Mathias B. Freese

I don’t know. I can say that for at least 34 years I have struggled with that. Dr. Neil Friedman started my search when he assigned Krishnamurti’s The Flight of the Eagle  in his social work class. I recall how I found that book so dense with meaning, so conceptual that I felt for a while as if I was reading Plato as a freshman. Supremely intellectual. I underlined passages as if a freshman; I tried to access the author’s mind and mentation. It was a brilliant work. I went to other works of his, Think on These Things and The Awakening of Intelligence. I still read Krishnamurti, for he has permanently challenged me to be free, to decondition myself, to acquire what he terms choiceless awareness. Chew on that for a while. I still wrestle with his teachings and I admire and respect his express wish not to have disciples. I like that very much, given that the twelve disciples, if they really existed, were really a pathological group.

The great appeal of Krishnamurti, for me, is that he insists you be free of him. If you struggle with his writings — his prose is lean — you might come upon yourself one day. The consequences of reading his work affected the way I practiced as a therapist, how I see the world, how I see others. One of his basic concepts which bridles not a few is that society, all societies, are essentially corrupt. If you come to accept that premise, it is quite freeing. It helps you to make your way in the world as much as not having expectations for people as they will most likely disappoint you. Like you, on many levels, I assume, you want to be free. I choose to be free without a god, without a religion, without a minister or rabbi, without an ism, without a cause, without a philosophy.

I can look at our “leaders” (as if we need leaders) without regard to my political preferences or their parties as the fools or jerks they are. No, I have not been conditioned by Krishnamurti. I have learned from him and I am free of him. I see cant, I see nonsense, often I can see my own conditioned responses for what they are — self-limiting. I have always worked on myself, whether psychologically, existentially or just by self-noodling. I am of a constitution that questions. I ask questions not for the answers I may receive. I ask questions to break down the walls, lift the ceiling, blow out the floor beneath me. I want to see free of all prior conditioning — memory, religion, conditioning, parenting and experience.

The history of religion, to wit, if one has read well, is an abomination. More human beings have died throughout the ages, some historian proffered, than all the wars we have had as a race. It is a divisive force beyond all divisive forces, from counting how many angels are on a head of a pin, to guilt-giving restrictions on self-pleasure or good old basic lust to the need to convert, which is in itself a blasphemous need to dominate others. Castigate me if you must, I find religion a defect of the personality, a need to be self-delusional, to be controlled, to be ordered, to be told what to do, the base alloy of the weak mind and the blessing of the slave mentality wishing to find a way out of his hell on earth.

Again, I am not inwardly free, for I see from time to time how limited I am in so many ways; however, since I question authority I am free in some quarters, a slave in others. I will end on this note: consider how much is undone in your own psychic world; consider how often we are so terrified by the free thoughts and actions of others that we are moved to act upon them, chastise or condemn them. Consider, if you can be a little honest, how you keep yourself limited and in a psychological girdle. In short, we are hurtling to our demise and apparently we have no time, nor do we choose to give ourselves time, to scrutinize who we are and what our intent is as individuals. Often, or most cases, alas, we go to our deaths unknown to ourselves. One of the greatest obstacles to this is the dead hand of religion.

I wonder if my son will break through to himself as he struggles to make his way in this world. Striving to find himself artistically, he is aggravated by a job that has a woman medusa as a supervisor. My fantasies and hopes for him are mine alone, for he has to define himself in this world. Come to think of it, other than nature which as a species we have assaulted since our Darwinian birth, there is not much to this earth, other than the few million good people on it.

…Since we all return to an inorganic state, while we are organically alive we must endure the spendthrift and careless ways we deal with one another; there is so much to learn, at least societal crap, before we get on with it and what we learn is really useless stuff.

