I've been mulling the blog entry I made the other night. The one where I tried to articulate the materialist approach to what might be called transcendence, or even, religious sentiment. The thing about the coffee. I want to clarify. Or perhaps correct. Is it in fact, all just 'good coffee'? Was getting whipped by ARt good coffee? Was whipping wonderful boy and sitting there with him kneeling at my feet just good coffee? The ritual of initiation at Inferno, seeing Noted Author do that amazing whipping scene at Inferno, the Easter Vigil service at St. Luke's, Faure's Requiem, a Frankenthaler canvas, Eliot's The Wasteland... all just good coffee?

No. More than just good coffee. Kind of. Sensations exist for us as electro-chemical reactions, true enough. However, to some degree, each 'experience' rewires the brain somewhat. New connections are formed that have not previously been formed. At a basic level, this re-wiring is called learning. You touch a hot stove and get burned. Your brain is re-wired so that now you associate 'hot stove' with searing pain. I reckon that different experiences have a greater or lesser impact. Getting whipped by ARt, for example, was a major re-wiring job that was done. I was feeling the effects for weeks, suddenly leading a very different emotional life, with experiences having an emotional content they didn't have previously.

I think that profound experiences--those that entail a major re-wiring--particularly affecting the most primitive parts of the brain, are what we might call 'transcendent.'


Another thing I was thinking about today. Namely, the evolutionary basis of the Master/slave relationship. I'm thinking of dogs and wolves. They're pack animals. In the pack, there's is an alpha, and ranked subordinates. People with more than one dog in the house who have read up on animal behavior can generally figure out which of their dogs is the Alpha. Although it's not always obvious. For instance, someone rings the doorbell in a house with two dogs. Both dogs bark, and one goes racing to the door. Wouldn't that be the Alpha? I could be wrong, but I think that would be the subordinate. The Alpha hangs back and lets the subordinate do the dirty work. Some dog owners engage in a bit of egalitarian anthropomorphism, and try to make equality reign among their dogs, thinking that it's 'unfair' in some way. In fact, most subordinate dogs are subordinate because it's in their nature to be subordinate.

Now among wolves, or feral dogs, there are dogs that are 'naturally' Alphas. Each Alpha, generally larger and somewhat differently wired, will naturally assume the role. If another wolf is similarly put together, they will vie for dominance, and if the upstart is successful, the old Alpha, unable to take a subordinate position, will leave to either form a new pack, go solo (wolves can exist equally well independently or as part of a pack), or take some members of the pack with them. In a pack in which there is no wolf that is naturally the Alpha, a wolf that has previously been a subordinate can assume the role, and grow into it, either on a temporary basis until supplanted, or permanently.

Possibly, so too with humans. Some people are natural dominants. Some people are naturally submissive. Some people are fine being submissives, but can assume a dominant role if need be, and might be quite successful at it. Going back to wolves, a naturally subordinate wolf is least likely to become a lone wolf. That wolf finds it difficult to exist outside of a pack, with an Alpha.

I have one tattoo. On my right deltoid is the head of a wolf, over a legend reading 'Stand Alone.' As the artist (Sonny Tufts of South Street Tattoo in Philadelphia) designed it, it read, "Lone Wolf." I thought that was a bit cliche. The most recent good book I read when I got the tattoo a decade or more ago was "Freedome and Dignity" by Erich Fromm. A phrase, possibly a chapter heading, that stuck with me from that book was "Stand alone and live." I asked Mr. Tufts if he could put that beneath the head of the wolf, and he said it was too long. So I settled on "Stand Alone."

I think I know who I am.

Anyway. Time to pack for MAL.


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