Then what about God, “the Absolute which does not experience past or future, but contains everything in its “eternal Now?” Faust’s wager comes to mind immediately. “If to the moment I shall ever say, ah, linger on Thou art so fair.” Kolakowski was without doubt a Faustian character. He is Faust who wagers with the devil to find God, but he knows, from the onset, that the wager is lost. He knows it logically, and he knows it historically. Adorno’s minimal metaphysics would have served him well. The Absolute, said Adorno, has withdrawn into the micrology of things. Like the mature Faust Adorno knew that the human mind, as rational mind, lacks the tools to meet God. Already the young Faust, approaching the Earth Spirit, must listen to the vanishing spirit’s parting words: “You are like the spirit you comprehend, not me.” The wise old Faust knows that “the view beyond is barred to mortal ken.” It is the same old Faust who finally rejoices in the utopian vision of a people free in pursuit of their daily activities. In this collective vision of creative labor, not in the individual’s loss of self, the aging Goethe finally saw the ultimate prize, the eternal Now, for which he saw it worthwhile to give up Faust’s soul.
Kolakowski rejected his country’s turn to a collective focus on labor in favor of individualism and search for freedom. But instead of looking forward he turned back to ask the age-old questions, only to realize that the answers he found left him utterly depressed.
This then is the modern philosopher’s dilemma. Only by rejecting philosophy, as we know it, can the philosopher overcome the Hegelian pain and, learning a lesson from the sciences, regain self -confidence and find a renewed purpose for reason, quite different from the one Kolakowski staked out. New optimism can come from discoveries in those very sciences, which accepted, some time ago, the painful lesson that their discoveries and inventions will never amount to an absolute knowledge, but that the veracity of scientific truth is only guaranteed when its falsification is within the realm of the possible. Our modern Faust can learn a lesson from Sisyphus who, after desperate attempts to role the metaphorical stone up the hill again and again, finally realizes the futility of his action, gains the courage to give up metaphysical pursuits and stops “to smell the flowers.”
Our modern Faust could take solace in the findings of the popular American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and his research on “Flow”. Flow, which is also called, being in the zone, appears to be a kind of secular cousin, or even sibling of the Faustian Now moment. Csikszentmihalyi found that artistic creativity, as well as strenuous physical activity puts the human mind into an altered, euphoric state. In this process, the brain releases chemicals that are similar if not identical with those endorphins that cause us to encounter extreme happiness or bliss. Could it be possible that the eternal Now, Faust’s moment of bliss, for which he was willing to trade his soul, even Kolakowski’s God, is not so unreachable after all? Could it be a specific pathological condition within the brooding philosopher’s mind that always sees the cup half empty, an ill mind that only sees the horror of time instead of also seeing its beauty, grace and forgivingness. Time heals wounds, is a popular saying that has its roots in the wisdom of the ages.
[...] Time (Part Two): God and Time May 2010 [...]