…I associate to the appalling effects of all religions, the coming and goings of gods, the resurrections and divine interventions, the myths, the virgin births, Joseph Smith and his golden plates (created by a jackass from upstate New York), all the superstitions, all the priests and ministers and rabbis speaking in the name of god, the grotesque delusional force of religion and its hateful consequences. The species may advance just a bit if it can jettison this dark matter. As an empty-headed species, we fill our brains with this crap. After millions of years, the best we can produce is a Sean Hannity — talk about a religiously conditioned slob.

…As Clarence Darrow opined, we spend the first half of our lives dominated, aggravated, and appalled by our parents and the second half of our lives irked, bothered and pissed off by our children.

…I associate to a zipper. One zip from the bottom of the crotch to the top and it is done. I think of life like that. Before we are awake, we are shot dead. The task, as I see it, is to become awake and aware. What school teaches that? So, tell your children after a day of indoctrination, that it is all bullshit, express your sadness about that and work with them on becoming alive and awake. Start off with Krishnamurti’s Think on These Things.

…Apparently we are split, diced and cut up into all kinds of pieces that we spend most of our lives looking for the missing shards. Bombarded and beset by injunctions, dessicated religions, media massaging, profound group emptinesses, we find it hard to focus, to discover directionality; we crave congruency and don’t know where to look for it — of course, it is not out there. As our planet hurtles through space, I view each of us hurtling through time but we have no orbit.

…Without a whiff of grandiosity but something I can testify to, I have often been assailed or criticized, often judged, to be frank, because I do not conform, march to the sound of a different drummer, have what someone termed a “strong personality” (should i be a dishrag?). I am not politically correct. I am, metaphorically, the child who sees the emperor without his clothes; I am a closet anarchist, an out of the closet rebel; I despise all authority, relying on my inner clockworks. All governments are corrupt. I try to lift my periscope up through the morass for a gasp of oxygen here and there. How does one survive when one sees, even partially? How do you comfort the child who now realizes Santa Claus is imaginary? How do you repair, if you can, the rent in each of us as we discover the permanent faultlines in our parents and then later on the crevasses within ourselves?

…Having worked with clients over the years in a therapeutic setting, I realize that neuroses are a cultural slime that crawls like ooze over our minds throughout our years. If we can halt that, if we can make that blob recede, we have another issue before us. How do we struggle against the matrix-like, subtle and conditional slime that all societies produce that cover us for years as we age. Cheney is a dead human being. Conditioned, limited emotionally and psychologically, he is a tapestry wrought by the more demented weavers of this culture — power, force, will, right and prejudice. A severely limited man, he is a product of our culture. He is us on many, many levels.

…Cheney once more. Notice how his body is canted to the side, as if he meets the world at an angle. Note the metallic voice that drones like a well-automated custard machine. He presents himself not as Richard the Third, or Quasimodo. Rather, he gives you a slope, a descending mound, a scarp partially exposed from the earth. He is topographical in his stature, as if a kind of forest gnome. He brings not light, but darkness. Cheney is a configuration of forces rather than a personality, for he has a limited array of sensibilites. He was shut down decades ago. And yet people listen to his swill, and he is driven by his swill, and his wife has been inundated by his swill. For me, he is the nether embodiment of the worst of humanity, for I see only a graduated difference bewtween him and a rank and file Nazi. Of course, here in America that cannot be. Oh?

…I associate to the historical split between the individual and the state; during the Renaissance the individual roughly held sway. In today’s world the state rules. The 20th Century was an age of state domination. It continues.

…I will not debate global warming. I will use it to make an observation. I believe it is occurring. If you grant that to me, all else follows. The human response to that, the response of individuals and of political entities such as parties reveals a great deal to me. I observe how people respond to future dire straits, how they deny what their eyes tell them, what facts reveal to them. The response to global warming is a thermometer of how human nature responds to adversity or to a challenge or to reality. The very limited ability for individuals to grasp what the world shows them reveals to me the essential defects in the species. We are born ignorant and some of us keep that state of being for the rest of our lives. I describe, I don’t offer balms. It is terrifying enough to see the appalling stupidity. When it comes to global warming, we are watching a repetition compulsion. Only this time it is not manageable, like controlling war.

