Happy New Moment

It will not be a happy new year.

Can we say that? Can we recognize it? Like every year since the first drop of protoplasm oozed and pulsed in some inert slab of matter, 2011 will be filled with yet more contention, hostility, warfare, violent death of innocents, misery, rape, torture, destructive hypocrisy of experts and authorities, child abuse, slaughter of animals, desecration of the environment, toxic “food,” and all-around general predictable same-as-always bullshit. In 2011, idiotic politicians will continue to sacrifice the well being of the whole to their vile, ravenous gods: power and ego. In 2011, insatiable, contemptuous money-grubbers will continue to suck the blood of the public. And, we, the public, will continue our sad, ghostly, vain quest for that unattainable object of desire.

You know this already! So, “Happy New Year”? Is that a locution like “God Bless America”? Is it, that is, an expression of a heartfelt, yet profoundly deluded, yearning for a wondrous, glorious state of affairs? Why deluded? Just look!

As a new year dawns, can we ask ourselves, along with that great truth-teller, Friedrich Nietzsche, this question: “Is it not the case that all human institutions are intended to prevent us from feeling our lives, by means of the constant dispersion of our thoughts?” Dispersion of thought . . . Dispersion of thought. Hmmm. Might there be some hope lingering in this phrase–lingering and pulsing, perhaps, like a smudge of life-giving protoplasm in inert matter?

In an extraordinary essay called “Only the Present is our Happiness: the Value of the Present in Goethe and in Ancient Philosophy” (in his Philosophy as a Way of Life), Pierre Hadot explores precisely this hope. I hope you’ll have a close look at the essay. Here are a few quotes to get you on your way.

In Goethe’s Second Faust, Helen, who, in the guise of an ancient Greek heroine, represents beauty and, particularly, the beauty of nature, hears the watchman Lynceus speaking in a strange, poetic manner. She says to Faust (who, in the guise of a medieval knight, represents modern man):

No sooner has one word struck the ear
Than another comes to caress its predecessor.
Tell me, then, how can I, too, speak so prettily?

Faust responds:

That’s easy enough.
It must come from the heart,
And when one’s breast with longing overflows,
One looks around and asks . . .

Helen interrupts:

But who will enjoy it with us?

Faust begins again:

Now the spirit looks not forward, nor behind
Only the present—

Helen:

—is our happiness.

Faust:

It is our treasure, our highest prize, our possession and our pledge.
But who confirms it?

Helen:

My hand.

My hand! My hand! Slowly, slowly take that in, dear reader!

Hadot also gives us Goethe’s adamant advice from the Marienbad Elegy:

Hour by hour, life kindly offered us.
We have learned but little from yesterday.
Of tomorrow, all knowledge is forbidden,
And if ever I feared the coming evening,
The setting sun still saw what brought me joy.
Do like me, then: with joyful wisdom
Look the instant in the eye! Do not delay!
Hurry! Run to greet it, lively and benevolent,
Be it for action, for joy, or for love!
Wherever you may be, be like a child, wholly and always;
Then you will be the All; and invincible.

May I add here some more concrete advice from my favorite Greek slave-philosopher, Epictetus (55-135 AD)?

A carpenter does not come up to you and say, “Listen to me discourse on the art of carpentry”! No, he makes a contract for a house and builds it. . .Do the same thing for yourself. Eat like a man, drink like a man…get married, have children, take part in civic life. Learn how to put up with insults. Learn how to tolerate other people! (Discourses, 3.21.4-6)

Finally, a little didactic poem from me to you.

Happy New Year?

A new heart is better than a new year.
A new way of being, best of all.
That is, to understand more than before,
With more breadth and depth of wisdom,
Enabling you to move yourself further beyond
The bullshit of this, the nonsense of that.

Now, wouldn’t that be new?

May your new year be better than the old. For:
“Happy” on the lips but not in the heart serves—what?
“New,” if just new, without any real change or any real joy, is a waste—why bother?
“Year” is a meaningless abstraction—how can you contain it?
Celebrating just to please the herd—who cares?

Cleaner … clearer… calmer…
Now, that would be new.
And, you know what?
You have to make it new now, or never, certainly not “this year.”

Moment by moment, closer than ever to the pleasure you seek;
Eyes wide open, bewitchment allayed, enchantment eased,
Alive to the real.
RIGHT NOW!
Have a happy new moment!
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