Del Rio, Garden #4
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"There is a difference between evidence and certitude, if what you mean by evidence is fact, quantifiable or scientific fact," JM, yesterday, on the bench in the grass beneath fat clouds, blue sky, and the trees wagging their green heads above us.
And JJ in the downstairs classroom when I ask, are errors always subjective? "No. Errors in truth result when I have something in my head that does not really exist, so that a true search for the truth requires humility, an openness towards reality, other people, God, because truth is always greater than my knowledge. When I think I have the answers, I am closed. Pride is very closed. I should always be interested in new things. Truth is a conforming of my intelligence to reality. Therefore my own poverty in the search for truth is what is most truthful, for I want to conform my thoughts to what is really there."
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Well what is to be done with "should," its wistful if-only, its staunch fist-wielding ought? Isn't it the first hurdle? The one implying on one hand, this "should" is a dream, and on the other, this "should" (of reality) is a dictator? And again I have lost my freedom, haven't I, am closed (like a fist) if I am incapable of the dream, or if reality is oppressive to me. And I do, I hesitate to say when and will in my "should" with any real assertiveness in case I am small-minded and wrong in my willfulness, now. It is better neither to hope too much, nor to hope that I do not hope for the wrong thing. Better to withhold or suspend to the end, as this "should" implies suspension too. A shadow. In case I have forgotten my suffering, others, all suffering.
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Yet to suspend is to forget. They are not the same, no. But suspension requires more constant attention, more vigilance than I can always ever muster. So I forget. Why to hold suspect. Why to hold off. Why to hold. In fact there is no why, in actuality, as far as I can see. Only that my fist is closed on something dear dear dear, something I am myself saving for the day when I am certain I can at last let go. I hold myself up this way. By the bootstraps. And I walk around, hanging on.
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As if I can.
As if I am more capable of holding this, myself, the arrival of "should," in suspension--and as if this suspension is my own doing, as if it is enacted in my refusal to act--than I am of thriving on acting in "should."
As if suspension is closer to freedom than action. As if suspension is more open than closed.
Ought, if-only, "should": it brings on a shudder, feelings of unreality, doesn't it? Should for what again? Yes, I agree, that's the rib.
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I should conform my thoughts to reality in a true search for the truth. More: in a nutshell, that is love.
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