Materialism #1: Of Change, Imperative and Impermanent

[This post is a detour from my usual discussion of books. Once in a while, when a particular idea strikes me, I’d like to spend a few pages meditating on it, drawing from books, music, TV, and the rest. Since these posts will directly address the titular “Materials for Living,” I’ll call them, for lack of a better pun, “Materialisms.”]

I rewatched some old Simpsons episodes recently, and I was struck by how poignant and well-written the early episodes are. One I remember particularly is Lisa’s Substitute, wherein Homer’s inadequacy as a father is brought to light when Lisa develops a crush on her substitute teacher, Mr. Bergstrom. The episode is funny enough, but it’s the climax that really makes it stand out. Whereas a normal show would have made Bergstrom’s departure the focus of the final act, he leaves the episode with minutes to spare. The last scene, instead, focuses on what was left in his wake; Lisa, having seen what it’s like to have a strong male role model – someone who’s cultured, attentive, and holds her hand when he takes her to museums – realizes what a poor father Homer has been and calls him out at dinner. It’s an outburst that has been building all episode, and when it happens, it has the clockwork inevitability of real life.

More relevant to today’s discussion, however, is the episode Team Homer. Mr. Burns becomes the unwitting financier of Homer’s bowling team, and when he finds out, he asks to join instead of releasing the hounds on him. Burns chalks up his surprising request to one of his “trademark changes of heart.” When they win the league championship, Burns discards the rest of the team and keeps the trophy for himself, causing Homer to muse, “I guess some people never change,” and then correct himself: “Or they quickly change and then quickly change back.”

The feeling that I want to write about was put into words for me for the first time in Eeeee Eee Eeee by Tao Lin. When Ellen’s mother reminds her of something she once did as a child, Ellen becomes indignant that her mother is bringing something up from the past:

“ ‘That wasn’t me. I mean, I can’t be held accountable for anything I’ve done in the past,’ Ellen said. She was startled a little. Was this true? ‘Each moment… is just a moment. Time is like, a thing. And space is another thing. You wouldn’t say I’m responsible for things occupying other spaces, like everyone killing everyone else in wars or beating a wife. So you shouldn’t say I’m responsible for things that occupy other areas of time.’ She was excited. It made sense. She felt like she could do things now. Play and be wild and not have to be afraid or nervous anymore. Then the feeling passed. She could do nothing. She couldn’t play with anyone. The feeling always passed.’”

The feeling always passed.

This reminds me of three separate things. The first, just briefly, is the song “Lua” by Bright Eyes, where the final line of the verses is a variation on a theme:

“What’s so easy in the evening by the morning’s such a drag.”

“What was so normal in the evening by the morning seems insane.”

“What’s so simple in the moonlight now is so complicated.”

And so on. The feeling always passed.

The second is this relevant xkcd. I’ll withhold my thoughts about The Game for a separate post, perhaps, because it’s the second-to-last panel that I want to focus on. An epiphany is defined as a moment of sudden revelation or insight, but in the cartoon, the girl doesn’t talk about a single epiphany, but a multitude, a parade of moments, one after another, wherein the character thinks he has fixed his life. She holds him accountable for failing to follow through, for treating moments of clarity like a string of one-night-stands.

But is he accountable? Epicurus would say that the most intense feelings are also the most fleeting. Epiphanies are by their very nature unsustainable. That strengthening of resolve that urges your blood to rush and makes you feel invincible can’t last. People change, but they quickly change back; the feeling always passes.

The final reference is what compelled me to write this post. In my reading of The Brothers Karamazov, I encountered the following passage. Father Zosima is telling stories from his life, and spends a while on a mysterious man he met who confessed to him in secret (before he became a monk) that he had killed a man. In ministering to him, Zosima says, “And he would go away seeming comforted, but next day he could come again, bitter, pale, sarcastic.” The feeling always passed.

Perhaps I was drawn to write this post because I’m at one of those do-or-die moments in life (though you could argue that every moment is a do-or-die moment). In my daily reading, I sometimes come across passages that inspire me, and in a moment of clarity, I suddenly know how to start a story or continue one or finish another. And then when I start writing, when I actually have to put my jumbled thoughts into words, the feeling passes. The feeling always passes, and it makes me wonder what I’m doing with my life. To paraphrase one of my desert-island, top-five favorite movies, High Fidelity, only people of a certain disposition are frightened of not knowing what to do with their lives at the age of 22, and I am of that disposition. Nevertheless, it’s a very real worry, that the ideas I have that stir me to action are unambiguously impotent.

Even the resolve to write this post waned. I thought of it in the middle of the night (cue every Taylor Swift song ever) when all the above quotes appeared in my mind like planets aligning, and I knew I had something. But in the morning, when the pragmatic light of day dispelled all simple, quiet darkness, those quotes were there, but nothing else. I could do nothing. The feeling always passed.

Perhaps it’s the strength of each epiphany that makes its dissipation all the more devastating. It’s hard not to place grand significance on moments when everything comes together, but when their powers invariably ebb, I don’t think there’s a reason to disparage them and blame yourself, the way the xkcd girl does. Maybe the true significance of epiphanies is the gradual change they bring about.

I am thinking of the sorites paradox, attributed to Eubulides of Miletus, a philosopher who was a contemporary of Aristotle (and apparently hated him, which makes him a pretty cool guy to me). The paradox can be formulated in this way: assume you have a pile of sand, from which you remove one grain. Undoubtedly, you would still call it a pile. In fact, if you removed another twenty or thirty, or even one hundred grains, it would still maintain its pile-ness. But if you can continue this indefinitely, you’ll eventually be left with just one grain, which would be a poor excuse for a pile. So at what point does a pile stop being a pile?

Let’s look at it the other way around. If you start with just a single epiphany, it is unable to elicit any meaningful change, just as a single grain of sand is not a pile. Indeed, even a few dozen epiphanies, as xkcd points out, may not induce any real change. But when the number of epiphanies grows, it must pass a point when the set of epiphanies becomes a permanent change without one noticing it – maybe because each epiphany brought forth a miniscule, but nonzero, change, or maybe because things can only change when they’re not being watched.

My point is this: The disappearance of each individual epiphany can be devastating, but focusing on it is not seeing the forest for the trees. Change isn’t quick or easy. It’s a very American mindset to think that life-altering insights will come without working for them (think self-help books and New Year’s resolutions). Just because the feeling passes doesn’t mean it wasn’t significant and won’t be significant down the road. As Shakespeare said, Don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it happened.

In just a day or two, I’ll post an entry on Part II of Brothers K, followed by Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned.