The worst: we were scarcely ten people. The best: the rest. On Thursday 12th June Xavier Rubert de Ventós gave a talk in the Josep Soler Vidal Library, in Gavà. He started with some strokes of the brush about his book Filosofia d’estar per casa (Homemade Philosophy) and finished with a speech which I think sould have been the first of a series. Pity he must be fed up with this kind of activity and moreover doesn’t need it to earn a living. You really feel small in front of someone with his knowledge and thinking level.

Let me share it with you for a little while -or let’s say a little long while, as the whole thing is worth it-.

FIRST PART: HOMEMADE PHILOSOPHY.

Stroke 1: To pretend and to die

We can have quite a natural attitude when near to somebody who is to die soon if this somebody doesn’t know it. However, when the sick person is well aware of the situation, it becomes uncomfortable to look at him or her in the eyes. This uneasiness can force us to run away from the dying person, precisely when we may be more needed than ever. Rubert explained the real case of a friend who knew she was going to die soon. Her friends knew it also. She pretended to ignore the seriousness of her illness not to find herself deserted by her friends. What a coward behaviour, what a deep cruelty that of ours when “forcing” a dying person to pretend in order to keep us around.

Stroke 2: Sport and war

The fact that many sports have had their origin in Great Britain and Japan can be owed to their being conqueror countries, the inhabitants of which are warriors in the spirit and in the praxis. Coping with the war vitality in periods of peace or lack of epic aims can be difficult and sport was a perfect sollution. The sport rules, which must be obeyed, also help to appease the men’s “military melancholy”.

Stroke 3: Electricity and macaronis

Machines are, probably, superior to men in some aspects, but these aspects are all related to what we could name “the output”, or response capabilities. Indeed, computers can and will be able to make an infinitely higher number of operations per second than any of us. However, the human race is able to live on varied “inputs”: cod with vegetables, fruit, tea pastries or whatever that comes to your mind, while the machines must pray not to run out of electricity supply. It’s what Rubert calls “the electricity and the macaronis”.

I must say I disagree about this. The macaronis and the tea pastries will not give the human beings longer lives than those of many of the machines Rubert considers “inputingly” inferior. Moreover, the electricity can not be considered the only energy source for machines any more…

Stroke 4: Demography and technology

As paradigm of the synthesis, we might say that in the First World objects are cheap and men are expensive. On the other hand, in the Third World objects are expensive and men are cheap. Hence the endorsing of sacrifice in certain cultures, whereas it would be quite unthinkable to practice it in the First World.

Stroke 5: Let’s tell jokes!

We must be feel grateful for the capacity a joke can have to make people understand concepts instantly. The philosopher told a joke as example, but I can’t put it down in words here because I don’t know how to give it the correct sense in English. You can have a look at the spanish or catalan version of this blog and try to understand if you like.

He had us completely fascinated at this point. I can easily imagine our funny fool faces. And he decided to cast the brushstrokes aside and explain what his way to make philosophy was.

SECOND PART: THE THINKING

The bird, the prince, love, Freud and polar bears

The bear:

The human being has always struggled to explain “how” things happen, since “what” happened was plain enough. Religion in the first place and science afterwards -or even both at the same time- have tried to approach this “how”, in a more or less persistent way, with what Rubert calls a “primitive or neurotic instinct”. He used this Mafalda strip as example:

Oh, boy! But then Heisenberg comes and formulates what can be easily applied to philosophy: observation of a particle can alter its environment and the particle itself, thus spoiling the observation. Phenomena are infinitely diverse, and claim a different attention when approaching each, a suitable attention that does not alter their essence.

There’s also a story about it. Rubert was on holiday. While strolling he found a bird that had fallen down of its nest. He took it in his hand. While looking at it, he felt how brittle it was, but also realized that he could not carry it in every way. If he relaxed his grip the bird would slip down, but it would definitely die if squeezed.

Just like the bird, children and Heisenberg’s particle, people and things ask for a concrete and individual attention that is the suitable one not to achieve a complete understanding about them, but to start thinking. If we don’t know how to dose reflexive attention, we will probably find ourselves observing altered things which have been driven away from the reality we want to study.

