I was, and am still, a man wading in the passions of a stormy sea of existence. The darkness that once surrounded me was cold. The sea, raging. My struggles against it, futile. Words became saviors, paths to signify the squall of emotions roiling from the deep. They were my escape, an outlet to express and, in some way, subdue the surrounding waters. The liberation they promised was like a lighthouse, guiding me home.

But the more I followed them, the more I found they betrayed me. At first, they lured me into believing that they could, in fact, grasp the ungraspable or explain the unexplainable. They made me feel like the hole where the perfect word was to be inserted, the word that would finally articulate the situation with exactness, could be found in the dictionary of words at my disposal. They tricked me into believing the saturating event of life could be expressed in understandable terms. But as I reached out to hold onto them, they slipped through my fingers like the amorphousness of the waters. As I became frustrated and tried to strike them, they absorbed my blows with imperviousness. They contained an excess beyond themselves that had a way of overpromising yet invariably underdelivering. As I tried harder to swim towards their light, their meaning pointed away from themselves, towards other words who’s meaning did the same in a web of disillusion. It was all a contradiction, unmatched by any I’d uncovered, swirling me in a whirlpool of severance.

Nonetheless, I continued to wrestle, unrelenting, and their contradictory nature began to reveal a deep and elaborate hoax: that the whole world is like this. It promises salvation through substantiality, yet, its undercurrent is insubstantial, indescribable, unconditional. It screams the answers from the hilltops, yet its undertone is silence. It is full of charlatans, beacons on an infinite horizon, coaxing us all into swimming in one direction or another, yet, brilliantly making us believe our direction is our choice. But I realized that following the lighted promise of these commodified perfections leads only to endlessly swimming under the will of someone else’s authority.

So, what was I to do? If the choices I make are governed by societal and biological / robotic determinacy, then how is it possible to have free will? If every choice I make is a hologram, appearing real, yet only my imagination of someone else’s ideas, then what can I actually consider my choice? Who are my heroes or role models if they are all just promising an artificial solution to the hollow I feel inside? What does freedom mean at that point? To find a way to live freer from the world’s masked manipulation I needed to better understand the concept of freedom.

My conclusion: Conscious choice is never free from influence. Although it is what many of us hold as our dearest trait, it is always governed by our past and controlled by our symbolic identities. But all is not lost for freedom, because, paradoxically, we are fortunate to be broken creatures, and, as such, we are more than our easily manipulated conscious self. Emancipation is found in exactly the place that feels out of our conscious control, within our unconscious. That division I feel, disrupting the unsettled waters inside, is not contingent, it is fundamental. The core of humanity is not wholeness, it is brokenness; the dictionary does provide fairly good guidance here.
 
Human: a being susceptible to weakness.
Synonyms: flesh and blood, fallible, imperfect, vulnerable, erring, flawed
 
But there is no need for despair from this inherent internal imperfection, for the incompleteness that is suggested from imperfection provides the path to experiencing the beauty of the world and the cure for our conscious slavery. It is hidden in plain sight, in our capacity for being aware of and embracing our internal contradiction. We are severed inside, alienated from pure identity. Frustration in articulation comes from the fact that, although our conscious desire is always driven to best articulate our state, we are metaphorically, dis-articulated.
 
Disarticulation: the separation of two bones at their joint, either traumatically or by way of injury or by a surgeon during arthroplasty or amputation.
 
This separation inside us is freeing because it disrupts the determinant chain of causality. It is not influenced by the latest trends, or what everyone in our entire life has told us we should be. There is a part of us that our conscious self cannot see or influence directly, yet it insists, interrupts, decenters, traumatizes, and enters in from where no one can touch it. And it is the divide from which every concept that creates meaning in the world originates.
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The problem is that this division feels to us like emptiness, so we become easily ashamed of it. It appears like trauma, so we are easily frightened by it. And like a phantom limb or an empty room, we feel it is missing something. We feel its lacking contents. And, in response, we translate this feeling within ourselves as dis-content, dissatisfaction, grief. So, we cannot help but want to mask this estrangement and distract ourselves from it by finding our part to play as people.
 
Person: a character in a play or story.
 
