Blake's Marriage, The Doors of Perception

 

The Doors of Perception:

The Gaps in the Wall

   William Blake's famous poem, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, has a passage that goes as follows.

"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern." -Marriage of Heaven and Hell; plate 14

 It is this short passage that has some of the most profound and lasting meaning out of the entire poem. The vivid imagery and the fact that Blake calls man naive and unaware of what is truly happening.

Man thinks he knows, but he knows not.

Blake's assertion that everything is "truly infinite", is a large, impossible concept to ever (due to its inherently unending nature) completely understand.

I think what Blake is driving at in this passage is that man, at some point, need to try to open that door, or to clean one of the glass panes of it, to catch just a glimpse of the other side of that vast, wise and terrifying void. As it is, man only sees breif blips of the infinity that lies beyond the everyday naivete of mankind.

Could the enlightenment of the Buddha and Buddhists be the realization that there is truly no bounds to what is out there? How do they communicate this to the un-enlightened, the commoners?

What happens when people don't think they have the mental capacity for philosophical thought?
  I'd actually like to address this question. They lose hope, to some extent, they lose hope. People who don't think that they are capable of philosophizing are generally not able to take a definitive stance on certain things in their lives, even though everyone always has some definite philosophical view. For example, I was talking to a friend of mine, and she said that she couldn't be philosophical. I said it was impossible, because everyone is innately philosophical to establish a worldview. Hers was that everyone should do their own thing and find their own way to be happy and successful. I told her she was an Existentialist (see my last post), and it really widened her eyes to what she was capable of.

In effect, if one thinks one cannot, one cannot (arguing as an Existentialist), because if one says one is not philosophical then they will never see just how belief oriented and philosophical they may be.

The moral of the story, and the message Blake is trying to convey:
Have a paradigm shift. Change your view on things, especially if you can escape the wants, needs, and hassles of being a man.

Blake wants people to start seeing things, to break away from the herd mentality that is such a dominant force in the cultures and societies of today, yesteryear and the future. Eventually this paradigm shift could be a dangerous weapon, something that will be sought out for discussion by governments that do not approve of dissent.

There is no way to protect your thoughts, since that is the case, have your own thoughts, not someone else's, and always try to break free and see things as they truly are, infinite. 

-Wolfram पहला प्रजना

On Existentialism

To my fairly basic understanding of anything, and my views and interpretations, existentialism is the philosophy that one is entirely responsible for deciding one's course in life. It is imperative that one makes one's own decisions because if one doesn't, then they will lose their way. There are several key aspects of Existentialism, all of which are important to the philosophy.

Some of them are:
Existence precedes essence:

• Which means all individuals are born as blank slates so that they are able to make themselves into whatever image or being-thing they wish. It could easily be compared to the tabula rasa theory of John Locke. Jean-Paul Sartre said "man exists [first], encounters himself, then defines himself."

Dread (Angst):

• Using the classic example of one standing on a cliff, it is when one not only fears falling off, which is completely natural, but fears throwing oneself off, the realization that there is nothing holding one back is what defines this dread. (I used angst in a different context in my last post). The realization of one's innate freedom is what defines the dread, the realization that one can do things that are good, and that one can make decisions that are destructive.

Freedom:

• Quickly following (or before) that realization of dread, comes the true recognition of one's freedom and the ability to create oneself in any way possible. With this comes the fact that nothing pertaining to oneself is unchangeable, meaning that one is ultimately responsible for one's actions, as well as one's values. 

Subtopic: Facticity:

• Facticity is the events in one's life that are outside of one's own control (ex: birthplace, weather) and though one's facticity is "set in stone", it doesn't determine a person. It is an influence, yes, but it is not a determinant.

Authenticity:

• One must act as oneself, not as any other entity or essence requires (such as Oneself or one's genes). One must act as oneself and make decisions in accordance with one's freedom (which is indeed limited by one's facticity, but not to the extent where it can affect one's authenticity).

Despair:

• When one loses or suffers a breakdown in one or more of the "pillars" of their existence (an athlete suffering a crippling injury, for instance), this is a feeling of hopelessness. Even if one is not outwardly despairing, it can still be called that because one's "being-thing" (the thing they were striving to make themselves) is compromised, one can end up in a state of despair

The Other and the Gaze:

• The Other, with a capital 'o', is any other free subject who inhabits the same world as a person does. 

"[W]hen one experiences someone else, and this Other person experiences the world (the same world that a person experiences), only from "over there", the world itself is constituted as objective in that it is something that is "there" as identical for both of the subjects; a person experiences the other person as experiencing the same as them. This experience of the Other's look is what is termed the Look (sometimes the Gaze). " -Wikipedia

•  A key feature of the Gaze (or Look) is that no Other need be present.
• For example, if one is stranded on a desert island, and for 5 years one scrapes out a meaningful existence, building and farming and such, one can 'import' someone. One's family, friends whom one knows well, and can 'show' them the island and all the achievements that they have attained. By showing the Other this, one sees oneself through the eyes of the Other, and it gives the view that one needs to maintain their grip on themselves and allows them to maintain their self-view.

The Absurd:

• Nothing has meaning outside of that meaning which one gives to it. There is no meaning in the world unless one assigns some meaning to it. Since there is no such thing as a "good" person or a "bad" thing, "what happens happens", just as likely to a "bad" or "good" person.

Now that I've explained that to my satisfaction (and with some help from Wikipedia), it seems that existentialism is the most vital and sensible way to approach living.

One must make oneself, one cannot be shaped, or they will not be living, and then what will they be?

A point I'd like to make on existentialism: It still allows for spirituality and religion, it says that if you do what you must to become what you strive for, then you are allowed to be anything. Nothing takes on meaning until you assign it meaning, and then its meaning is concrete and definite, at least for oneself, which, in the end, is all that matters.

I wanted to write this description of existentialism to help myself come to terms with all it says and the many aspects of it, and to help me interpret it for myself. Do with this what you will, but I hope it helps in understanding existentialism and its quirks.

-Wolfram पहला प्रजना