Dear
Robin
I have been feeling a need to write this letter for
some time. The apparent delay in writing it is a result of my wanting to be
sure of what I should say (this is roughly the sixth version of the letter.) I
will start with a summary of content. The summary is followed by a detailed
version which includes elaboration, further points and ‘arguments.’ I could
have made the letter shorter but it turned out to function, in addition to
communication, as a re-thinking, re-criticism and reaffirmation of my life and
choices. The summary functions as a short version
You recently asserted some negative assessments of me.
I do not think it is productive of a healthy relationship between us to dwell
on such things even if the assessments are true (why would one want to relate
to someone who one does not respect or from whom one does not receive respect?
Of course you are my brother and I will always want to have a relationship with
you – in fact I often wish we had more of a relationship. However, given mutual
love, mutual respect can only serve to make it better. Also, if one of your
reasons for the assessment is to inform me of it you should know that the possibility of the truth of the kind of
assessment in question has been part of my thinking not just recently but for
years. And it is not merely an issue that stands in isolation. Instead, my
choices fit in with my understanding of ‘the way the world is.’) You may feel
that you were answering a question that I asked but you actually answered a
different question – a ‘negative’ interpretation of the one that I asked. While
I wondered whether you appreciated what I have been trying to do (construct) with
my life, you addressed what I have not been doing – what it may seem that I
have been avoiding. It is ‘fine’ with me that you have done this explicitly on
this recent occasion but it is unacceptable that this should continue whether
explicitly or by suggestion except under conditions of mutual agreement, mutual
disclosure, and mutual analysis (criticism. It would not be my intent to
criticize you or anyone else or their values but such criticism might be
entailed or appear to be entailed and I would not want to have to avoid that or
even skirt around it)
I disagree with the assessment that you seem to have
made. Whereas you may be seeing my ‘choices’ as a lack of choice and action in
light of a lack or loss in confidence, I see those choices as positive and
active. Though the clarity and depth of the choices and my understanding of
them has evolved, I recognized the essential value behind the choice may years
ago. To have a value and to implement it in the form of a choice in one’s life
especially in that in the implementation one has to face certain consequences
and related concerns (fears) regarding what might be left behind. I worked
through the difficulties of the implementation in the years 1985-1987; the
clarity with which I recognized what I had done came later and its ‘necessity’
even later; the necessity was addressed in a letter that I wrote to our parents
in 1996
What am I doing with my life, why, and why have I
chosen to continue in my specific circumstances (work and so on)?
I am following inner imperatives, my passion and my
highest ideal. An ideal, in the present case, is a concept. My highest ideal is
my concept of the highest ideal. My
concept of the highest ideal has (necessarily) evolved and grown as my
understanding of the world and my (our) place in it has grown. That there is
one highest ideal may be criticized. Ancient Greece had a number of concepts of
it; Medieval Europe had rather different ideals; in the Modern World doubt has
been cast on all forms of objectivity and the question of ideals has floundered
in the face of various forces that include nihilism, relativism and pluralism.
There is an easy solution to these concerns: the search for ideals is itself an
ideal. That is, ‘the highest ideal’ is no longer given as pure fact but process
is adjoined to fact and therefore the category of objectivity does not (fully)
apply in the case
Why am I doing this? In other words why am I following
my imperatives and (highest) ideals? Why don’t I come to my senses and grow up?
Then, why do others not cultivate and follow there ideals? There are those who
do and those who don’t. The answers to such questions are not one-dimensional.
In my case the answer factors in the relative strengths of inner vision vs.
external factors (security, warmth, prestige…), the ability to forge an understanding of the world (which I believe is
a significant contribution and I hope will be recognized and accepted as such
and not merely for my sake but also because I believe that it will represent a
significant advance,) that my belief in the success of my thought contributes
to making the process (my process) rewarding and therefore self-sustaining. In
addition to the determinate factors ‘chance’ has entered at a number of points,
sometimes in the form of ‘crisis’ (you may have read that the Chinese symbol
for ‘crisis’ is the same as its symbol for ‘opportunity’)
Why do I choose to continue on in my specific
situation? I have addressed this in detail in what follows. Here, I will say,
simply, that my position at mental health has made it possible for me to do
what I have wanted to do with my life[1].
As my projects move toward (relative) completion this may change. There are
additional details in what follows where I discuss in detail the push and pull
between external factors (career, salary, prestige…) and the internal ones
(conviction, ideals, passion, adventure, enjoyment…)
I have wondered whether it is good to write such a
letter as this. That I should feel a need to write it is a concern – in a
number of ways. That you might take the letter as a criticism of you makes me
hesitate to send it. When people are different the very existence of one
individual may be taken as implicit commentary on others. However, there is no
(conscious) motive or intent to be critical; further, I do not feel critical of
you. I hope you will see that the fact that I am writing / sending this letter
means that you are important to me. The motives include stating a disagreement
and indicating why I disagree. I also write because I do not want you to feel
that it is all right to criticize me at will. I am not implying that you have
made this a habit. In fact I have felt supported by you over the years.
