Subject:
Re: A misunderstanding
From:
Nikola Chubrich <nchubrich@gmail.com>
Date:
01/02/2020 04:00 AM
To:
Ernst Meyer <ernstmeyer@earthlink.net>

Dear Dr. Meyer:

I have indeed made a number of misunderstandings. 

The first was supposing you to be a mere singer of lullabies: and this I compounded by baiting you, so to speak, with Rilke (even though that particular poem spoke to my own situation in a way that I thought you might have found interesting: however there are more urgent matters afoot). To sing lullabies I must turn to my parents, and no-one else. If they are not interested, then it must be unwise to expect anyone else to be interested. Thus: ask no lullabies of those other than one's parents. Would you think this to be at least a good rule of thumb? (I am not proposing it a law.) Indeed, though I myself have never seen the rule stated, I have also never seen it violated (i.e., I have never observed situations that would correspond to a violation of the rule if the rule existed).

My second misunderstanding was to confabulate some earlier statements about bedding into an invitation for Saturday night. For this I do not think we need to state a general rule, do we?

My third misunderstanding was to take the length of our conversations as a parameter for your willingness to have someone barge into your life. This again seems a simple enough misunderstanding to remember.

My fourth was about my own preferences. On Saturday night I should surely be better off in my own apartment, but I was somehow unaware of this. 

In the midst of all this was a sin (or better put: a mistake which might conventionally be labeled a sin, but for which the understanding imparted by the word 'sin' is inadequate): of disrespect to my parents, and to you. I appeared to presuppose I could stay at your house. I described disrespectful things about our parents. Since it might have appeared that I was about to make the same mistakes tomorrow, it was necessary to, so to speak, trap the mistakes, and allow the truth to escape.

I have something further to say, it seemed to me; I'll wait for the next email and hope this mighty psoas of mine relents a bit in its demand for me to be courteous, in order to allow the possibility of respect; to be respectful, in order to allow the possibility of kindness; to be kind, in order to allow the possibility of truth;; and to find truth, to reveal love; to seek love, to find truth; and so on ad infinitum.

I find myself on that ladder (was this perhaps the ladder indentified in the Symposium, or perhaps another one? I think it another one). It elevates with ferocious rapidity, the worse so as I made the mistake of identifying and infinite loop (never run an infinite loop before bedtime).

So here is another lesson to myself: one need not find fullest or most poetic expression; one need only but what needs to be said. So let us turn the dial down on that infinite loop. We are quite accustomed to these sorts of things in social relations, and might well know what to do.

On Thu, Jan 2, 2020 at 1:05 AM Ernst Meyer <ernstmeyer@earthlink.net> wrote:

    Dear Nicola,

    Thank you for your letter.  No, you should not plan to come to stay
    overnight, not on Saturday of this week and not in the foreseeable
    future.  

    The fact that I am disabled by illness may not be apparent to you,
    because as a matter of conviction, I choose never to complain, and I
    will not complain now, except to say that I am overwhelmed by the
    imperatives of daily life.  I am overwhelmed by the maintenance of this
    very large house. There are two hot water faucets that I have been
    unable to repair. There has been a leak into the ceiling of the first
    floor bathroom, the source of which I have not identified. I would have
    no clean warm bedding for you; I have neglected to purchase comfortable
    bedding even for myself. Except for space heaters in the rooms which I
    occupy, the house is unheated, with an ambient temperature between 38
    and 42 degrees. I wear several layers of clothes in order to keep warm.
    I have felt too weak to put the house in order. It has not been cleaned
    for many years. I cannot invite you or anyone else to spend even a
    single night here.

    Even though I am too deaf to understand much of what you tell me, I
    have enjoyed your occasional visits.  Telephone conversations where
    with the use of earphones, I can hear - and understand your voice, are
    even more satisfactory.  Overnight visits at this time would not work.
    I am helpless and my only refuge is solitude. As I have told you, I
    experience life to be ever changing, and it is possible that the time
    might come when I would need and ask for your help. But not now.

    Your father's assessment of me is correct. Rather than resolving any
    problems which you might have, your association with me is likely to
    aggavate them. I would not hold it against you, or blame you, if you
    took his advice. My very best wishes to you and to your parents for the
    New Year.

