Enlightenment: Ilustrado vs. Liviano

With an acknowledged "unpolished style," Heath Synnestvedt playfully considers a range of topics. Violence on television, the human propensity to distraction, and understanding the concept of enlightenment are all explored through anecdote and irony. In keeping with his message and manner, Heath intends the use of the lower case "i" for the personal pronoun. -Editor

Reading in this publication, New Church Perspective, i am struck by the unpolished nature of the majority of my own written work. The article that follows received a few taps from a ball-peen hammer, but not much.

Under “Ilustrado” on Wikipedia there's a definition of the adjective “ilustrado”: “Spanish for ‘erudite,’ ‘learned,’ or ‘enlightened ones’.” (There's also an interesting historical anecdote which you may wish to read instead.)

For my part, i prefer to employ the word “enlightened” in the sense of the word “light” as it relates to mass, rather than rays or particles. (I first heard this use of the word in a seminar run by Landmark Education)

If you look up “liviano” in a Spanish-English dictionary the primary usage is “light” (weight) as contrasted with “heavy”. Similarly as in English, this adjective can describe things that are frivolous. It can go even further and be applied to the lewdness of a comedian. Upon discovering this usage as i sat here in a cybercafe i nearly removed the word “liviano” from the title of my article with the desire to morph the piece into something acceptably familiar to my imagined audience.

Duh!

When have i done that with the food i prepare? If i have anything to share by way of example, i accommodate to the ingredients and tools on hand, not to the gustatory habits of another, real or imagined.

My friend and i communicate primarily in Spanish, relatively new to us both. Her grammar has many quirks, and my vocabulary is particularly limited.

Her personal beliefs, which she acknowledged may not be shared by others, included something she illustrated with this analogy:

“There are only two paths.” she said as she sat down at the kitchen table and tossed the keys in the center. She picked a white stone with pink coral stains and placed it at the edge nearest her.

“This [the stone] is the rebellious one, and here we are, the people,” indicating the area in between the stone and the keys, but significantly closer to the stone.

“Either we advance toward God or we regress as the rebel would have us do. All of everything, including this stone is created by God, yet in turning away from God this stone wishes to draw us to itself.”

I could not have said it better were i Swedenborg or Moses.

Yet this explanation never satisfied my yearning to understand the roots of suffering and all those outward effects we generally agree upon as “evils” or “ills” of society.

What immediately preceded this conversation between us? What context invited this?

I have a pet heresy that i usually call upon at this moment, “Here Rambo, Here boy!” but this time i was far more interested in an imperfect union of tranquility than in splitting hairs or atoms.

She was watching tv and tuned the set to a movie with an extended gunfight scene. I was beginning to prepare lunch. When she didn't switch it to something less violent (i had said that i don't wish to hear violence in my apartment even if it's simulated) i came over to her, smiled into her face, and turned off the unit, guiding her to the open window.

“Why did you do that? It's just a distraction, it doesn't do anything to me.”

Maybe i should have just said “It's doing something to me and i don't like it. OK?” Instead i launched into my role as self-appointed Tour-Guide of Life.

“You say it doesn't stick in your mind, this violence. You say it is just a diversion, a distraction, and it amounts to nothing. Well if you will look out the window you will see another sort of diversion. Look there.”

“I see stuff: avocado leaves, plantain leaves, all sorts of leaves, water.”

“Look closer. Look at that one droplet of water on that leaf.” Of course it didn't much matter which one. I wanted her to consider the miracles of lesser magnitude. The violent scenes in movies arouse our central nervous systems in ways most people never observe and i am committed to freedom and choice in this area.

“Yeah, ok. I've seen it.” And she pulls away from the window.

“Wait. I don't believe you've seen anything yet. At least nothing new...” From my perspective all she had seen were symbolic images in her memory and she had given me the names of a few of these without bothering to be present to the view of a bird-rich tropical paradise moments after the passing of a cloudburst.

“Come back. I want you to see what God makes for us to watch. There's so much there in the smallest detail. That's why i suggest focusing on one shining leaf tip. This is far better entertainment than television, in my opinion.” ...It just takes... what? Why, with so much more to be gained from observing natural order, are we, myself included, drawn to images and likenesses fashioned by our own merely human minds and hands?

Go back and read the first commandment, the first Word of the Decalogue.

Does it say it's hunky-dory to make images and likenesses of creation as long as we don't drop down on all fours to pay homage to them? It does say not to bow down to them, but as i read it the prohibition isn't dependent upon the use of the image. I tell you i was struck speechless and thoughtless for at least a few seconds the first time i took in my current view of that commandment.