However, I sense a possible change and I feel it is important to put a stop to
any potential change of the type in question. I cannot and do not want to
control your attitudes and behavior so what I have to say is not intended in
that way. Instead, if I felt that our interaction were proceeding in a
direction that were undesirable or distasteful to me I would avoid those
portions of the interaction. The more important motive is to share and
communicate more. In terms of our relationship and in terms of my place in the
world, the best situation regarding your view of me is that it would be a
positive one. However, I know that I cannot change the way you see things.
Here, all that I can do is to state my views. The ‘2nd’ best
situation, should you continue to hold a negative view, is for me to state my
disagreement. In a way it is good that you have said what you have said for it
is now out in the open and can be addressed. As I often said, negative
criticism may be unpleasant but it is a spur. If the criticism is valid it
should be a spur to improve. If, instead, it is seen as being mistaken, it may
be a spur to revaluate one’s situation. In either case, if the parties involved
are not stuck in terms of ego, i.e. if the egos are fluid and adaptive, then
such criticism may be an opportunity to take the relations among the parties to
greater depth. This letter may be seen as a step in the direction of depth. I am
not asserting that this should be of value to you. That is for you to decide. There
appears to be an opportunity. Whether there is one and whether it will be taken
remains to be seen
Elaboration
You probably remember our conversation a few months
ago when I asked you, ‘Do you know what I am trying to do with my life?’ Your
response was ‘this might irritate you’ but ‘I think you have lost confidence
over the years.’ You did say this may be mistaken. However it seems to me that
you held this view in a more than hypothetical way. I may be mistaken – of
course but I have a number of reasons for thinking so. I think this in part
because of the rapidity with which
you asserted that the fact that I do not have American Citizenship as an
example of the same thing. Another reason for thinking that it is more than a
hypothesis is what appears to me to be an emergence in your spoken attitudes in
such matters of a consistently negative slant. Finally, the question the you
answered was a negative interpretation ‘why I was not doing what I was not
doing’ which is not equivalent to the one I asked except under certain
circumstances
I did not and do not feel irritated but I do feel some
sense of loss because I had assumed that you had seen what I have been doing in
a positive light. The feeling of loss is particularly acute because you are my
brother and would not exist at all if you were not important to me
There are two issues that seem to have arisen for me
in addition to the feeling of loss. The first is whether I agree with your
assessments. I address this below. The second issue regards various presumptions
that may lie behind making such assessments. In a mentor-student and certain
other relationships between ‘unequals’ there may be the presumption that the
mentor is in a position to instruct the student. In our relation the
presumption from my side is that, at least nominally, we are equals. It seems
to me that this presumption has been violated and this is not acceptable to me
It would be unreasonable of me to expect you to not
hold the views that you think to be reasonable. However, even if you thought and
continue to think that your view is correct I do not want our conversations we
have to be regarded as an occasion to say something critical about me. I am not
saying that you would do that but I do want to establish that that is something
that I do not want. Again I cannot tell you what to say or to not say but I can
tell you what my wishes are and that if my wishes were disregarded I would
avoid such conversations. Similarly, I would avoid conversations in which it
consistently seems that the presumption of equality is violated. I have no
desire to criticize you. However, I would consider an exception if you were
open to a complete consideration of issues and values and if you were to open
your self up to criticism. I would not necessarily want to criticize you but I
would want you to be open to such criticism. I can see that such an arrangement
might have value; it would,
naturally, require time and dedication. I also want to add that as a result of
a habit of self-questioning it is hardly likely that I should not have
registered and reflected upon negative explanations of the type in question
I can tell you what I think regarding ‘confidence.’ I
do not think of my self as a supremely confident person. There is a mix of
confidence and a lack of it and, when do I act with confidence I am
occasionally surprised because I think of my self as a mix. However, I do not
think there is a loss of confidence
in my ability to find or perform in other positions (or to do good work.) What
I do doubt is that I would sustain interest in work of the kind in question. I
never did sustain interest in that kind of work even though I thought I might.
At this time the likelihood of sustaining interest is even less because the
career interest would be less and because it would suffer from comparison with
the kind of thought with which I have been occupied over the last twenty or so
years which has been so much more enjoyable for me
I do not agree with what seems to be your view of me.
As you said, your view may be in error since our interaction has not been
extensive. However, it does seem as though your interpretation is toward of the
negative end of the possibilities that are consistent with limited information.
