Fate: Bound By What We Don't Want To See

Our Great Books Redux rolled through Oedipus Tyrannos and Oedipus at Colonus. John McGowan is taking us through the "trilogy" in the order of writing - starting with Antigone and followed by these two. Our discussion was animated and insightful but foundered on the concept of fate.

The Greeks were clear that there was such a thing as fate, but our modern mind of increased powers denies the concept - the fundamentally human and, to my way of thinking, primary theme of the Oedipus Tyrannos and Oedipus at Colonus works. Dr. McGowan outlined two approaches to these works - a conservative one and a radical one. 

In the conservative view, Oedipus is not a hero but an atheist who attempts to fight his fate and thus the gods. In the radical view, Oedipus is a hero as he attempts to address the huge gap between what is divinely ordained and the humanly acceptable. In these terms, I find myself a radiservative - with elements of both views.

Fate is fate. We can will what we want, but we can't we will what we will. Fate gives rise to a notion of powerlessness and that seems fatalistic. Yet, accepting powerlessness as limitation is the basis of sanity as opposed to the insanity of Greek-termed hubris. Oedipus was reactive as he heard his fate and moved through three of the four Fs: flight (from "home"), fight (killing his father), f (with his mother). All of these Fs assist in removing conscious attention from reality. But the body knows.

Oedipus's name is rooted in a Greek cognate that "he knows something." Oedipus exhibits a long-term "willful blindness" (as one of the classmates perfectly put it) that is how we function in today's world - making these plays as relevant as ever. In twelve step programs, the essential power given to the recovering person is "in-sight" - the ability to see her or his role in life. Oedipus's journey is one of accepting his fate and moving to surrender. His surrender is how that huge gap between what is divinely ordained and humanly possible is closed and, in that, a model for all of us.

Embracing the idea of fate, then, is critical to accept to gain the fullness of the play's meaning. Incest and parricide are introduced to simply elevate the terms of the acceptance of fate. Great fates require no surrender. In surrender is power and Oedipus's awful fate requires great surrender - which he ultimately achieves through the peer support of Theseus. 

We, too, live in a world of fate but our "willful blindness" makes that of Oedipus look puny. While we exhibit enormous individual latitude, the dynamics of probability indicate on a law of large numbers, we continue to head inexorably towards our individual and collective fates. Acceptance of that sets our feet on solid ground and builds towards the fifth F: freedom.

It's All Power, All the Time: Reality

Given that power is primary and occurs within the context of a unity, the maximization of power is reality - that elusive presence clouded by our perspective and our imagination. Sadly one of the most recurring patterns to minimize power is to engage in "efforting."

I came across "efforting" when I was dropping my son off at Princeton University for a Ph.D in Math. I had some free time so I took a yoga class at the local Y. As we were doing various poses, the teacher came over to me to get me to stop "efforting." I thought she was nuts and went ahead with my "efforting."

Of course I did. I had been "efforting" my whole life. What the yoga teacher pointed out was a valuable insight and was similar to my running coach who advised me to keep breathing through weight training exercises. To move my breath or prana smoothly or efficiently meant that I needed to be positioned in such way that I could maintain my pose for a long period. 

Basically we all recognize how quickly we tire if we hold our arms out to the side even with little or no weight. The reason is that I don't have any ground support. I have to be "efforting" the whole time. However, if I can rest my arms on some ground supports, I still get the benefits of extending stretch but without the tension introduced by "efforting." "Efforting" takes away power in order to express power. 

The concept of asana in yoga is designed to offset this efforting. An asana is a pose of being that allows for smooth breathing as well as some expression of stretch or movement. In order for the asana to be maximally effective, I try to find the grounding or structural support. Prior to this emphasis on grounding, my yoga movements were labor intensive and athletic endeavors. The healing properties of yoga eluded me.

In the same way as this occurs physically, my "efforting" can show up mentally. To maximize power in the mental area relies on what Spinoza causes adequate ideas. Basically, our inadequate ideas are those configured by our imagination. These "efforting" structures of the mind rely on our continued reiteration to make them "real." Adequate ideas, on the other hand, need little support because they are grounded properly.

Yet like my tendency to be tense all over when I simply flex my toes, my habits of mind to connect to a series of imaginations when I engage in new ideation. The most power series of imaginations are those which become purpose-driven. Like "efforting," purpose-driven patterns indicate that the power is at the end of the rainbow when in fact it lies at the beginning. 

It's all Power, All the Time: Unity as Breath

The primacy of power that I described in an earlier post combined with its bad general reputation is not good for clarity of thought. If fundamental truths are ignored, elaborate systems are contrived to provide work arounds to avoid the truth. 

At one point, the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous trumpets "lack of power is our dilemma." Having tried every self-help approach, the authors of the Big Book finally conceded that lack of power was the primary issue so that led to a search for the necessary power "to restore sanity."

If power is primary, then the primary principle of power is unity. The reason love songs dominate musical charts is because the natural pattern of love is unity. As two become one, so power is increased. But right there is how we avoid power as primary. It sounds callous to say they are together for power unless you are a friend of mine who claims, "she married me for my body, but keeps me for my money."

But unity starts at home. Spinoza describes singular things as those which have complex parts but all express as one effect - elegantly connecting unity to power. The word yoga comes from the sanskrit word "yuj" for unity or oneness. (Give me another year of Covid and sanskrit will be mine!) The emphasis of yoga is to establish an internal unity so that the body functions as a whole as if a well-directed orchestra, rather than fighting within itself through internal divisions of body and mind as a dissonant experience. What's yoga's secret to this?