    EJM

    On Wed, 2020-01-01 at 22:55 -0500, Nikola Chubrich wrote:
    > Dear Dr. Meyer:
    >
    > Practically speaking my question concerned, as you might have
    > surmised, sleep: I mean the ability to fall asleep after such
    > thinking as we are doing here. I have not slept much. At times sleep
    > has seemed intensely necessary; at other times strangely absent.
    > Tonight, for instance, on two nights of no sleep and many more of
    > little (but let us not automatically say "poor") sleep, I stopped by
    > to be with the neighbors whom we shared Christmas with, and talked
    > there animatedly about music (which I intend to teach-around to their
    > daughter tomorrow), being listened to with rapt attention, and no
    > exhaustion on my part. This I did after the previous night barging
    > into my parents' room at 3 am and asking for help sleeping,
    > whereupon, in spite of all the difficulties of the previous days,
    > they cherished me and saved me.
    >
    > I thus went home tonight and found myself obligated (obligated, I
    > say, for my own sake), to this letter.
    >
    > By the identity of self as illusion, are you alluding perhaps to the
    > cataract that my family and I have been going through, and seem
    > almost to have gotten through? I am now a different person, my mother
    > somewhat different, my father I do not know yet. For he is not
    > thankful, thinks my talking to you a sort of mitzvot, and is
    > imparting: in the imperative mood, no less: that I consider keeping
    > my distance (well, options there at least!).
    >
    > I tried to explain to him the difficulty with commanding me, but I
    > was not listened to. I have listened to my parents down to the
    > uttermost farthing; I have never interrupted them; I have sat in rapt
    > attention, and had them share their wisdom with me; nobody has
    > listened to me, and when I try to explicate things they get
    > increasingly frustrated.
    >
    > Did you plan all this, Dr. Meyer? For it seemed planned down to the
    > minutest detail. If not, who planned it? For it seems the door to my
    > life, and I have walked through it.
    >
    > I wish to take you up on your offer to come stay: could it be
    > Saturday night? My parents and I, still on enjoyable terms, thank
    > God: I shall practice enfolding all this thought when I am with them:
    > will be going to watch a skiing movie in Newburyport, and I will be
    > able to get down to your house after dinner. 
    >
    > Shall I bring anything (in the event)?
    >
    > Rilke:
    >
    > You, my friend, are alone, because . . .
    > We, with words and pointing fingers,
    > gradually make the world our own----
    > perhaps its weakest, most hazardous part.
    >
    > Who points fingers at a smell?
    > Yet you feel so many of those forces
    > that threaten us... you recognize the dead,
    > and you cower before the magic spell.
    >
    > Look, now we together must manage
    > with piecework and parts, as if they were the whole.
    > Helping you will be hard. Above all:
    >
    > don't plant me in your heart. I'd grow too fast.
    >
    > Were I to remain in need of a lullaby, perhaps you would (if still
    > awake at such time) be willing to read this poem in the original to
    > me over the phone. Then again, the relevance of this poem to my own
    > situation may be too startling. I opened to this page at random.
    >
    > But I think I will sleep...
    >
    >
    >
    >
    > On Wed, Jan 1, 2020 at 7:07 PM Ernst Meyer <ernstmeyer@earthlink.net>
    > wrote:
    > > On Wed, 2020-01-01 at 16:19 -0500, Nikola Chubrich wrote:
    > > > Dare we believe in a kind God, who grants us the time we need to
    > > > finish what we must?
    > >
    > > Dear Nicola,
    > >
    > > Your question: "Dare we believe in a kind God, who grants us the
    > > time
    > > we need to finish what we must?  My reply: a) Please note that a
    > > reply
    > > is a reply and does not purport to give an answer.  Subsidiary
    > > questions; b) who what and where is the "good God".  c) how and by
    > > whom
    > > is "the time we need to finish what we must" determined?
    > >
    > > I rely on Spinoza for the identification of God with Nature. Deus
    > > sive
    > > Natura.  God is Nature and Nature is God. The identity of God and
    > > Nature assures the "goodness" of God and the divinity of nature.
    > >
    > > It has been my contention for some years (cf. the disquisitions of
    > > Maximilian Katenus in my novel "Vier Freunde" that the identity of
    > > self
    > > is an illusion, that with the course of time, each one of us is
    > > subject
    > > to unpredicable change.  that human knowledge is the assimilation
    > > BY
    > > the human mind of the world which it purports to know, and that
    > > human
    > > action is the assimilation TO the human mind of the world which
    > > purports to specify its conduct. I am recurrently impressed with
    > > the
    > > widsom and truth of Aesops fable about the fox and the sour grapes.
    > >
    > > My answer to your question: "Dare we believe in a kind God, who
    > > grants
    > > us the time we need to finish what we must?" is that the mercy of
    > > nature is obvious, since the time we need to finish what we must,
    > > is
    > > always available, because that time is unavoidably determined by
    > > the
    > > time that is granted to us. Q.e.d.
    > >
    > > EJM
    > >
    > >
    > >
Das XVI. Sonett

Du, mein Freund, bist einsam, weil....
Wir machen mit Worten und Fingerzeigen
uns allmählich die Welt zu eigen,
vielleicht ihren schwächsten, gefährlichsten Teil.
Wer zeigt mit Fingern auf einen Geruch? -
Doch von den Kräften, die uns bedrohten,
fühlst du viele... Du kennst die Toten,
und du erschrickst vor dem Zauberspruch.

Sieh, nun heißt es zusammen ertragen
Stückwerk und Teile, als sei es das Ganze.
Dir helfen, wird schwer sein. Vor allem: pflanze

mich nicht in dein Herz. Ich wüchse zu schnell.
Doch meines Herrn Hand will ich führen und sagen:
Hier. Das ist Esau in seinem Fell.


Rainer Maria Rilke, zwischen dem 2. und 5.2.1922, Chateau de Muzot