And as people, our aims so often involve dressing up for the part, hiding our antagonisms, and engaging in what the acquired amputee community knows as cosmesis.
 
Cosmesis: used to describe the outer, aesthetic covering of a prosthesis.
 
But although we must assume symbolic identities to function in the world, we should not hide the hollow parts of who we are, or deny the inherent split of our identity, for it is the emptiness between the notes which turns them into music. It is only lack itself that is free from external control. It is how things like love, justice, and truth arise – words that are free from accessible meaning, yet somehow bring meaning into the world. These are things that we cannot choose, but call to us. That’s why, as contradictory as it may sound, trying to fix my brokenness leads only to endless fix-ation, while embracing it leads to freedom.

​Things are what they are. Facts are facts. We all know this. But when a question arises about whether something is what it is we get a hint that there is something deeper at work. With animals we find it easy to rarely question their identity. Dog is dog. Lion is lion. Crow is crow. But with man, we constantly scrutinize whether each one is human or inhuman, friend or foe, divine or infernal. Yes, we agree, stones are stones, yet, beyond man, we have no problem questioning whether music is music, or art is art, or beauty is beauty. We’d consider that our “subjective” opinion. This capacity to recognize the split in identity as the inherent quality of the “subject,” that something isn’t fully what it claims to be, provides the secret of life: that to be a subject is to be divided. It is this contradictory force which drives all existence. Things actually aren’t what they are. Modern science has only supported this fact for all substances, even beyond the subject. As we dive deep into the materiality of existence, we find even stones yielding to the effects of quantum indeterminacy, whereby their particles can exist in multiple different states simultaneously. But we don’t need to go as deep as the quantum level of existence to know that I am me, only because I’m contradicted from who I am, and this contradiction is why I change. For example, if my body were to stay the same and be the exact version at 20 and 80 years old, then no one would believe I was me. At an even more fundamental level, I’m also not fully my body. We find this easily when we describe ourselves, saying “my leg” or “my arm.” If I have to say something is mine, then it’s obviously not me. There is a split that is required. We find this need for basic contradiction in every aspect of life, from a democratic government fueled by the split of ideas to enhance the synthesis of outcomes, to an evolutionary theory of biology, in which a perpetual dialectic unfolding of antagonisms in the environment is the primary power at play. So, when a coach challenges a call, know they are tapping into the most fundamental quality of existence: our contradiction.

To play one’s position is to know the bounds to which one is expected to act on the field. It is, in a very direct way, a reflection of the expectations of modernity. The Enlightenment (late 17th and 18th century) could be thought of as the foundational moment of modernity, and the moment in which the world, in the words of Immanuel Kant, “dared to think for itself.” How does positionality relate to thinking for one’s self? Well, in modernity, it became the structured way in which one thought for himself. Pre-modernity didn’t distinguish between church and state, religion and secular. Traditionally, authoritarian kings exploited religious superstitions in government to justify divine sovereign rule and oppress the masses. In modernity we begin to see the breaking of these chains through the clear distinctions of subjective vs. objective, rational vs. irrational, scientific vs. non-scientific, public vs. private, and cognitive vs. emotive. In this sense modernity was necessary for progress towards a greater freedom. But what can happen when players on the field become overly restricted by the boundaries of their position? What happens when players that are learning the game take too seriously the limits that have been described to them? They miss the point of it all. They miss the chance to make plays. Professional players know a deeper truth, that yes, first, positions are required to be defined, but they are in fact, fluid and dependent on each other. There is an undercurrent, running beneath the binary distinctions. It is not religion, religion’s position is subjective, irrational, non-scientific, private, and emotive. It is not science, science’s position is objective, rational, scientific, public, and cognitive. But it is the amorphous core which gives rise to both. They are both, in their best sense, the response to being grabbed by something unconditional. Science is not purely objective inquiry. It is not heartless, methodological, rational, disinterested calculation. Any great scientist will tell you, it begins like artistic inquiry in which the scientist becomes decentered, overcome with direction that is outside the bounds of logic. The scientist comprehends through understanding and that understanding provides meaning but he is driven by something in which he doesn’t understand, something that brings meaning into the world, but itself lacks meaning. It is the indescribable force that I unsuccessfully attempt to describe to ballplayers which comes over me the minute a ball is popped up in the field, and I must sprint with my entire being towards it with reckless abandon. In that moment, something seizes me, something lays claim to me, it is not my idea, it inbreaks upon me, it interrupts my life in a disturbing way, it puts me on the accusative, I am the receiver, I affirm it without compromise, I commit myself to it without reserve or care for my own wellbeing. It is the unconditional. It is what so many have tried to conquer through religion or discredit through science, but it will remain. For it brings life. It is an event which captivates in a way we cannot conceptualize. Like art, or music, it does not fall into rational or irrational, subjective or objective. It either moves you or it doesn’t.

