Jane B.
What does it mean to find your “true authentic self?” There have always been those who claim to be searching for (or even having found) their “authentic self” or “true voice” as if the “true” self was a secret slab of gold hidden deep in a mountain of false gold—and all one needs to do is dig deep enough, meditate hard enough, buy the “right” books, do the “right practices” or believe in the “right” faith, and suddenly the “authentic true self” is found or channeled (usually this happens with the “help” of a guru, a lifestyle, a secret or not so secret book, or for some with the help of a plant).
Jane Birkin sings of Jane B. and Jane B.’s death. What can this mean? Is Jane Birkin’s voice “her own”? (We’ll revisit this, in another clip, at the end of the newsletter).
Throughout the last weeks we have observed and discussed how dependent meaning is on context and use. How the language (not only through words!) and form that we use to construe meaning, whether consciously or not, can be decisive in shaping meaning itself—challenging the notion that there are any fixed truths and essences free from context. Does this destroy the concept of “truth?” Does the fact that we are products and subjects influenced by a multiplicity of sources challenge the notion of “self” and autonomy?
Jane Birkin with Serge Gainsbourg, her lover and writer of the songs she sang
Maybe, we can say that, whether you’re conscious or not, your notion of “truth”, “self”, “higher spiritual power” or anything else for that matter, depends on what “game” you’re playing. Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s terms, “language game” (Philosophical Investigations, 7) and “form of life” (ibid. 19) might help us in exploring this idea.
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)
The American-Israeli philosopher, Tamar Ross, explains these terms:
“What Wittgenstein taught is that language does not serve the same purpose in all contexts…The different functions or substructures of language comprise different ‘language games,’ each doing a particular job, conveying certain meanings to those who participate in its particular discourse… Each ‘language game’ is part of a form of life’ that is, a whole complex of natural and cultural presuppositions that constitute a worldview and enable its expression in practice. By saying ‘Good morning,’ we are not necessarily describing the weather, but we are certainly participating in the language game known as ‘greeting.’…we often participate in many language games at one and the same time…” (Constructing Faith, 101-102).
By situating ourselves as subjects in the “stream of thought and life” (another term from Wittgenstein, see Zettel, 173) this need not make us feel like victims drowning in that very stream of life. To carry the metaphor a bit further—maybe we can learn to swim, maybe we can choose what stream to dive into, and maybe we can even develop new streams.
Danaë, Gustav Klimt, 1907
Where are you situated? Are you swimming, drowning, floating, dissolving into the water of life? What new streams would you want developed?
I feel that by contextualizing ourselves, we experience an awe-inspiring sense of unity and interconnectivity in the overlapping and intersecting constellations that we are part of. By rejecting the notion of an absolute, context free objective reality, and conceiving of everything being mediated solely by your subjective self (how else can you experience anything beside through yourself?)—You realize a sense of unity and “Oneness.”
It takes a great deal of effort and choice in how we choose to describe all the forces that we are subject to and all the ways of conceiving where our “star” is. We ought to be careful what forms we use to give meaning to our world. What constellations do you see yourself in? What forces can you describe that you are subject to?
Wittgenstein wrote: “I see a picture; it represents an old man walking up a steep path leaning on a stick.— How? Might it not have looked just the same if he had been sliding downhill in that position? Perhaps a Martian would describe the picture so” (P.I. 139b). Are we on our way up or falling down? How would we know?
Goldconda, René Magritte, 1953
Ross explores religion in Wittgensteinian terms:
“Religious language is a long established form of discourse that does a particular set of jobs, imparting its own particular ‘form of life’ to those who participate in its ‘language game.’ The participants employing religious discourse are engaging a system of symbols that legitimate their most basic patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior…It also reflects a ‘picture’ of reality that shapes and produces profound sentiments, attitudes, and awarenesses….the main purpose of religious doctrine is indeed to grant meaning to the ‘form of life’ through which we live by attributing to it divine purpose.” (C.F. p102-104)
We can replace the word “religion” with any other form of life—and observe what are the elements, structures, values, purposes, currencies, and meanings that constitute it. In our era, we are very likely to live through a variety of forms of life. What are the profound sentiments, the attitudes, and the awarenesses that are generated within the forms of life that you live through?
Do you find that the sentiment expressed by Wittgenstein and Ross can liberate us from a limited relationship to tradition? Might this allow us to explore the meanings of ritual, doctrines, and terms in a far more expansive way?
Indeed, certain mystics of Kabbalah took a strikingly similar approach, even going so far as to say that the entire notion of the “Divine” and “sanctity” are human constructs! They concluded that if humanity wants to experience the richness of the divine and a spiritual life—then humanity must make it through a variety of practices and exercises.
The Eastern European Jewish mystic known as the Apter Rov (1748-1825) expressed this sentiment when he taught that “on account of keeping the Torah and its rules it is as if we make the Creator” (quoted in Z.H. Eichenstein, Ateret Tzvi: Acharay Mot). Not the other way around, as is the case with a more fundamentalist attitude. Here—there are no fixed fundaments; it is humanity that is capable of determining what form of life it wishes to create, inhabit, and live through--even so far as creating what form of divinity it desires (if at all).
Do you engage in “spiritual design?” Have you experienced sanctity in your life? If sanctity is something you seek, what can you do to generate it or draw it out of the spaces you inhabit? Indeed, according to the Apter Rov, faith did not mean naively believing in something irrational. To him, faith meant creatively drawing out and proactively cultivating sanctity (he explores this in his Ohev Yisrael: Noach).
Cover page of the first printed edition of Apter Rov’s Ohev Yisrael (1863, Zhitomir)
In Practice:
Think about spiritual design. What can this mean? What is the “material” of spiritual design?
Walter Benjamin wrote: “Rather than pass the time, one must invite it in.” (Boredom, Eternal Return in The Arcades Project, p107 D3,4). Experiment with “inviting time” by fixing a stretch of time every day for six days at the same time of day or night dedicated to a type of “spirituality” that you find expansive and de-limiting, that excites your “higher self” (whatever that means to you). Design a unique space for this “invited time” to reside in. It can be a corner in your room, a chair, the edge of your bed, a yoga mat or anywhere else. Make a unique change to the space (like lighting a candle or incense or rolling out a blanket or mat) and to yourself (like wearing a certain garment or scarf). Then engage in some practice that you find “spiritually stimulating.” It can be meditating, reading, listening to a certain musical composition, or even watching a youtube clip that you find inspiring. Do this at the same time, every day for six days. What kind of spiritual space & time did you design? Remember, you are making it, so there is nothing to compare to. Whatever you defined as spiritual is spiritual. You can’t go wrong. Remember Lacan’s words that we discussed last week—“the letter always arrives at the destination.”
Read:
Hannah Arendt’s Introduction to the book of Walter Benjamin essays: Illuminations. Consider Arendt’s view of Benjamin’s relationship to language, space, material, and spirituality/mysticism.
In film, watch:
Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow Up (1966)
One of the coolest films of the 60s, the film explores questions of meaning and reality in 1960s swinging London. With music from Herbie Hancock and the Yardbirds, starring David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave, Verushka, and Jane Birkin.
Now we’ll return to Jane Birkin singingJane B. In this version, you’ll notice the author of the song, Serge Gainsbourg, silently watching over her in the distance as she sings the words about herself that he wrote. Despite his presence, isn’t this now Jane’s song? Are we not all, like Jane B., singing a song that we didn’t write and making it our own?
