Perpetual Lab: August 2022

Thursday, 4 August 2022

Ecce Homo

Edvard Munch Nietzsche

I’ve been wanting to know about health and illness for days now. I meant to say “write” but my fingers typed “know”, and they didn’t lie. I haven’t been feeling well enough to write.

I could write about my history of illness, but it wouldn’t be fun for you or me. Let’s not forget that this blogging business—or the writing and reading of books generally, when they are not prescribed texts in educational institutions—depends on fun. Any expectation to be edified isn’t enough. You and I want to enjoy ourselves. On the other hand, I’m not an author of pulp non-fiction. I want to change your life, for it’s a way to change the world, if only a little. That’s how serious I am. Seriously.

Are we to talk of good health, or illness? Perhaps both: but let us not fall into the easy assumption that they are mutually exclusive opposites. One might harbour both at once, like Nietzsche, sufferer of the progressive ravages of syphilis:

I took myself in hand, I myself made myself healthy again: the precondition for this—every physiologist will admit it—is that one is fundamentally healthy. A being who is typically morbid cannot become healthy, still less can he make himself healthy; conversely for one who is typically healthy being sick can even be an energetic stimulant to life, to more life. Thus in fact does that long period of sickness seem to me now; I discovered life as it were anew, myself included, I tasted all good and even petty things in a way that others could not easily taste them—I made out of my will to health, to life, my philosophy . . . For pay heed to this: it was in the years of my lowest vitality that I ceased to be a pessimist: the instinct for self-recovery forbade to me a philosophy of indigence and discouragement . . . and in what does one really recognize that someone has turned out well! In that a human being who has turned out well does our senses good: that he is carved out of wood at once hard, delicate and sweet-smelling. He has a taste only for what is beneficial to him; his pleasure, his joy ceases where the measure of what is beneficial is overstepped. He divines cures for injuries, he employs ill chances to his own advantage; what does not kill him makes him stronger.

(Unedited extract from Ecce Homo, translated by R. J. Hollingdale, Penguin Classics. The “. . .” are not ellipses but author’s punctuation.)

Let us not be deluded about Nietzsche’s health. In the year he wrote the above words, “He experiences a delusive improvement in his health, and in the last quarter of the year is the victim of a morbid euphoria which is the immediate prelude to complete collapse.” (Op. cit: chronology of Nietzsche’s life.) Still, it’s an example of morbidity (in the medical sense) and positive health co-existing. And I think we all know—only too well—of long periods in our life in which we experience neither morbidity nor good health. So let us suppose they are not necessarily opposites.

Positive health is a state subjectively recognized. It’s when I feel able to meet life’s challenges with vigour, strength and fearlessness; clear in my head, energetic in my limbs and organs. I don’t need to go for medical tests to prove it. If I did, I might be told I have high cholesterol and blood pressure, in words whose immediate effect might be the opposite of therapeutic.

The fact that medical tests can show signs of illness when we don’t know anything is amiss, may cause us to think that doctors are the ones to tell us if we are fit or not. And if their tests don’t show anything wrong then they pronounce us fit, or perhaps suffering from depression, which they think of as “psychological”; so they suggest counselling. That is in UK, anyhow. Perhaps in other countries, where doctors are funded differently, they keep running more sophisticated tests till they find something significant, and then they prescribe a barrage of drugs and supplements, till the wheels of commerce have fully revolved and all parties are satisfied. But the patient is still not happy. “Oh, why didn’t you mention it? Here are some happy pills.”

I think I shall write—as a complete amateur, a mere untrained owner of a human body—about that in-between state where one lacks both glowing health and detectable morbidity: the state in which one seeks a witch-doctor, or as we say in the West, “an alternative practitioner”.

7 thoughts on “Ecce Homo”

Hayden Jan 27th , ’084:03 pm Reply Edit

sorry to hear you've not been feeling well, and hope that your efforts to find healing will be quickly answered in the affirmative.
paul martin Jan 27th , ’084:21 pm Reply Edit

I think this is very balanced and that frankly the culture is out of balance in not wanting to look at illness or death.
Vincent Jan 27th , ’085:15 pm Reply Edit

Thanks Hayden, it was only a 'flu thing and I made no efforts to find healing. just decided to dig it, take it easy, obey my body. I am not sure that I believe in finding healing any more. But this would be to pre-empt the continuing discussion.
Yes, Paul, indeed the culture is out of balance! And you have identified two important symptoms. When the culture is out of balance, it's hard to be well . . .
More soon.
V Jan 27th , ’086:34 pm Reply Edit

“…what does not kill him makes him stronger.”
Yes, it makes one psychologically or spiritually stronger. Enduring illness gives one endurance and develops character. One becomes long-suffering or patient to the point of being stoic, detached, and resigned. At least if one doesn't try to alleviate it by all means like painkillers, tobacco, alcohol, drugs and various escape techniques like prayer, faith-healing, voodoo, concentration and meditation. Enduring suffering is true meditation and leads to liberation. Scientifically speaking, the mind and body or body-mind produces the natural drugs to heal and alleviate pain. And repair the body thru rest and sleep.
But of course, there is no cure for syphilis at an advanced stage. And no cure for aging and death. At least in our present age.
Charles Bergeman Jan 27th , ’089:46 pm Reply Edit

