Lotus Eaters

   

  I think frequently here about the lotus eaters. We have been living for the past four weeks in lotus land—Puntarenas Province, Costa Rica. We stayed here last year for seven weeks and the year prior for seven weeks in Guanacaste Province. We traveled a bit about the country, at least on the country’s Pacific coast: walked the rain forest in Monteverde and the coffee and chocolate plantations there; there we hiked a mountainous trail at El Tigre where we suffered serious fatigue and where one of us almost collapsed. She was transported to a safe place via zip line bicycle! The other one was left to complete the walk alone and walking the last 350 meters sludging through the mud and brambles feared suffering a heart attack and hoped that in that event he might be found. To celebrate our survival we dined that evening in a restaurant in the trees and enjoyed a very lovely meal. We have visited Manuel Antonio National Park, spent a few days in the city of La Fortuna and stayed there in a hotel whose window overlooked the Arenal Volcano. In the late 1960s the Arenal erupted and destroyed the town of La Fortuna, but the volcano has been quiescent in the years since and the city has been reconstructed; we spent a day on the beach at Tortuga Island; we hiked the park surrounding Rincon de la Viejo and in the area experienced a volcanic mud bath and natural hot springs. We drove All Terrain Vehicles all three years, and we have stayed in the capital city of San Jose and toured the Pos Volcano.

We have not been completely sedentary; indeed, it almost could appear that we have been very active, but actually for the majority of the time during our weeks-long stays, we lie about amid the lotus blossoms. Twice a day we walk to the beach carrying our beach chairs and water bottles and sit comfortably in the sun and sand for 90-120 minutes. I have slobbered my face and body with SPF-50 sun screen, though I never am not worried about skin cancer, a result of a careless and vain youth on the beaches of Long Island and some bad genes: my legs are splotched with what the dermatologist refers to as ‘wisdom spots’ but which know as blemishes. Sometimes we head into the ocean, she for play and me for a cooling, and then we return to the chairs where we sit until we gather the energy to retread our steps and return to the casa where we will we shower and have a(nother) lie down. We read and write, enjoy a quiet cocktail hour, dine in or out and retire early for the evening. And then on the next day we push repeat. And regardless of our forays out, we remain for the most part sedentary, and it seems to me that with every new day our lethargies increase. 

                I have been thinking about the lotus eaters. In Homer’s The Odyssey Ulysses and his men go ashore on the island and having eaten of the lotus plants they become languid and lose their desire to raise themselves from their lethargic comfort and continue their voyage home. Homer writes that Ulysses’s men went ashore “and went about among the Lotus-eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them to eat of the lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about home, and did not even want to go back and say what had happened to them.” They would go no more to roaming. 

Alfred Lloyd Tennyson addresses the same topic in his poem, “The Lotos-Eaters.” In Tennyson’s work Ulysses’s crew having arrived at the island of the lotus blossoms the sailors want to abandon their world-weariness and live forever eating of the blossoms. They say, 

Death is the end of life; ah, why 

Should life all labour be? 

Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, 

And in a little while our lips are dumb. 

Let us alone. What is it that will last? 

All things are taken from us, and become 

Portions and parcels of the dreadful past. 

Let us alone. What pleasure can we have 

To war with evil? Is there any peace 

In ever climbing up the climbing wave? 

All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave 

In silence; ripen, fall and cease: 

Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.

Weary of war and strife, with the constant effort that a life of responsibility demands, of inevitable pain and loss only to be doomed to die, the sailors beg to be left alone. Three times in the stanza they make this demand: they would go no more to roaming. In these times I appreciate their wish to withdraw from the difficulties life means.

The presence of the lotus eaters appears continuously in literature. Chapter 5 of James Joyce’s Ulysses addresses Homer’s episode of the Lotus Eaters as Leopold Bloom wanders seemingly aimlessly about Dublin before attending to Digby’s funeral. Bloom is to keep away from his home where his wife Molly will be meeting for a sexual tryst with her manager, Boylan. Joyce refers to this episode as “The Lotus Eaters." In the chapter Bloom's daylong journey through Dublin begins with thoughts concerning drugs and other strategies for avoiding reality. 

