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Tobias Lim
Tobias Lim
Thank you for your kind words re my latest book,[i] At the Center of All Beauty: Solitude and the Creative Life,[/i] forwarded to me via Collate.I locate the key to my response in the sentence where you quote my writing that one use of the solitary is to be useless. I’m borrowing (with permission) from the writing of my good friend the Trappist monk and poet Paul Quenon, who makes an appearance in my book (reciting poetry from memory on Thomas Merton’s hermitage porch) and whose memoir “In Praise of the Useless Life” I highly recommend. Paul has lived in a cloistered monastery—the Abbey of Gethsemani—and so has given a great deal of thought to these definitions of “useless” and “useful.” Mainstream Western culture is, of course, obsessed with usefulness, an idea present in Western thinking from the first (“idle hands are the devil’s playground,” etc.) but given predominance with the rise of capitalism and Victorian utilitarianism. A Trappist monk works daily to support his community, but a community of individuals who agree to pool their labor and its fruits can get by on only a few hours each day. That leaves a lot of “leisure” time. But what is this distinction between “work” and “leisure”? If one takes one’s cue from nature, is a tree “working” in the spring, when it puts forth new growth, and “idling” in the winter, when its limbs are bare? Is a songbird “working” when it’s chasing bugs or singing for a mate but idle when it sings for the pleasure of hearing itself? A good friend who’s an ornithologist scoffed twenty years ago when I asked this question. Birds always sing for a reason, he told me. Then a few years passed and someone did a study that showed that sometimes birds sing simply for pleasure. I sent it to him and asked if, now that I have data, he finds my perspective less absurd.I suppose what I’m getting at is that all life is a balancing act, a finding of the appropriate middle path between engagement and contemplation. That path wanders, and at different points one emphasizes the former or the latter. The key lies in finding the balance. But even here I feel Westerners overemphasize the necessity of[i] choosing[/i] a path . . . when sometimes one should watch carefully, observe the winds, and let them take one where they list. Under contemporary capitalism, whose goal is to keep us dissatisfied so that we’ll be good consumers, one must watch carefully, especially that “weapon of mass distraction” (Cornel West) seductively labeled the “smart phone.” Small farmers must make time to sit and watch so as to learn the lessons their land is teaching. Our lives are our garden plots, and we must make time to consider the lessons they offer. Is that work or leisure? Consider abandoning the notion of a duality and instead seeing these as whole, round, interdependent, integrated. You see my study of Buddhism manifesting itself.To turn to your closing question: I feel tension every day between my solitary life and a life in community. I love nothing more than a good party, and would be happy, or so I tell myself, throwing a dinner party every night. But I recognize too that something in me needs time alone; and I recognize, too, that though I will do almost anything to avoid writing, once I sit down to the task, I lose myself in it, and feel that I am doing what I have been called to do. So the creative tension is between work and play, solitude and community—knowing and keeping in the heart that these are not “either/or” distinctions but “both/and.”Thank you again for sharing your thoughts and troubling to write,Yours,
Fenton Johnson
Fenton Johnson
[highlight=transparent]Thank you for your warm reply. I will keep the passages in your letter and book close to me. [/highlight][highlight=transparent]I think you are right. The task for myself over the coming years is to find the right balance and vocation. My younger self lived a rather imbalanced life. He worked a lot and learned very little. Since then, I have lessened my time on the capitalist treadmill, and created space for more unplanned discovery. The change has been both rewarding and surprising. I think my life today is a little closer to that of the Trappist monks you describe. But I am not quite there yet. It is difficult to undo the social conditioning of the modern world. And it is easy to default to assumptions of duality. I have to remember that much of life, as you say, is “round, interdependent, integrated.” [/highlight][highlight=transparent]Your reflections on Buddhism reminded me of a fragment in Karen Armstrong’s account of Siddhartha Gautama. She notes in particular that “the story of Brahma’s intervention may indicate that there was a conflict within [Siddhartha’s] mind, and that while one part of him wanted to retire into solitude and enjoy the peace of Nibbana undisturbed, there was another part of him that realized that he simply could not neglect his fellow creatures.” Clearly the tension between self and community is as ancient as it is modern. That should not surprise anyone given our nature as social animals. I guess this inner tension is an inevitable part of human life. Perhaps it is not something to suppress or eradicate, but something to understand and nurture in the right way. [/highlight][highlight=transparent]You say humbly in the last chapter of your book that you “write among them as a student among teachers.” But I can safely say that you have been a wonderful teacher to myself and others. Now I must make my own way as a student of life. I will tend to my “garden plots”, learn from the trees and songbirds, and try to live life well. I will “watch carefully, observe the winds, and let them take [me] where they list.” And I selfishly hope that you will continue to resist your own impulse to avoid writing. The world is richer when Fenton Johnson is sharing his thoughts. Thank you again.[/highlight][highlight=transparent]Warm regards,[/highlight][highlight=transparent]Toby[/highlight]
Tobias Lim
Tobias Lim
I'm still figuring out this Collate thing. I'm not sure what I think about it. But: Far be it from me to recommend my own books, but you might want to get aholt of a copy of Keeping Faith: A Skeptic's Journey among Christian and Buddhist Monks. In it I address at greater length many of the questions you have asked, and better yet, pose those questions to wisdom seekers with whom I was granted the privilege of spending time--to write the book I finagled my way in to living among communities of Buddhist and Christian monks, and I posed in effect your questions to a wide range of people who had dedicated their lives to their examination.I wish you luck in your search and your journey. It is the continual asking of the questions that matters. Yours,
Fenton Johnson
Fenton Johnson
[highlight=transparent]I actually ordered my copies of ‘Keeping Faith’ and ‘In Praise of the Useless Life’ a few days ago. I look forward to reading them. [/highlight][highlight=transparent]With regards to Collate: I was actually unsure if you would have the time to reply to me. But I did not want the questions I posed to you or myself to fade away in an email inbox. This way, I and others who stumble by can refer back to your letter over and over again as and when we need. So thank you! : )[/highlight][highlight=transparent]I will keep you posted on my journey.[/highlight][highlight=transparent]Take care and warm regards,[/highlight][highlight=transparent]Toby[/highlight]
Tobias Lim
Tobias Lim
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