​If you enjoyed this new meditation on the deeper meaning of the game, you’ll love THE ART OF WAR AND BASEBALL!! Check it out here: www.theartofwarandbaseball.com

When approaching a sign on the street, the first thought in one’s mind, after noticing its material shape and form, is to determine its meaning (i.e. the words that define its purpose). In a sense, "signs" and "meaning" are intertwined. For some signs, misinterpretation is so costly that its meaning is literally written on it, as is in the case of the STOP sign. This raises the question: why do we have signs? We look for signs when we want direction, or we want to give direction. Signs hold important information for the sake of order. Said another way, it’s as if we are moved to make signs when we feel something is significant enough. This is reinforced with the Latin roots of the word significance, which are signum (sign) and facare (to make). Signs in a baseball game are lower stakes versions of street signs, relaying different actions to players at various positions. No life-threatening situations will arise due to the misreading of a baseball sign, yet each sign has its clear meaning, and is expected to be followed to the letter of the law. But what happens when something’s significance is so great that it reaches the level of the indescribable? Wouldn’t that situation be closer to something best described as insignificant (i.e. unable to make into a sign)? We have a hard time labeling something so impactful as insignificant. But isn’t it far worse to lower the unconditional into a condition of significance? What if we could overcome this mental hurdle and become comfortable in the realm of the insignificant? Wouldn’t we find the meaning of life is closer to an emptiness than a substance, given insignificance lacks substance. Doesn’t infiniteness lack edges? And isn't that without edges insubstantial? So, what happens when we try to force meaning onto life? We find it insubstantial, like water, or music, or dancing. It is, in essence, a meaningless meaning. Not in the nihilistic sense of the word, but in the mystical sense, whereby we know that material conditions exist but spiritual unconditionality is essential.
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If you enjoyed this new meditation on the deeper meaning of the game, you’ll love THE ART OF WAR AND BASEBALL!! Check it out here: www.theartofwarandbaseball.com

The trees around my house are undergoing a pruning this spring by a local arborist, so it’s no surprise that trees have been at the forefront of my mind the last few days. Of course, with baseball season in full swing, and the nature of this blog, I immediately connect the tree with the over 60 baseball bats that it can yield. But during my time with him, this arborist shared a deeper understanding and natural propensity towards the care and compassion for our leafy neighbors, with an enthusiasm that was contagious to say the least. It never ceases to amaze me when I run into someone so convinced of the life-giving qualities of one thing over another. But, when it comes to trees, I can’t help but agree, and be amazed at how much they have provided to us, beyond the baseball bat. Beyond their clear link to the quality of air, the regenerative quality of soil, the healing compounds in medicines, the nutrient richness of fruits, and their endless giving shade, I was amazed to find out that trees also provided the tools that are now incorrectly considered human inventions and make up the foundation of all technology: I’m talking about simple machines. There are six simple machines that are the building blocks for every technological tool we’ve ever developed. In baseball, the 5-tool-player is the player that you can put anywhere in the field, and they will thrive, for they have all the tools necessary to do the job under any circumstance (speed, throwing, fielding, hitting for average, and hitting for power). I now see the tree as a 6-tool-player, exemplifying their versatility and the six machines that advanced our society from the stone age to the latest innovations in technology. The simple machines are (1) the wheel (2) the inclined plane (3) the wedge (4) the lever (5) the screw and (6) the pulley.

