Yeti Warlord's Note: Originally posted 20 April 2007. Nest of Wonders occasionally present the very best of my old blong for your reading enjoyment. Not a word has been altered.
Happy Earth Day!
The name of a certain scholar, whose memory is being exploited to market a 'spiritual' lifestyle to so-called Nature Yuppies, has been appearing discreetly all over the media in the last few months. With the rise of branded entertainment, I would not be surprised to learn that this is not mere selective attention but a concerted marketing effort. After all, the man's philosophy has been reduced to one core message:
Follow Your Bliss™
I find it disgusting. A powerful statement of human purpose used to shill for books, t-shirts, and cards. Why not sell herbal tea? My specific concerns, however, are the same that they have always been: his scholarship is weak at best, misleading at worst. He has very little credit among serious academics; apparently the custodians of his spiritual estate have decided they don't need to further his work, but entrench it. Critical editions of his work would do much to enhance his legacy. These will never be attempted.
Instead, the world is left with the puffed-rice version of spirituality. Jean-Paul Sartre described the revelation of true freedom as anguish. How, then, am I to reconcile this with all the fantastic candy-coloured pastures I'm supposed to be wandering through when I Follow My Bliss™? I'm not meant to, and I can't.
It cannot be done. The ability of human heart to cope with grief is left to someone else's marketing department.
People deserve a better chance at Wisdom. Science, religion and spirituality offer no meaning. What are we then to do with marketing?
Menelaus held on to Proteus, shifting through forms, to discover the knowledge he sought and his experience was pain. Love includes pain; the barbs of Cupid are the only things capable of drawing the blood of Psyche. This is the secret to the knowledge that Love is the master of life.
Instead, we are offered Sentiment, saccharine sentiment. A refrigerator magnet, or a bumper sticker. Not a true philosophy.
A rich man found a pearl of exceeding beauty; he sold all he had, gave up everything, for the sake of it. Let he who has an ear to him listen up.
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