Poetry as a Means of (Psycho-Spiritual) Survival
Poetry as a Means of (Psycho-Spiritual) Survival
I Hijacked a Term from Cognitive Science -- Auto-Poiesis (Self-Making)
For those of you who are paying contributors, you may have noticed me working through some intense emotions yesterday via poetry.
It helped. A lot.
As in: I got what I needed to survive, and felt better, more energized, and more confident after doing the writing (processing).
A Continuity Between the Body and Brain
“The principles and patterns and processes of biology are foundational to cognition. In fact, you can see cognitive processes as deeply similar to, and dependent on, those biological principles and processes. There is a deep continuity between the way Life is self-organizing, and the way cognition is self-organizing.”
The Difference Between a Paramecium and a Tornado
“Unlike a tornado, a paramecium is self-organized in order to adaptively seek out the conditions of its own existence.”
Auto-Poiesis
“An auto-poietic thing is something that is not just self-organizing, but self-making. It self-organizes in order to continually maintain and make itself.”
Adaptive Seeking
The paramecium senses one chemical as food, and another as poison. Cognition does the same thing.
I’ve been noticing how various religious and spiritual people I know cobble together ideas to create a sensible understanding of their experience so that they can live in the world. Even in an Orthodox or Catholic church, one sees many individuals who all interpret the sacraments and scriptures in differing ways — each one finding the proper balance to create a sustainable existence. I believe that “non-believers” also do this, albeit with different means.
At any rate, we can’t withstand the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune without some kind of Sense or Meaning to assist us in withstanding the inevitability of stress (suffering).
Coleridge on the Imagination
“The primary imagination I hold to be the living Power and prime Agent of all human Perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM.”1
The phrase comes from the book of Exodus. When Moses encounters the bush which is burning but not consumed, he asks God “Who shall I say sent me.”
“Tell them I AM sent you.” (Or, “I Am that I Am.” Or, “I will be what I will be.”)
To Be or Not to Be
Paul Tillich called “God” “the ground of Being.” Aquinas wrote of “Divine Simplicity.” Eric Fromm wrote of leaving the “Having Mode” for the “Being Mode.” OM is said to have over 100 definitions, one of which is Pure Being (the manifested Divine Presence in all creation — Past, Present, and Future in One). Without some sense of being a self which interacts and participates in the world, capable of sense-making, we can get isolated and cynical very quickly, and can potentially become suicidal or self-destructive.
Poetry as Adaptive Seeking
My experience of Poetry is that it is akin to adaptive seeking, only at the symbolic level. Coleridge distinguishes the Imagination from Fancy — which he calls “a mode of memory emancipated from the order of time and space; while it is blended with, and modified by that empirical phaenomenon of the will, which we express by the word Choice. But equally with the ordinary memory the Fancy must receive all its materials ready made from the law of association.” Fancy is the mere recollection of images and scenes that we assemble into a sort of reverie. The Imagination is the active “esemplastic” creation of reality via artistry (of any kind). It helps us to better see things as they truly are. I would argue that we do this for psychological survival.
Everywhere around us ideas abound. One can not take every truth claim at face value — too many of them are in direct contradiction with one another. We are forced to adaptively make sense of things. The more complexity we’re able to handle, the better equipped we’ll be. But part of being adaptive means knowing what is bullshit and what is not, and knowing how to rest the mind adequately so as to a.) avoid burn-out and b.) avoid self-destruction (cynicism stemming from contradiction sans resolution).
Good Sense is the Body of poetic genius, Fancy its Drapery, Motion its Life, and Imagination the Soul that is everywhere, and in each; and forms all into one graceful and intelligent whole. — Coleridge
A Friendly Reminder
Paying readers will be able to see how I worked some of this out in verse poetry yesterday. I gratefully appreciate any contribution. If you don’t feel like subscribing:
Biographia Literaria, Chapter 13