Preferring to Fly

There is a lot to say. Dillard continues to stun me with her intricate and moving descriptions, seeing life where others passed by. Hancock’s advice, as per usual, is spot-on and ever practical. How do they fit together? I wonder. Synthesis in my blog posts not only seems appropriate, but also helpful. Seeking the resemblance between two seemingly unrelated pieces is an excellent task for the mind, finding pathways and trap doors that lead from one to another, previously unbeknownst to me. If Dillard’s book is the castle, Hancock’s writing is the many tunnels and hidden entrances that allow us to understand the schema beyond the appearance.

In that, I have learned something very useful. Dillard’s prose is empowered not only by her colloquial tone, occasional rabbit trails which reconnect with the main theme, and her acute sense of observation, but by her knowledge. Many authors could write beautifully on a small duck pond in the woods, noting the frogs leaping from algae, but Dillard does it as one informed. She knows to describe a scene that places one right there, and to include the names and behaviors of the many microscopic creatures. Protozoans, rhizopods, flagellates, byrozoans...we come to know these teeny beings through her research. She is informed—not only in senses, but also in mind. Dillard asks the question, “Why is it beautiful?” (pg. 107) We need knowledge to write the beautiful.

Which pushes my thoughts towards the final project of this class: the feature article. I am nervous, which is stressful. Not that I doubt my writing ability, but this time of semester my motivation and inspiration seem to run dry, not gushing rich and life-giving like Tinker Creek. With one assignment left, the most inopportune time to adopt apathy is now. So where do I seek inspiration and ideas, when I do not have woods to explore behind my house, or a blooming spring calling my name? Courage offers an answer.

Hancock writes, in her straightforward tone, “Take chances...Be slow to conclude your experiment was a failure” (pg. 98-99). Often times I re-read my blog posts while trying to draft a formal assignment, thinking, Damn! Where is that energy and spunk and wittiness now? I say courageousness is the answer, and not fearlessness, because formal assignments rarely lack danger. What if the professor does not appreciate it? What if it strays off subject, or fails to meet certain requirements? The structure of academics is based on performance, which implies evaluation, which rarely comes without apprehension. In the face of fear, courage is a necessary combatant. Whether my blog posts are boring as hell or beautiful enough to bring tears to Down’s eyes, a thorough reading + relevant blog post = met requirements. Low consequences for “failed experiments” allow me to write without fear, to take chances more willingly.

Dillard’s afterward surprised me. Twenty-five years later, she writes of her book, “I hope it seems bold” (pg. 281). Hancock says, “Naturally, we all prefer to fly. But flying, in my observation, is no more likely to produce excellent work than creeping” (pg. 109). That is how I approach this final assignment, and the remainder of the semester, for that matter: to creep boldly, moving courageously through thick terrain. To take chances without becoming wed to them; those crazy backward-spin-somersault-flying-leaps have a way of overcoming the roughest patches.

 

On Her Knowing

“…To discover where it is that we have been so startlingly set down, if we can’t learn why.”

On page fourteen, Dillard encapsulates her passion and mission quite perfectly.  In all our conversations thus far in class, all our tangential wanderings about that which “is” and why, what it means to know, and how we decide truth, we consistently confront a concrete reality: we just do not know.  Shall we?  Can we?  In Dillard’s mind, absolute knowledge of human purpose is beyond our reach—that is God’s ground.  The closest we may come to peeking through the crack, then, is by coming to know our place.

   I cannot write all I want about her, the woman who knows the natural world in such an intimate and concentrated way, in a single post.  I want to talk about her style, her curiosity, her fervor, the unrelenting and harmonic way in which she interweaves her thoughts on life and death, purpose and meaning, into insightful descriptions of nature, and so much more.  I want to write it all, and keep writing, because her words have an elusive freedom to them that moves and inspires me.  Instead, I will let “the muddy river flow unheeded in the dim channels of consciousness” (pg. 35) that are my thoughts, and stop, hopefully, before I have worn out my reader.

Perhaps the most beautiful aspect of Dillard’s prose, which is arguably poetry, is her child-like curiosity juxtaposed with deep empathy and thoughtfulness of an old soul.  She is dually an explorative child, noticing things long passed over by eyes trained otherwise, and a reflective intellectual unafraid to contemplate without end.  Initially, I appreciated how she allows writing to lead to places which frighten and sadden her—her nightmares, the lost foreign lover, the monstrified moth.  It is as if she releases control of the destination of her composition and thoughts, following them down dark passages, through tunnels of light, over bridges and through the roots of cedars.  Not a genre suited for every occasion, but a bravery, both in thought and word, than can surely be applied elsewhere.

