I have been thinking lately about the weight of ideals. Being raised on comic books and other myths I’ve always been attracted to them, from the dark heroism of Batman, all the way to Plato in my studies in philosophy. That influential Greek thought that the “forms” were more real than reality, that all chairs are a (mis)representation of the perfect chair, which exists somewhere, but not here.
As many readers may know, I have lived in Asia for the past six months, and it has engendered a change in my thought. Westerners think in categories, while East Asians think in relations. In Eastern thought, the world is a continuous substance, not broken apart in into chairs, tables, and glasses of water. Do not separate the tones, Lao Tzu cautions us, for that does harm to them. In the West, we might call this “monism,” but the application of such a label misses the point entirely. While abstractions, such as logic, are useful, a cacophony (or symphony) of inputs exist in every situation. Existence is complex. Difficult to understand.
Idealism is wonderful, and necessary, I think, to live in this world. It can sometimes be a yoke in social relations. What I mean to say is this: I have wanted so much for this love to define my life, to be some great story. And while this is great for narrative, a life — or two lives — is not steered by some ideal that I project. That is to put the cart before the horse. This, then, is an important realization: it is not that a story is my life, but my life is a story. I need not put pressure on it. I must concern myself with the matter of living, to be present in existence, and not as much in abstraction. While I often act as though it were, my heartbeat is not a metaphor; it’s right here in my chest, pumping, pumping, pumping into this body, into this world.
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