Speaking the Truth as a Way to Meaning

Another fabulous post by the Fate Project's blog, Musings:

Truthfulness and Self-Care 

08 February, 2010
Posted by Golabuk in General 

In dialogue, one of the five points of fate practice, truthfulness includes what the Greeks called parrhesia, translated as “frankness” or “candor.” Michel Foucault offers some insights into parrhesia: 

<<To begin with, what is the general meaning of the word parrhesia? Etymologically, parrhesiazesthai means “to say everything”—from pan (“everything”) and rhema (“that which is said”). The one who uses parrhesia, the parrhesiastes, is someone who says everything he has in mind: he does not hide anything, but opens his heart and mind completely to other people through his discourse. In parrhesia, the speaker is supposed to give a complete and exact account of what he has in mind so that the audience is able to comprehend exactly what the speaker thinks. The word parrhesia then, refers to a type of relationship between the speaker and what he says. For in parrhesia, the speaker makes it manifestly clear and obvious that what he says is his own opinion. And he does this by avoiding any kind of rhetorical form which would veil what he thinks. Instead, the parrhesiastes uses the most direct words and forms of expression he can find. Whereas rhetoric provides the speaker with technical devices to help him prevail upon the minds of his audience (regardless of the rhetorician’s own opinion concerning what he says), in parrhesia, the parrhesiastes acts on other people’s mind by showing them as directly as possible what he actually believes.>> 

The most valuable of Foucalt’s points on parrhesia is its relation to self-care: 

<<In the writings of Plato, Socrates appears in the role of the parrhesiastes. Although the word “parrhesia” appears several times in Plato, he never uses the word parrhesiastes—a word which only appears later as part of the Greek vocabulary. And yet the role of Socrates is typically a parrhesiastic one, for he constantly confronts Athenians in the street and, as noted in the Apology, points out the truth to them, bidding them to care for wisdom, truth, and the perfection of their souls. And in the Alcibiades Major, Socrates assumes a parrhesiastic role in the dialogue. For whereas Alcibiades friends and lovers all flatter him in their attempt to obtain his favors, Socrates risks provoking Alcibiades anger when he leads him to this idea: that before Alcibiades will be able to accomplish what he is so set on achieving, viz., to become the first among the Athenians to rule Athens and become more powerful than the King of Persia, before he will be able to take care of Athens, he must first learn to take care of himself. Philosophical parrhesia is thus associated with the theme of the care of oneself.>> 


It may not be apparent at first look how frankness and self-care imply each other, but a practical example or two will make it obvious. Imagine a man in a corporate job he despises, but depends on for his income. Each day, he goes to his office, resigned to put in another eight hours while secretly longing to start a small business of his own, or take up some artistic direction that calls him but also intimidates him for the lack of security it promises. Let’s say that this man is called in to his superior’s office for a performance evaluation, during which he is asked point blank: “Are you happy working here? Where do you see yourself in five years?” and so on. Now, it should be clear that we are not in a position to dictate to this hypothetical individual what constitutes self-care. Perhaps it lies in staying on a bit longer, perhaps not. But we can surely say what constitutes truthfulness in this situation, and remember that we are examining here the idea that truthfulness and self-care stand in intimate relation with each other. Our man can lie for the sake of the evaluation, to keep his job and his income, and so on. In other words, he can be untruthful for a good reason, and no one is ever untruthful without one. Or he can be truthful, which will cast him into a fate that becomes far less predictable. He may be fired on the spot for his confession. On the other hand, his supervisor may be so impressed by his honesty that he gives him free reign, or even is moved by the man’s courage to share a denied dream of his own. In any case, it is one thing to say nothing for a time; another to dissemble when asked a direct question, the truthful answer to which we know only too well. What we are suggesting here is that the best outcome lies in the hands of candor, no matter how it may appear. We may even speculate that when it is time for a truth to come to light, the forces of chaos arrange for someone to ask us the revealing question. At such moments especially, the gods are watching and listening.

We are not denying by this example that it may be in the man’s interest to stay on the job for a time, but ultimately, he will remain set against his better fate as long as he is willing to deny, postpone, or misrepresent the truth. This truth is not his doing. It is written in his nature by the hands that created him. He wants what he wants, and cannot want otherwise. So are we given to ourselves, and must work out our relation to who we already are, so that we may become most fully who we are meant to be. 

