Responding to five

Recently, a member of the S/M and Spirituality Special Interest Group in which I participate circulated a a piece of writing by a guy named five ("five of nine," I think) on the issue of S/M and Spirituality. A Sir online (whom I've had a pretty great real world encounter with) sent me five's piece again, and asked me for a response. I'm happy to provide it.

Since I don't know five, I wouldn't want to publish his piece here without his permission. But, here is my response...

It warms the cockles of my heart to see that someone else is thinking deeply about these issues. I certainly find nothing that I disagree with there, although I have a different approach.

I’m always suspicious of levels and categories and stages and such. I don’t know that things need to be so complicated. And, I’m a materialist. It’s all about quarks and electrons and weak forces and such, spinning in the void. The meaning that we find in life, we have put there. That said, it’s that that meaning that makes life worth living, as radically contingent as it is.

I’ve read with interest some writings by cognitive scientists concerning religious experience. One of the best books I’ve read was ‘the original’ of the genre, William James’The Varieties of Religious Experience. It’s all footnotes to James.

Essentially, SM simply comes down to exploring the possibilities of human experience. And by no means is that the only way to do that. I’m sure that serious athletes, contemplative religious, combat veterans, the survivors of serious trauma, poets, scholars, and scientists all would have a lot to talk about. Or not. The most important things in life are beyond language, and perhaps we shouldn’t try.

The risk though is in deifying any of these people. No one gets to throw off the mantle of flesh. Grasshopper may succeed in snatching the pebble from the Master’s hand, but he’s still going to have to contend with pinched nerves, flatulence, irritating aisle mates on transatlantic flights, and nagging financial fears.

I’m sort of stuck on the ‘many roads up the mountain’ thing. What a great dinner party! Let’s see… Lance Armstrong, Thomas Merton, John McCain, Wallace Stevens, Isaiah Berlin, Stephen Hawking… All struggling to find words for that deep experience that can’t be reduced to a crude tool like language. Like trying to pick your teeth with a snow shovel.

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