CxD #274: Even more physics + Astonishing Essay + Philosophical Therapy
Human beings are not made to "live like brutes, but to seek virtue and knowledge,"says Dante's Ulysses.
I continue to reflect on why reading books about physics and the structure of reality exudes such a powerful gravitational force on me.
Even though gravity isn’t a force, turns out.1
Since last CxD’s physics marathon, I added two more to the buffet and my overstuffed mind-belly: "Reality is Not What it Seems” and “How Physics Makes Us Free.”
I wrote about this physics problem of mine in the last issue of CxD #273, but from the looks of things, I seem to have more to say.
As a seeker of virtue by design, I study character and try hard, like a shepherd walking through the valley of darkness, to reflect on my own limits and views and assumptions.
Like Nietzsche, I want to have a short shadow.
It’s why I write this charming little rag, still, after all these years.
As a seeker of knowledge, I continue to vaguely intuit—hope?—that piercing through some of my illusions about how the cosmos functions will improve my life.
This is not a foregone conclusion; evolution hid reality from our eyes and minds for a good reason: survival.
We’d get pancaked if we didn’t see a bus as a bus rather than a quivering quantum gravitational field.
But Buddhists have gone on and on about being caught in self-centered dreams, and that letting go of them, or seeing through them, might provide some reprieve from unnecessary suffering.
So learning the rules of the game, as written by the cosmos, seems like a good fundamental-principles thing to busy myself with.
I don’t want to be building no janky house of cards; I want some sturdy foundations, says the inner knowledge seeker in my own tower of song.
The irony being that physics tells us that there are approximately zero foundations on which to stand.
Because everything is relational.
Literally.
Even space and time don’t exist; they emerge in relationship.
I’ve therefore begun thinking more and more consistently about everything being relational and I think it’s doing me good, and those with whom I’ve been interacting even more good.
Why?
Because, in accord with the sages, if everything really, truly, doesn’t exist on its own, but exists as a process, an event, a movement, a relationship, then it appears easier to ride the waves of life than to stand there like a stick and get pummelled by them.
It becomes easier to be kind.
Less of a dick.
Some of you have written to me with your own physics-nerds badges on proud display— I ask y’all: what has studying the fundamental laws taught you that has made a difference in your life?
As for nonphysics treats:
There’s an association of therapists, for which one has to get licensed with at least an MA in philosophy, that uses philosophical inquiry as the primary tool for therapy.
I notice I use this approach to a limited extent in my own therapeutic work.
But it’s also clear that this approach is probably the exact antipodal inverse of my bread-and-butter approach— a combination of Hakomi and IFS—because those are primarily body-centered, aimed at getting in touch with experiences and memories and emotions; experiencing rather than thinking-pontificating, if I want to express the difference crudely.
Read all about it here: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/when-philosophers-become-therapists
I’m teaching a class on the rhetoric of the essay, and discovered this absolute gem from 1909, focused on the author’s reflections about being selected to serve on a jury. It’s only 10 paragraphs, but boy, those are some killer bad-ass paragraphs.
My buddy and long-time CxDer Big Matty V has thrown up a swinging shingle on substack. From all appearances—and I’ve kicked the tires—he’s living a clean, generous, and bountiful life; one could do way worse than what he’s got going on. Give him a read.
Gravity is the curvature of spacetime.
Much love, Krzys!