Another example: Imagine two lovers who, having awakened from the lovely dream of courtship, are now standing face to face with their own and each other’s issues. This, of course, is where two people learn what sort of love they really have, even whether what they have is love at all—since we may get close to each other for many reasons that have nothing to do with love. In each of these two, a daimon lives and speaks the truth. One aspect of this truth is the “yes” and “no” of our nature. In other words, some things will be, in truth, acceptable; others, not. The “yes” and “no” of us, like our likes and dislikes,” are given, not subject to our will. We may wish we did not love someone we love deeply for all the pain it causes us, or wish we did love someone toward whom we feel nothing of the “divine madness,” as Socrates calls it. In either case, our will stands by helpless while the gods play out our character and our story, for they have written both, leaving to us the fundamental choice between humility and hubris, willingness and willfulness, truthfulness and invention. We are saying here, in expanding on the point made by Foucault, that the best that these lovers can do, for themselves, each other, and their union, is to honor their daimon and be frank with each other, saying “yes” when that is the truth, and “no” when it is not. So much damage is inflicted in romantic unions by one person or the other or both failing to practice parrhesia when the crucial moment comes, because in abandoning parrhesia, they abandon self-care, and this choice, while no doubt serving certain short-term interests, is unsustainable.

What would happen in our lives if we took up parrhesia as a direction for living—if we resolved always to tell the truth as an expression of self-care? One thing that would happen is we would extricate ourselves immediately from the suffering of those who are not yet on their own side. And how can we befriend the gods, life, and fate if we haven’t befriended ourselves?

Indulging in Romance, Mysticism, and Movies

As the world explodes in massive political changes I've taken to watching movies as a mode of relaxing and shutting off my brain which spends too much time over analyzing. Flavors of the week? Foreign films (maybe not foreign to some of you) and classic film noir. Last week I watched Caramel directed and starring Nadine Labaki, a Lebanese romance. Compared to American movies where sex is blatant, no one even kissed in this film but the romance was indulgent in all its implications. I found it a really refreshing sort of movie to watch.

I also re-watched Casablanca which I adore! Ingrid Bergman is such a classic beauty and there's nothing like watching Humphrey Bogart be that dark, classy, handsome hero. I really enjoy film noir, and want to watch more of it. I'm entertaining seeing The Maltese Falcon, also starring our boy Humphrey; Rififi, a French crime film of the same genre; and Gilda starring Rita Hayworth.

I've also caught wind of Tunisian director, Nacer Khemir, who has directed a trilogy of spiritual films based on Sufism - Wanderers of the Desert, The Dove's Lost Necklace, and Bab'Aziz: The Prince Who Contemplated His Soul.






The films have a mystical and fantastical quality about them and plots quite similar to that of a fairy tale. Khemir noted in an interview that he felt it was his duty as a filmmaker to show another face of Islam unlike the stereotypes perpetuated by Western governments and media. In discussing his film Bab'Aziz, Khemir states:

Fundamentalism, as well as radicalism, is a distorting mirror of Islam. This movie is a modest effort to give Islam its real image back. No other mission seemed as urgent to me as this one: to give a "face" to hundreds of millions of Muslims who are often, if not always, the first victims of terrorism caused by some fundamentalist. And although this movie is based on the joyful and love-giving Sufi tradition, it is also a highly political film, and deliberately so. It is a duty nowadays to show to the world another aspect of Islam, otherwise, each one of us will be stifled by his own ignorance of "the other one." It is fear that stifles people, not reality. There are nearly one billion Muslims in the world today, that’s one sixth of the Earth’s inhabitants. To try your best to know your neighbor better is a form of hospitality. Hospitality is not just about housing people and feeding them; hospitality is about listening and understanding. You cannot receive someone in your house, just feed him and ignore him! In my opinion, this is a movie that encourages people to listen to each other and, perhaps further down the line, to really come together. 

The Bigger Picture: Musings from The Fate Project

I've become an immense fan of the following blog, Musings, spearheaded by the fine people at The Fate Project - essentially 'Life' consultants who use philosophy and metaphor as a teaching tool in regards to dealing with the realities of unpredictable circumstances, change, or loss.

