One theme in David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest is letting go of control of the self. The characters in AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) and NA (Narcotics Anonymous) learn that control of the self is what got them into trouble with alcohol and drugs. Don Gately calls it his Spider. By squishing his Spider, by handing over his brain to be washed, by letting go, Don Gately learns to live without alcohol and drugs. He is set free of the cage of control. He doesn't even understand why it works and understanding why it works ruins the loss of control. He is told to Fake It Until He Makes It (DFW's all caps). The AA/NA nightly meetings are full of trite expressions like One Day At a Time. Rejecting these obvious truths is to regain control and end up back in the death spiral of alcohol and drugs.
In DFW's list of things you might learn at AA/NA is the claim that God does not care whether you believe in God or not. Don Gately prays every day for sobriety even though he doesn't believe in God. He doesn't know why his prayers for sobriety work, and he knows that knowing why they work will probably ruin it.
At the elite tennis academy bright Hal obsesses over over-analyzing his tennis game because self-awareness ruins the zone that top athletes strive to achieve. The zone is the Zen like lack of self-awareness that can be achieved when one has hit a tennis ball a few million times by age seventeen.
A prominent bar in Infinite Jest is The Unexamined Life. According to Socrates, the unexamined life is not worth living. Infinite Jest may suggest otherwise.
Showing posts with label Socrates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Socrates. Show all posts
The Axis of Literacy
The German historian Karl Jaspers grouped Socrates, Confucius, Lao-Tzu, Gottama Buddha and other contemporary ancient thinkers into "The Axial Age" because it seems as though history turns on an axis and moves in a different direction afterwards. How did this happen? Why are these great thinkers roughly contemporary?
Not all ancient societies experienced this Great Awakening -- only those with established literacy. The Ancient Greeks, Indians, and Chinese had a written language that was easier and more widely used than older systems such as the Egyptian. This cannot be a coincidence. Established literacy enabled philosophy.
The "Magic Book" approach is really a supernatural version of this insight.
Not all ancient societies experienced this Great Awakening -- only those with established literacy. The Ancient Greeks, Indians, and Chinese had a written language that was easier and more widely used than older systems such as the Egyptian. This cannot be a coincidence. Established literacy enabled philosophy.
The "Magic Book" approach is really a supernatural version of this insight.
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