I have never been the “picture of health” as they say. I have always felt an aversion to exercise for the sake of health alone.
I enjoy many forms of physical activity, but more for the experience, than for any health benefits derived from the act.
I guess that puts me at risk in some way, but overall I have had little to complain about. I look and feel younger than most of my friends my age, I don't get sick often.
I have noticed however, a strange correlation between my health, creative inspiration, motivation, and ultimately my creative outbursts.
I can go for a very long time without an idea, or without discovering that stimulus that inspires me to create. Once I get the bug, I am supremely motivated to get on with the work.
For some strange reason, just when I have prepared to begin, I often get sick. I have no idea why this happens. It happens often enough to be beyond coincidence.
I generally work through the sickness as I cannot ignore the inspiration and motivation. It is stronger than the message my body is sending me to rest.
Of course this is not without a price. The illnesses last longer, are probably more severe than they would be otherwise.
It is almost always in the form of a cold or flu.
My sinus passages were damaged when I was a senior in high school. I was sitting next to a fire when a burning ember flew into my mouth and lodged between my tongue and the place where one of my nostrils connects to the back of my mouth.
It burned the flesh there, and it resulted in permanent damage to my nasal cavity. I think this exacerbates my cold symptoms.
In any case, colds seem to hit me harder than they do for most people.
I have felt that in many ways this has inhibited me from deriving benefits from my creative exploits. But I have worked hard to avoid using it as an excuse. Perhaps there is some sort of deep seated psychological issue here. But I cannot be sure.
My experience here in the US is that if you have money, the kind of scenario you describe with passing along your case to various specialists until everyone is satisfied is a likely outcome.
However, for folks like me, who have basic HMO coverage, you are more likely to be provided only minimal attention. Other than prescription drugs, which supports the pharmaceutical co's., we are seldom passed along to any specialists unless we insist. This would cost the insurance companies, who are not interested in providing care as it would take away from their profits.
Normally we get a 10 or 15 minute consultation with a doctor and a prescription and that is the end of it.
Sophia Jan 28th , ’0811:31 pm Reply Edit

It was actually my general practitioner that suggested I might have psychological symptoms. I went to him to complain about what was ailing me and he sent me off immediately to someone who specializes in head cases.
I think this Nietzche bit might be one of the first times I've ever heard of anyone taking an optimistic stance on sickness.
Hi, Vincent. Hope you're recovering nicely.
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Jim Jan 31st , ’086:47 am Reply Edit

We in the USA have insurance plans, and we have hype for those with no money, hype will get you little unless there is only a little wrong, if there is a lot wrong with you, hype gets you nothing, people die from cancer because they have no money, this is a constant fact in the USA. Compassionate Conservatism and Vampire Capitalism holding hands and kissing.
I agree much with Siegfried, figure out how to tune in to the body, it has a soul and it can talk to you, likewise the emotions, water body with a voice, and of course the others. The voices tho might not be verbal, might be intuitive or even come out of nowhere in your face (from outside, that power is there, but you know that…the universe?).
And something not taught, don't beg, give orders, seriously, lie down and talk to yourself, and INSIST on cooperative medicine from within, tell them what you can, and tell them to find out the rest, and get it done. Call it meditation, call it prayer, but don't beg and don't even be too nice, ask then order, it must be done. Humans Rule.
No matter your course Vincent, I wish you the best and soon!
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The Middle of Nowhere

Posted on Jul 10th , ’14 by Vincent

On a perfect day I felt it was time to give my musings some fresh air. So I went wayfaring, to places just over the horizon seen from my study window. Walk a mile and you reach two villages, separated by common land. It’s an easy stroll or horseback ride from one to the other, or these days by bicycle. I’m pleased that there is still no straightforward route from one to the other by car; pleased that such twenty-first century pressures have been resisted. There is only a web of footpaths, bridleways and short lengths of rough track. Yet amongst the woods and open land you will find houses, small businesses and a pub, the De Spencer Arms. The area is a little Utopia (which means nowhere) and an anachronism in modern England. The first of the villages, Downley, is holding a Festival, the visible signs of which are extraordinary scarecrows, dotted here and there above garden hedges and so forth. I imagine it’s a local competition, but looking through allegorical spectacles I wonder what crows they are aiming to scare. I like to think it is the encroachment of the 21st century on their—I mean our, everyone’s precious common land.

Ever since my last post, I’ve had Meister Eckhart on my mind; he who was bound by the rules of his Catholic order and the state of 13th century European civilization, and yet cut through them cleanly, just escaping being tagged a heretic. He also cut through all the Popish & theological encumbrances of the time to reach a timeless essence, wherein lies freedom and an ecstatic way of being. Most of his writings are in the form of sermons, challenging but exciting. Click here to download a pdf copy. Then as now, you would have had to decide whether the price was worth paying for the great adventure that his words inspire. Not everyone could follow. Can I? It is probably easier today, for more people, to achieve the kind of detachment he advocates, to discover deep within ourselves that great connecting principle which unites the whole of creation, which he orthodoxly calls God. (I believe that the path and goal he delineates is identical to those pointed to by the god-free discipline known as Zen. For while there may be innumerable contradictory notions dreamed up by our fecund minds, when you approach the essence, you reach a dimensionless point where truth must surely be singular.)

