Tag: Lathe of Heaven

Existential Angst & The Creation of Meaning

The son and I were listening to a podcast called Philosophize This on the Creation of Meaning series. Stephen West’s voice filled the kitchen while the week-end cooking was being done by Yours Truly, and a history project was being colored in by the son.

Many of us are familiar with the Existential Quest of mankind. In the absence of knowing exactly what animals think, we assume that as a species, we are uniquely gifted with existential angst. Does a whale worry about it? Do octopuses? Sheep?

Existential Angst

We all feel it at some point in time – some more keenly than others. Some for more prolonged periods in time.

https://www.philosophizethis.org/search?q=creation%20of%20meaning

“Hmm…” we said almost together, and laughed. We were both thinking of that beautiful night a week ago. We were driving towards the middle of nowhere, in search of a parking lot, wide enough to allow us to glimpse the marvels above us, and far away enough from urban settlements to truly allow the darkness of the night to creep in and enclose us. It was during the preceding waxing moon phase, which meant that the skies were moonlit past midnight. So, we started driving past midnight and reached a suitably dark spot at about 3 a.m.

As we gazed up at the stars that summer night leading up to the August full moon, we were filled with this sense of awe. A sense of gratitude for being a part of this incredible universe, and for being able to play a small part in it.

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One of my favorite quotes from Ursula K Le Guin from the Lathe of Heaven is:

“Things don’t have purposes, as if the universe were a machine, where every part has a useful function. What’s the function of a galaxy? I don’t know if our life has a purpose and I don’t see that it matters. What does matter is that we’re a part. Like a thread in a cloth or a grass-blade in a field. It is and we are. What we do is like wind blowing on the grass.”

― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

The Perseid meteor showers were supposed to peak around dawn and we yawned our way through a steaming cup of tea to keep us company during the wait. In time, one or the other of us would yell, “There!”, and the others would moan. Till then, we gazed upwards, our eyes acclimatizing to the dark.

Whether we saw the meteors brightly enough or not, we did land up seeing the Milky Way -cloud-like stretch out and yawn in the canopy above. Lazily strewn – intensely bright in spots, and each star shining to its own capacity.

The Creation of Meaning

Huddled up watching the stars like that lulls the brain into the universe. With a slow sense of serenity and awe pervading your being, I found myself wondering about meaning.

Without meaning to, we attach an awful lot of meaning to many things.

Back in the kitchen, the son & I snapped back, and agreed that as far as meaningful experiences go, stargazing was at the top of the list.

“At what point do we decide that being us is all that is expected of us? Be a planet, be a star, be a galaxy, be an elephant or a human-being. There is nothing else. Why do we keep wanting to do meaningful things?” I asked.

The husband gave me an amused look, and said, “Huh Hmm! Pesu!” (You can Talk!)

I had the grace to laugh.

“But really – why not move to an obscure part of the planet, watch the stars at night and just live a happy life?”

“Why not indeed?“ He said, barely hiding the laughter in his voice.

“If more of us could do that, then existential angst would not be a thing, and without that, are we human-beings? That is how we come full circle or spiral into non-being! Get it? Get it?” I said chuckling. “Even the galaxy’s shape looked like we needed an artist’s rendition to show us the rest of the picture of the spiral. “

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The daughter, who’d come yawning downstairs, said, “Thank goodness I wasn’t here for that meaningless lark. You’d have woken me up, and Euuuhh”, she shuddered and peered into the simmering contents of the stove. “Ahh – all my favorite things today! Thanks Ma!”

“The Creation of Meaning! Ladies & Gentlemen! “ I said with a flourish, and she laughed.

Question for you:

Life’s meaning to each of us is different and it is different at different stages in life. What are some of the things that you think give meaning to life?

The Dream Within The Dream

It was Saturday morning. I got up, convinced I had come back to the real world. The world outside looked beautiful. The dew drops on the cherry blossoms glinted in the morning sunshine . A Californian blue jay was sitting on one branch and pecking at the flowers – such a beautiful sight is to be seen to be believed.

cherry_blossom

Was that a really vivid dream or what? Covid-19 did feel surreal – what a dream?!

I sat on my bed the previous Friday evening exhausted. It was the first week of large scale disruptions – schools, offices, and malls had closed; crazy grocery shopping was behind us; and while I was grateful for being to work from home during all of this, I also realized that I was enervated.

That was how, you found me on Friday evening, determined to not think of the Corona Virus anymore at least for the night. I put it resolutely from my mind. I eyed the stack of books near my bed. I retreated to simpler times in an English village with Miss Read, I read about gardening, and I read about the life and times of Jane Austen in the 1800s.

The daughter was happy to not Coronaspeak anymore, and magnanimously offered to sit and watch Little Women with me. By the time, I went to bed, I had restored the mind to a semblance of normal.

Maybe the preceding Coronaweek was in my version of The Lathe of Heaven after all.

The Lathe of Heaven is a marvelous book written by Ursula K Le Guin. The book examines a scenario where a young man is gifted with the ability to make his dreams come – his psychiatrist realizes this, and uses his condition to his advantage. He attempts to change the world by offering to guide the young man. While under hypnosis, he makes suggestions and leads his mind into conjuring up dreams. One such dream reminds me of this scenario the most.

lathe_of_heaven
He dreams for World Peace and for all of humanity to be united.

When he gets up, his dreams are realized. Humanity is united. United against the face of an alien attack. The aliens are already positioned on the Moon and are poised to strike Earth soon. Suddenly, Earthly borders and barriers melt away. All of humanity is united against the threat of green-belted aliens on the Moon

The psychiatrist tries making amends from them on, but the patient realizes what is happening and tries to distance himself. He is scared, vulnerable and refuses to fall asleep.

Could Covid-19 be a version of a dream playing out? It certainly feels like that at some times.

But if this were a dream, how would we know? I went and stood outside below the Cherry tree, and the cherry blossoms flitted down and landed gently all around me. The California blue jay was still there having a blissful breakfast as it let the petals float to the ground below. One petal settled on my hair, and I felt it. It was solid and soft. It was real. That settled it – the preceding week of Covid-19 must have been a dream.

Slightly shivering with the morning cold, I traipsed into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. It was full: stacked with extra cans of milk, vegatables and 2 cans of soup – so, we were in the Covid-19 reality. That wasn’t a dream.
The blue jay was confirming what with me exactly? That this too was a reality?
That our realities have a tendency to get warped?

I related this the daughter and son as they walked into the kitchen looking sleepy and exuberant respectively. The husband said, it did feel very much like a scenario in the movie Inception. The Dream within a Dream. That is how we always depicted it in our dumb-charades games.

The day wore on. As Saturday ticked into Sunday, I saw the digital clock in the microwave glow 11:59 – a moment in time that the young son loves to see. Maybe this was a reality within a reality too.

I am going to bed. After all, this version of reality does have some aspects that I dreamt about too:

  • I did hope to get a month to spend with the children at home.
  • I did hope to be able to spend at least time together without external demands on our time, to hear the clock tick in the quiet of the home.

I can understand why the whole thing seems so surreal. While some problems certainly unite humanity like Climate Change and our effect on the Planet, none seems to be as urgent and visceral as the Covid-19 reaction. It is happening, it is real, it is what it is.

This week seems less surreal than the week before. We have settled in to new realities of life. The life in which the simple, bare necessities of life will come to you. They’ll come to you!