The Depth Immense of Endless Gratitude

Devoted to that which manifests a warm and friendly 

feeling toward a benefactor...

In the fifty-fourth edition of The People's Common Sense MEDICAL ADVISER In Plain English or, MEDICINE SIMPLIFIED by R.V. Pierce, M.D., one of the staff of consulting physicians and surgeons at the Invalid's Hotel and Surgical Institute, and President of the World's Dispensary Medical Association, states in Chapter XIV: CEREBRAL PHYSIOLOGY: 

By means of the nervous system, an intimate relation is maintained between mind and body, for nervous energy superintends the functions of both. 

Exciting stuff! 

He goes on to say, 

A higher grade of organization requires a more complete arrangement of nervous substance. Stimulus applied to one organ is readily communicated to, and excites activity in another."  

To recognize the distinctions between reason and instinct, to the acute level, to have the ability to discern the nuances in what constitutes "keenly penetrative" and have respect for each individual aspect, is to have a "double endowment" ... "intimately connected by nervous matter" Pierce might add.

The intimate relation of instinct to intelligence is admirably illustrated in the working honey-bee. With forethought it selects a habitation, constructs comb, collects honey, provides a cell for the ova, covers the chrysalis, for which it deposits special nourishment, and is disposed to defend its possessions. It is a social insect, lives in colonies, chastises trespassers, fights its enemies, and defends its home. It manifests a degree of intelligence, but its sagacity is instinctive. Reason, though not so acute as instinct, becomes, by education, discerning and keenly penetrative, and reveals the very secrets of profound thought. 

An Unlikely Example of Nervous Matter, manifest

What happens when philosophers, prone to profound thought, label "examples of nervous matter"...?

They think about jokes. Well, this philosopher thinks about jokes. One of my favorites is emotive conjugation, a humorous verbal conjugation, designed to expose and mock first-person bias, in which ostensibly the same action is described in successively more pejorative terms through the first, second, and third persons, e.g.,

"I am firm, 

You are stubborn, 

He is a pig-headed fool." 

~Katharine Whitehorn. 

A Monstrous Shape, or a Shapelesse Monster, 1640

Tannakin Skinker

A Certaine Relation

The first recorded reference in England to the legend of 

the pig-faced woman is the fable of Tannakin Skinker.

Russell, in a 1948 BBC Radio "Brains' Trust" discussion used this discussion. It was later popularized when The New Statesman ran a competition for other examples. An "unprecedented response" brought in 2,000 entries, including: 

"I am well informed, You listen to gossip, He believes what he reads in the paper"; and 

"I went to Oxford, 

You went to Cambridge, 

He went to the London School of Economics". 

Ha!

Gratitude 

What does any of this have to do with gratitude? Moving forward in this charming publication, Pierce states that 

The Emotive Faculties—the organs of spiritual perceptions—are impersonal, outflowing, bestowing. The function represented by Benevolence, is willing, giving. Devotion expresses dedication, consecration; Gratitude manifests a warm and friendly feeling toward a benefactor.

Laughing at life-humor 

The connection to gratitude is personal. It touches upon my gratitude for the recognitions that occur as a consequence of my own contemplation of Milton's immense of endless gratitude, and for for my brain's ability to recognize the notion of gratitude, even in the most unlikely places, such as in a biology publication. 

This intimate relation between instinct and intellect provokes what one might call laughing at life-humor. The intense vital expenditure for which one must allow when engaged in intellectual activity results in unlikely connections that irrespective of the validity of that connection, make me laugh, igniting the Socrates within, who endlessly delights and celebrates among the gods (but who can still arise and be among the first to greet daybreak), among the Olympians and among the those who come to listen to his discourses on those many things upon which few speak because few consider. 

What would make Socrates laugh, you ask? At his own foolishness, he would reply. This we have in common. In each of these blog posts, even the most unlikely of candidates, there has been an element that made me laugh. The trick in getting the joke is knowing what the author consider's funny. Not sharing the punchline or gist of the joke is what is referred to as a Private Joke. 

Private jokes occur because we are "too easily persuaded" by our own reason. What is funny to one person is not always perceived by the other. Private jokes are thus employed by those who actively engage in the activity of holding their thoughts, of keeping secrets. 

With Socrates by one's side, proud as Demeter, anticipating the annual return of her daughter Persephone from Hades, one simply follows the path wherever it leads, refraining, this time, from making moral judgments (or the propositions that they express) in favor of those delightful petit fours of imaginative projection into another's person's situation, especially for vicarious capture of its emotional and motivational qualities. 

"tired nature's sweet restorers" 

As the nervous forces transform petit fours into restorative spiritual products, the encephalic temperament with its analogical powers, vividness of conception, and intensity of emotion relates refined feelings, imagination, and ideality by the connection to their gratitude for nature's manifest possibility to invent petit fours in the first place. 

In turn, the philanthropist gives away his/her delights at his/her dinner parties. "Sharing everything, in moderation," one might say.

Happy Blogging

Happily blended, harmony keeps one from dwelling on any one subject to the exclusion of all others, a condition Pierce refers to as "monomania." Notably I do not consider blogging as seriously as I do the publication of books, novels, or professional abstracts. Herein I freely give myself the latitude to make a myriad of interrelated but potentially non-sensical connections for the sheer fun of it. 

From this activity arises an hour's worth of morning writing recess prior to the demands the day inspires. The nonsensically entertaining - no doubt in protest of the sensical onslaught of seemingly boring demands of daily life - encourages me to make light of all information (as well as the nature of information) and see how I might twist it around to create a new shape for my brain to contemplate. 