            In another literary reference, in Thomas Mann’s novel The Magic Mountain an implicit reference is made to the lotus eaters by Ludovico Settembrini, the Italian humanist intellectual, a patient/client of the sanitorium being treated along with other sufferers for tuberculosis. Settembrini says, “Analysis as an instrument of enlightenment and civilization is good in so far as it shatters absurd convictions, acts as a solvent upon natural prejudices, and undermines authority; good, in other words, in that it sets free, refines, humanizes, makes slaves ripe for freedom. But it is bad, very bad, in so far as it stands in the way of action, cannot shape the vital forces, maims life at its roots. Analysis can be a very unappetizing affair, as much so as death, with which it may well belong—allied to the grave and its unsavory anatomy.” He argues that music, too, lulls the listener and leads to torpidity. Settembrini is arguing that analysis can act as the flower of the lotus plant: a narcotic that depletes one of the desire to act. There are critics of postmodernism who might agree with Settembrini. And it was Bertoldt Brecht who argued that catharsis as the result of experiencing theatrical tragedy also serves as a lotus flower draining the desire to act as the emotionally drained audience exits the play. Brecht believed that theater should inspire committed action.

            However, in his poem “Ulysses” Tennyson has offered an alternative to the lethargy of the sailors who eat of the lotus blossoms. Ulysses exhorts his comrades, 

Come, my friends,

'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

This is the opposite of quietism, of torpidity, of lotus eating. Ulysses’ invitation is to action, to risk, to discovery, and to exploration. There would be no time for indolence, says Ulysses. We must go a-roaming. 

I think the urge to eat of the lotus blossom and forget all cares and responsibility is ever-present. Life is hard here out of the garden. In Costa Rica it is so simple to lay about, to do little, to eat of the lotus blossom. To amble to the beach and then amble home, not to rest from a weariness of doing but to continue to do nothing. Like Ulysses, I have not the strength which in old days moved earth and heaven, if ever I had that strength and the inclination to lie-about is strong and alluring. But I have much sympathy with Ulysses’ call to action, an acceptance that we are what we are, creatures with will and longings to move out and explore and even to suffer. Yes, life might be hard and death our end, but though weakened with toil and age we still possess the strengths to struggle, to explore and discover new worlds. Lying amongst the lotus blossoms there is no energy to set sail still, and it takes a great exercise of will to put away the lotus blossoms and to set sail again. 

But sometimes I just don't have the will.

 

Rings of Saturn

There are motives and methods for attempting to get away from the world, but in fact, do so is ultimately an impossible task. I accept that wherever I go I am always in the world and am subject more and less to its slings and arrows. Perhaps it is truer to say that there is no getting away from the world until one recognizes the world that I am always of and in. That recognition entails acknowledging and understanding the myths by which I have lived in the world. But even more, I have always said that wherever I go, well, there I am, and I carry with me all of my neuroses, peccadilloes and, even amazedly, gather together some of my somewhat positive and appealing character traits. All that being said, nevertheless there is motive for removing myself from as much of the external inputs as I can tolerate—to get away from the world, that is— and by doing so leave time and energy to focus on those stimuli and events that derive from within, recognizing that the presence of the unconscious colors all the remembering, itself always a problematic and imprecise process, and that any control over memory is only partially illusory. I always respect what dreams may come . . . And anyway, the act of remembering is inevitably partial and imperfect and influenced by the present. There is, then, no way to get away from the world and rediscover the self. James Baldwin has written of his own expatriate experience, “I think now that if I had had any intimation that the self I was going to find would turn out to be only the same self from which I had spent so much time in flight, I would have stayed home.” Getting away from the world to find the self is a fruitless endeavor.

