Untimely Unearthed

 

Death unearths us. It can rip us untimely, roots and all, from the cracks and crevasses and detritus and dirt of our soils. The fertilizer that sustained us can get analyzed, evaluated, quantified. And others come to pick over our stuff, our mementoes, our photographs, our letters, our videos, and even the very essence of who we were. The eulogy most frequently becomes a bloated dispensation of our history. It balloons around our good life; it may chuckle at the bad. And being fully human, yet dead, we lie in ice-cold states of awaiting the glance, the touch, and even the kiss of others. Our soul, that ephemeral quality that actually finds no physical entity within us, is no longer visibly available, despite the speculations of any of the religions and philosophies to which we may have adhered. Time takes each of us, in turn.

Indeed, life makes for rattling one’s sabre. To be ‘fully human,’ as Morrie puts it, is the key. As Goethe put it: “You can tell the metal of a person by what gets their goat.” The differential between character, and personality, though, might be reviewed. As Dylan sings it, one is, “toiling in the danger, and in the morals of despair.” Character, then, becomes a matter of ethical choices, along with experience. Personality, like Elizabethan humours, appears more innate, more predicated on Zodiac signs, more congenital, and can even be more mercurial than character. Character is a rock upon which one’s house of conduct is erected; personality is the collection of accoutrements along the way, the which are largely determined by nature, and affected a little by nurture. Character, time and again, gives rise to actions based on consciousness, consideration, compassion, courage, and clear-headedness. It is the heart (to keep things simple) that governs emotions, fickle emotions, that are reactionary to the endemic sensibility of being sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, or melancholic in the first place. But with character, there is a marriage between heart and head that defines response, purpose, intent, and action. And so, integrity grows by one’s age, as does one’s ethical stances too. But personality, that colourful manque that clothes one to the grave, can wear different cloaks to hide its unfulfilled representations through our own ages. At death, though, one can indeed become rendered unconcealed, utterly revealed.

Encountering ethical challenges along the way is a test of living. Does one effectively change the choices of responses in our passage, or do we repeat our age-old habituations?  Are we really, truly, conscious, as much as is possible of the best choice for all parties involved? Intentionality becomes paramount. And awareness that others may not be able, or mature enough, or innately integrative enough, or wanting enough to adjust and to handle the truth becomes a great matter of sensitivity to the delicacy of each situation. Skill and care are part of character. Deception and deceit can be part of character too. And personality can conceal all, either way. A charming person can have great character; or might also be self-serving. Good character, essentially, comes wrapped in ethics. Personality is wrapped in presentation. And one adjudges each in one’s turn.

So then to come across the detritus of another’s lifetime, and to pick up this or that, with the fingerprints of the dead still very much on it, and to discard, dismiss, or disown the thing out of disassociation seems so sad in the face of another’s lifetime of collecting, of treasuring, of storing. But we all do it. We do it in Antique Shops, and in the wake of love. Sentimentality and pragmatism vie for possessions. The existentialism of our makeup determines that which we in our turn take to the grave. So then let us learn integrity, ethics, and actions beyond the mere impulses of our personality. And surely, at our own death, untimely as it may be, we’d rather not find ourselves by others become unnecessarily and embarrassingly unearthed.

Ekphrastic Expositions

 

Ekphrasis? One explains things from one’s own point of view. We expound with emotion, with insight, with knowledge, and even with a pleasurable amount of guesswork. So too do we live in the canvas of our lives. So too do we build upon our perceptions. And the original work, the poem, the painting, the photograph that we expound upon, given the creative springboard that gives rise to our own voice, is as ancient an ekphrastic exposition of our minds as would be a gift from a Greek muse.

Ekphrasis? It’s the big words that can be off-putting. The very chiaroscuro of our elucidations can be too much of a juxtaposition, and without a ready mental formula to deduce what is being read, or heard, the brain gives up. The ears tune out. We get bored. Why not just be simple? Collectively, we feel little responsibility toward assimilating every new concept. It is the rare individual, here and there, who wishes to ‘know everything.’ There simply is too much. Yet inherent to the ‘dumbing down’ of society, as we eschew big words for little ones, and as we hook into Hemingwayesque pithy pronouncements, such as those anchored in the sea of an Old Man, over a predilection for Victorianesque prolific phrasing, such as those surrurating amongst the shifting sands of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, is that the vitality and richness of a living language stalls. Keep it simple. Do not ask me to look up a word. Make your references clear. Do not ask me to look up a Title. Make your references obvious. Do not ask me to read for too long, listen for too long, watch for too long, sit for too long, converse for too long, or think for too long; I just want to scroll at my phone. Its screen does not challenge me to stick to something, unless it interests me. I can flick through stuff. I can text without worry about correct grammar. My auto type will correct spellings, most Lee. So what if it makes miss steaks.