Summarizing: Each thing must be given the suitable attention.

The prince and love:

The second important thing to take into consideration -directly from the former one- is that a maximum of consciousness, attention or memory is not always the best level to reach. The example: He said that every time he’s liked a woman, he’s liked her best when she has not been looking at him directly in the eyes. This being happy because of the existing itself of the beloved person and the pleasure of observing him or her act freely, at a distance, is important and must be there as ancillary material, so to speak, apart from the embrace or the physical union that, on the other hand, fill an important and undeniable emotional gap.

Here is again the idea of observing the environment without it reacting to our presence, in order not to feel like the prince who, tired of seeing girls faint full of pretended love in sight of his golden crown, decides to go out in rags to get them act natural and value him as human being.

Freud:

We must also relax attention. Freud said that the psychoanalyst must not sit by the patient like a hound, with highly stressed senses to discover the hidden trauma. On the contrary. He must keep calm and let the patient talk. No doubt in any corner of the conversation, in the more unexpected attitude, the doctor will find the answer he is looking for. An over-strained attitude can lead you to a total failure, just like the one we get when we are looking for a book we are reading but we are sure that we have closed it and left it somewhere and are not able to see we have it opened in front of us. As Freud says, we have to achieve a “floating attention” that makes us capable of receiving a stimulus that can come to us from anywhere.

Polar bears:

What about memory? Do we have to know the answers to the environment by heart and repeat them in a thoughtless way? No. Thanks to evolution the human body has reached an optimized use of the muscles, them giving an automatic answer some times -as the heart or the stomach do- or a voluntary one, like that of the striated muscles. We must not act like the polar bear that came every day out from its ice cave when the sun raised, stood facing it and came back to the cave at sunset. Moved to the equator, the bear heated up in the sun -as it used to do- but the sun did not hide and he simply died. Our task is to know when we have to modify the learned behaviors, and which ones we can repeat. It’s the way to survive.

Summarizing: To maximize is not always to optimize.

The spark that lights up the thinking

So when do we start thinking? When can we use all this theory? Rubert de Ventós told us when he did: When he felt something was tuneless, when something got him worried. He used the words of a French philosopher whose name I don’t remember: “My disliking for the things I dislike is bigger than my liking for the things I like”. Clear enough, isn’t it?

THE END

One of us asked him wether he had reached those conclusions thanks to the experience or his personality. “Probably thanks to my personality” -he said. And he linked the answer to a tender, stimulating story about his childhood, about how his father’s strictness made him feel uncomfortable as he repeated the same statements over and over again, no matter how right he was, about how his mother was capable of absorbing the environment and filtering it through her sensitivity to produce an absolutely personal vision of it without spoiling it, about how he always admired this skill of hers…

Flexibility, sensitivity, moderation. Sentences to remember. A well-known one:

“The experience is a great teacher which kills all of its disciples.”

And three by the teacher himself:

“The great consensus are based on complicity rather than on analytics of the subject.”

“To be vulnerable and receptive is not easy.”

“Our particular option of life entails renunciation. We must be very aware of that and accept it.”

That’s all, there you have all the words. I keep the good aftertaste of the talk, the intention of reading some books by Xavier Rubert de Ventós and, above all, the admiration for somebody that feels so great to listen to. Because he has a calm attitude, because he is incredibly polite and warm, because he doesn’t make a dogma out of anything and because when you don’t agree and tell him so, he doesn’t raise an eyebrow and tightens arrogantly: he bents slightly down towards you, he looks at you in the eyes with everlasting intelligence and curiosity, always ready to make a discovery, and he asks you: “Why do you think that?”

What a big pleasure.

≡ Category: Lifetime | ≅ Leave a comment

When everything seems to be perfect…

Que n’és, de bonic!
Papers
ara nyap, carn de deixalles,
mals records, pobres rondalles
que no has de llegir mai més.