I passed this pub in the middle of the common

I’m in no position to add further preaching to that of Meister Eckhart OP, that most eminent member of the Dominican Order of Preachers. But I carried him in my mind, through Downley and Naphill. In that web of footpaths it is easy to have no agenda—that’s my modern expression for “detachment”. No desire, no regret, no guilt, no indebtedness, no resentment, no fear. I am not pure in these matters, but the shortfall gives me no care or anxiety. It is enough to feel blessed and give thanks for one’s life, one’s work in progress.

I pass a parked not-very-modern tractor with attachments for digging and bulldozing, painted in brown livery and emblazoned “Downley Common Preservation Society”. I note the absence of licence plates, reflecting its domicile in these hallowed Commons, which lack public roads. In this spot, I’m surrounded by paddocks, orchards, the sound of cocks crowing, dilapidated sheds, aromas of horse-dung and creosote. I reach the end of this short drivable length of rough track, almost blocked by a small horsebox, parked with a wheel-lock, and continue on a narrower path through the woods.

narrow path through the wilderness . . .

I haven’t consciously renounced anything. Advancing age achieves that for you naturally. Knowing what to expect in the future, you embrace gladly that which still remains. I was given a few months’ work to do at home. After some research I worked out I could do it with the aid of Microsoft Visual Studio 2013. I visualized clearly how to proceed, saw the end result in my mind’s eye. But—as I ruefully wrote to my client—“I felt like a passenger trying to take over the controls in an airliner cockpit, after the sudden death of the pilot. One hopes to learn by repetition but I could never manage to retrace my own footsteps. The screen never looked the same twice. It must be a combination of age and never having had enough aptitude even when young.” Realizations like this are salutary and bracing, healthier for the soul than ambition.

As I proceed from Downley to Naphill, aromas from verdure warmed in the sun evoke memories of long summers between ’48 and ’54, boarding at a small prep school in rural Sussex. I was already then what I am now, drawn to reading, day-dreaming, aloof wanderings in the countryside. I rediscover that child. I accept being the result of that combination of nature and nurture, or whatever it is that shakes the dice on our behalf, deals out our particular hand from the deck of cards. You play with what you’re given. Now, what shall I do with the time I’ve saved by not taking on that project?

Visual Studio 2013 is a fine and versatile toolbox, but then so are the words and grammar of the English language, wherein each sentence can be a handcrafted original; each paragraph an intricate construction, potentially capable of conveying “What oft was Thought, but ne’er so well Exprest”. I am content to return to the same topics, year after year, till I’ve managed to say the thing I feel, and point to the thing which cannot be said. Dipping into Eckhart, I see how useful is the word “God”, so long as it’s trimmed of unworthy usages, dogmas and assertions we don’t actually know from experience. If there is to be religion, if it is not to be trampled by ignorance and extremism, let it at least remain a shelter and refuge wherein a person may stay safe, and find God, and others of like mind. Ditch the rest by all means, and I’ll be grateful, but not that.

I was just wondering whether Downley Common merges into Naphill Common, and if so where, when a display hove into view, with a map and accompanying text.

“Near this point Naphill and Downley Commons run into one another and both reward exploration. While much of Downley Common is still grassland with shrubs and heathland flowers, Naphill Common has an abundance of ancient trees, glades and ponds, the mysterious ‘Clumps’, a Romano-British farmstead and many historic banks and ditches interlaced by a network of footpaths and bridleways.

“These Commons are ancient. Queen Elizabeth I crossed them in 1566 on her way to Hughenden. Drovers grazed and watered their stock on their way from the West to London. Pits show where clay has been dug for brick-making. There are 18th and 19th century sawpits. There are tank tracks from World War II.”

In short, the Commons, like all of creation, are a palimpsest repeatedly inscribed by time. I pay homage to those who acknowledge and preserve such marks from the past, as a minor dissent from the tyranny of consumerism that makes modern life such a strenuous race, merely to stand still.

I came back in the early evening to take some photos, and found that the local youth were congregating there, boys and girls with bicycles and dogs. A small fire was lit, and the greenwoods rang with barking and merry laughter as in the mythical Sherwood Forest. To those who labour to preserve these commons, Robin of Loxley wasn’t so long ago, just a few centuries before Good Queen Bess.

The best moment for me that day is hard to describe: a moment when I didn’t know where I was. When you don’t take a map along, and there’s nowhere else you have to be, that is Utopia, the middle of nowhere. And it’s good enough. More than. Your presence turns “Nowhere” into somewhere, because you are truly “someone” when you are mainly occupied just being.

I saw some notable entries in the Downley Common Preservation Society’s annual Scarecrow Contest: