Inner and Outer

Such synchronistic revelations are neither fully "subjective" (for external things really and truly appear to behave in meaningful ways) nor fully "objective" (for those meaningful ways really and truly require human interpretation  to become meaningful). In a word, they reveal the world to be nondual.

Flow & Creation - Henri Bergson

If our existence were composed of separate states with an impassive ego to unite them, for us there would be no duration. For an ego which does not change does not endure, and a psychic state which remains the same so long as it is not replaced by the following state does not endure either. Vain, therefore, is the attempt to range such states beside each other on the ego supposed to sustain them: never can there solids strung upon a solid make up duration that flows. What we actually obtain in this way is an artificial imitation on the internal life, a static equivalent which will lend itself better to the requirements of logic and language, just because we have eliminated from it the element of real time.
But, as regards the physcical life unfolding beneath the symbols that conceal it, we readily perceive that time is just the stuff it is made of.

Our personality, which is being built up each instant with its accumulated experience, changes without ceasing. By changing, it prevents any state, although superficially identical with another, from ever repeating it in its very depth. That is why our duration is irreversible. We could not live over again a single moment, for we should have to begin by effacing the memory of all that had followed. Even could we erase this memory from our intellect, we could not from our will.

The finished portrait is explained by the features of the model, by the nature of the artist, by the colors spread out of the palette; but, even with the knowledge of what explains it, no one, not even the artist, could have foreseen exactly what the portrait would be, for to predict it would be to produce it before it was produced - an absurd hypothesis which is its own refutation. Even so with regards to the moments of our life, of which was are artisans. Each of them is a kind of creation. And just as the talent of the painter is formed or deformed - in any case, is modified - under the very influence of the works he produces, so each of our states, at the moment of its issue, modifies our personality, being indeed the new form that we are assuming. It is right then to say that what we do depends on what we are; but it is necessary to add also that we are, to a certain extent, what we do, and that we are creating ourselves continually. This creation of self by self is the more complete, the more one reasons what one does.

For reason does not proceed in such matters as in geometry, where impersonal premisses are given once for all, and an impersonal conclusion must by perforce be drawn. Here, on the contrary, the same reasons may dictate to different persons, or to the same person at different moments, acts profoundly different, although equally reasonable. The truth is that they are not quite the same reasons, since they are not those of the same person, nor of the same moment. That is why we cannot deal with them in the abstract, from the outside, as in geometry, nor solve for another the problems by which he is faced in life. Each must solve them from within, on his own account. But we need not go more deeply into this. We are seeking only the precise meaning that our consciousness gives to the word "exist", and we find that, for a conscious being, to exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.

To live in Earnest

The ironic frame functions as a shield against criticism. The same goes for ironic living. Irony is the most self-defensive mode, as it allows a person to dodge responsibility for his or her choices, aesthetic and otherwise. To live ironically is to hide in public. It is flagrantly indirect, a form of subterfuge, which means etymologically to “secretly flee” (subter + fuge). Somehow, directness has become unbearable to us.

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While we have gained some skill sets (multitasking, technological savvy), other skills have suffered: the art of conversation, the art of looking at people, the art of being seen, the art of being present. Our conduct is no longer governed by subtlety, finesse, grace and attention, all qualities more esteemed in earlier decades. Inwardness and narcissism now hold sway.

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Where can we find [] examples of nonironic living? What does it look like? Nonironic models include very young children, elderly people, deeply religious people, people with severe mental or physical disabilities, people who have suffered, and those from economically or politically challenged places where seriousness is the governing state of mind. My friend Robert Pogue Harrison put it this way in a recent conversation: “Wherever the real imposes itself, it tends to dissipate the fogs of irony.”

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Moving away from the ironic involves saying what you mean, meaning what you say and considering seriousness and forthrightness as expressive possibilities, despite the inherent risks. It means undertaking the cultivation of sincerity, humility and self-effacement, and demoting the frivolous and the kitschy on our collective scale of values. It might also consist of an honest self-inventory.

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The ironic life is certainly a provisional answer to the problems of too much comfort, too much history and too many choices, but ... this mode of living is not viable and conceals within it many social and political risks. For such a large segment of the population to forfeit its civic voice through the pattern of negation [] described is to siphon energy from the cultural reserves of the community at large. People may choose to continue hiding behind the ironic mantle, but this choice equals a surrender to commercial and political entities more than happy to act as parents for a self-infantilizing citizenry.

Ritual

“Two or three weeks ago a woman came in and asked for an arrangement over a coffin. She was here over an hour. We discussed her thoughts and feelings regarding the lost person. In a way it was a kind of performance. We started at one corner of the shop and we walked around slowly. She said this person was very nice, simple, and strong. So i picked some thyme which has this simple-strong quality. It’s also a symbol of cleansing. Then she asked for something to symbolize blood. So we selected a branch of a Cornus Alba Sibirica bush that becomes reddish in winter. And then we picked white lily, a symbol of purity. And then blue hyacinths, the color of yearning for a mythical or primordial state - with bulbs attached so the funeral guests could take them home and plant them in their gardens to renew the memory of the person every year. After our selections the woman said ‘I have to thank you. I feel much better now.’ ”