Horizons…

As I was setting up this blog, I got to the box on the form asking me for the title. I had not given this much thought. The jump from intention to action had been quick, following a long gestation; but in that moment, I had rushed on ahead of myself. I picked up Strunk & White, on my desktop where it always sits, a talisman and guide for many years; a memento of when I had been lucky enough to meet Mr. White, years ago in Maine, and sit in his kitchen soaking in who he had become late in his long life as a writer, looking for hints, the residues of something that might help me find my way on a path I held, even then, as a hidden aspiration for myself.

Opening it at random, looking for inspiration as some will turn to the Bible, or the I Ching…. Nothing jumped off the page at me. I began to suspect it had been silly to ask them for this kind of sign. After all, they had scrupulously fulfilled their intention that this work be a guide to form, they specifically steered clear of influencing content. I was glad to see they had done this so well. Elements of Style’s refusal to give me an answer was firm, yet polite, the kind of nudge Mr. White intended with all he wrote.

So I turned to my current notebook, and tried there; flipping through the most recent pages. It jumped out at me. I had a moment of recognition on seeing the phrase: Horizons of Significance. I’d come across this term in one of Michael Wesch’s videos on YouTube a week, or so, earlier. That he would have shown me my title, just as his inspiration had been pivotal in getting me to the point of starting this blog; I took as a good omen. His final nudge had been when he said that social-networking on the web is just a few, short years old, and that there “are no natives here….”

The term came to him from Paul Taylor’s Ethics of Authenticity. I looked into Taylor’s book, I’ll probably write something later on his thesis, and its connection to the wider project this blog is intended as part of; but for now, the key was the way this phrase meant something distinct to me, and something I find so important. I had an immediate recognition of this, its alignment with my own considerations had so many implications on first hearing it. So, for now, I’ll limit myself to what I’d like it to mean, and not follow a more scholarly exegesis of its sources and past meanings.

The twentieth century acted out upon the discovery of relativity, by falling into a deep crisis spiraling out from the over-all loss of a single, over-riding sense of authority. It has always seemed to me this was a petulant, adolescent response. Finding that life holds deep and radical contingency, it was as if everyone just threw up their hands, and declared as a result, nothing had meaning, nothing mattered anymore. It seemed little energy was ever expended on developing a mature perspective, while a lot went into acting out dramas of reaction at every scale from the most internal and personal, to the widest and most public of stages. Orgies of self-destruction and aggression were carried out under this banner. What seemed most centrally lacking through all of this was a sense of what I see so well expressed as looking at the horizons of significance. In a clear and quiet, a-histrionic way, this perspective lets us ask questions, and find answers; without short-circuiting, diving into nihilistic reactions, as we have, since Nietzsche had his insights, and Einstein made his discoveries.

Horizons of significance seem to me to be just the way to steer through the tensions brought on by contingency, and build on my underlying conviction of the centrality of a viable notion of truth. I’ve often thought back to Melville’s conception; life as a rope made up by twisting the strands of necessity, free will and chance. These elements of which a life is forged in a process that makes something greater of its parts, through a search for truth and meaning.

This sense that process, not outcome, passage, not destination; are most important is well suited to this form; the blog. If I trace a path from Melville to Wesch, from Ishmael to Gary Brolsma; it seems there is a common current running towards a connection between a search for personal authenticity, and a path – taken in humility – leading towards greater connections between disparate people. This current carries a common yearning, and gives us a tool for its possible incarnation; by helping us focus our searches for truth, truths and meaning; while we interact with others within a broader sphere, one without gate-keepers or inter-mediators, and their external agendas.

Ahab was a warning, an example of the long line of monomaniacs to come over the 150 years after Melville wrote him into being. The “Numa Numa Guy” is perhaps a sign of a resurgence of Ishmael’s spirit, the outsider looking for something, using his trials to find meaning, in ways those more conventionally “connected,” have long ago lost, along with any curiosity or appetite for anything beyond their comfort and its perpetuation. His silliness is not simply another symptom of the trivialization of everything, but can be seen in this light as a radical foolishness, in the way a Pan or Dionysus was foolish; signs of the need for humility in the face of great mysteries, a sign that a pose of seriousness is often a greater barrier to understanding than foolishness held in good spirit, embraced authentically while truly reaching out to others.

I hope to take a more sober path myself, more out of temperament than from any sense of superiority over the silly. There do seem to be many champions on that front all across YouTube’s broad horizons. I hope, here, to be able to strike a tone that allows for a quiet exploration of these themes, running up and down the scales, looking for ways in which the various horizons of significance can bring harmony to a life of striving for meaning, while navigating the contingencies placed in our paths.