Consolation

Cindy says I saved the last blog with the last paragraph. I don't know. Maybe I killed it. I suppose it depends upon your orientation. I tried to explain that this blog serves as a vehicle for me to slough off the depression. The only time it becomes a problem is when my need to slough off the blues becomes so great that I sit in front of my computer all day opening up veins on the floor below me.

Business is a good thing. It fills your time and gives your brain something to do other than to stare at your navel in silence. This morning I was fairly busy, so I had little time for naval contemplation (that's an odd expression). It was only later when everyone abandoned me for one reason or another and I was forced to sit here and answer the phone and wait for my last closing of the day. That was when the air got thick and I opened up the blogspot to right the wrongs and think of sweeter times and places and the possibility of release.

Release, ah, there is a topic.

The problem with business is that it becomes a reenactment of certain Beckett plays. "Happy Days", "Waiting for Godot", "Endgame", etc. We try to fill the void while the dirt piles up from below our feet to around our waist to around our neck until [poof!]....

I have a book at home which talks about the problems of life and the opportunities for consolations of life. The author is quite good in describing the problem with living, not so good with offering a solution. The book is quite valuable, although rather short and superficial. It talks about the problems modern man encounters in this life and then offers certain releases: art, religion, philosophy.

The writer never talks about the consolation of Dionisis, the solution offered by the brewer/philosophers of Erin. This is the wisdom in the bottom of a glass, which has provided many people with the possibility of release, at least for a short period of time. In this regard, I heartily recommend Guinness.

The problem with this solution is the brevity of its help and the common problems of its hindrances. The side effects, man. The first being the basic cost (i.e. drinking your wages). The second being the hangover and other effects. The third being the brevity of benefit. The fourth being the communal effect (what happens to your friends and family). The final problems are the physical problems: addiction, both mental and physical, disease and death.

This consolation is also akin to drug-taking: the solution of the lotus-eaters. We take drugs to suspend the reality around us, to expand our minds beyond the norm, only to find that that reality is still there when the drugs wear off. And unfortunately, reality still exists while the drugs are having their effect. For the other side effects of this mode of consolation, I direct you to my paragraph on the effects of drinking.

The third consolation is sex. On the face of it, this solution is quite wholesome. Even natural. Within the world of consent, that is consenting adults, it seems as if there would be little objection. But the consolation of sex is also temporary. It is akin to alcohol and drugs, since it affects a certain lobe in your brain and lasts for as long as it happens. For some that is quite short. For others, not. But sex comes with so many rules. Sex is the consolation of lawyers.

In the beginning is the concept of consent. Beyond the world of self-love, you have to have a partner, which requires a meeting of the minds. Already we are dipping into contract law. We need communication between the parties in order to determine if we have a meeting of the minds. Anything less might be illegal, or, at least, selfish. Realizing that most parties do not go very far into a pre-celebration consult, we have issues of expectations, damages, failure of performance, mental cruelty. Then you have issues about the age of consent, legal acts vs. illegal acts. Wow, are we still talking about sex? Sounds like a bar exam question.

The next consolation is science. Can we find consolation, respite in science? Maybe. It remains to be seen, tested, and proofed. That sounds like fun. For some folks. Aldous Huxley painted a picture of a world in which procreation was limited to scientifically controlled, enhanced birth in factories. The adults were left to drugs for their consolation. Only a few found their way outside the culture to attempt to live a life outside science and the controlled environment of the 'Brave New World.'

The next consolation is religion. Seeking the creator and sustainer of the universe in communion with others and an invisible god. We see the others. What do they see? Is there communion here? This is the same problem with sex, an issue concerning the meeting of the minds. And then there are so many possibilities. As we search for God, what do we find? How certain can we be? In Christian theology, we base our search on faith, something less than scientific proof. But is that all we can have, under the circumstances? Then there is the multiplicity of belief: Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, et. al. Is there a core to this cornucopia of beliefs? Is there consolation in the center? What about agnostics and aetheists?

Finally, there is philosophy. Philosophy is the study of knowledge or the truth. That is a presumptuous word. In the beginning there was religion. Religion had arisen from posited, then accepted understandings of the world and its mechanisms. But as the acceptance of these explanations was questioned from place to place and person to person, philosophy came into being to scientifically determine and describe reality. Philosophy did not supplant religion. Philosophy lead to science. Philosophy, being the study of knowledge and the study of the world, was within every study of man and God and the universe. Was there consolation? There have been so many philosophers and so many philosophies. But did they provide consolation? Do they provide consolation outside the world of the specific philosopher?

Albert Einstein searched his entire life for a single theory which would allow him to understand and explain the world. Einstein was a scientist, a physicist, a philosopher in the sense that his goal was to explain the world. Einstein was married and had children. He was also a Jew, a believer in Yahweh. He delved into the complexities of life and the universe. And yet he lead a life not unlike the rest of men. What was his consolation? Where did his consolation lie?