Build Not to Last

"It was an article of faith to the Romans that they were the most morally upright people in the world. How else was the size of their empire to be explained? Yet they also knew that the Republic's greatness carried its own risks. To abuse it would be to court divine anger. Hence the Roman's concern to refute all charges of bullying, and to insist they had won their empire purely in self-defense."

― Tom Holland, "Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic"

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Dear Kate,

A person who asks question is on a quest---but not necessarily.  Most of time we ask questions to end our quest, to confirm what we are already convinced to be true, what we have already set out to accomplish with the help of an "answer" that is our accomplice.

In this sense we are not seekers and there is no quest.  To us the truth is not "out there," and certainly not behind the face of our "opponent," "competitor," people and stuffs (people who are stuffs to us) we need to "overcome."  We are looking for building material, bricks of flesh and blood to frame our narrative, shape our worldview, an empire of reason we say, that is really a kingdom of hubris.  (The "most vulnerable" ones being usually the best building material, to slave drivers.)

A genuine seeker of truth takes on a genuine interest of differing views.  And not just "views," as if we can be more magnanimous and forgiving just for spending time to "look up" the many misdeeds, missteps, and misspeaking of our opponents to give them the benefit of our many doubts (and have them confirmed, of course).  The internet is a Reduction Machine, but it takes a small man to reduce himself.

A man who doesn't seek truth is always reactionary.  He retrofits his past experience and understanding to anything and everything (nothing is truly "new" to him), to defend himself against an imaginary loss he might suffer if he is to give in to his imaginary opposition.  After all, isn't this what a story is, to build a case for one's grievance, go through the tension to finally face down one's "antagonist" and resolve a "conflict," achieve a certain happy denouement?  Every news piece is framed this way.  All activists love themselves a fresh grievance to fight for and see a new occasion to honor themselves.  Whatever "truth" we set out to seek always miraculously show up in ourselves, how wonderful and convenient?

The Reduction Machine breaks down human stories, process and package them for consumption, and by the time we buy them wholesale, they're already reasonably priced on the shelf for our construction project.  Good bricks build good walls.  Sometimes we throw them too.

A Christian can keep going to church for decades with not an iota of interest in theology or anything beyond a Sunday School picture of things (if there is still Sunday School, that is), and believe herself to be a guardian of godly truths, in "good relation" with Goodness, honest.  A health care worker can keep upholding an abstract ideal of healthiness without ever caring for the ultimate wellbeing of anyone, including that of his own.  We can be everywhere without ever being anywhere.

When was the last time you seek out stories, written in long, beautiful sentences, told over many pages, for no better reason than you being genuinely interested to meet faces you don't need to meet to advance your crusade of aggression (or, as we claim it is, self-defense)?  Everything on my book shelf is useless, all 600 pages of a new book of history I've just taken out from one library yesterday, all 300 pages of a novel from another the day before.  I can actually make a case for me being an upright Christian without ever opening the Bible again for the rest of my life.

Every sentence I spend time and energy reading is an opportunity cost to instead achieve something more useful, more purposeful, more profitable for this short and busy and worry-filled life of mine.  Last night/this morning I couldn't fall asleep until 3 after picking up my son from work late in the night and again having an argument that I could have easily avoided if I would only let myself be a lesser father.  If I am to read anything now I should read about parenting teenagers, not the history of some obscure tribe.  I should excuse myself for jerking off my frustration to the solace of non-storied packaged flesh, wonder drug to a defeated manhood, doubted himself till the wee small hours of the morning.

Yet here I am, writing again, seeking I say, not reacting to this or that, not trying to reduce my life to something more manageable.  Either the hope in me is an illusion, or I am writing against the illusion that there is no hope.

Yours, Alex