In my mind it would be a tragedy to deprive my intellect of the thoughts that summon the forces that inspire the recuperative channels that help me maintain a beautiful, ruddy glow of health while simultaneously cultivating my mind in what for me is a natural and essential culture of my being, its training and consequent development, which I deem necessary for soulful improvement, which consequently, and ever so nicely is one of the many effects of gratitude. 

A Dream of Genius

A Dream of Genius (2014)

Soph Laugh

                        Be not afeared: the isle is full of noises,

                        Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.

                        Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments

                        Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices

                        That, if I then had waked after long sleep,

                        Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming,

                        The clouds methought would open and show riches

                        Ready to drop upon me, that, when I waked,

                        I cried to dream again.

                                                                       

                                                  (William Shakespeare, The Tempest 3.2.132-40)

Winged Horses (2014)

Soph Laugh

The Platonic dream of ascent toward the Heavens elicits a demurral in the modern spirit. We “recognize” but do not necessarily “participate” in the figurative ascent on noble, winged horses of the gods; soaring upward until we become the rulers of the universe. In this case, our forbearance works like the light of the sun on Icarus’s wings, bringing us back down to earth, where we settle on solid ground.

            The intellectual leap one must make in order to imagine a Platonian ascent into that non-material abstract form, known to us through sensation, requires our evocation of an imaginative eidos. In the Husserlian sense of “essence,” the idealization of forms, the pastoral retreat, the ideal Republic, the Golden Age that sparks genius, we must depart from solid ground, relying only upon our senses to guide us upward where we might formulate a possible solution to the problem of universals.

            In metaphysics, the problem of universals refers to the question of whether properties exist, and if so, what they are. Properties are qualities or relations that two or more entities have in common. The various kinds of properties, such as qualities and relations are referred to as universals. For instance, one can imagine creating a musical composition that has in common the quality of being inspired or exemplifying genius, or one can refer to complex thoughts that have in common being the essence of that force which animates one toward the creative expression deemed 'genius'.

            The “descent” toward earth highlights what is cast in shadow by the major conflicts of mind, which reluctantly affirm and pay tribute to restraint and stoicism; the belief that virtue, the highest good, is based on knowledge. Given that we cannot claim authority over knowledge, we must bow in reverence to that very essence or quality which gives rise to it. Consequently, our “ascent” toward knowledge is perceived as a false conquest, a dream-like encounter with that which can only be reached by virtue of our imagination. 

Liberating Imagination (2014)

Soph Laugh

            The possibility of transcending this dream-like ascent into the very essence of existence to the point where human understanding is illuminated is hotly debated, but that does not prohibit one from attempting to understand why the sun rises, why we exist, or from whence arise the forces that animate the material universe.

            Separating genius from the individual is akin to the noble escape from the environs of earth toward the musical spheres of the heavens. Hearing even a faint mellifluous sound echoed in our minds gives us hope that transcends our arrogance, our self-aggrandizement, our self assurance and certainty of things. The timbrel’s thunder quiets Calibran into servitude, the sound of the drums sweet and high exalt the architecture of our minds, and the protective and benevolent design that is mimetic of cosmic logos becomes accessible in the duplication of its reality implicit in the physical state.

                        I prithee, let me bring thee where crabs grow;

                        And I with my long nails will dig thee pig-nuts,

                        Show thee a jay’s nest, and instruct thee how

                        To snare the nimble marmoset (The Tempest, 2.2.157-60)

Conjuring Bunnies (2014)

Soph Laugh

            As Caliban conjures the creatures of the island and echoes them, so too do we conjure genius and echo it in our thoughts and productions. The explorers of genius contort themselves in straining to see beyond natural presence. One is rewarded for this transcendent impulse by seeing only his own image on the surface of it. This accomplishment climaxes when he mirrors or mocks the image he thinks he sees. The ineluctable fact of uncertainty tests his exalted aspirations and reminds him of the comic aspect of belief, claims, and knowledge. For both explorer and the essence being explored, the aim is art, or song, and the resultant creation or note becomes the echoing sound of hope, whistling in one’s ears.

                        Blest pair of Sirens, pledges of Heav’ns joy,

                        Sphear-born harmonious Sisters, Voice, and Vers,

                        Wed your divine sounds, and mixt power employ

                        Dead things with inbreath’d sense able to pierce,

                        And to our high-rais’d phantasie present,

                        That undisturbed Song of pure concent,

                        Ay sung before the sapphire-colour’d throne

                        To him that sits theron

                        With Saintly shout, and solemn Jubily,

                        Where the bright Seraphim in burning row

                        Their loud up-lifed Angel trumpets blow,

                        And the Cherubick host in thousand quires

                        Touch their immortal Harps of golden wires,

                        With those just Spirits that wear victorious Palms,

                        Hymns devout and holy Psalms

                        Singling everlastingly;

                        That we on Earth with undiscording voice

                        May rightly answer that melodious noise;

                        As once we did, till disproportion’d sin

                        Jarr’d against natures chime, and with harsh din

                        Broke the fair musick that all creatures made

                        To their great Lord, whose love their motion sway’d

                        In perfect Diapason, whilst they stood

                        In first obedience, and their state of good.

                        O may we soon again renew that Song,

                        And keep in tune with Heav’n, till God ere long

                        To his celestial consort us unite,

                        To live with him, and sing in endless morn of light.

                                                                       

                                                                       (At a Solemn Music, Milton)