The argument for clear articulation is a double-edged sword. Ekphrasis, at best, explores one’s thinking under the Damoclean concept of evolving spiritually, responsibly. But in conspiring freely, our self-awareness by contrast becomes a consummate concentration, enslaving us to self-centricity, egoism, and independent connection. Huh? Yes, we can connect with others across the globe, but at large we get to say what we want, independently, even irresponsibly, and indubitably self-serving. Our every action, however, impinges on all, not just around us.

Chiaroscuro? Day and night have their smudging hours. The middle ground of left and right is where action yields to compromise, to complicity, to compassion. Integration, by degrees, becomes a fuller acceptance. How to accommodate that our own throne of responsibility, which is the human condition, is to be under that sword of Damocles, where every thought, and action, can be questioned, usurped, overturned? Very few things in our world are absolutely and totally and inalterably ‘right’. We are, as a species, too easily fragmented, dissociative, warmongering, and contentious to be lumped into a wholesome group, such as those with the collective brain of termites, or bees, or butterflies. Our metamorphosis is generally individualized, and random, and even a choice, or not. Yet still, mankind evolves more by accident than by design, however much an individual’s chosen cultural group, or not, may control our thinking. At issue is the meaning behind ‘mankind’s evolving.’ Unless we are entirely given to all of us simultaneously becoming loving and compassionate towards each other, as a species, we remain primitive, collectively speaking. And therein lies the rub; integration, fully, would have one accept ‘all’.

Ekphrasis, then, is a Greek word meaning, ‘exploring with a detailed description’. But it is not about the selfies we take with our cell phones, or where we’ve been, what we’ve done, and what’s on our plate. It is rather about the degree of our sensibility of our responsibility toward The Whole. It is not about moralizing and controlling; it is about understanding. It is, after all, about one for all, and all for one.

Graduated Grades Theory

 

Hereby initiated, coined, theorized, full integration is not easy. There is no ultimate graduation. Individualized and abstract, the variegated shafts of the Grade Theory curriculum are neither predetermined, nor predestined. Attainments within any given Grade Level, and even from one Grade to another, are perhaps gradual, or perhaps in paradigmatic leaps. As such, insights and apprehensions are exciting, or subtle, or blends of both. And one may graduate from Grade Two to Grade Five, predominantly, or regress back down a single shaft to Grade One, at any age, or at any stage of one’s progress.

Put simply, a lifetime is seen in terms of passing through natural grades of maturation and comprehension, where predominant behavioral traits sustain one at any given Grade Level, while one may have perceptions and insights pertaining to all grade levels simultaneously. We may well attain levels of expertise in our differentiated curriculums, beyond our age group, that are observable, yet we can evidently still be out of our depth in foreign, unfamiliar, or challenging fields. Some will find such challenges invigorating. Others will baulk and retreat to their own comfort zones. Idiomatic, particularized, and empowering, we prefer the stance from which we may hold court, intellectually, spiritually, morally, physically, emotionally, and even politically.

Integration is not easily attained. Each model of mankind, however simplistic or complex, is perceived as a progress through levels of comprehension and attainment that determine one’s predominant proclivities, or behaviours. From Adler; within Graves; through Maslow; to Jung; we apprehend their integrative contentions, perhaps with sincere interest, but easily may forget the particulars of their curriculum, suggestions, or esoteric challenges. We generally are on our own pathway. Sometimes, we adhere to the group. Sometimes, we stick to our own beliefs. Sometimes we agree, disagree, vote, disavow, and absorb. Yet all along the months and years of one’s life, integration keeps challenging our humanity with its endlessness of more and more.

Being human, evidently, is a complex state. One is assailed by variability. Choices determine pathways, constraints, attainments, and patterns of behaviour. And behavioral patterns in turn become one’s predominant proclivities. Grade Theory is not about a naturally chronological maturation; it is about one’s endemic comprehension, absorption, integration, perception, and apprehension of the largely individualized curriculum inherent to one’s awareness. We take on the habits and customs of our forefathers, our tribe, our family, our friends, our school, our church, our political affiliations, our country’s cares, and our national identity. We can become racist, xenophobic, polarizing, and entrenched. Indeed, integration, full integration, absolute compassion, complete love, and utter understanding is not easily attained. Rather, we have glimpses and insights and momentary practices of them. We are, necessarily, self-protective, lest we find ourselves entirely dissipating into the morass of mankind, devoid of our own ego, smudged beyond our own boundaries, bereft of the curriculum vitae of our individual identity.

There are adults still in Grade Seven who realize Ph.D. aspects in themselves. There are post-doctorates who still need to perfect some Grade Three concepts. Being ontological does not make one epistemological. Meaning making is not always rational. To accept that each of us is highly differentiated in potential, yet sometimes may ‘naturally’ be graded and grouped, can be bristling to some. Yet to absorb, accept, include, and love everything and everybody, now there’s the rub. The Grade Theory, in conception, is hereby intended to help. Integration, after all, is all.