I weary of associating. I am trying to stay awake. I’d like to invent psychological pins to insert into one’s eyelids to keep them open.

I have been involved within the last two weeks with selling Jane’s home, renting mine, garage sales, and collecting cartons from local stores — in Green Valley they break down the cartons within the store itself with a press. In my hey day we walked behind the drug store and picked from the crop. Now I need go to a package store or Office Max. Of course, I am “weeding” out papers and books that are a kind of human lint. I get upset when I see Rochelle’s death certificate and quickly return it to the envelope; I see birthday cards from my daughter and son, one alienated from me while the cards say that I was a good father. And so it goes. I throw away letters and reviews that at one time were vital news to me, personal collectables. We change. I enjoy shredding up tax returns that are about 10 years old. The fear of government rests upon all our conditioned heads. We are a fear-driven species. Jane and I jointly conceived a new title for our next book, either hers or mine: Thank God, for Death.

No one chases me out. Never has, never will, but others might perceive it as such. Here are the reasons for the cyberspace yentas we know and the neighbors we would love to fumigate. Jane has had enough of her overly conditioned, indoctrinated, and mother infatuated family, she who weaves her web like a malignant arachnid. In the three years since we have been a couple, Jane has separated from an overly merged and rather destructive family. In that time, she has written and published a children’s book, finished her master’s degree, lost 40 or so pounds, traveled to Spain and Portugal, become an honorary Jew — no conditions on that, removed a prosthesis from her chest because I couldn’t give a damn about her mastectomy and has generally observed and emended the scripts in her life which have hindered, harmed and detoured her path to freedom. Her two siblings will not understand this paragraph and the mother is Scarlett O’Hara with all kinds of psychological impediments. Jane is as free as a bird, having finally separated out from the family gelatinous. Our relationship has been essentially one of mutual freedom and reveling in being free, so off we go to adventure in Nevada. The deadly fumes of senescence in Green Valley will be quickly forgotten.

And I am leaving four years of litigation with an ex-wife which has left her with withered documents in her hands. I have been judged three times in three different actions to have been innocent of all crimes and misdemeanors. I give all of Tucson to my ex in exchange for my freedom. As I told the judge at the very first day of litigation, this is a matter of integrity and I will not deviate or budge until my innocence is vindicated. And it has been. Assaults upon my integrity, lies, slander and gross allegations have been shown to be fabrications. I don’t run from Tucson. I walk out of it. At 68 one does not mess with this old cocker. I have had to endure, particularly as an ex-shrink, mental illness, inflammatory rhetoric and gross misperceptions about who I am, about my character in general. I leave dead roses and walk away with lilies in my hand. The fact that I had to endure a DNA test (a swab in my mouth) to prove my innocence has made me only stronger.

Jane leaves for Vegas with grand spirits, to chart a new life free from manipulative control, demeaning  and trashy behaviors. I leave behind rage, volatility, paranoia, impulsivity, narrowness, and viciousness.

One pinhead in this trailer park community once told me in an open meeting that I should go back to Beverly Hills. Of course, many currents to that remark — to wit, the class structure within this society we don’t deal with and a whispering current of anti-Jewish sentiment. What every potential Imperialist should learn lest he or she will feel bad or misunderstood, is that people do not want to be “uplifted,” like ministers in Hawaiii trying to have the wahinis put on bras. People resent change, resent intellect, resent attrempts to have them improve unless they come to it themselves; not a bad idea but that may take centuries and in this town perhaps never. I don’t have the time.