I use the phrase ‘seem as though’ because I do not know precisely what your
thoughts are. It also seems that (refer back to the first paragraph of this
letter) that your interpretations regard to my life, have been taking a
characteristically negative turn. Why might this be the case? One possibility
is that the information that you lack is systematic in nature. Another not
altogether independent possibility is that your interpretations may be
systematically slanted by how you think you might feel if you were in (what you
see as) my circumstances. Our parents were famous for this kind of
interpretation regarding their children. I’m not sure why there might be such a
feeling in your case but there may also be some element of competition (such
competition, conscious or not, is not uncommon among siblings even in the
presence of mutual affection.) Perhaps, in some ways and perhaps not altogether
consciously, you are trying to distance yourself from me – this is just a
thought, a guess. However, if this is true, I would like to know its truth
explicitly and definitely and not through fuzzy guessing
Your considerations may also have been affected by the
fact that I have been talking about getting an engineering or similar job for
years. It is also true that my intentions in that direction have been real. It
is something I have wanted in some ways – the desire ebbs and flows. Each ebb
and flow seems real to me at the time. However, a more accurate reflection of
my intentions and motives is as follows. My reasons for wanting to get such
work lie in the extrinsic aspects (and in wanting to avoid some of the
unpleasant aspects of my present work) such as money and prestige but not in
the work itself. I am not immune from such considerations or to being affected
by the opinions of others but I am, I think, driven by internal and intrinsic
factors to an extent that is more than typical. There is a balance between the
extrinsic appeal of that engineering or similar work and the intrinsic appeal
of what I currently do which is not the work at mental health but the fact that
it allows me to pursue my interests, my real passion, in a way that was not
possible when I was teaching (I work eight hours a day, I do not take work
home.) The situation is not altogether simple, however, and my perception of
the balance is not static. The balance has been quite delicate and I have often
been tempted to capitulate. However, when I picture myself in what might have
been regarded as the normal career path and imagine how I might feel in having
given up my ‘highest ideal and passion’ (see later) I see myself then, in that
career mode, as a ‘loser,’ as having had the opportunity to encounter truth but having turned my back on it
Over recent years our conversations have been fairly
casual. It seems to me that you may have taken what is said casually and in
casual conversation as a whole picture. The chances of the conversations being
more than casual are low. This is because almost always, after some ‘brief
words,’ you want to end the conversation. Sometimes when I call you, you prefer
to call me back at a later time. Perhaps what I said above about ‘you are
trying to distance yourself…’ is not altogether accurate. Perhaps the
distancing is already in place. I am not objecting to the kind of communication
that we have. I am simply saying that, in general, what we say has little
chance of being more than casual. Therefore, it is unlikely to be sure that a
whole and accurate picture has been revealed in our talks. This is compounded
by the (possible) fact that, given the differences in our lives and what is
important to us; your framework of perception is oblique to the object of
perception. If you have read that there are such things as animals and are
looking for an animal but the only animal you are able to recognize is a mouse,
then you will not see any animals even if you are in Serengeti and in the midst
of elephants, lions, wildebeest, crocodile, vultures, leopards, and men. Then,
when you do see some mice and photographed mice in their habitat and have
documented their statistics, you may think, ‘Ah, I have seen the animals of the
Serengeti,’ and ‘I am stronger and more powerful than all the animals in the
Serengeti.’ The little metaphor suppresses numerous subtleties that are complex
enough that complete analysis was beginning to get out of hand (for the purposes
of this letter) and so I leave you with the metaphor. In 1954 famous
psychiatrist, Harry Stack Sullivan published The Psychiatric Interview, a book of about two hundred pages. In
the introduction he writes words to the following effect (I can’t quote because
I gave my copy of the book away.) ‘There are stories of famous analysts who
were able to perceive the total picture regarding a client at a glance. Such
stories may be apocryphal but there are analysts who pride themselves on being
able to evaluate clients based on cursory and superficial information. This
practice is very poor and invariably serves to feed the ego of the analyst.’ I
suppose that the ‘ego’ is not the only factor that may promote cursory
evaluation; other factors may be economic and lack of interest. I think that
the general estimation of others is at least as difficult as it is for the
psychiatrist evaluating a client. In the first place, people who are ‘well’ may
be at least as complex as those who are ill, i.e. wellness is more complex than
disturbance, and, secondly, analysts (should) receive training in correcting
(or compensating for and even using) the distortions and contortions of
perception. In this connection I may add that, regardless of the nature of our
original relationship, I think you have been the beneficiary, in our current
relationship, of not being subject to evaluation and while I do not proclaim
that this is proper or ideal it does approach my ideal
I have been feeling the need to write this letter for a
while and have in fact written a number of versions that are not satisfactory
to me. One reason for writing this letter is self-respect. Another is I do not
want a negative slant to enter into our relationship. I do not want the fact
that you have expressed your views to become a precedent for negativism. In my
opinion this should be true regardless of the truth of your views. However, the
letter would not be worth the effort if I did not think it was worthwhile
sharing my thoughts with you and if I did not think that there was something
