11:30am Saturday, Nov. 12
I'm sitting in a cafe called 'La Maison du Macaron' on 23rd street. Rachel and I are going to a lecture and the early bird that I am (joke...insert laugh here) decided to wake up and get things done and then go out to breakfast followed by a long walk. So here I am at 11:30am sitting in a cafe sipping tea and reading Plato. I'm reading about how the body prevents the soul from achieving ultimate knowledge due to the body's automatic response to experience through perception (sense perception). Socrates discusses how people are so distracted by material and the pleasures associated with that obsession that the soul is distracted...hidden and masked, inaccessible. That being said, I am sitting on this couch at the cafe livid. I'm angry and distracted by the Woody Allen voice behind me who has been rambling on and on for the past 30 minutes about the iphone and how amazing it is. This extension of the body, this miracle of an object has the ability to 'know your voice'. This object, if lost, can be tracked by GPS from your very own Macbook pro (of course 'pro'), iPod, iPad, iTouch or any other technological device, which would be very well lingering in your bag (fully equipped with a padded space- sleek enough to protect any metallic product). So here I am sitting reading about how terrible these pleasures are...these pleasures experienced through superficial interaction between the body and object. I sit here asking myself how I can live a 'pure' life in a city. My body is forced, like a lab rat in a maze, to travel this labyrinth; blind to the forced structure. I'm that test. I am that rat, evolved from all 4 legs to 2 heeled feet talking the grid of the city in search of....of what? According to Plato, only the 'wisest of men' accept their life is in the hands of the gods. Only a foolish man is rumored to resist this grid-like structure questioning their fate, their free-will. Okay....well...here Socrates is discussing suicide and why only a foolish man would not trust in the gods with their decision to separate their body from soul by way of death when time permits. So here I am sitting in this lab we like to call the world...no, universe or how about galaxy? Here I am, a spec of a being, sipping tea and reading Plato, entirely sickened to my stomach (at the expense of being late to a gallery lecture) listening to the blindness, listening to the retrogressive murmur behind me rattle off about the GPS system on his 10 technological devices.
My palms are sweaty, my forehead is wrinkled, my eyes are squinted as I read from the dead words of this bound book. I hear the final words from the man behind me responding to another lab rat, lost as a heartbeat of his bodily extension is about to loose charge. He is scurrying about the shop in search of a plug. Woody Allan, behind me, helps him out: 'Oh yeah, hey...yeah they don't have working outlets here. Yeah, they cut off access so when I want to charge up, I go to the Starbucks next door.' Naturally, I already knew this within the first few minutes here and have my distracting connection to the rest of society (my iPhone), plugged in behind the counter so that I can maintain a heartbeat for the duration of the day...so I can assure my friends that I haven't dissolved entirely if I don't respond to their text, call, poke, e-mail, tweet, wall-post, blog post, instant message, Skype, Face-time or video chat request.
The weight on my shoulders is unbearable, yet I am used to it. This is my identity, both physical and then there is my cyber counterpart. Valid, both valid as 'me'. Is death really the only way I can access my soul? How does Plato even come to this conclusion? Does his soul really somehow convey its past, since it is immortal? On what grounds does he make this claim anyway? If its previous manifestation was in another 'good' man, once locked in another body, knowledge cannot be accessed, god forbid, by a thinker such as our dearest Socrates. Why should I believe him? Why should I listen to him when he assumes, 'It really has been shown to us that, if we are even to have pure knowledge, we must escape from the body and observe things in themselves with the soul by itself. It seems likely that we shall, only then, when we are dead, attain that which we desire and of which we claim to be lovers, namely, wisdom, as our argument shows, not while we live; for if it is impossible to attain any pure knowledge with the body, then one of the two things is true: either we can never attain knowledge or we can do so after death' (Phaedo, 65d 6-67a 1).
Death it is! Well, no. I suppose if I took my own life in search of achieving ultimate knowledge, not only would I be a 'foolish' woman, but I would feel horrible about gipping my parents on their poor investment decision. Anyway, what actions and choices in my mortal life can even shape my soul? What is one suppose to do once told that perceptions are a distraction, that perceptions are deceiving? Experience is made possible through the use of the senses so without those 5 gifts, there is only the mind, which cannot think without learning. How does one learn? Touch, smell, sight, taste, and through auditory forms. No, I believe my search is made valid through my sweaty palms, my visceral reaction to the petty and superficial talk of plugs, of material clutter. Even in 400 B.C.E. If it was an issue then, Plato must be lingering around this coffee shop shaking his head and saying 'tisk, tisk'. By, Zeus! Look at the time! I best be on my way, as it's 12:26pm and the lecture is far away. I must retrieve my plugged-in mobile device and make a few 'connections'. Thank you, grey notebook, for indulging in thought with me, for listening to the rambling thoughts in this tea-stained journal of a high-heeled fashion major, this 22 year old girl in New York, sucked into superficial clutter, craving materiality. Dare I say that I can only really appreciate the rawness of each indulgence experienced when blind to the form of another? 12:37pm. I'm late.
