Perceptions and Illusions: Formal Reality vs. Poetry
The very first post I showed on this blog, filling up the space before I went to Europe, was a poem called “Searching for the Real.” This post is somewhat about that poem, and about the post I wrote before this one called, “Personal Mythologies.” There is a reason I chose the title of this blog (Originally “responding to perceptions and reflecting on illusions”) and there is a reason why I have posted a photograph below it of myself mirrored with a Chimera.
Our personal mythologies make it difficult for us to distinguish our fact from our fiction, which is not overly important. Both are essential parts of who we are as human beings. The line between the perceptions of our being and the illusions of our being are difficult to make out.
“Formal Reality” is a term Descartes used to describe what we might call “Objective Reality,” something which is actually real apart from our human experience. A little bit of time in the history of philosophy will tell you that formal reality is far from certain, and there is little hope that anyone will ever set their finger on anything real.
You may feel that you have no problem with that. You’re almost glad that you need not worry about the meaningfulness of reality. But I would remind you here that your perspective necessitates an idea of reality. You may say you do not believe it, but I would challenge you and say that in your perspective you will always interact with a real world. But here I must take a step backwards, for I already said that the illusion of ourselves, the imagined self, is as much a part of our reality as the “formal reality” or the real facts of who we are.
So we are lost. We know that we interact with reality, and we know that we interact with our illusions. Both are necessary to our experience. When I write journals about my trip to Europe, or I write a treatise on theology, my attention is directed towards reality. When I write poetry, my attention is generally directed towards my illusions. But these are both a part of who I am.
The photograph beneath the title is of my self, mirrored with a Chimera. (the dragons we set up as gargoyles on the edge of churches) The Chimera is significant not only as a myth, but as an idea. Philosophers will use the term Chimera to describe something that we have created. We may believe it to be real, but in the end it is only an illusion. And yet, the flesh and bone which is myself is barely more certain than the existence of the chimera.
The image of the chimera is also important in its association with evil. We put it on churches to scare away the demons. So on some level it communicates with demons. It is nearly a demon itself. The photograph of myself as flesh and blood is something I might like to believe represents what is good about myself. It is my humanity. In the holistic view of a person it is perhaps even a part of my soul. But is the chimera not also a part of me. Is the evil of my being less real than the purity of my soul? Are they not both a part of who I am? The tear between body and soul, between good and evil, has always been interesting to me in trying to understand the “self” of a being – of a person. I don’t think I’ll ever understand the nature (particularly the metaphysical nature) of the distinction, but I think all my attempts leave me with the dichotomy shown in the picture – between the man and the chimera, asking which one is more genuine and which is an illusion.
What does the soul look like? Is it a man or a chimera? What do I look like? Am I a man or a chimera? Am I all mythology or am I all facticity? (to borrow the term from Semone de Bouvoir) Am I facticity at all? Am I touching reality when I write about ideas and perceptions? Am I touching reality when I write poetry about illusions? These distinctions may never be properly sorted out, but I can at least understand that the world is most clear when I am writing it. When my poems consider what I barely understand, I feel like I am bringing the confusion of the world, and the adventure of finding it, into clarity. When I write about my ideas, I am digging away at the layers of nonsense that sit between me and truth – I am rolling perceptions and illusions up into a ball and catching it up as I throw it into the air.
Somewhere in this confusion of contradictions and dichotomies is the reason I love to write. Perceptions and Illusions are a necessity to existence. Understanding them – or loving my lack of understanding, is my joy. I think this post, like the first poem I published here, is really about joy.