worth sharing
What you have said has had a positive outcome. It is
that I confronted some issues and re-worked other ones. I addressed the issue
of confidence. Such issues are obviously not altogether simple but the simple
version of my response is the one just stated – I have doubts that I would
sustain interest in technical work despite its pull (I should have learnt this
many years ago at IIT.) Additionally, I would have to forego (fruition of) what
I have achieved (below.) So, despite the pull and occasional intent, my net
motive cannot have been toward technical work. As my projects become more
complete, this may change but the outcome remains to be seen and, although you
seem to think otherwise, I do not doubt that, if I desire it enough, I will, as
long as health lasts, be able to find such work. I am not thinking that the
concerns that make you think that finding such work will be impossible (or
difficult) do not exist but that I can compensate for them. The reworked issue
is thinking through the choices of my life (you may think otherwise but I hold
them to be choices)
I would like, now, to express my view of my life. If it is true that your view is based on
incomplete information then this may make provision towards a more complete and
more accurate picture; or, if the objective were to be in an understanding
relationship then the information may provide toward that end. You may have
noticed that some people are ‘always’ talking about what is happening in their
lives. I am not like that. So, in addition to the fact that we have not spent
much time together, the little time we have spent together has probably not
been informative. As far as I can remember, the only time that we have had an
extensive sharing of information was on the occasion when you drove us to the
‘Bangladeshi’ part of London in 1995
My present situation is and continues to be the best
actual solution to my highest ideal in life and to my sense of adventure
I believe that my thought has potential for a huge
contribution to human thought. I believe that, in some significant ways, my
thought has gone beyond anything that I have read and that includes some of the
great thinkers – Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Hume, Kant, Russell and
Wittgenstein. I have not seen anything in recent analytic philosophy, the
dominant mode of philosophy in the English speaking countries and Scandinavia)
that compares to what I have done. Although the previous two sentences are
superficial, you may find extensive descriptions and analyses of the
philosophers and schools of philosophy. Something that you may not recognize is
how far I (my thought) has come, how much the ideas have evolved (especially in
the sense of the outcome not being contained in the beginning,) how much effort
it has taken, how much time this has required, what I have sacrificed, how much
passion it has involved, and how greatly I have felt rewarded and exhilarated
and how much there have been trials mixed in with the feelings of reward… My
interest does not end with ‘thought’ but extends to ‘action’ and it remains to
be seen what I may do in that regard (as described in the booklet I sent you
there are some beginnings regarding ‘action,’ ‘experiment,’ and
‘transformation’)
I said earlier that there is a balance between the
pull of the external factors (prestige, salary…) of some kinds of work and the
reward of my present situation. In this paragraph the only reward that I refer
to is that this situation permits to work on my projects – my thought, writing and
so on. When I look at all the factors, it seems unlikely that I could achieve
what I have done in an alternative situation. My present job does not require
any commitment outside the fixed work hours. This would not be true in just
about professional job, including a ‘licensed’ position (nurse, doctor, social
worker) at mental health (and that does not include the amount of time required
to get the license.) A teaching or research position in philosophy would also
be unlikely to have permitted the achievement. In the first place, getting the
required degree would have taken at least six years on the assumption that I
would not have to get a bachelor’s or master’s degree before a doctorate. I
would, of course, learn some valuable things in a degree program in philosophy.
However, there are a number of problems with this option. In a teaching /
research position, one has to teach and prepare to teach, papers require to be
graded, office hours are maintained, one must be on committees, one should do
community service, and, finally, one must do research. There is a huge amount
of pressure to think along established lines; and one is expected to publish
early and frequently. There is a reason that, even with numerous brilliant
minds going into philosophy, analytic philosophy has done little to address the
fundamental problems – the dominant thought since Wittgenstein is that the
fundamental problems are not problems even though Wittgenstein did not say
this. What he did say is that it is impossible to talk about them. However,
Russell disagreed with Wittgenstein and the upshot is (in my opinion) that one
cannot say anything about those problems on two assumptions (1) that one is
using concrete language and (2) one’s world picture is a rigid caricature (I
omit details) drawn from science and reason. (If I were writing an essay I
should have to think through what I have just said carefully.) However, it
seems as though almost all work subscribes to these assumptions and their hold
is so strong that the thought of those who stray from the narrow path engage in
either stunted or magical thought. This is because they have no experience
outside that path, no guide and, instead of taking the time (years) to build up
the necessary larger picture, they (perhaps due to pressure to say something,
to publish) grab at something, e.g., mysticism or Hegel-like logic. I choose
the example of the mystic because there was a rash of papers in the 90’s on the
mystic approach; and as typical of one alternative to the narrow path. Now mysticism
avows that mystic insight is intuitive insight into the ultimate. As a result,
there is no connection to everyday thought. (In contrast, what I have done –
this has taken years, is to find a way to talk in connecting the everyday to
the ultimate in concrete terms whose meanings, of course, must be extended.)