A wise shrink once told me not to expect much from human beings. I learned well at his knee. I only expect things from me, that is how I am made, but I expect nothing from you. The consequence of this is that I am less disappointed with human behavior. No, it is not a subtle way of protecting one self from being hurt. Apparently I find it to be reality. Try it out with your kids. Your parents. One concept I’ve shared with Jane is that within the family often terrific pain is given without any measure of insight on the part of the deliverer of such anguish. That is, I’d rather have to face a Nazi who wants to destroy me so that I can prepare to deal with his hate rather than deal with the wheedling, smiling French collaborator who gives me a piece of bread and helps me into the cattle car.  We are often hurt by people who have no idea of what they are doing. Consequently it is a struggle to leave them, or separate out from them. Jane’s family has no idea how dense, grossly insensitive and good old plain vanilla-like stupid they are. They have outsight and are outer-directed individuals. If confronted, if challenged, they proclaim innocence. Consequently it is very hard, especially when a child, to fight off those who proclaim their love for you while all the time giving your mentally acidic suppositories.

Since I am considerably older than Jane, we have a mutual pact. When the sandman comes, she should continue to struggle for self-liberation, continue to be the artist, perhaps go on to school to become a therapist for she has tasted of so much pain that she could help others once she acquires the skills. Her literary background will help her immeasurably to make all the salient associations one has to make with a client. What does that mean? Feel yourself associate to Rosebud at the end of Kane and you’ll get a glimmer of therapist as artist. We both have tasted in our different circumstances of the bitter brew that family and society can give us. Jane refuses any longer to be hampered or crippled by disfiguring members of her family whose own personal lives are in a downward evolutionary spiral.

As for me, change is a bitch, but as the ancient Greek said, it is a constant. The crap surrounding a move out state is just aggravating, but I will prevail. I feel that old anxiety grab me about the throat when I begin to contemplate all the things to do, all the things that could happen, all the contingencies, all the unplanned events and accidents of human error. However, I have my health — so far, and I am glad that I can adventure even at this tenuous time in my life. Oh, Matt, every moment has been tenuous!

I raise my hand in cheder and ask the teacher: “Why are jews good at running?”

“Because we are excellent prey and what good is prey if it does not give the hunter a good chase for his money?”

“Rabbi, people tell me I am a good student. Why have we been chosen to be such good runners when all the world and all the countries have people who can run as well as we?”

“I could sit down on the steps of this very school and explain to you for hours all the whys for your question. You know, you are one of my best students. I will go into this little bit more, just for you.”

I listen to him as part of me is running about the maze of streets in this shtetl, in terror, and what is terror? Terror is undefined, as ineffable as Jehovah. It is Moses aghast and in awe at the burning bush.

The rabbi, his piercing hazel eyes looking at me, his beart salt and pepper, a slightly mottled complexion, prepares to give me an answer as if he is unfurling his tallis for the prayer and to cast it about his shoulders.

“Schmuel, I will think aloud in riddles, I will speak unclearly clearly, I will be indirect, for what I have to say must be learned in the shadows, in corners, where insects gather. Do you understand?”

I nodded.

“Well, let me recast the question you pose so that we may apply reason to examine ints joints, the mortises and tenons of the arguments you place forth to your teacher, who is not a wise man but a stupid one either. I am like you, Schmuel, half smart, the half composed of quarters and eighths of human knowledge and learnings. I am both emotional and ignorant, wise and not a little slow. I am you, Schmuel, and you  are like me. I am like your parents and they are like me. We are Jews, and we share a common learning, do you understand, Schmuel?”

Before I could answer in my harried mind now filled with Talmudic stories, apparently, I brush against an abandoned fish cart and fall again upon the cobble stones.Rising, I look about and see a huge hole which is just a street and caftan flurrying I run like a wily two-legged Jew crow.

“So, to your question which has many parts to it, but given that we are living among Nazis I must be quick, intense and replete with razor-edge thought, for none of us has time. And that is in your question. Our time is used up.”

I felt urgency in all that, and his anxiety crept out of his body like a slinking cat crossing a corner late at night.

“You must understand that thought and actions have levels, like buildings. Even the Nazis give us reasons which are on the higher stories of a building but what they are really expressing lies in the sub basement. I ti shere they don’t even go, but like heat that rises from the furnace it drives all their actions.”