I cut and paste the following post from the blog, one of my favorites, this parable is also retold in a different version among Mullah Nasruddin stories:

Fate and the Bigger Picture 

24 May, 2010 

Posted by Golabuk in General 

Shortly after my first book was published, I was fortunate to have it reviewed in the Washington Post by a writer named Skip Kaltenheuser. In his review, Skip said that one thing he took away from the reading was the idea that, in his words, “We seldom know the significance of an event on the day that it happens.” Skip got this because the book, which offers consolation and direction to those who are struggling with a broken heart, makes a case for stepping back and remembering that there’s a bigger picture than the one that may be staring us in the face at the moment. This is not a practice that hubris finds to its liking. On the contrary, hubris is nearsighted. Driven by willfulness, it judges events solely in terms of its agendas and motives, counting every development as though it were a conclusion, and brooks no interference with its plans. Hubris meets the world and others with a presumption of entitlement that includes dictating not only what should happen but how and when, and if it meets resistance, it becomes frustrated and feels justified in waging wars of one sort or another to protect or ensure its interests. 

There’s a wonderful parable about an old Chinese farmer and his son, who lived on a small plot of land in a rural province and made do with little. One day, a wild horse came out of the mountains and began grazing on their land. At the time, horses possessed great value; only the wealthy could afford to own them, and according to local law, the wild horse now belonged to the them. Incredulous at their sudden good fortune, the son cried out in joy. “Isn’t it wonderful, father?” he asked. But the farmer said only, “We shall see.” The next day, the horse ran off, back to the mountains, and the boy was crestfallen. “Oh, father,” he said, “now we are poor again. Better that that horse had never come.” To this, the father replied, “We shall see.” On the third day, the horse returned with half a dozen horses following, and the son, once again, was dancing with delight, but when he went to his father to express his joy, the father said once again, “We shall see.” On the fourth day, the son climbed on one of the wild horses and was thrown badly, breaking his leg. While the father was tending to his son, the boy began bemoaning his bad luck, and the old farmer, comforting him, said, “We shall see. And on the fifth day, the province went to war, and the army recruiters came through the town and conscripted every eligible young man—except the one who could not go because he had a broken leg. And so on.

We do well to remember that even significant events are a chapter in the book of our life, not the whole story, and that given the quick-change artistry of the gods illustrated in the parable of the old farmer and his son, we cannot say that a certain development is a conclusion, only a turn in a road that continues. Who can say what good may follow some seeming misfortune? If we’re truthful, if we remain on the path of humility, all we can say is, “We shall see.”

Sufi for the Foodie: The Spiritual Origins of Coffee

Taking a break from politics, I'm thinking about food for the soul. Literally. Superluminal posted a Sufi Cookbook online listing not only recipes, but poetry, parables and interesting historical and spiritual facts concerning, well, food! One of his more interesting essays is on the origins of coffee.

I will repost the text here, although do follow the link above for the beautiful images included in the essay:

Coffee: The Wine of Islam

Most modern coffee-drinkers are probably unaware of coffee's heritage in the Sufi orders of Southern Arabia. Members of the Shadhiliyya order are said to have spread coffee-drinking throughout the Islamic world sometime between the 13th and 15th centuries CE. A Shadhiliyya shaikh was introduced to coffee-drinking in Ethiopia, where the native highland bush, its fruit and the beverage made from it were known as bun. It is possible, though uncertain, that this Sufi was Abu'l Hasan 'Ali ibn Umar, who resided for a time at the court of Sadaddin II, a sultan of Southern Ethiopia. 'Ali ibn Umar subsequently returned to the Yemen with the knowledge that the berries were not only edible, but promoted wakefulness. To this day the shaikh is regarded as the patron saint of coffee-growers, coffee-house proprietors and coffee-drinkers, and in Algeria coffee is sometimes called shadhiliyye in his honor. 

The beverage became known as qahwa — a term formerly applied to wine — and ultimately, to Europeans, as "The Wine of Islam." It became popular among the Sufis to boil up the grounds and drink the brew to help them stay awake during their night dhikr. (Roasting the beans was a later improvement developed by the Persians.)

The Shadhili Abu Bakr ibn Abd'Allah al-'Aydarus was impressed enough by its effects that he composed a qasida (poem) in honor of the drink. Coffee-drinkers even coined their own term for the euphoria it produced — marqaha. The mystic and theologian Shaikh ibn Isma'il Ba Alawi of Al-Shihr stated that the use of coffee, when imbibed with prayerful intent and devotion, could lead to the experience of qahwa ma'nawiyya ("the ideal qahwa") and qahwat al-Sufiyya, interchangeable terms defined as "the enjoyment which the people of God feel in beholding the hidden mysteries and attaining the wonderful disclosures and the great revelations."