One may describe the psychology or neuro-physiology of the mystic but this
cannot prove the truth of the content of the mystic’s mind (even though there
are huge amounts of people who think that it can; incidentally, I am not in
anyway criticizing or arguing against mystic insight itself. The mystic appears
in many societies under different names. One function of the mystic is to see
truth where reason has not yet gone; this is a necessary function if the
objective is to navigate reality and not to be a professor of philosophy.
Another function of the mystic is ‘keeper of the truth.’ I am a little bit of a
mystic myself. One of my accomplishments is to have first ‘seen’ certain
fundamental truths, lived with them, and then, after years, to have found a way
to express the insight in concrete terms, some of them new, that permit
‘proof.’ This was the approach to the fundamental discoveries of 2002 that I
discuss below.) I use my phrase, ‘Hegel-like logic’ to refer to anything that
sounds intelligent, uses technical language, cloaks its key assumptions in
language that sounds reasonable and that the reader might want to believe but
is actually rubbish. An example of this is provided by the thought of Alvin
Plantinga, a professor of philosophy and Christian Apologist at the University
of Notre Dame. I will not provide examples because you can do a Google Search
on “Alvin Plantinga” and see for yourself. One of the interesting things about
the hold of religious beliefs (especially dogma) is that the content of the
belief appears to partake of the absurd (I could say ‘is absurd’ but I think
that ‘partake of’ is better.) My favorite example in the last two years has
been that ‘Jesus Christ rose from the dead.’ Some people argue that such
‘stories’ are not to be taken literally; such stories, they argue, are telling
us something. That someone rose from the dead, they say, tells us about death.
I agree with that regardless of the original point, if there was one, behind
this story. It seems to me that the rational view of death in the modern
scientific-materialist paradigm, is that we know nothing about ‘the other side
of death.’ Yet, modern scientific-realists (most university professors in the
English speaking countries) cheerily assert that there is nothing on the other
side of death or are cheerily acquiescent in the face of the existence of the
assertion. Stories such as the rising from the dead question commons sense
reality by making what appear to be absurd claims. There is another side to the
apparent absurdity of dogma. If you can get someone to believe the absurd in
literal terms, then, surely, you have quite a hold on his or her mind. Thus, as
an apology, Plantinga’s arguments are doubly appealing. He doesn’t really get
rid of the absurd but he does provide a pseudo-rational apology for Christian
Dogma. If one were to provide a clear demonstration of the absolute falsity or
absolute truth of dogma that would tend to undermine faith or the hold of faith.
This is one of the things I have done. Except when I was an impressionable
sixteen years old, I have always kept my attitude toward ultimate aspects of
reality open. That is, even though my training and experience were quite
consistent with ‘scientific-materialism’ I did think that the paradigm had
described all of reality. Surely, it does describe a significant chunk of local reality but, in the absence of
demonstration, the assertion that all
of reality has been described is absurd. (This, however, is what
scientific-materialists such as Steven Hawking believe. The argument amounts to
‘if it is not described in science, it does not exist.’) I had not original
intent to say much about religion but I have found that my central discoveries
have implications for faith and dogma. So, the new version of ‘Journey in
Being’ will have a one section of about eleven devoted to the subject. I am
meandering. I will return to the original point of this paragraph. There are
reasons that academic philosophy (I am generalizing from analytic philosophy)
does little to address the fundamental problems. The primary reasons are: huge
pressure –both subtle in terms of sophistry and strong arm in terms of job
security– to think in the accepted mode and little time to map the huge
territory outside that mode. There are reasons that so much fundamental work
has been done outside the academic environment. (I am not arguing that there is
no fundamental work in academia.) Further, I am not trying to suggest that
since I am currently outside academia, my work is fundamental. My point is that
it seems to me that it would have been a mistake to have sought an academic
position in philosophy. These thoughts are not something that I have invented
recently; I recorded similar thoughts –their expression was perhaps less clear
and complete– in the long letter that I wrote to our parents about ten years
ago. This has been a rather long ‘justification’ of some of my choices. The
balance among the factors that determine the choices may change as my thought
proceeds toward completeness (relative to its aims)
The understanding phase of JOURNEY IN BEING is drawing to a close. What remains of this phase is
working out details – applications of the central scheme to particular domains
such as society, religion and faith; writing out the scheme. The next phase,
the phase of ‘transformation’ or of experiment and application and so on, after
having flown at a low level for many years is, I hope, beginning to take off.
