On exploration and the otherworldly darkness
The other day I was reading a theological passage that I had read in the past. After thinking about it again, I concluded once more that I disagreed with it. As I was about to expound on my thoughts, I paused and reflected on my behaviour. I was reacting to a proposition from a religion I am already not a believer of. What was I trying to achieve in voicing my disagreement? Perhaps to persuade people away from their religion? I do not care. Maybe to start a new religion? I have no such interest. To announce to the world that I simply am different in this regard? Nobody asked. There was no good enough “why” driving my actions. So I stopped.
I then realised how being too involved in your own head is correlated with misery. If I were to argue my case, I would then be potentially exposing myself to an open-ended discussion with those on the opposite camp. It would be a meaningless contest for me, as there was no “why” worth fighting for: my heart was not in it. In the process, I would begin to regret what I did and, should I persist in arguing, this feeling would turn into despair. Not because my argument would not be clever enough or because I would have second thoughts about myself. No. I would regret how mindlessly I behaved while overthinking something that is of no significance to me.
If you are deep enough in your thoughts, you grow distant from the world around you. At that stage, it is easy to become antagonistic towards others, to be hyperfocused on patterns they are oblivious to or do not care about, to judge them for not being the way they ought to, to argue with them at length about trivial issues, and simply, to not appreciate the funny—indeed, the pointless and comically absurd—side of things. In introspection/contemplation/exploration we can find riches, as we understand certain phenomena at a greater depth. What I have already covered is the product of such an introspective endeavour. Yet we also probe deeper into the depths, where there only is darkness.
The Greeks have an alternative name for Hades, the god governing the realm of the souls, else the underworld. This name is “Plouton”, which relates to wealth (ploutos (πλούτος) is the Greek word, which we know in English from “plutocracy”). I had thought about this moniker and considered it a euphemism. Kind of how the vastest ocean on the planet is the “pacific”, despite how dangerous those waters are. People are actually afraid of Hades and will use nice-sounding words to alleviate their fear. I also considered the literal interpretation, whereby the “under world” is rich in minerals and the like. Now I understand there is a profound allegorical meaning to such “wealth”, which is nevertheless consistent with the notion of a fearsome eventuality.
Hades, in this case, represents the otherworldly, the altogether alien to us. As humans, we occupy this realm of existence. We are not disembodied souls. What souls do is none of our business because in the here-and-now of our presence, we can only ever be present as human. We have needs of the body, such as to go to sleep and to feed ourselves. When we would rather think something intensely for an indefinite amount of time, the very reality of our physical constitution forces us out of the mental state into the practicalities of action. There is no escape from human nature while being human, no matter how intellectual or spiritual one is.
When we meditate (in the sense of “thinking intensely”), when we probe deeper into the depths of our being, we take a step closer to the otherworldly. Yes, this other world is very close to us, inside and all around. Just how the prevailing conditions at the depth of the ocean are far different than what we are accustomed to above sea level: they are really close, yet remain alien. Through meditation and the study involved we develop a greater sense of awareness about our subject and its surroundings. Aspects of reality become more acute and conspicuous. There is a great power therein. We use it to make better sense of the world and improve our material conditions. Such is the wealth we discover in the depths of the obscure and unknown.
Yet Hades—now the Hades within, the Hades around—remains the ruler of the otherworldly. The gates to that world are sealed shut. No human is allowed to enter and retain their humanity. Why? Because of the embodiedness of our experience. No matter how strong the meditative practice is, the fact of the body remains unchanged. It will continue to engender the familiar states of affairs, of need, of pleasure, of pain, of fatigue, regardless of how insightful the person is. Such is the anchoring in the reality of the human condition, that the otherworldly is decisively alien and shall not become one with the familiar.
Hades, Hades within, Hades at-large is not malevolent. We will not get harmed or be tricked by some agent of evil operating inside of or around us. Never. Rather, we will be harming ourselves if we insist on digging deeper into the depths, knocking on the gates of the underworld, while not recognising how it is untenable to only tend to the soul/sprituality/intellectuality while being embodied. Therein lies a fate of misery and suffering, for it is a condition of mismatching magnitudes: the mismatch between our actuality as human in the here-and-now of our humanity and the escapist mind that cannot come to terms with that is available in its milieu. This push and pull that unfolds across every fibre of our being is tearing us apart, figuratively speaking, which manifests as discontent.
In more prosaic terms, someone who pursues riches for their own sake is in fact miserable. Money can buy comforts which are a proxy for a good life, but only up to a certain point. Once it turns into an obsession, into an exercise of money-making for the goal of becoming more rich, it twists and inwardly corrupts the person. They can never enjoy all of that wealth. They become more distant from the everyday affairs, from all those little things that are fun and easygoing. This single-minded agent of money-making is not taking the time to appreciate what is all around them: the potential for genuine—non-transactional and without ulterior motives—connections with others and the experiences derived therefrom.
Such is the self-destructive fate of the inconsiderate theologian or philosopher or intellectual. It is fine to seek meaning and to delve deeper into the depths of ploutos within and around us. The key is to remember that we cannot go too far; that there is a life to be lived here and now. As such, we will conduct ourselves in moderation, to think but not to overthink, to explore but not to go missing, to argue but not to be pedantic. In the absence of such a moderate disposition, we will continue to go deeper where we shall only find the darkness of a world we do not belong to.