling is that nothing can be done about them. They don't seem to want the normal things the city provides, like education.

What to do about the gypsies?