The essential questions are these. (1) What is the limit of possibility for BEING? (2) What is the limit of possibility for HUMAN being? That the phase is one of transformation means
that I do not want the answers to be merely theoretical. What does all this
mean? I am not particularly happy with the booklet that I sent you but it does
contain an explanation. We are quite different in who we are and in our
choices. However, I am with you in spirit in your life. I am glad for your
success and participate in it vicariously. I hope that you participate
similarly in my adventure
What follows is a description of what I have been
occupied with since 2002
In that year I made what was, in effect, a system of
discoveries with the following characteristics (1) It provides a foundation for
metaphysics (the study of all BEING) that contains the seeds
of a proof or demonstration that no deeper foundation is possible; (2) It
permits resolution of many fundamental questions or problems such as the
problems of substance and related ontologies including the mind-matter problem,
the status of ‘process’ and ‘relational’ metaphysics, the problem that has been
called the ‘fundamental problem of metaphysics,’ i.e. the question of why there
is BEING at all instead of an absence of BEING; (3) It allows demonstration that any other coherent
system of metaphysics is equivalent to it or is a sub-theory; (4) It sets in
place a revision of any system of knowledge that is founded in any lesser
metaphysics or is ad hoc; and there is a ‘ripple effect’ into the major
disciplines of philosophy such as logic (the implications include revaluation
of the nature of logic and the identities among logic and metaphysics,) ethics
and cosmology (including consequences for the nature of the universe of all BEING as a whole, the nature of space and time,) and into a
number of ‘specialized’ disciplines such as physics including foundations for
quantum mechanics, biology, psychology and social theory; and, particularly, it
has suggested and required rethinking of my own system of thought. An example
of a development in psychology (the study of mind but not necessarily as
practiced in the conservative university departments of the same name) is an
enhanced system of the categories of intuition. The effect is not merely ‘top®down’ for the studies of the particular disciplines
have provided both example and analogy that is the basis of or inspiration for
the formal theory of BEING; and (5) The system of metaphysics or theory of BEING that I have developed provides answers to the
questions, ‘What are the possibilities and limits of BEING?’ and ‘What are the possibilities and limits of HUMAN BEING?’ The theory, in combination of other considerations
such of the categories of intuition, provides a framework for the conceptual
and experimental ‘investigation’ of the questions – for exploration and
experience of being and its varieties (the word investigation is in quotes
because, while I do not de-emphasize a relatively detached and scientific
approach, I feel –and have written extensively in justification of this
feeling– that that approach is inadequate and the questions must be answered in
the life of the individual and that fully living constitutes an answering of
the questions even if it was not the intent to answer them…)
The form of the original discovery (the system of
discoveries) has undergone a number of transformations and has become clearer
in its nature and its implications since 2002. I was extremely pleased at the
original discovery because it immediately resolved some fundamental questions
that I had been pondering and immediately provided a foundation for some
positions that were necessary to my thought but whose previous foundation had
been through intuition and analogy. I doubt that I would have had the original
insight without pondering BEING vs. absence of BEING for a number of years and I am certain that I would
not have realized the breadth of the implications without many years of study
in the variety of disciplines. Anyway, these developments acquired their own
life and force and even now, while I see the ideas as more or less complete in
their broad implications, the problem of how to best express them remains
This letter was originally four or five short
sentences. The letter grew as I thought about my life and as I attempted to
anticipate your reactions and questions. It is not the first version. This
version has been revised a number of times over the last few days. Today is Wednesday, December 28, 2005. There has been a Pacific
Storm for the last three days. Last night, I drove out to the Mad River Bottoms
(flood plain.) That is where I used to live – you may recall the ‘945 Mad River
Road’ address. Almost every winter there were floods and the threat of the
levee breaking or of the water level surging over it. That is where you could sit
on the front porch and ‘gaze out into infinity;’ where the sky manifested
infinitely many (so it seemed) brilliant shades, and then just as many softer
pastel shades arranged in ever changing mosaics. That is where cows were
neighbors; where in winter storms the cows would group together for mutual
warmth and protection against the element; where, on a spring or summer day one
could watch gulls, crows, vultures, hawks, and occasional eagles circle the
skies; where, after a storm, egret would be seen in the fields amid the cows;
where, occasionally, a solitary blue heron would appear. As I drove out there
tonight I was thinking of my ambitions and I thought a thought before but that
appeared fresh tonight. It is ‘my ambition is to do the greatest thing.’ I have
not always recognized this or where it came from. Perhaps from within, perhaps
from parental exultations. Once recognized a question arose, ‘What is the
greatest thing?’ ‘Does it not depend on the individual?’ Or, despite individual
variations on the greatest thing, perhaps there is a universal rendering of it.