The essence of yoga is breathing rooted in the word prana as "breath-spirit." In breathing the body is unified. Underlying this concept is the term spiritual which is just Latin for breath. In the Big Book, the authors are looking for a spiritual solution. Here breath is connected to unity is connected to power. Breathing is the fundamental way that we experience unity which brings power. But its regularity and continuity hides its characteristics.

The first time I became aware of breathing as an act was when I was working out with a personal trainer. She assured me that holding my breath while I bench pressed weights was not helpful. That struck me. Why was I doing that counterproductive activity? It's simply that I perceived that by shutting down all activities except for the bench press would lead to a better outcome. But it doesn't; unity always outperforms division.

Breathing is all important. Longer out breaths drive a slowdown in a cooling of the unity and shorter out breaths drive a ramp up in a heating of the unity. Pranayama is a set of breath exercises that are not only designed to enhance unity but express that unity in different ways.

It's All Power, All the Time

Recently I had a discussion about Kanye's interview with David Letterman concerning Kanye's "maximum expression of self" concept. I shared that it was rooted in power. That provoked some pushback because power has a bad connotation - an unfortunate aspect of the current times.

Power is what we are after. It's a manifestation of the reactive and diminished thoughtfulness of today's environment that power is bad but empowerment is good; that police are bad, but policing is good. If empowerment does not lead to more power, then what does the word mean? If more power is not good, how can empowerment be good? (Of course, empowerment does indicate a connection and a larger sense of self. But that is the essence of power - two are always more powerful than one.)

In a parallel way, I noticed that Oedipus Tyrannos is the name of Sophocle's play. Tyrannos translates to the English cognate of "tyrant." But in fact the Greek meaning of the word did not connote abuse or cruelty as it does for us today. Instead, it simply indicated someone that did not gain rule through heredity - more of the "self-made person" idea.

In Spinoza's framework, the Latin language has two words for power: potentia and potestas. Potentia is relatable to its English cognate of potential as virtual power or energy. It's similar to an untapped resource. Of course that sense of power is always good and there is an aspect in which empowerment is about resourcing those who lack resources. 

But potestas as in manifest power is what's gotten the bad name. My high school English teacher had an aversion to potestas when he quoted, "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." In some ways, this journey of the word tyrannos from "self-made ruler" to "cruel and abusive ruler." The increased focus on historical misuses of power has similarly given power as potestas a bad name. There is some inevitability here.

To have "maximum expression of self" means that one expands limits. In most situations, this maximization of self-expression comes at a cost to someone or something else. There are rare situations, like exercise or meditation, which don't compete for limited resources. But in addition to an attempt to expand self-expression, there is an attempt to at least maintain power. This, too, is inevitably a failure as attempts to maintain power become attempts to thwart the emerging power of others (by say innovation or competition).

In the corporate world there is always a journey from doing things for the customer to doing things to the customer. This is not sinister, but is a manifestation of the same power dynamic. At some initial period, a corporation expresses potentia and emerge to meet an unmet need. For example, look at Google's quick and powerful emergence. However, once that emergence has occurred, potestas is present. Now the phase of doing to the customers emerges in attempts to maintain and expand that power. 

Jeff Bezos identified this as he attempted to focus on Amazon always considering his business on Day 1. On Day 1 for any business, the mission is clear - delight the customer by exceeding expectations. By making the virtual idea of pleasing others a reality of exceeding expectations, potentia is shaped beautifully into potestas.

This is a natural cycle for individuals as well as corporations. Calling power a bad thing is inaccurate and inevitably leads to blind spots in self-management and social policy. Instead, accepting as reality the dynamics of power leads to frameworks which facilitate power in an organic cycles of change. As Spinoza posits, "reality and perfection are the same thing."

Philosopher Kanye West

Recently I watched an interview of Kanye West by David Letterman. I had anticipated that the insightful David Letterman would reveal Kanye to be the mad man of his reputation. Letterman certainly attempted to establish that. But by the end of the interview, the positions were exactly reversed for me. 

The crux of my reversal was Kanye's view that we are all about maximal expression of self. This position is the basis for his musical journeys and his clothing lines. This sometimes right, sometimes wrong, but always Kanye approach is also the basis for his controversial support of Donald Trump. While not endorsing Trump's articulations, he strongly supports Trump's attempt to articulate his views.

Since freedom for maximal expression of self has always conflicted with an obligation towards the feelings and beliefs of others, why has this topic turned into such an issue? It seems to me neither a higher level of sensitivities or in-sensitivities is to blame. That mistakes effect for cause. Instead, the morphing from the limited range of the power of advertising soundbites into the limitless bounds of memes through the internet turns up crazy for all involved.

This emphasis on maximal expression of self struck me as Spinozist and sane. Spinoza argues for a concept of conatus which defines our essence as an attempt to perservere in one's self. Spinoza's position put him as an early advocate of free speech and democracy. Yet conatus is most easily viewed physically, or as Spinoza puts it, within the attribute of extending. For Spinoza, every mode with an aspect of extending also has an aspect of thinking. Kanye's concept of maximal expression of self is the interior and thinking aspect of conatus. 

This maximal expression of self seems better than "the pursuit of happiness" structured into our nation's founding document. Certainly "life" is the physical notion necessary to individual development and "liberty" is the contextual importance. But liberty spent in the pursuit of happiness is poorly connected to real self. Better stated, liberty in the pursuit of maximal expression of self is rooted in the unique characteristics of an individual.

David Letterman was unable or unwilling to hone in on Kanye's point. Letterman appeared to approach the interview with preconceptions designed to caricature the interviewee. Kanye was open and honest about his struggles with mental health, describing a sprained brain syndrome that caused him to tend to ramp up. But Kanye revealed that the madness did not lie within Kanye, but within the collective crowd, included Letterman, obsessed with defining self by not offending others.