Scattered Ashes

Yesterday on my way home after work I thought about Descartes for some reason. I was remembering the story about how he shut himself up in his apartment for days and questioned everything. The story goes, his questioning led him to doubt the Sun would rise again the next day. He nearly lost his mind.

I then thought about Michael Polanyi and the distinction he makes between propositional and dispositional knowledge. To me, dispositional knowledge comes from the flesh, from experience; it really is inseparable from our body. In this manner, psyche and soma come together in the experience of knowing.

These two reflections might seem incongruent at first, but it seems to me the reason Descartes did not loose his mind is precisely because of dispositional knowledge. A purely rational questioning of things will inevitably lead us to doubt everything, which in turn will lead us to fear everything: if we can predict absolutely nothing, then we must clearly be vulnerable to the caprices of chaos. And the point here, is that there actually is a rational basis for us to be afraid. It is thus that we fall into a pattern of thinking that leads us to fear fear itself. And this is precisely what a panic attack is: fear of fear. Descartes knew from experience the Sun would rise the next day, and it was only when he stopped thinking rationally that he recovered his mind.

Now, I'm not personally worried about whether the Sun will rise or not tomorrow. No, I worry that pigeons might crash against me as the fly next to me. Weird, huh? However, it is the result of a similar line of thought: it occurred to me one day that pigeons are not infallible, and thus, that there exists the possibility that they might crash against a passer by. In strict rational terms this is quite possible. However, there is no experiential basis for this fear as I've never seen a pigeon crash against anybody's head. It is thus that I've developed an irrational fear of flying pigeons (although I would argue it is a very rational one). I know this probably sounds quite humorous, but it's true.

The moral of this story is, I need to get back in touch with soma, the sentient part of me. What I require are "spiritual exercises", as Pierre Hadot would call them. Yes, that, and go fly a kite in the park.