That would have to follow from a world view (a metaphysics) and it would have
to be a logical consequence of primitive data. I continued driving on often
flooded and ill maintained county roads. The skies changed from sunlit to a
mosaic of light pink and grey with orange-silver borders to blue-grey dusk. As
day turned to night, infinity asserted itself. I stopped at the Hammond bridge
over the Mad River. It was in full spate. It was angry and dynamic with swells,
ripples, opaque milk-brown flow, and fallen trees and trunks undulating with
the heave and swell carried down toward the ocean. I felt awe but not
smallness; I felt beauty, peace and yet violent oneness with the rough edges of
things, the swelling power of the accumulated deluge of rain upon the mountains
to the east. A friend of mine once said that he had very little sense of taste;
food, therefore, did not excite or interest him. Eating was necessary for
survival. Relative to my rational capacities, I feel, sometimes, that my
appetite for things, for ‘being’ over ‘reason’ is opposite to my friends
relation to food. I have ‘too much’ appetite for nature – in the sense that it
displaces or tends to displace the Appolinian (rational, serene) mode of living
in favor of the Dyonisian (enjoyment, but perhaps subject to fluctuations of
mood; there is a view of this kind of person enjoying everything to excess and with a vengeance but that is not what I
mean except that I think I do include some enjoyment with abandon.) But that is
who I am. It is too much in one way; in another it is just what it is. And yet,
without Dyonisius, Appollo would be flat; without Appollo, Dyonisius would fall
into the chaos of non-being. Thought returned to the the greatest thing. I
wondered, is not the impulse to do the greatest thing, to think that one might
do it, that one might have had some small success in that direction an unhumble
thought? Is humility not in order? But then, ‘In what way does humility help;’
‘to prevent the fall that comes after pride?’ and then ‘is not that an
assertion of mere ego; I am so afraid of a fall that I will not risk pride in
the service of the infinite.’ Or, because I want to avoid personal failure, the
approbation of men, I will avoid the ultimate possibility. It is true that one
must acknowledge one’s finitude; but, in order to avoid shame and ridicule, one
is led to acknowledge so much more: that one has elements of the finite becomes
interpreted as ‘I am infinitesimal in all my ways.’ I asked, ‘How can one not
want to do the greatest thing?’
My studies (fairly comprehensive over the range of
human knowledge,) research, reflection and other experience over the years is good
preparation for the claims of the previous paragraphs. However the only way to
evaluate those claims is to evaluate what I have written. To that end I might
recommend the booklet that I sent you but sometimes treatments are well buried
in the text. The next version that I expect to be complete within a year should
be more explicit in its treatment
In this paragraph I will discuss an aspect of myself
that you may not know. My ambition is such that nothing short of achieving the
greatest thing will do. Some might say that this is foolish or absurd or
self-defeating; others may think that in extreme ambition lies the destruction
of our world. However, I argue otherwise. Of course I am not saying and will
not attempt to argue that everyone should do the same; in this regard I make no
judgment of others. That is not quite true; I think it is a good thing for
people to lead lives of simple contentment; that people do that gives me
happiness. What I mean is that I make no negative judgment of such lives. My argument
that my ambition is not ‘foolish’ and is a good thing is as follows. It begins
with the thought that the ‘highest ideal,’ the ‘greatest thing’ are valuable.
This is not really an assumption but its truth is a priori. An argument against
that claim may be mounted but that argument must depend on the concept of
‘ideal’ and ‘highest ideal.’ My concept of the ‘highest ideal’ is that it is
not altogether given but is itself part of what is sought; and that, further,
the ‘highest ideal’ is multivalent; the life of simple contentment is included;
the enthusiastic criticism of excessive idealism is included. However to argue
against the ‘highest ideal’ after consideration of my concept of it, except for
counter-conception that would, at minimum, have to show my conception to be
empty, would be perverse. Now, even though I may be a complete failure in my
achievement of the ideal, given that I may have some talent or ability, given
that I am aware of the potential for failure and success, my ‘mission’ is still
valuable, for it should be in the fact that there are individuals who have such
ambitions that some individuals may achieve it. Here is something to which I
might object. I begin with an analogy. My objection to the Jehovah’s Witnesses
and similar fundamentalists is not that they are wrong but that their presence
is a dilution of the truth. Yet I cannot object altogether if I believe in
individual freedom, if I believe that the path to truth is not through reason
alone, and, perhaps, when I remember that faith has a social function and when
I remember the good that the Witnesses have done (harboring the persecuted in
WWII at risk of their own safety.) I think that summary criticism of
fundamentalism seeks, often, to shore up the ego of the critic; and it tends to
widen and make entrenched the gulf between faith and ‘reason.’ I might object
to those who do not use their talents in service of the highest ideal and my
reasons for and hesitations regarding such objection are similar to my reasons
and objections in the case of fundamentalist faith
You mentioned happiness as one of my possible motives.
I bring this up in order to clear what may be a misperception. Happiness itself
has not been a primary driving force. The primary forces have (included) been
passion, adventure, and discovery. The whole concern with happiness arose when
our parents decided on a number of occasions, sometimes from 10,000 miles away,
always without asking me a single question, that I was unhappy over this or
that thing. Not only did they make such decisions but they appeared to attach
to them an emotional intensity comparable to the grief phase of a Bollywood
melodrama. If they were still alive they would probably still thinking of me as
rather bereft of happiness and accomplishment. Dad especially seemed to think
in this vein. Perhaps you have inherited dad’s perspective. If I was not happy
they would not let it go. If I was happy, nothing I said could persuade them of
it. They were unhappy (at least obsessed) by their thought that I was unhappy.
