![](\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-NeyPy3SI1hg\/TcgBXhs3u2I\/AAAAAAAABVE\/67-H1ZHUXus\/s1600\/all-things-shining.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\nWhen I was 20 I set off hitch-hiking to discover America.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n One shining afternoon I was in eastern Montana, stuck on a freeway ramp with no town in sight and no ride to get me out of there. I sat down in the grass in the cloverleaf to have a little lunch. With almost no traffic and nothing but fields of wheat in all directions, I was overtaken by a very disquieting mood. I was utterly lacking meaning, unmoored from all the relationships and places that had made up my identity.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Looking for America, I found that I didn\u2019t even know myself.\u00a0<\/span><\/span> Dreyfus and Kelly\u2019s modern foil \u2013 for his willful and wanton nihilism \u2013 is <\/span><\/span>David Foster Wallace (contemporary author of Infinite Jest<\/i> who killed himself in 2008).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n They agree with Wallace, though, that \u201cThe central challenge of the contemporary world \u2026 is not just that we don\u2019t know how to live meaningful lives; it\u2019s that we don\u2019t even seem to be able to focus for very long on the question (p.30).\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n And certainly a quiet, patient focus is necessary for one of Dreyfus and Kelly\u2019s heroes \u2013 Moby Dick<\/i>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019ve loved Moby Dick<\/i><\/span><\/span> <\/span><\/span> <\/i>since I first encountered the beast in college (although I\u2019ve been too busy to pick it up for years). Back then I hardly found a <\/span><\/span>Pequod <\/i><\/span><\/span>plank to grasp but was compelled by it nonetheless. Dreyfus and Kelly\u2019s \u201cFanaticism, Polytheism, and Melville\u2019s \u2018Evil Art'\u201d is a lucid and inspiring unpacking of the truths that Melville hoarded in a hold.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Here are couple samples:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAhab\u2019s pursuit of Moby Dick is, in effect, a monomaniacal pursuit of the final, ultimate truth about the way things are. \u2018If man will strike, stike through the mask!\u2019 But there are no such truths in Melville\u2019s world; no reasoning stands behind the unreasoning mask (p.161).\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cPip [a Black cabin boy who gets lost at sea and opens to it all] has seen the total emptiness of the universe \u2013 the absence that is all that is left of God. As Ishmael puts it, he saw the \u2018heartless immensity\u2026.\u2019 He\u2019d seen \u2026 not just whiteness \u2013 the ultimate absence of any deep, single, unified meaning to the universe \u2013 but also the rainbow \u2013 the presence of a multiplicity of interpretations (p.178).\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Dreyfus and Kelly write of the importance \u2013 and<\/u> dangers \u2013 of getting \u201cwhooshed up,\u201d of being carried on the great winds of the life beyond oneself. And like me, they also yearn for the old ways of craft and skill in our GPS, microwave, and instant-everything culture.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Thankfully, Dreyfus and Kelly don\u2019t leave us twittering with just our predicament.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe in our culture are being called to cultivate ourselves as beings who are sensitive to what we are called to do. The calling is there, and those who are sensitive enough to the culture and to its rich heritage will hear it. But our focus on ourselves as isolated, autonomous agents has had the effect of banishing the gods \u2013 that is to say, covering up or blocking our sensitivity to what is sacred in the world (p. 221).\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n I find their framing of the issues more powerful than their resolution. <\/span><\/span>The rich heritage of Zen <\/span><\/span>practice offers a more gripping and embodied resolution practice. <\/i>Take the koan, for example,\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n You make your way through the darkness of abandoned grasses in a single-minded search for your self-nature. Now<\/u>! honored one, where is your nature?<\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Still, I\u2019ve enjoyed finding companions in Dreyfus and Kelly, heartily recommend the book, and thank Steve for the recommendation. I wish I\u2019d had the book in my<\/span><\/span> backpack in those hitch-hikin\u2019 days.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n When I was 20 I set off hitch-hiking to discover America.\u00a0 One shining afternoon I was in eastern Montana, stuck on a freeway ramp with no town in sight and no ride to get me out of there. I sat down in the grass in the cloverleaf to have a little lunch. With almost no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly have written a fine book here exploring this kind of modern predicament with some top-shelf thinking \u2013 complex, delicious and meaningful. Reminds me of a really good dark chocolate (although much more meaningful\u2026).<\/span><\/span>
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From a Zen view, they explore the perennial \u201cother power vs. self power\u201d and \u201cmeditative state vs. wisdom\u201d issues but from the perspective of Western literature: Homer, Augustine, Dante, Kant, and especially Melville.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n