The Shadiliyya dervishes were active in the world; it is said that Shaikh Abul Hasan ash-Shadhili, the founder of the order, was reluctant to take on a student who did not already have a profession. It soon became apparent that coffee's benefits could be extended to the workday and the local economy as well. The southern Arabian climate was ideal for coffee cultivation, and the ports of Yemen, particularly the port of Mocha, became the world's primary exporters of coffee.

Coffee's use spread to Mecca, where, according to an early Arab historian,

...it was drunk in the Sacred Mosque itself, so that there was scarcely a dhikr or mawlid where coffee was not present. (Jaziri)

By way of pilgrims, traders, students and travelers, coffee spread throughout the Islamic world. Al-Azhar became an early center of coffee-drinking, and a certain amount of ceremony began to surround it. One 16th century writer describes dervish meetings in Cairo:

They drank coffee every Monday and Friday eve, putting it in a large vessel made of red clay. Their leader ladled it out with a small dipper and gave it to them to drink, passing it to the right, while they recited one of their usual formulas, mostly "La illaha il'Allah..." (Ibn 'Abd al-Ghaffar)

Another early Yemeni Sufi devotional ritual involved coffee-drinking accompanied by recitation of a ratib, the invocation 116 times of the divine name Ya Qawi, "O Possessor of All Strength!" — a prayerful and witty juxtaposition of sound and sense.

Over time, coffee even acquired an angelic reputation: according to one Persian legend, it was first served to a sleepy Muhammad by the Angel Gabriel. In another story, King Solomon was said to have entered a town whose inhabitants were suffering a mysterious disease; on Gabriel's command, he prepared a brew of roasted coffee beans, and thereby cured the townspeople.

By the early 16th century CE coffee-drinking moved to the secular sphere, and a new institution evolved which transformed social life throughout the Islamic world. Coffee-houses supplied more than beans — they had the needed equipment, the expertise to prepare the brew, and a convivial milieu in which to enjoy it. Ahmet Pasha, the governor of Egypt during the late 16th century CE, actually built coffeehouses as a public works project, thereby garnering great political popularity. In the mid-seventeenth century two Syrian businessmen, Hakm and Shams, introduced coffee to Istanbul, established the city's first coffeehouses, made a fortune in the process, and established a new and profitable arena of economic activity. Evliya Efendi wrote of the coffee-merchants of Constantinople:

The Merchants of coffee are three hundred men and shops. They are great and rich merchants, protected by Shaikh Shadhili, who was girded by Weis-ul-karani with the Prophet's leave. (Evliya Efendi)

Throughout the first few centuries of its history in the Islamic world, coffee's popularity engendered great controversy. Many were suspicious of the effects of caffeine and the gatherings in which it was consumed — they seemed debauched to some and subversive to others. Coffeehouses competed with mosques for attendance, and as unsupervised gathering places for wits and learned men, provided spawning grounds for sedition. The wags of Istanbul jokingly called the coffeehouses mekteb-i 'irfan, "schools of knowledge." Efforts were launched, and persisted for at least a hundred years, to declare coffee an intoxicant forbidden by Islamic law.

...As to the coffee it is an innovation, which curtails sleep and the generating power in man. Coffee-houses are houses of confusion. Coffee has been by law declared illicit in the great collections of fetwas (legal injunctions) wherein every thing that is burnt is declared to be illegal food. (Evliya Efendi)

During Ramadan in 1539 CE Cairo's coffeehouses were raided and closed, although only for a few days. Soon after coffeehouses achieved popularity in Constantinople, Sultan Murat IV closed them all; they were to remain dark until the last part of the century. But as soon as the Sultan's edict went into effect, the coffeehouse patrons, their money and their social life, went elsewhere:

In Brussa there are seventy five coffeehouses frequented by the most elegant and learned of the inhabitants. All coffeehouses, particularly those near the great mosque, abound with men skilled in a thousand arts... These became famous only since those of Constantinople were closed by the express command of Sultan Murat IV. (Evliya Efendi)

The moralists fought a losing battle, for they were opposed by well-educated coffee-drinkers from the highest ranks of the religious and political hierarchy who did not look fondly upon innovative legal prohibitions. The "tavern without wine" offered a respectable gathering place for men to socialize and entertain away from home. Business was especially brisk during Ramadan, when proprietors made extra efforts to draw crowds with storytellers and puppet shows.