Que n’és, de bonic!
Carrers
sota petja amorosida
flonjos, flaire d’herba humida,
eren cingles, són recers.
Que n’és, de bonic
l’excés
si de pit que torna al dia
oblidant gasiveria
l’aire en glops escadussers.
Que n’és de bonic
després
ploma en mà d’infant terrible
roc fer cor irreversible
escrivint a l’inrevés.
I el so de la veu que et crida
perquè ets tu, i ets feta a mida,
que n’és de bonic…
que n’és!

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Jun

5
' '

El animal moribundo (The dying animal), by Philip Roth: Emotional Stendhal

• This day in History:

  

The Internet. What a great invention. A friend tells me where to find the book, an order… and in a couple of days I have the precious thing in my hands (the book, not the friend).

Todays post reminds me of Ramon. He is actor and director, a good friend and my cleverest theatre teacher. Although sometimes I’ve had the pleasure of seeing him on TNC stage, his luck in the theatre world has not been as big as I think his talent deserves. Show business is as random as ungrateful.

Ramon has read lots of theatre scripts. He loves american authors like Tennessee Williams, Lillian Hellman or William Inge. He says they have the cleverness to tell ‘thick’ stories -in the emotional meaning of the word- in a subtle and light way, making things happen before you eyes without even noticing… and all of a sudden you realize your stomach is all in a knot and you won’t get rid of that feeling easily. He got me first engaged in the subject when I translated Picnic for him and he directed us afterwards. More translations followed, three pieces by Inge and one by Hellman (fantastic The children’s hour, adapted for the film with the same title).

That’s why I can say I agree with Ramon. And when I finished The dying animal I had the same feeling, some kind of emotional Stendhal Syndrome. The book had hit so many sore spots I was unable to say which one hurted more deeply. To put it clear, I liked it a lot. I will attempt to bring a little structure to my reasons:

The writing: Short, categorical sentences are used, but they’re soft at the same time. Can you be poetic using plain words? Sure. It’s a simple (well, not at all simple) matter of style. And Philip Roth succeeds.

Men: We could debate this subject for hours, but men -fortunately!- are not the same as women, neither physically nor in the brain. Let’s accept this from the beginning and be happier, instead of encouraging male chauvinism and feminism which simply shouldn’t exist, as equality as human beings should be taken for granted. The thing is that David Kepesh, the main character, speaks from his masculine point of view, clearly, sometimes in a hard way, without hypocrisy; you may agree or not with his attitudes, but this counterpoint to metrosexuality is surprisingly rewarding.

Women: Anthropology has its rules. The role of women in David’s life is so familiar that it does not surprise not even shock; he sometimes gives his partial oppinion about them, but also describes how the women in his social environment have lived their lifes, and he does it in an accurate, delicate way. He loves women, searches them, wants them to help him run away from what will chase him sooner or later; from what will find him, like all of us, alone.

Tenderness: In the end there’s a deep solitude, the absolute lack of warmth; the body is brave when it doesn’t need to pay attention to time passing. Sincerity remains, but the need has changed. Tenderness appears when seeing that the strong ones can be very weak, and men very childish, and women not girls anymore, sometimes… am I speaking on behalf of Mrs. anthropology now? Maybe.

The subjects: Politics, culture, love affaires, fear, sex, parents and sons, friends, health… I would rather say “life”. From one scene to another, using brilliant invisible transitions, you end up fanning yourself without knowing how you opened the fan.

My friend Japuso and el veí de dalt have already seen Elegy. They say it’s a good film and I trust their good taste, so I’ll see it as well, even though I guess it won’t impress me the way the book has.

It’s said that you always must reach a conclusion. To structure the emotions soup has been difficult, but conclusion is clear: All of us have been, or are, and definitely will be, dying animals.

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Jun

3
' '

Alliteration

• This day in History:

  

When everything seems to be against you… (Time for Catalan)

Vel: valen les bales
volen cel·les, sales,
assimilen ales,
sil, cel sense sol.
Cony! Canya, cap conya;
renys, terreny de ronya
verge de vergonya
que estreny el grinyol
com clava la pua;
pou, por, cor, corrua,
Neu: nou niu, nau nua,
Nat net? Nit: ningú.
Fong: fang, foc: agafa.
No veus que t’esclafa?
no estofis l’estafa,
veu, viu. Té, tot: TU.

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