The activity proper to man is not purely mental because man is not just a disembodied mind. Our destiny is to live out what we think, because unless we live what we know, we do not even know it. It is only by making our knowledge part of ourselves, through action, that we enter into the reality that is signified by our concepts.
Randomly flipped "Thoughts in Solitude" open to that page a couple of days ago, and decided to share. I remember thinking often last summer, go get your own experiences! and wanting to admonish my dear blogging friends to get out of their heads and into their own lives. Merton says it nicely, here. Vicarious living isn't really living, nor is it living to reminisce about past experience, and to live there. Life is now. Heaven is now. Don't think so? You're just looking at it sideways.
But I digress. First the quote, then what I was thinking about the other day. The other thing is, here I am using a quote to tell everybody to get out of their quotes. Well, it correlates to my experience, and it's nice to find I'm not alone in my thoughts. (A familiar theme from my book summaries, no?)
Then tonight, as I transcribed Merton's words, a corollary occurs to me. But I wonder, will it hold any weight of authority, coming from me? I omitted a word from a post the next day, embarrassed that I'm subject to the frustration it expresses. But I'm human, and have hardly gone to any trouble to hide that in the last year-and-months, no reason to start now. I've grown neither halo nor wings. Well, here goes:
What you live is what you really think, and what you really know. What you lived then was what you thought and knew then. What you're living now is what you think and know now. It's not to say that anything is gone, or gained. You've got it all; spin the wheel, pluck a handful of flowers; they're your lot for the moment, and once laid aside are always at hand, waiting to be touched again. Pause for a moment, see if it isn't so.
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9 comments:
"Well, it correlates to my experience, and it's nice to find I'm not alone in my thoughts."
Exactly. And while it's quite true that a disembodied thinking mind or vicarious living does not make a life, I'm pretty confident that all our blogging buddies have a real, and embodied, life past the 0-15 minutes they spend cruising blogs.
It's all good, as Tommy says!
Thinking is not doing or being. People think they are this or that all the time, but if they saw themselves as others do, what would they see? It's a problem of subjective versus objective. Some of the most evil things are done out of unconscious actions. "Nothing personal, it's just business!" Some relish being bad. It defines them, but at the end of the day, their badness will be undone in some form or fashion. Or perhaps, better good will spring from it. The same could be said for those who think they are "good" or doing "good". Such is not always the case. Pure actions beats pure thoughts hands down. You know the truth of a person by their actions, not their words. But then, the ultimate truths go beyond any concepts or self-deceptions for that matter.
Hey Trev-
I'm glad I didn't find the perfect quote a year ago; now I'm torn between agreeing and seeing beyond it. I've known people, watched others go through phases of trying to achieve somebody else's idea of enlightenment, and missing the biscuity goodness around them. These days, I'm not sure what to make of that, getting caught up in mental things. Is "it's all good" a way of avoiding conflict, or is it really all good, even the bad?
John,
I think what Merton is saying is that thought and action go hand in hand... sort of like that "faith and works" business.
One of my coworkers told me that I'm one of the most laid back people she has encountered. From somebody 15 years my senior, well, she's encountered a lot of people. Another friend has told me that I'm far from nondescript or anonymous, and of those she knows that I've one of the best defined or strongest personalities. Both comments came as surprises; I guess I'm not particularly interested in others' opinions.
Actions, words, thoughts, deceptions... dwell on that too much and I could go nuts. (I was significantly more high-strung when I started this blog.) Um... it is what it is.
Merton could mean mindfulness or attention to detail in place of thought, followed by action. Actions are more truthful than thought. You can look at what a company or politician or diplomat says versus what their actions are. Sometimes they are in alignment, sometimes at difference. The action is the truer intent. The purest actions are done without thought. You just do them. This is what atheletes are good at. This is all that I know.
"This is what athletes are good at."That I get.
It's interesting that the digressions have caught both your attention rather than the good part. (What you live is what you really think, and what you really know.) I suppose that happens frequently, with my dad's flair for couching a story with too much background, at times.
Thoughts are just phantoms. You don't create them and can do little to control them. (Just a little bit of practice in meditation shows that!)
Life is what's lived. Reality is what's real. There's apparently a world to be in, how are you being in it?
What's wrong with quoting about not quoting? The bubbles that popped into Merton's head likely come from the same mysterious source as those that popped into yours... But you WILL live your own life, as Merton lived his, and nothing can change that.
Hey Jon-
Nice comment - I like how you tie what I wrote into a more global/universal/cosmological perspective.
Thoughts are thoughts (I'm not sure how you define "phantom") but I otherwise agree... the only control is not to dwell, then a thought wanders off. There is a point at which they stop wandering through, I've found.
There's apparently a world to be in, how are you being in it?
Like this!
Not to be flippant, though. I'm doin' it like I do it.
Quoting about not quoting has an integral inconsistency to it. The problem with quoting in general is that quotations can be used to represent authority rather than to present an idea (in this case, said more eloquently...)
In the grander scheme, you're absolutely right, the thoughts are all coming from the same source... I have a mental image of my life and Merton's, each a meandering line, crossing though a little glistening bead of thought. That's nice.
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