Nevertheless, there remain motives for reducing contact with the world even as there are various methods by which such withdrawal can be made. By the world I refer to the ever presence of words, events and personages of which I am made conscious, some of which I love and some that are anathema to me. Marx has said that men and women make their own histories but not in conditions of their own choosing. One motive for getting away from the world was to eliminate as much noise as is possible so that the choices I would make were somewhat but never completely free of some uninvited and unwelcome influence. But as I have said there is always the influences of the unconscious to acknowledge and accept.

We have traveled to Costa Rica to get away from the harsh mid-west winter of Minnesota. In my aging I have grown intolerant of the cold wind and snow. Once these meteorological events did not trouble me: I would run with pleasure in the early morning dark, sub-zero weather only sparely bundled in expensive running gear. Or maybe it is that I have in my life preferred the sun and heat to the cold—I have always eschewed air conditioning—though regrettably now my skin shows the long-term results of my sun worship. The dermatologist kindly refers to these marks as wisdom spots but I know them as blemishes and ugly. Occasional basal skin cancers have been excised from my surfaces, and I am forever anxious of suffering more serious cancerous eruptions. I maintain my annual appointments to the skin doctors. But now on the quiet, sun-drenched and sizzling beach I sit in my chair slobbered over with sunscreen lotions and sprays, and am not troubled by invasive external noises, though occasionally a boom box blares and disturbs my rest. But then, I just move my chair a bit to the north or south and the quiet returns. My breaths echo the crashing of the waves; the yoga instructors reminded me to breathe, and the ocean rhythms return me to my breaths. In this environment the external world can with some effort be kept at bay though I appreciate the paradox that considerable energy and funds has been spent in order to achieve some seclusive peace.

The political situation in this moment is so dire that not to know about it seems to me an absolute motive to leave the world and any news regarding it. The reports today seem to me too ominous, and though I am not personally threatened by events, at least, not yet, I am concerned about the children . . . Paul Siebel sang, “We can teach them nothing, nothing, but survival in a desert bare . . .” Politicians are making the world a desert bare. In my life, the news had always arrived via print copy, computer and phone. At the time of the election, I had stopped paper delivery of the New York Times and relegated its reportage to a location buried in the my stuff bookmark on the computer. I can choose not to go there. I also can choose not to go to the websites for CNN and Politico which I have also buried in the my stuff folder. At the election I had substituted Wired rather than the New York Times as my home page. Most of the articles in the formerare beyond my pay grade and even my interests, and I do not care to devote the energies to learn how to read them. The photos are nice, and I suppose bit coin and cryptocurrency and other neologisms might be important awarenesses, but not for me, I think. My cash-in-pocket, credit cards, and investments are sufficient. I am amused sometimes at the newer technological products Wired recommends, most of which I will not purchase and don’t even understand their purpose, but all of which entice me to live a better life. Away then from the immediacy of the news I have been partially successful at avoiding the fetid political atmosphere, though, alas, I still awaken each morning and feel soiled by even a minimal awareness of the appalling attempts by the present government to destroy a democracy as it has been known for more than 250 years. 

