Choose your Daemons wisely (Part One)
All labour is daemonic; some labour brings you closer to heaven.
Last week, I wrote a post which encouraged going about things by the stupidest way forward.
Although I didn’t get any negative feedback from it, it felt off somehow.
In some way it came from a version of me that had forgotten itself.
And yet the forgetting was wholly necessary, being the bump of aggro necessary to get over a hump.
I found the answer to the plot-holes in my novel, finished writing a fully-tested software library, finally made some use of my degree at work and did a backflip!
Once the grinding was done, I found in the space remaining the opportunity to reconnect with people and saw the first glimpses of the kind of community I’ve been trying to find, through most edifying conversations with other writers. On the latter front, I have to give my thanks to Bonny, who creates the kinds of spaces in which such things can happen.
The fact of my return meant that the trip was worthwhile and the right course of action. It also means that the post that I had originally planned to release, coming from that limited frame of reference, became inappropriate.
It fell into the trap of describing an emotional process by way of its mechanical content. I was going to give a left-brained answer to a right-brained problem:
Where before I talked about the non-convergence of high learning-rates, I was going to dip into the local optimum problem and talk about how radical action enables the discovery of higher ROI areas of the solution space…
It is accurate to use mechanistic language describe the pursuit of simplicity because the simplest path forward usually involves a degree of reduction. And, in being laborious, attention must naturally narrow to what is most pertinent. There is some sense in which the pursuit of any goal, even an ethical goal that comes from our quietest whisper, makes us forget ourselves for a brief while. However, the opposite of this is not randomness, but the fruit of an intuition which is non-collapsible, which means we must describe it in more romantic terms.
Think about it like this: what is the stated aim of the productivity industry but to bring you into that state of being that we call the flow state? A state in which every other distraction falls away and we focus our attention completely upon one thing: A state in which there is nothing but the task. Attention narrows, the self subsides, so that we can get on with the business of doing.
By dialectic, think also about the nature of the wellness industry, which emphasises the notion that you are a ‘human-being’ and not merely a ‘human-doing’. The purpose is a return, to find yourself, to rediscover, to reignite, to reform. Lots of other words beginning with Re–. Speaking from experience, yoga is like a kind of exorcism; It is a means by which the daemonic in you is terminated, permitting the quietest whisper to take over once again.
High functioning people in the present-day generally make some use of these two sets of products, to forget themselves and remember themselves whenever it seems appropriate.
Implicit in this behavioural pattern is some sense in which to work is to forget yourself, to live is to remember what you have forgotten. One can go as far as to say that all labour is daemonic, even worthy labour, yet it is frequently necessary to be possessed by something in order to Become that which we are called to be.
n.b. In this context, Daemon can simultaneously refer to: any supernatural force regardless of moral content [Greek], an evil demon [Christian] or a background subprocess [secular; computing]: it is my intention to leave these three meanings somewhat confused, since to be possessed by any one of these things is remarkably similar in the moment and the mechanism of release seems to be the same.
That is why across the whole world the holy men were lazy and yet the holy men were regarded as the highest caste; above even warriors and kings. Brahmins above Kshatriyas; Pope above King; Emperor above Shogun. Even in modern constitutional states, like Britain, Ireland, Japan, Germany: there is a distinction between the dignified and efficient components of power; the king/President as the national figurehead who enjoys ceremony without business, and the Prime Minister as the De-facto ruler who must undertake business without ceremony. There is some sense in which the embodiment of power is considered to be best employed when separate from the exercise of power.
To be holy one must be above work, to be called to work makes you less than holy.
Most of us have to work by virtue of material necessity. We are shackled by our situations. We do what we must to secure our food and shelter; and suffer the rest.
As such, the real bifurcation in callings comes when material needs are met and we must decide on our own terms what we must do with the rare surplus.
One supposes that there are three options: leisure, further labour, and contemplation.
Leisure is a kind of dreamless sleep, an absence of work and also an absence of being. Necessary as rest, but insufficient in itself. It is in some ways a continuation of the state of stress-arousal that characterises the avoidance of work—the ‘flight’ response stuck on repeat.
Likewise, to pursue labour in excess of what is strictly necessary (out of raw ambition) is a kind of self-destruction since it prevents you from remembering yourself. It may result in a superficial sort of success, a greater security for oneself which makes it preferable to leisure. Nonetheless, it is a pathological addiction to the ‘fight’ response of stress-arousal.
Contemplation, by contrast, is what happens naturally once the externalising influence of stress is exorcised, once the daemonic will has left your body, and you are left to embody what you have become.
Some people who arrive in this state find a pull towards enlightenment, a drawing inwards.
I did for a while, although only insofar as it permitted me to build security and confidence; to heal and adjust the nervous system, to calibrate. Perhaps those who are more Buddha-natured carry on this way; withdrawing ever further inward until they become of-something-else.
Others of us, myself included, find instead a strong energetic pull to go back out again: Vocation, Kundalini activation, übermenschen will. I particularly like Kierkegaard’s expression of the call to ethical action: “What good is it to get a new sword… if only to thrust it back into its scabbard!”
If the use of a weapon to describe the self is unusually bellicose for Kierkegaard, I think it speaks to the fact that this state of awakening is a site of inner violence whose nature contains an inherent tension: between a desire to act because our quietest whisper compels it; while knowing full well that the exercise of that will shall bring us into the daemonic noisiness of the world, away from the divinity that provoked us to pursue it.
Put in a more friendly way: The call to ethical action is the call to adventure, those who hear it must go out into the world and adventure for a bit in order to return home, like Joseph Campbell’s archetype of the Hero.
This is the realm of radical action. The place for people who have gone beyond happiness and comfort, and beyond the pursuit of immediate success. This is the point where values and enterprises can be entered into on their own merit beyond necessity. This is the point at which we can bounce free of the constraints of our current life-order and impose a new reality!
It is also the point at which one must choose which Daemons are worth bargaining with, in order to commence the transformation that the soul demands. Everyone outgoing is at least a little Faustian.
As was the case for me last week, there were a number of things which needed that push and so it made sense to give myself over to the spirit of an dumb Ox, to plow through everything that must be plowed. ‘To totally send it, bruh.’
That said, I left numerous checkpoints throughout the week where it was possible to exorcise the ox if I was ready.
For the first half of the week I had to struggle through a couple of non-relaxing yoga classes and fruitless meditations. The Ox was still plowing.
It was only on Thursday, once everything was done, that my daily morning walk offered the pleasant company of two grandmothers who small-talked with me beneath the slowly drifting almond blossoms.
Now, yes, they did turn out to be Jehovah’s witnesses trying to proseletyse, but their genuinely calming presence was still the key that finally broke the spell of the Ox. They provided the pause, the exit-code, so that I could stand firm upon my accomplishments, ready to listen once again.
In the next part we will discuss how to choose your daemons wisely, so that you don’t lose yourself forever. Subscribe so as not to miss it.