Despite coffee's eventual secularization, the fondness for it in Sufi circles and the motives for its use were not lost. Helveti dervishes were among those who enthusiastically drank coffee to promote the stamina needed for extended dhikr ceremonies and retreats. Once coffee was readily available throughout the Ottoman Empire, it became a fixture of daily life in the Helveti dergahs, and a legend was born that linked the beneficial effects of a miraculous spring to a morning cup of brew:

Mosslahuddin Mergez, the head of the Dervishes Khalveti... once said to his fakirs, "I heard here underneath the ground a voice saying: "O Sheikh! I am a spring of reddish water imprisoned in this place for seven thousand years, and am destined to come to the surface of the earth by thy endeavor as a remedy against fever. Endeavor then to release me from my subterraneous prison." Upon this speech all his fakirs began to dig a well with him, and forth rushed a sweet water of a reddish color, which if drank in the morning with coffee, is a proved remedy against fever, known all over the world by the name of the Ajasma of Mergez. (Evliya Efendi)

In Persia, coffeehouses evolved into hotbeds of lasciviousness and political dispute soon after they were introduced. Shah Abbas I responded to this situation by installing a mullah in the leading Isfahan establishment; he would arrive early in the morning, hold forth on topics of religion, history, law and poetry, then encourage those assembled there to be off to their work. A pious ambience was thereby promoted, an example was set for other coffeehouses, and a potentially volatile social milieu was somewhat controlled. Poets and mystics occasionally took up permanent residence; for example, Molla Ghorur of Shiraz settled in Isfahan in his old age and established himself at a coffeehouse, which soon became a gathering place for those seeking spiritual guidance.

The 17th Century French traveler Jean Chardin gave a lively description of the Persian coffeehouse scene:

People engage in conversation, for it is there that news is communicated and where those interested in politics criticize the government in all freedom and without being fearful, since the government does not heed what the people say. Innocent games... resembling checkers, hopscotch, and chess, are played. In addition, mollas, dervishes, and poets take turns telling stories in verse or in prose. The narrations by the mollas and the dervishes are moral lessons, like our sermons, but it is not considered scandalous not to pay attention to them. No one is forced to give up his game or his conversation because of it. A molla will stand up in the middle, or at one end of the qahveh-khaneh, and begin to preach in a loud voice, or a dervish enters all of a sudden, and chastises the assembled on the vanity of the world and its material goods. It often happens that two or three people talk at the same time, one on one side, the other on the opposite, and sometimes one will be a preacher and the other a storyteller. (Jean Chardin)

In private valises, coffee reached Venice in 1615, Marseilles in 1644, and London in 1651; but it did not make its official debut into European high society until 1669, when it was introduced to Parisians by the Turkish ambassador, Suleyman Mustapha Koca. By the end of the century coffee was fashionable throughout Europe, and its cultivation and use subsequently spread to North and South America. Wherever it has been introduced it has become a symbol of hospitality and a vehicle of sociability. The current resurgence in popularity of the coffeehouse is undoubtedly a response to the aggressive marketing efforts of coffee producers and enterprising restaurateurs. It may also contain a longing for the sort of companionship the Shadhiliyya dervishes enjoyed six hundred years ago, as they gathered to remember Allah and passed the cup from hand to hand.

All progress depends on unreasonable people: "think different"

A brilliant little snippet. The perfect argument for those who choose to lead life a bit mad, radical, and probably leading one to be disliked, criticized and socially ostracized. I'm reminded of the following quip by playwright George Bernard Shaw:

"Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people."

Remember, when faced with the choice between being reasonable or unreasonable, take the risk of being unreasonable even if it's the harder path. You can be reasonable your entire life but the returns of being unreasonable are priceless to you and to others who will eventually look up to you. As Robert Greene notes in his book, co-authored with rapper 50 Cent, The 50th Law, there is nothing that disturbs, unsettles, or arouses jealousy and extreme dislike in people more than an individual who fearlessly does whatever he or she wants and go wherever their whims take them. There is something to be said for being unreasonable. All progress depends on the unreasonable person.