I did not like their obsession and it was an issue of contention. This is how
‘happiness’ became perceived as a central concern
The following point is somewhat tangential to my
reasons for writing this letter but it may answer questions that you have had.
While on the topic I may say that I think that I am reasonably happy. I enjoy
my work even though there are negative factors. Any job that takes me away from
what I truly want to do would be a source of resentment. There are additional
negative factors to my work at mental health that I have mentioned from time to
time. At the same time, it can be a huge amount of fun at times. It is
sometimes so ‘entertaining’ that I joke that we should have to pay to work
there. Working with the clients, having good interactions, keeping someone warm
and safe, seeing someone get well, and contributing to that are rewarding – and
on the human level, more rewarding than any other work I have done (except the
brief stint at the convalescent hospital in 1990.) I have enjoyed working on
the document automation and have learnt much from it. In working on it I have
learnt where some of my programming deficiencies lie and have some interest in
putting in the requisite effort to eliminate them. If I were to do that, I
would be able to automate the entire (quite complex) documentation system. Yet,
I know I would not enjoy the fact that that would detract a huge amount from my
primary ‘mission’ in life. Also, even as technical work, it would not be basic
or intrinsically exciting (except) for some technical challenges. It might,
however, be a preliminary to more exciting work but it would still detract from
‘Journey etc.’ Working on my projects, ideas and so on and ideas makes me
happy; but more than happy, I feel that I am doing something vital. I suppose
that having a girl friend and enjoying the relationship, would add to my
happiness. I enjoy friends but have been ‘sacrificing’ friendship for my
‘passions.’ I like being in ‘nature’ the woods, under the stars… I think if I
were employed in a position where I worked only on my projects and according to
a schedule of my choosing I would be in bliss. This is a relatively complete
account of my ‘happiness’ system except for one thing. I have had a share of
unhappiness (this is not a lament;) and there are stupid things that make me
brood at times (one does not have total choice in one’s original propensities;)
yet, I think I have a talent (and have cultivated this talent) for enjoying
situations small and large and for enjoying life itself
This has not primarily been a letter of complaint. I
do not think of it as ‘complaining’ but have used the word because it might be
seen as such. Were the letter merely one of complaint, I would be embarrassed
to send it to you. I will say once again, that you are important to me in more
ways than that I care for you. I have often felt that, though our outlooks are
different, we share, at least in empathy, ‘the adventure.’ The letter may be
seen as an invitation. I demand nothing. I do not know whether you will agree
what I have been arguing in the letter. An important reason to explain ‘my
life’ (over and above ego concerns: mine that I do not like being seen in
negative light, and yours that as long as you see me in such light you may be
blind to what is there) is to open to you the possibility of sharing such
adventure at least vicariously, in spirit and in principle
What I said in my recent response to Susan’s email
remains true. I have always loved you and continue to do so. I also want to
say, and should have said so long ago, that I am and will always be grateful to
you and Susan for all that you did for mum and dad
Love,
[1] Here are some additional thoughts. There is no job in
this county (and probably in the neighboring counties) where I would work fixed
hours, not take work home (and so have time to work on my own projects at home)
and get paid as much (the pay is higher than in all other hospitals and my pay
is 2.5 times as much as that of nursing assistants in some local hospitals;
additionally county benefits are among the best locally.) Therefore, my
position is one of relative comfort (I would be more comfortable if I were
earning 1.5 times as much and twice as much would approach luxury.) As my
projects proceed toward completion, the balance between the external and
internal factors may shift (ideally without compromising the internal.) You
seem to have and our parents seemed to have had a gloomy picture of the work
that I do at Mental Health. I am not altogether sure why. You wondered whether
I might be irritated by your remarks and my response is that I was not
irritated. However, this gloomy picture (that I perceive you as having and our
parents as having had) has been a source of annoyance and also of puzzlement.
At core, such perception assumes the superiority of the perceiver (even though
such superiority might not be consciously felt) and the annoyance has origin in
the possible perception of inferiority even though no intrinsic inferiority is
felt. The source of the puzzlement is as follows. Why are other intelligent
people so entrenched in their views? It should not be a puzzle of course, to
the extent that hierarchy is ingrained and ‘necessary…’ And, should not an
intelligent person be able to overcome the effect of his perception of the
perception of others and his annoyance? The ‘Mental Health Worker’ role was
originally created as distinct from the ‘Nursing Assistant.’ Although there is
some overlap in function there is a separate ‘Mental Health Assistant’
position. Original purposes of the Mental Health Worker included: to fulfill a
need for an expertise function in the face of shortage of nurses and social
workers; and to create a position that would attract individuals with both
abilities and education. When I started work at Mental Health in 1990, the
program contracted by the county to Kingsview – a private corporation that runs
a number of psychiatric hospitals in