This thing referred to in last section, even to some innate power to hold us to a certain inherent metric of nobility; that is conscience, is no small matter. Though our metrics may be entirely skewed in, and by their limitation(s), they are there. And to reference again Shakespeare by use of that word nobility to a certain structure I am not ashamed. I am made as free as to quote the apostle Paul, the prophet Isaiah, a philosopher as Nietzsche, or a playwright as Shakespeare. Once a thing is found to have some undeniable resonance within a man, to deny it would be both folly and even affect ones conscience if actively denied.
And if one, let us say as a christian, were reading and has noted my prior confessions of Jesus Christ to some measure were to say there is some missing of the mark by inclusion of anything beyond red (or black) words found only in the Bible, I could only conclude to the boundedness [sic] of his consciousness. For Jesus Himself is said to have marveled at finding a something (was it unexpected to Him…or did He recognize it because He was open to all finding?) He called a greater faith in a Roman Centurion than He had found in all the children of Israel. And though, and even because I give Jesus the Christ all and only credit for my liberation it would be dreadfully in-congruent to bind myself again.
Yes, Shakespeare speaks with some question of “whether ’tis nobler in the mind”. And it would be hard to separate the pairing of conscience and consciousness, for their interplay is extremely dependent upon one another. But let’s do a hard thing nevertheless.
Conscience is bounded by consciousness. What the mind is convinced it holds in knowing is all it has. And even if in some confession of not holding all there is, or could be to be known, it is nevertheless convinced what it knows, it knows. Here Paul is useful. He is convinced he knows something of innocence as a more than merely guiltless thing. But he also knows that, as such a matter, innocence extends far past the merely not being of another thing, guiltless.
It is having some entry into essences gained. Even as truth is far more than “not lie”, for to be bound by such defining to what a thing “is not” may be sometimes useful, but also, and inherently, establishes the defining of that thing in terms only of another…and conceding to it a superiority of reference. It is true man is not dog. Man is not hamster. Nor beetle, nor bauxite. But in all the saying of what he is according to what he is not gives no knowledge of what man is.
As with innocence (and no less truth) Paul understood these to be matters real upon which and from which all other things themselves derive their placement; in no necessity of support by what they are not, but quite the other way round…everything else can only be known (to, or by a man) by their being established upon these which all else lay for description and/or defining.
And so he would write pertaining to his own conscience:
But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self. For I know of nothing against myself, yet I am not justified by this; but He who judges me is the Lord.
Or, as another translation put it:
I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.
The value of a clear conscience cannot be overestimated. That acting in congruence to what one knows as true. But also admitting one does not know all of truth or of things to be shown true must leave that door open. For Paul is admitting here he has entrusted all ultimate and final judgment of matters into hands above his own. Even his own “guiltlessness” or sense of it, is not enough to secure him. He knows this and has learned this. This power that overcame him to bring him to some knowledge of the necessity to act or be in congruence to what he knows (even in its limits) is the power over all, and he dare not “bring it down” by his own referencing of it in “I am guiltless, therefore I am innocent”. The superior matter of innocence remains to him where it must…over him.
Yes, Shakespeare externalized a struggle through Hamlet, and one I find a real and true struggle, one that resonates within me. I dare not deny it. How to act or be in congruence to what one believes he knows to be true. The very struggle to either find or maintain that (what he calls) nobility of mind is real. Here some deconstruction does indeed take place down to essentials, past poorly propped assumptions and preferences. Things that may grow out of, but are not of themselves the essentials and essence(s) of a thing.
“To be or not to be” is rarely seen or referenced to Shakespeare as support for his being a superior existential playwright to Sartre, Genet, or Camus in his writings. The struggle here is very real, so real, and perhaps too real to be described. If one truly embraces the “Life is hard and then you die” (and are indeed gone into a forever-ness of unknowing and un-being) and such is irrefutable and inevitable (and to one’s self as undeniable)…and that forever indeed shrinks what little time here (or in which this is discovered) to less than a nothing in its infinitesimality of small-ity…how to act in accord with what says they believe they know? The bare bodkin? Is that it? Bring on an inevitable end that is claimed true as both inevitable and end? But (and here Shakespeare is terrified in honesty…) what dreams may come in that sleep? Could one be stepping out of the frying pan and into the fire? What he calls cowardice stops the hand…even a cowardice inspired by conscience.
He (Shakespeare) had some obligation to move the plot along as he was a playwright after all. I am not. I’m not even a writer. But had he gone just a bit further in considerations or exposition he might have come to the greater enigma, conundrum, or pickle we are in by having a conscience, this thing that in us demands of us some congruity. Here the word frustration again finds just usage.
For the thing compelling is the very thing restraining, for as much as conscience moves us at the very same time conscience stops us. Even to some extent becomes broadly condemning of us. If left to our own. For the obverse of that consideration Hamlet was thrust into in “whether ’tis nobler in the mind” is to “suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” must have consideration. To leave oneself open to all of suffering we find, is something we cannot do. We always resist at some point, cry uncle, say enough is enough and enough is “even too much”. We can’t reconcile ourselves to all of suffering. We find ourselves very much (too much?) creatures of comfort. Dare we invite more by holding to (or even saying) we shall endure it all without resistance or at least some considering of resisting?
Who here is fooling who? (Or is it whom?)
One’s only hope in that would be for someone kind to have endured the all of all suffering on one’s behalf. Taken the blows. Stood between. Stand between, all that could come should we rightly judge ourselves. It’s far too late for any to believe they can undo being.
These things I found out while playing chess with God. Once it was the only move I had. Not a good one, admittedly, but all I had in my knowing. And how I found out He knew all my moves would be “not good” was by my playing.
Why is this always so frustrating I asked.
Well, at least we are at the same table.
Not everything need be a game.
There are other things can be done at the same table besides game playing.
Despair is often underrated, even shunned, but you may find something there if you are found there.
israelx7wordpresscom 