Another fascinating element of her chapters is the manner in which she does not shun the spiritual.  She makes no concerted effort to explain or define it, but instead allows its mention in her writings, even if unanswered.  Perhaps this is “the mystery of the continuous creation,” (pg. 5) of which she spoke.  An arrow shaft leaving a red trail. In the Phaedo dialogue Socrates said, of the scientists of his time, “Yet the power by which they’re now situated in the best way that they could be placed, they neither look for nor credit with supernatural strength.”  Socrates was killed by attempting to explain spirituality; Nietzsche, his counterpart, went mad doing the same.  Dillard may have recognized that she could never understand in full, only observe.  Both in the natural and spiritual, creeks and souls alike, she occupies her time with feeling it, rather than trying to know it.  Is one more important than the other, or more attainable?  It seems they are complimenting efforts; by doing one we inadvertently gain the other.  Dillard makes us constantly aware, if not informed.  “Make connections; let rip; and dance where you can,” she writes (pg. 97).

Lastly, she suggests her inherent darkness.  “The creek is my mediator,” she writes, “benevolent, impartial, subsuming my shabbiest evils and dissolving them…” (pg. 102).  That breathtaking writing flows from the mind of one aware of her shadows, is almost more beautiful as the writing itself.  “I never merited this grace” she says twice in the same paragraph, “I never merited this grace” (pg. 103).

Attempts at Accounting (my titles are so tacky)

            I propose a moment of silence in thanks to the powers that be (Atkins would credit chaotic energy) that insects have not “hit on a plan for driving air through their tissues instead of letting it soak in,” and “become as large as lobsters” (Haldane, 57).  Phew.  As if earwigs are not awful enough already.  Imagine a rabbit-sized earwig.  Oh, the shivers.  Additionally, I am consoled at learning the irrationality of beast-sized insects too often portrayed in science-fiction films.  Like, that’s not even realistic, guys.

            A favorite challenge of mine is to consider Downs’ thoughts behind the article assignments.  Probably, he opens our class books at random and decides the topic the way a spontaneous preacher feeling “led by the Spirit” would.  Nope, they are way too purposeful for that.  Then again, if we adhere to Atkins’ argument, that all “order” is truly randomized chaos, my hypothesis may not be too off mark.  In any case, I appreciated the simultaneous compatibility and confliction the three articles presented.

            All three explained natural phenomena using numbers.  I am tempted to leap into a discussion of the human need for reason and purpose, and the pervasiveness of this idea of “intelligent design.”  Atkins’ article seemed oddly ironic.  The content said, plainly: “what appears to us to be motive and purpose is in fact ultimately motiveless, purposeless decay” (Atkins, 13).  Yet the quality (dare I say purpose?) of his piece was, in fact, an explanation.  An explanation evoked by the truth that humans desire reason and purpose in life.  Why is it that humanity, compared to animals, has a need for a sense of purpose and order in life?  While Atkins may be able to argue that natural life is inherently chaotic and unorganized, he cannot go against the fact that his curiosity drove him to his research and writing.  One does not argue against something unless there is preexisting evidence or thought for it.  What precipitated or caused this desire?  Like I said before, I am tempted to explore these thoughts, but the length of a typical blog post falls short for the response needed to answer this question, if an answer can even be found.

Crichton and Socrates; never thought I'd put these two boys together.

            Instead, let’s discuss the quantitative nature of the pieces.  All three talk about vast ideas, nicely organized around the ideas of numbers.  Socrates argued that the human notion of numbers and quantities originated from the true number “forms:” perfect ideas or examples existing before humanity, and picked up by our souls as they traveled from the ethereal heavenly realms into our bodies.  While I cannot entirely agree with the great philosopher, I will not attempt to counteract his argument.  I have no idea why math is so inherent to the mind.  Michael Crichton, the great science-fiction writer, postulated in Sphere that were we to converse with intelligent life outside earth, math would likely be our common language, because it is found everywhere and is not dependent on ideologies or cultural mindsets.  It simply "is."  The forward to Atkins’ article contained a compelling quote: “When we have dealt with the values of the fundamental constants by seeing that they are unavoidably so, and have dismissed them as irrelevant, we shall have arrived at complete understanding” (Atkins, 12).  It seems careless to “dismiss” such vast concepts as “it’s just the way it is,” but it seems if research is to make any progress, it must do so.  Willful ignorance then, drives one of the greatest intellectual endeavors of mankind: science.  Puts an odd perspective on things.  My sister said this the other day: “Science describes reality, but it cannot define it.”  So perfectly put. 

            Well, this was going to be a style critique.  So much for that.