Winter XVI. Art is long... + Dogs & men

Intro & Preface & Contents

Previous: Winter XV. Treehouse

I have been dull to-day, haunted by the thought of how much there is that I would fain know, and how little I can hope to learn. The scope of knowledge has become so vast. I put aside nearly all physical investigation; to me it is naught, or only, at moments, a matter of idle curiosity. This would seem to be a considerable clearing of the field; but it leaves what is practically the infinite. To run over a list of only my favorite subjects, those to which, all my life long, I have more or less applied myself, studies which hold in my mind the place of hobbies, is to open vistas of intellectual despair. In an old note-book I jotted down such a list -- “things I hope to know, and to know well.” I was then four and twenty. Reading it with the eyes of fifty-four, I must needs laugh. There appear such modest items as “The history of the christian Church up to the Reformation” -- “all Greek poetry” -- “The field of Medieval Romance” -- “German literature from Lessing to Heine” -- “Dante!” Not one of these shall I ever “know, and know well”, not any one of them...

It all means, of course, that, owing to defective opportunity, owing, still more perhaps, to lack of method and persistence, a possibility that was in me has been wasted, lost. My life has been merely tentative, a broken series of false starts and hopeless new beginnings... If I could but start again, with only the experience there gained! I mean, make a new beginning of my intellectual life, nothing else, O heaven! nothing else. Even amid poverty, I could do so much better...

And, in doing so, become perhaps an owl-eyed pedant, to whom would be for ever dead the possibility of such enjoyment as I know in these final years. Who can say? Perhaps the sole condition of my progress to this state of mind and heart which makes my happiness was that very stumbling and erring which I so regret.

Alpha.

His strong finish here makes up for a weak middle. That you could have lived your life so much better if only -- fill in the exception -- is such a natural fallacy. There are a wide range of things I feel I know and even a few I believe I know well, but the range of things I know incompletely or not at all is even vaster than Gissing could have imagined. There are books I wish I had read sooner, but more that I feel I read at just the right time. And even those books, had I read them earlier, I would not have understood or enjoyed in the way I understand and enjoy them now. Rather, I suspect much of the time I spent reading philosophy in my late teens and twenties was mostly wasted and could have been better spent on other things -- but I was interested then in the same subjects that interest me now, and I have never understood why other people choose to put off or ignore the most profound questions. And as little as I “got” then, I do feel it set the table for my later reading. If the past few years are any indication, I expect my 60s to be my most productive decade when it comes to intellectual pursuits. Without any plan to speak of, I seem to be heading in the direction of filling in the great gap in my knowledge of history and related subjects between Classical and Modern times. The four centuries prior to the most recent two, are, if not a dark age, at least a dim age for me, and I’m working to correct that.

Dogs and ants and people.

This probably belongs back with HR’s section about blackberries satisfying his hunger. Nature tends to generously meet the needs of its members -- except when it doesn’t. Horses, deer, squirrels, birds, all live off the fat of the land as do insects... and in so many curious ways. Humans too, in their hunter-gatherer and even subsistence agricultural manifestations, are well supplied by nature. Anyone with any experience of gardening is familiar with the sometimes frightening fecundity of zucchini and other kitchen garden staples. To go a bit further, nature will (for the non-vegetarian) turn a few chickens, sheep, cows, or goats -- plus any random forage -- into an endless supply of protein. It's only when we specialize, urbanize, and populate ourselves out of this State of Nature, that the bounty of nature becomes monetized and we are forced to work for our living.

When I see a beggar with a dog, a common sight here, I have complete sympathy with the dog but little with the human. If there were horses or goats around, my sympathy would be even more engaged. Why am I so much more judgmental about people not being “productive” than I am about dogs or cats or horses? I do have a special fondness for bumblebees, but not for ants or other bees that are similarly industrious. Is this a result of my Protestant upbringing? Part, perhaps even most, of my lack of sympathy is a consequence of how the more feral of these denizens of the street trash my neighborhood. If they didn’t leave a trail of clothes, blankets, urine, and feces behind them, I might view them differently, as I did in the now distant past.

But it’s still more than that. When I see these dogs I see them as being “good” dogs -- doing what they are supposed to do which in this instance is protecting and supporting their human. Really, it’s not a bad life for a dog, though I worry about them getting fed regularly -- but then most house pets are over-fed while spending less social time than they would like with their “pack”.

My attitude towards these people is all the worse in that it contradicts my belief that people in general are doing what they are supposed to be doing. Though in my defense I don’t really care so much that they not live this way in general but that they not do it in my neighborhood. It’s not like I view them as being less virtuous than people working hard at pointless, but well paid, endeavors. The office drone contributing to a meaningless, and most likely destructive, global economy is at least not pissing on my building -- though he may be trashing the world in a more destructive, though less visible, manner. In fact, people living on the street -- despite the trash swirling around them -- are ideal citizens when it comes to consumption and carbon footprint. They are among the few people, in a Western society, who beat me when it comes to sustainable lifestyle. Perhaps it’s a combination of my Protestant background and my German and Scots fondness for visual order and tidiness. Now that I think of it, the only animal I can think of that does not live a life consistent with visual order and tidiness in the pig -- to be specific, the wild boar. In their tilling of the earth, they match man for self-centered destructiveness to the environment that sustains them.

Next: Winter XVII. History.