You've already been introduced to my son David, for
I've linked to two of his songs elsewhere in this blog [1,2], and he
wrote a guest posting praising the LSD-induced creativity of the 1950s-1960s
Bay Area [3].
Recently, David has seen several of his friends' fathers die. More acutely aware of the inevitable,
he has suddenly increased the frequency of his visits to me from London. It's a gesture that has deeply touched
me. Still, I feel like any or all
of the Jewish mothers in this venerable joke:
Mother 1: "My son is
an entrepreneur, starting companies left and right, but—bless him!—he writes to
me every day!"
Mother 2: "Huh!
My son runs a big multinational company, yet he finds the time to call me
each day from all parts of the world!"
Mother 3: "That's
nothing! My son, as busy as both of yours combined, spends an hour a day
just talking to his doctor about me!"
(Joking aside, I should here also thank my architect
daughter Abby, who calls me almost every evening—from all parts of the
world!—to chat and wish me good night.)
On his
most recent trip to California a few weeks ago, David and I explored our very
different views of the universe. My universe is random at its core and is
without any transcendental meaning.
His has a cosmic unity of which everything is a related part, so he sees the
whole and his place in it as having an ethereal purpose. Although neither of us is religious in
the practicing sense, I think our contrasting world views roughly register the
difference between two of the faces of the Jewish God that I earlier
discussed: Elohim and Adonai. The
former, the Creator of the universe, lets it unfold in chaotic ways and cares
not a fig for us mortals as we wend our way through His maelstrom. The latter acts as an agent who
transforms the chaos of creation into order and sanity, representing our
striving to make sense of our existence.
I relate to Elohim; I
believe that David would more likely cleave to Adonai. Of
course, since the central precept of Judaism is that God is One, a true
believer must accept the whole of this Janus-like deity, a position I think
neither of us can accept.
Our
differing viewpoints sometimes lead us to loggerheads. David holds that I am denying a vital
link to a spiritual mind-essence unifying all of creation. (I believe philosophers would call him
a panpsychist.) I can't fathom this: I point to my head
and insist, "What I am is only what's in here, no more, no
less!" On the other hand, he
cannot understand my passive acquiescence in an underlying dominion of
chance. Since our universes are so
different and each is so much a matter of metaphysical axiom, I often try to
bring our discussion to a close by using Wittgenstein's admonition, "Whereof
one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." I see no point in arguing about axioms.
On a
more mundane level, though, our disagreement is a study in irony. I, believing in the suzerainty of
disorder, have striven to establish localized order in my minute corner of the
cosmos, an attempt I liken to the possible but vastly improbable spontaneous
rushing of all air molecules into one corner of a room. He, convinced that there is a oneness
in all of existence, is unconcerned with random dislocations and anomalies,
which he thinks will work themselves out as a matter of karma. So here's the paradox: I try to
construct a preternaturally orderly life in spite of universal turbulence, and
he—who is unconcerned that life is buffeted by turbulence—calms his mind,
almost as a Buddhist, with a sense of cosmic unity and peace. Starting from such incompatible
foundations, we seem to have arrived at similar places, each with its own sort
of equanimity.
Are our
lives therefore that much different, given the polar philosophical axioms from
which we start? Except for a
35-year difference in age and therefore a generational difference in outlook,
and very different financial statuses, I'd say "No." We share the same concerns about
inequity and iniquity in the world, the same worries about the environment, the
same political outlook, the same moral code. In a word, our vast difference about the grand question of
the nature of the universe seems not to reflect itself all that much in how we
conduct ourselves in it. We should
be on different channels altogether, but it seems we operate instead mostly on
the same one.
Does that not say something about the value in everyday life of
philosophical disputation? The old
New York Jew that I am wants to say, "Philosophy, schmilosophy!"