But James Baldwin notwithstanding, perhaps the motive for retreat is not an escape that I seek at all: it is a recovery—a re-focusing—of my internal operations that in the absence of the ever-present stimuli of the external can be better seen and heard. Away from the devices by which the world becomes instantly available, I can listen for my own callings and then make assessments and adjustments. I have put away the phone but I’m writing on the computer. On any of my devices a simple click of the fingers on the keyboard attaches me to the world with which I am trying to minimize contact. It is that easy to re-enter the world. On these devices any question I might have can be effortlessly addressed with just a few clicks and alarmingly soon I have fallen into a rabbit hole and have even forgotten where I had started when I picked up the smart phone or clicked some Googled search. Sometimes I realize that after some time down there in the hole I grow alarmed that I haven’t even found an answer to my original question. The whole motive of escaping the world was to avoid the rabbit hole in the first place and not to follow it down, though my partner who has not had the same desire to leave the world, occasionally offers me news of the headlines that often sadden me. Not her, but them. I have been asking her to refrain doing so, but perhaps it gives her comfort to share the horror. And who am I to deny her that relief. Townes Van Zandt sings, “Maybe she just has to sing for the sake of the song/And who do I think I am to decide that she’s wrong.” I am weary of being chastised by my phone. It tells me that today I am not walking as much as I did yesterday, and that this year I am walking less than I did last year. I know that I can turn off the recording of my activity, but I also like to listen to music that tends to relax me when I walk; then the recording of my steps and calorie expenditure continues as does the judgement. Even my electric toothbrush castigates me if I do not spend the required two minutes caring for my teeth. When I place it back down it displays a frowned face. My writing on the computer keeps me above ground with some effort, but I could too easily become distracted or frustrated in the writing and follow these disturbances down into the rabbit hole. I have to learn to tolerate frustration again and eschew instant gratification.

It is of course possible not to turn on the computer or the phone and return to the manual toothbrush . . . but actually that radical isolation that would result does not appeal to me. I can’t completely abandon the phone because some actual people do call me on it. For example, my daughters, my brother and sister and a few dear friends. And occasionally news of a tragedy back home occurs—a death or illness that requires my attention. Though it strikes me . . . that the wanting to know the details of life and death that surround me a part of an attachment to the world that I have not successfully abandoned. Somehow, it suggests that I want to continue the attachment. When I used to look at the print copy of the New York Times I first turned to the Obituary pages as a way to measure the remaining size of my world, and now even when I have partially buried the Times on the computer, I still do want to know who in the world has left it because this awareness helps me know the world in which I continue to live, announces how with the deaths of those with whom I have grown up the world tends to shrink a bit. I continue to monitor the deaths so that I know the lifes. I know that if I do not track these events in the immediate present, I will catch up later with them when I return to the world in which I daily live, but the apparent distance I experience days and miles away offers me comfort and keeps me in the moment unmindful of the changes. Here, in Costa Rica, I don’t carefully track who has live and who has died. Maybe it is that a motive for getting away from that diurnal world and its obituaries has been an unconscious now made conscious attempt to get away from death. 

As this page and others like it show, I like to write, and it is on the computer that I make that effort. And again I recognize that the clicks away from the current page too easily can lead me back into the world from which I have wanted to minimize contact. There along with the current news that I am trying to avoid I can discover announcements about opening new movies, new streaming shows, new products from Amazon shopping (mostly), Skellig Store (occasionally), even eBay (rarely). I have taken to this latter site for less expensive rimless eyeglass frames, a style I have been wearing for upwards of thirty years. In my inbox seemingly hourly there appear dozens of requests by the Democrats pleading for monies, but these urgent requests return me to motive #1 and my wish to lose the politics and find myself again. As if the politics isn’t one of the myths by which I have lived. The assault on the senses from the computer that comes from the world creates tensions and they seem to me now inevitable. Wherever I go, there I am.

Sometimes I realize that it requires an expenditure of some considerable energy not to go on the various devices and lines and to resist the call of the world. Too often I feel myself drawn to attend to notice of the events as if to a magnet; such attention serves as a means of grounding myself, suggesting that I need news of the world in order to situate myself in it. W. G. Sebald’s Rings of Saturn explores just how close one can get to tragedy without being destroyed by it. Saturn’s rings are situated just far enough away from the planet’s gravitational pull to keep from being drawn down onto its surface and smashed to bits. I think I require the connection to the world to maintain the necessary distance from it to avoid being smashed to bits by its gravitational pull.

It begins to appear to me that motives for turning away the world already contain the methods for doing so, though it appears also that a complete escape seems unlikely or even sought. And it takes an honest effort to understand the necessary distance to maintain from the world which must always be held in view.