On Inter-Causality

It was 364 days ago that I last stated my ambition to revamp my blog, Towards the Sunrise. That ambition lasted exactly one post. The revamp was an attempt to find a means of expression that was honest and transparent to whoever cares to know, without at the same time violating what I recognize as a person’s most sacred possession – their essence.

Recently I was reading a yoga magazine that was featuring different performing artists who have turned to the discipline of yoga to find grounding in their demanding touring schedule. One artist, a DJ whose name I cannot remember, remarked that a life of performing is not natural, because it requires the performer in essence to de-robe before a crowd and express their most private and intimate thoughts in the public forum.

From the time I first attempted to concretize a blog from concept to digital ink, I have been a victim of the same sensation, that it simply feels a heretical apostasy to self to blog honestly. Ergo, my fire-proof safe holds five complete journals of poetry, philosophical reflection, and happening from my life, and my beloved blog continues to lie dormant in some server farm somewhere.

But I am writing again, not with a pen, with a keyboard. Why? Because I like the way that punching out lines makes me feel. Maybe somewhere in my brain there is a connection between a computer keyboard and the piano. Maybe I hope that my attempts at self expression through symbol-squares can produce the same satisfaction as self expression through white&black-rectangles.

It is Motzei Shabbat in Jerusalem. I just returned from a walk. The Arab side of the city is humming, the first day of its week. The Jewish neighborhoods are emerging from a day of rest and Torah reflection. And the Christians are “on-Saturday,” which I understand for myself as a day of reflecting on the possibility of a profound cosmic drama, a day of summoning the courage to stare in the face the likelihood of a dead god, post-crucifixion and pre-resurrection. A day, yes, to know rest and shalom, as children of the Abrahamic texts, but also to acknowledge the worldwide and historydeep reality of human suffering and struggle, honoring a messiah who engaged with that dark reality to the full.

Towards the Sunrise 3.0 is this:  I intend simply to ask one honest question a week, then to give the most honest answer I am able to. I hope it feels like worship, like honestly, like being alive.

QUESTION 1: What do we mean by inter-causality, and what impetus do we understand that definition to generate?

Some abhor monotheism because of the intolerance it implies. If there is only one God, and you do not believe in him or her or it, then you are in the wrong. Polytheists are more open and accepting, at least in theory.

But the place where monotheism gets it right is in recognizing a unity that threads its way throughout all that is. Historians tell us that monotheism is a relatively late thought for humankind, because whereas our first impression might be that there is a different power behind such diverse natural manifestations as sunshine and anthills, it eventually dawned on thinkers that there is throughout the multiplicity of the natural order a profound unity.

Leaving the realm of historical theology, the observant person notices the same phenomenon in society: the workings of the human world are intricately compiled into a single complex whole. Politics impinges on psychology impinges on media impinges on public opinion impinges on militarism or pacifism impinges on religion impinges on history impinges on custom impinges on climate impinges on economic model impinges on socio-economic spectrum impinges on access to education impinges on access to healthcare impinges on purchasing choices impinges on sexual choices impinges on… IT IS ALL ONE.

My questions in response are two: 1. How do we define this reality, and 2. What should my response be to it, both intellectually and vocationally?

1. To be honest, I think the Buddhist answer is best. We may define the overwhelming oneness of our radically diverse existence as OM. The expert on a subject defines it precisely; the artist and feeler rises higher and expresses dichotomy via beauty; the mystic rises highest and seeing it all says simply, peacefully OM. (or YES or JESUS or something else…it is not the syllable but the intent that matters.) So my point is, I do not believe there is a definition to be had for inter-causality beyond recognition of it. What is most important, I believe, is that one’s meditative response to it not be in the nihilist’s camp of despair, but in the believer’s camp of hope.

2. Firstly, picking up on the last sentiment from the previous paragraph, the intellectual response to the inter-causality of the institutions we are effected by is not to find it intimidating, but to find it interesting! One of the moments of disillusionment for a young American who was weaned on the doctrine of “I am a special, irrepeatible snowflake in the blizzard of humanity” is to realize that the world is in fact confoundingly complex, each field of learning and activity a universe unto itself, and that in order to truly “change the world” (a phrase that annoys me immensely) I would have to be God.

And praise Zeus that I am not the Almighty, because that would make me omniscient and rob me of the life-enriching thrill of learning. Ignorance of ignorance is a destructive force, but self-aware ignorance makes a person more human. It is human to say “I do not know.” It is human to shrug. After the let down of pushing up against your limitations, it is possible to look at it the other way, and to recognize that finitude is a necessary element of the aesthetic. If you were God, you would not be beautiful. I would be an ugly God. But I am a self-aware and quite lovely ignoramus.

So the first step of intellectual response to inter-causality is two pronged: on the one side, cultivate sober awareness of facts and realities through broad reading and experience, not limited to one school of thought or perspective; on the other side, cultivate realistic hopes grounded in those facts and realities, not quixotic and phrase-drenched poppycock that will ultimately leave you disappointed and everyone else shortchanged.

Turning the corner to the vocational response, I believe firmly in the insight of Genesis 2, that humankind is intended for labor. We must do something. For those of us with the luxury of choice, we ought to choose a vocation on the grounds of realistic hopes.

For me, realistic vocational hope is to contribute to one field in which I find meaning. Google says it well in their doctrinal statement of 10 Things: “It’s best to do one thing really, really well.” For Google, it is search. Everything else they do is an extension of their central expertise of indexing data and making it accessible. Paring down ambition to one easily definable goal might at first appear a compromise, but it is really liberation. Do you know why the night sky is delicious to behold? Because the creator decided that it needed just one moon.

Thus ends the first post of my third try at this blog. I will consider it a success, not if it accumulates comments and feedback, which it won’t, but if I actually sit down next week to punch out honest musings on some other honest question…