Between the Two

Recently, I wrote an essay that I never published, because it was a little on the dark side. It explored something I had on my mind at the time and couldn't shake, one of those questions you keep circulating in your stream of consciousness unresolved. Writing about those types of questions helps me sort them out a little, if sometimes only enough to put the question out there for others to discuss.

I had a number of reasons for not publishing it at the time, and still hesitate to do so now if it were not for the fact that several aspects of it’s core questions still plague me. But then I got to thinking recently—again—that I am not unique, never have been, and that someone out there is pondering the same basic question or questions.

The essay dealt with my lingering doubts about faith, belief, thought, and emotion. My position on these very basic aspects of our everyday life is something I have never been able to completely resolve, and the fact that I cannot resolve them is, in itself, an answer I suppose. Then again, I can’t imagine why I would be any better at resolving an argument for myself that philosophers have been unable to answer for the masses over the run of a few milennia.

At the heart of my argument with myself is the split in what most people see as modern philosophy. In layman’s terms—and please don’t mistake me for being far more educated or philosophically capable than I am—the two sides of modern philosophy are Dualism and Materialism.

Dualism is the idea that there are two realms, the physical and the metaphysical. Think of it this way: to subscribe to Dualism means that you believe that you have mind and body, and that thought is generated by the mind. You can also think of it in terms of the tangible and intangible. Dualism makes possible the idea that our thoughts and emotions are intangible things, just kind of out there, impossible to touch physically but no less real to us than the keyboard across which my fingers now dance. At some point in the history of man we tried to make these things more tangible by assigning places where they reside, such as the heart and mind, but we’ve come to understand that we are stretching what we know from modern science to do so.

Materialism is the opposite, far beyond that attempt to make thought and emotion reside somewhere within us. Materialism (not to be confused with the accumulation of wealth or things) is the belief that everything in the universe, ourselves and all of our thought, emotion, and belief, is the product of a physical process that takes place as far down as the atomic level. Someone in the Materialism camp would say that when I am happy or sad it is the result of a biochemical reaction taking place in my brain, which in turn triggers a number of other chemical and physiological reactions in the rest of my body and produces the feeling of euphoria or angst physically.

What is the importance of where I stand with or between these two positions (and why would anyone else care)? I’m sorry. I can’t answer that for you just yet. Despite the openness I feel I can express when I write, and in particular write to the audience I feel I am speaking to when I write, the significance of my is question delves deeper than I can comfortably express to anyone, even though it may be simple. And I think that what I was thinking at the time, and the question that I was unable to answer, is what is more important to examine.

Put simply, I was writing an argument against, yes, very much against, the concept of love. My position at the time was squarely rooted in Materialism, and it stated as much: that love was merely a product of the biochemical cocktail sloshing around in our brains, resulting in what we mistake for an emotion that we make far too important. I went on to argue that what we see as romantic love changes over time and becomes a functional and convenient compatibility. I further argued that when even that breaks down, the end result is a complete emotional and then physical separation of two people supposedly in love, and that current and longstanding divorce rates were great proof of that argument.

But I didn’t stop with love. I went on to attack faith and emotion as well, and eventually came smack up against God. And then, that is where the essay and my thoughts paused.

You are probably thinking right about now, “Geez Cody, you were feeling a little pessimistic at the time, now weren’t you?” And you would be correct. I was. And I recognize that now. Which is why that moment, that essay, and those thoughts all came back around, why I thought of them again. Sometimes I like to explore why I think or feel something at a particular moment and think or feel something else completely different at another time, even if it may not interest another soul on the planet. My recent feelings have been a stark contrast to those at that time.

The pause I mentioned, the moment where I could not progress my argument any further, was the point at which my argument turned on itself. Despite my logic and pessimism, I could not give myself over completely to a complete lack of faith or complete hopelessness in love. I just couldn’t, no matter how much it infuriated me that I could not be black or white on either subject. So I was no further along in my development than I had been at any other point in my life and had no better answers for myself.

I even tried an end run around all that and attempted to rationalize that I was falling prey to archetypes, or that I was just having trouble shedding years and years of fundamentalist upbringing. That didn’t work. I tried arguing with myself that I was subscribing to deeply rooted cultural influences that have surrounded me all of my life, as they did my parents and siblings and generations before me. That didn’t work either. I just couldn’t get there.

I could not give myself entirely to Materialism. And the longer my pause in between the two, the more I began to come back toward the opposite. Gradually, things like hope and love crept in.

I couldn’t hit the Post button. I couldn’t abbreviate the essay stating one position over the other. Evidence of impossibility—make that possibility, actually—quickly mounted. At first it was fear of perception (“What will people think?”). Then I began to think about how it would impact others who read it, and how it might hurt.

I know a number of married couples. How could I, as a loving friend, try to reduce what I see reflected between the two of them to an argument that it doesn’t exist? Who am I to say or think as much? I suddenly felt like I had let myself slip off into a crass and nasty space for a while, and I felt a little selfish. What I saw as very real between them was bigger than me. My perspective, and my perception of myself in comparison to those very powerful things shifted, even humbled me a little.

Even bigger: I began to think about the very real and very powerful love between Megan and Kylee and me. I felt real shame when I began to think that I had tried to make that into something only physical and base.

Sometimes, I think timing is everything, even critically so. At the very moment that I was perplexed and frustrated with myself over the whole contemplation and trying to write about it, Kylee walked out of the bedroom upset from a nightmare. She needed me, and her need for me, need for the comfort she could feel from me, was based on our love, which could overcome the biggest and worst of her imaginary monsters. Mine too.

Thanks, Kylee, for saving me.

Originally published 12/7/09.

© 2009 Cody Kilgore. All Rights Reserved worldwide under the Berne Convention. May not be copied or distributed without prior written permission.