​As you take a tree and turn it on its side the wheel emerges. The roots of a tree naturally taper as they extend, creating an inclined plane which aids in anchoring and driving water to the correct location for absorption. The roots also extend out into various cracks and crevices and act as wedges, growing in, then out, to stabilize and penetrate stronger materials. Branches act as levers, helping the tree to support its weight and resist external forces like wind or the random climber. The trees also move and use tension distribution to sway in response to external forces, which can resemble the operation of a pulley system. In fact, I’ve used a tree branch as the point of support from which the force of a rope can be applied to lift large objects more simply. I was told by the arborist that with enough force pine branches can be ripped straight out of a trunk, and as you examine the result you find the tree branch is stabilized into the trunk in a spiral screw motion. It doesn’t surprise me that as we look harder, we find that we didn’t invent the tools that are used to construct the world, trees did. So, when you’re holding the bat, it’s all the more reason to respect the bat, for it came from a miracle.

If you enjoyed this new meditation on the deeper meaning of the game, you’ll love THE ART OF WAR AND BASEBALL!! Check it out here: www.theartofwarandbaseball.com

Conscious desire: win the World Series

Why: because we think it’s what we want

Why do we want it: because we believe it will fulfill us

Why do we need fulfillment: because we feel a sense of loss (or potentiality unfulfilled)

Why do we feel loss: as beings of language, things described and understood with words (essence) are always greater than what they describe (existence), creating a sense of loss when confronting existence and a feeling of alienation through mediation from our environment.

How do we get over dealing with loss: the world promises a fantasy which bridges essence and existence, making us feel as though we can find the object which will make us whole and complete again

Who, exactly, makes us believe this fantasy will solve everything: the imaginary Other captivates us because they appear to know the secret, they appear to have escaped the feeling of loss, but they themselves are caught in the same schema.

Psychoanalytic insight: we all only desire what others desire. No desire is our own.

Why can’t we get over the loss: it’s actually not loss, loss requires something to first be had. It’s lack. 

Psychoanalytic insight: To become a subject, lack must be inherent if we are to participate in the world, for participation requires separateness. We are lacking beings.

Psychoanalytic insight: absence (lack) is what animates a subject. It’s what drives someone to act. Lack is good.

So why don’t we like lack: our psyche, along with the world, shields us from the satisfaction that absence provides. It misrepresents it as loss. A loss that can be overcome. It then only associates future satisfaction with the presence of an object, not the lack of one. No matter how often we are disappointed by what we achieve, we still believe the solution is out there.

So what do we do: we erect fantasies as the solution to the desire of the Other. We encourage difficult fantasies because they present greater obstacles to shield us from achieving them. For we unconsciously know that the achievement is not where satisfaction lies, but the failure to achieve.

Unconscious desire: not win the World Series

How do we reconcile the contradiction between our conscious and unconscious desire: change relationship to the feeling of loss, recognizing the satisfaction is in the journey, not the endpoint.

If you enjoyed this new meditation on the deeper meaning of the game, you’ll love THE ART OF WAR AND BASEBALL!! Check it out here: www.theartofwarandbaseball.com

New Years is the time that many of us attempt to fix what appears to be broken in our lives. But what if the problem was deeper than it appeared? And what if that problem wasn't a problem at all, but a solution in disguise? What if, like the broken bat, it couldn't be put back together. What then is it meant to be? I wrote a poem this month about my personal struggle with brokenness. 

