Eye to Eye

"The greatest hindrance to knowledge is our adjustment to conventional notions, to mental cliché . Wonder or radical amazement, the state of maladjustment to words and notions, is, therefore, a prerequisite for an authentic awareness of that which is.

Standing eye to eye with being as being, we realize that we are able to look at the world with two faculties — with reason and with wonder. Through the first we try to explain or to adapt the world to our concepts, through the second we seek to adapt our minds to the world.

Wonder rather than doubt is the root of knowledge."

Abraham Joshua Heschel, “Man is Not Alone”

*********

Dear Kate,

"We are just products of our environment," do you believe that?

Or maybe a different question: How long did it take you to realize you're just playing along?  Or maybe I should say would, not to assume for you the rite of passage has come to pass?  Or say will, to speculate, to hope, to suggest a moral burden?

Or are you so well-adjusted to conventional notions, mental cliché that you don't know what the hell I am talking about, what is there to wonder about?

Of course we play along.

We see injustice we play along.  We see shits being fed to our kids we play along. We work hard to get our golden spoon to do the world's bidding and feeding, that's how we can be "ourselves," masters of our own destiny, writers of our own story, lies of politicians and profiteers we partake in family meals and church feasts and community banquets and national parties.  Maladjustment is just that, not well poised to get ourselves admitted, welcomed, celebrated into some unmissable fun, must haves, must do's, must be, list of buckets.  Kill FOMO before it kills you.

But what is there to wonder about? we ask.  "Authentic awareness" is a luxury that only money can buy: so we better keep making money, worrying about stuffs, playing along to keep the possibilities open.  Maybe one day we can finally relax a little and wonder a bit.  Maybe after we retire.  Maybe then we will finally have the wonderful knowledge of what life is all about.  But certainly not now.  Not with the worries I must carry with me.  Not with this shitty job, these crazy people, January rain and Monday blue.

A month ago I asked a friend: Does a good job make a good life, or the other way around?  How about good relationship, the dreamy ideal that is "out there" and everyone "deserves"?  Does it make our life good or does our good life make it so?

I don't think the answer is simple, either or.  I was just wondering aloud.

The conversation stopped there.

Yours, Alex

***********

Dear Alex,

Eye to eye I spoke to a trucker last month on a chilling night at the gas station food stop. We were in line to buy quick meals, him behind me. I stepped back to stand next to him, wondering and reasoning over the sameness of a world we live in.

He told me his conventional reason for driving 70 hours a week, his sacrifice for his family of 4 a mental cliche. A former auto mechanic, he needed to adapt to changing demands, standing eye to eye for logic and survival. And so he switched uniforms and years of being were compressed to this moment compressing his world and aspiration with mine in dialogue.

"The soup should satisfy for the night," he muttered, his eyes shifting to repress reason. Away I looked to my sandwich.

Soup and sandwich, the stuff of cliche warmed our stomachs and faculties with reason and wonder. I had toiled for my sandwich, he for his soup. Our eyes darted in the dark and doubt to explain the world to our heads, to the world our heads explaining away the doubt and dark. I was more alike in reason and wonder to the trucker. The mileage we forged, freight of tension on our backs, engine exhausted, thoughts wheeling, trucker and I were riding on the same plain and notion, traders of soup and sandwich by convention as prerequisites for content, kinship, worship.

Beyond the gas pumps, a neon sign splintered the dark, light splattering on a huddle of birds. Beaks and bellies looked more ravishing than ravenous, a wondrous sight of solidarity, eye to eye in radical intrigue, doubt absent, caws and claws for an assembly of faith.

I have at times thought back to that queer night when and where things seemed maladjusted but settling, conversations and loads and birds landing on shared ground, eye to eye in amazement of the unaware eye pierced by perfectly adjusted, flawed light.

Yours, Kate