From where i stand, photos, movies, and most types of art and memorabilia are examples of what not to do/make if i wish to abide by this first commandment. In deference to that interpretation i stopped taking photographs... mostly. I make a few other small decisions in line with this understanding, and i give the rest up to the Lord and Omnipotent Forgiveness and future development.

Is that enlightenment? I am free to disconnect the tv and tuck it out of sight in a closet until my friend asks to watch something, and after letting her know what restriction i place on it (If i am within earshot i don't want to hear violence) i help her set it up and get it working. I am free to watch movies when i choose to, with the acknowledgment that it is an image. In fact she may be the more enlightened of us two. Maybe for my enlightenment i'll need to suffer for a while in the lower earths as a comedian photographer. And someone with a big metal ruler and a nose for self-righteousness will stand over my desk and whack my hand every time i spell “i” with a lower-case figure.

In endeavoring to distract her from the television (which is in itself una distracción, una diversión according to her) i failed. Earlier i had asked her what she meant when she described it this way. From what is el televisor distracting her? A distraction is not a distraction if there is no object to avoid; as such it is merely an attraction. When she spent five minutes laying out her cosmology of good and evil and concluded it by saying that the “rebellious one” is continually trying to distract us from focusing on God and his creation, a belly laugh escaped from me. She had just turned her argument in favor of tv on its head, had she not?

I kissed her on the nose and left the room laughing. Some other day, perhaps. “We have eternity” as i've heard other shirkers say...

Before i finished making lunch she lay down for a nap. I tell you; TV may feel like effortless stimulation, but it'll sap the life from yer bones if you don't watch out. ...Or maybe she was just tired from participating in my debate club.

Next time i'll dance over and change the channel with no explanation. And the next time. And the next time. Sooner or later we'll learn whether or not TV violence fulfills some need for her. Once we know what that is we can set about finding a way to feed her that works for both of us.

Speaking of “liviano”, on the way back to my apartment i was feeling heavy about my inability to communicate effectively in one situation, and a man on crutches crossed the road and held his hand out to me with his wrinkled forehead extra wrinkly. I had just ordered a papaya to-go and when i declined to give him money he rubbed his belly and winced to indicate hunger. Fortuitous timing! Just at that moment the smoothista held out my plastic carton full of pink-gold nuggets. Holding it out to him and smiling what i thought was a generous smile, i was dissapointed to see him shake his head and turn away.

I might have asked him if he was allergic to that particular fruit, but i took the rubbing of fingers together to mean he was only interested in money. I wonder what pesos taste like?

If i had been fully expressing this lightness of being, i might have put an arm around his shoulder saying, “Amigo, you´re missing a leg; i´m missing an egg. Let´s ask the new mayor for a handout!”

Th-th th-th-th th-that's all, folks! I can't wait 'til you meet my pet heresy about the nature of evil!

P.S. If you cannot guess what the idiom “egg” means in colloquial spanish then don´t trouble your little head over it.

Heath Synnestvedt

Heath Emanuel Synnestvedt, an inveterate sinner, has hopes for a future longer than his (27 years of) past in which to form new habits. To this end, his exceptional communication skills and huge family/friends network will be of great help. He is currently in a tropical climate the likes of which he plans to inhabit during his white-headed latter years, and in early June he will begin some sort of work that pays excellently. If you are looking to hire him, his phone number is (484) 357-3101. He looks forward to adventures with his wife and children, particularly the development of a self-propagating wave of charity in North America and its mirror image in Hispaniola.

Comments

[Isaac]

Heath,

Thanks for sharing your internal process of lightening toward a simple harmony. I love you for the gentle guiding you do. I sense that you do it without judgment and in moments of peace that you want to share - like you make the effort when "disturbed by and agent ungodly" to come let in peace first and then share the peace rather than reacting from disturbance. Four gentle fingers placed on my shoulders when I am caught up in expressing a doubt or a simple question when I am leaking near-frustration does wonders. I say near-frustration because I have learned in your presence that if I haven't quite cast aside some way of doing or seeing things, and I express to you where I am and where I sense I want to go, you help me see or feel or notice something which highlights my posture or attitude of tension or rebellion or else you point to something in nature which exists happily without participating in the process that is disturbing me. You lend your hands and eyes (and sometimes belly!), offering a possibility that is pleasing to me, or, if I'm really desperate, that is uncomfortable; and if discomfort is the case, I take a moment or six of reflection before allowing the inner smile to find me.

May you find a context for your next 27 which calls you powerfully into being! I want that for me, too. Bless you, mi hermano.