I am broken.
Well, how do you know?
I feel estranged wherever I go.
From what?
From me, a part of myself.
Like some place long forgotten, with priceless wealth.
That’s just your ego being smart, it tricks us sometimes.
My ego, is there some other part of me to find?
Who’s asking that question, I couldn’t quite tell?
It’s the me that feels like it’s under a spell.
So, let me ask another way, how can I be whole?
Seek pleasure in money, silver and gold.
Yes, I’ve done that, but I’m more broken still.
Material things fall apart, so now what shall I will?
Literature, poetry, music, art
In these pleasures is where you’ll find your heart.
Ok, but I’ve read that and heard them, and I’m not sure why,
I get a glimpse of myself, and I want to cry.
That’s good, you see, you got it, that’s your broken heart.
But I’m not back together, I’m still broken apart.
I still feel helpless, can I do something else?
Go to church and find God, get a hold of yourself.
But how can I find God if my will is perverse.
You got to get grace, before it gets worse.
Well, how do I get grace?
You must accept it.
But how can I accept it if you said I’m selfish?
Well then grace must be predestined.
Some get it, some don’t.
That can’t be,
I can’t accept that, I won’t.
Is there another way?
You could kill your ego.
Take a sword of righteousness and give it a go.
Well, how do I do that?
You must extinguish your desire.
What’s left will be God, something higher.
Well, I can’t kill desire if I must desire it to be gone.
It’s just another desire for more desire to spawn.
I guess you’re right, it’s true, you’re in quite a bind.
Just act virtuously, and you’ll be fine.
Don’t I need know of what virtue consists?
Yes, but for that just let a wise guru assist.
A priest, a pastor, a monk in long robes.
Well, how on earth do I get one of those?
Ask people you trust, maybe your parents, they’ll tell you.
But don’t others suffer from selfishness too?
Wouldn’t they feed their ego from telling me what to do?
Yes, that’s true, so you must have faith.
But what am I to believe in?
Of course, what the holy books saith.
Aren’t all those finite words up for debate?
Not that I can tell, just do what they state.
Didn’t we say we are flawed, and didn’t we write the books?
No God wrote the books, it says it right there, look.
Well let’s make believe God wrote the whole thing, at least two-thirds
Even then we can’t know what we mean with these words.
Like if I say I’m humble, I’m not, or if I admit I’m bad then I’m great,
So, won’t imperfect translations be controlling my fate?
Ok, well just trust in your senses and forget the rest.
Don’t they always feed the ego with some virtuous quest?
Isn’t that what could make a good man kill?
If he thinks he’s doing it for some virtuous will?
But it comes from a holy place and it will remove all your pain.
What, the egoistic pursuit of spiritual gain?
How is it different from material things, or is it the same?
Because it seems like a prim and proper version of the ordinary game.
Yes, but it’s intentionality, that’s the distinguishing quirk
The spiritual gain does for the other, not your internal jerk.
So, I get nothing from the virtuous work that I chase?
Well, it makes it hard not to wipe the smirk off your face.
You’ll feel good for your work, and that’s your reward.
But aren’t we back to square one, my ego desperate for more?
Aren’t I using the other, to make me feel better?
Aren’t I building up acts, to pay my begetter?
Can I try to help another without keeping a score?
Can I do great work, without needing awards?
This seems like the opposite of desiring, so maybe it’s right.
Or is it my ego conspiring, to win the fight?
Can I ever escape this contradictory roll?
Maybe try to let go of the unbroken whole.
Let go of completeness, let go, undivided.
Live well in your weakness, and then you’ll be guided,
To get solidarity in broken parts.
Maybe brokenness is really what binds our hearts.
How can this be so, it’s impossible really?
Well has someone perfected this life, ideally?
Maybe Jesus did, for the sake of example.
Then I’d guess you’d agree that would make him ample
To copy and listen to the way he explained it.
Cause if there is one who did it, then he surely claimed it.
So, what did he say when he was pushed and shaken?
He said, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken?”
The omnipotent God in humiliated form.
The poor as the kings, the blessed mourn.
The hungry as full, the thirsty content,
By all this confusion, what could he have meant?
That hidden deep within our Complete Beloved
Is a thing we imagine, a thing that we covet
It’s a wholeness, perfection, that’s simply not there
A fallible soul, an unfinished prayer.
It’s a universe mixed up just like us
Where there’s always a conflict between love and lust
Dark and light, clear and dust ...
In conflict we’re blessed with freedom abound 
To dig into the brokenness, a deeper one found
With breaks, a symptom, of profound despair
Revealing the deeper truth lurking in there
Without fear of judgement or devil spells
Without crowns of heavens or trials of hells
This communion of lack binds me to you 
Makes me thankful to say,
I am broken too.

If you enjoyed this new meditation on the deeper meaning of the game, you’ll love THE ART OF WAR AND BASEBALL!! Check it out here: www.theartofwarandbaseball.com