Here the rabbi paused. “I have caught myself, Schmuel, talking to you as if I have all the time in the world. We both don’t, my son. We have no time left. And I must get to the answer you required although you and others have learned well from me that all questions give birth only to more questions. Answers are dead ch\ickens in the barnyard. The question is the butcher’s knife.”

“So, rabbi, you have an answer.”

“Giggling gently, the good man saidm “No, Schmuel, I only have observations. Will that do?”

I nodded.

“Well, then, let me gather my thoughtss and give them to you, a kind of Decalogue, if you will. It need not be 10 observations, does it, Schmuel?”

I smiled. I always enjoyed his ability to self-amused as a teacher, charming.

All this craziness, all this linear dialogue went through my mind, and as I fled it did serve a purpose. It served to lower my anxiety somewhat, so that a part of my emotional self could decide rationally what direction to take in a flight that had no compass, only urgency and propulsion as a human being.

The rabbi returned to mind.

“The Jew, Schmuel, is all of us, even the Nazis. Fortunately symbols rarely take human shape, but we have been so used as a symbol throughtout the Christian centuries that we have become realized.Do you understand?”

“Rabbi, I understand too well. I am being chased right now.”

“And what do you realize?”

“That I am no longer a symbol of something else, nor am I a metaphor. I am a human being being hunted down by other human beings which is innate in human beings since time on this planet began.”

“Keep that to yourself, it is your north star, I will go on. When human beings run amok, which you feel in your anguished and anxious self as you flee through the streets, reason has died, expired in the soul of society. Nothing will work. Ask for charity. It will be denied you. Ask for assistance or a helping hand. Denied you. Ask for succor. No, never. Ask for touch, a kind word, the shadow of another human being to hide beneath and that too will be denied you.”

I Understand, I say out loud.

What a fool, I counter, as I realize I might give myself away. Finding an access street that I think, believe, feel may lead outside of the village and into the woods, I run here, hoping that the rabbi might return to mind.

“All reason is gone, all social contracts are burned away. Human beings, like you, running amok through the street, cannot expect trust. Touch is disallowed. People avert their gazes at your presence. You are demonized, turned into a thing. You are an object now, a ball bouncing across a street.”

“I know all that, rabbi. I have sensed that. I am a victim of this right now. What other of your observations will you give me?”

“So, I need not work hard on coming up with ten?”

“I’ll accept just a handful to get me through this awful day, these awful moments.”

“You cannot escape terror or being terrorized. It is an unusual state, one that Jews have experienced throughout the Diaspora. All the words in the Tasmud cannot help here. For the Talmud is dead and you are burningly alive, are you not, Schmuel?”

“I am living terror.”

“Mark me, well, my son, all my thinking, all my years as a rabbi and as a human being, will come down to these few words.”

“I am listening.”

“When they capture you and most likely they will as you run as a haunted and crazed Jew in our shtetl, when they torture you or beat you alive, the only thing you have as a human being, which far surpasses being a Jew, but something we adore as a people, is your mind. Unfortunately I must tell you not to trust solely in your feelings or emotions, but only that lame tool we call intelligence. I know that it is hard to grasp when I have told you that intelligemnce had fled the world like a madman in his nightgown fleeing his nurses.”

“Rabbi, tell me quickly, for I feel, like Samson, the Philistones may be upon me.”

“Use your mind as a compass. I have no more to say.”

“What good is a compass, rabbi, if I don’t know what direction to take. Look at me now. I am running hither and thither, trying to escape. What good is a compass to me now? Are you so constipated with the Talmud that you don’t see reality?”

Well, that was unkind, but I felt it.

“Dear, dear Schmuel, I will leave you now as you run like a rabbit through our village with a Talmudic twist on what we have spoken about. You don’t need a compass to find direction. You don’t need a chicken to have chicken dinner. So what am I telling you?”

“I am the compass.”

The rabbi disappeared from mind, his advice Talmudic, insightful and clever, and absolutely useless.