Life Is Both Terrible and Wonderful

Paradox Is Closest to the Truth

How ramshackle, how brilliant, how haphazardly and strangely rendered we are. Gloriously, fantastically mixed and monstered. We exist as phantom, monster, miracle, each a theme park all one's own.

—Aracelis Girmay

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THE HONEY AND VINEGAR TASTERS

"if something is not beautiful, it may not be true." I celebrate that hypothesis in my book Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

I further propose that the universe is inherently friendly to human beings; that all of creation is set up to teach us how to love, liberate us from our suffering, and grow ever-smarter and kinder and wilder. I theorize that life often gives us exactly what we need, exactly when we need it (though not necessarily what we want).

Dogmatic cynics get so mad about my book's title that they can't bring themselves to explore the inside. Why bother to actually read about such a preposterous idea? They accuse me of intellectual dishonesty, disingenuous Pollyannaism, or New Age delusion.

If they do manage to read even a few pages, they find that the blessings I reference in the title are not materialistic fetishes like luxurious vacation homes, high status, and a perfect physique.

I'm more interested in fascinating surprises, dizzying adventures, challenging gifts we hardly know what to do with, and conundrums that compel us to get smarter and wilder and kinder and trickier.

I also enjoy exposing unsung miracles, like the way the sun continually undergoes thermonuclear reactions to convert its body into heat, light, and energy for our personal use.

But I don't take the cynics' fury personally. When I suggest that life is a sublime mystery designed to eventually grow us all into strong, supple messiahs (though it might take a few incarnations!), I understand that's the equivalent, for them, of denying the realities of climate change. They're addicted to a formulation that's the opposite of my hypothesis, “If something is not ugly, it is may not be true.”

I’m dismayed by how often I see modern storytellers promoting this doctrine, which I refer to as pop nihilism. Many journalists, filmmakers, novelists, critics, talk-show hosts, musicians, and pundits act as if breakdown is far more common and more interesting than breakthrough; that painful twists outnumber redemptive transformations by a wide margin, and are profoundly more entertaining as well.

Earlier in my life, I too worshiped the religion of pop nihilism. In the 1980s and 1990s, for example, I waged a crusade against what I called "the global genocide of the imagination." I railed against the "entertainment criminals" who barrage us with floods of fake information and inane ugliness, decimating and paralyzing our image-making faculties.

For years, much of my creative work was stoked by my rage against the machine for its soulless crimes of injustice and greed and rapaciousness and cruelty.

But as the crazy wisdom of pronoia overtook me in the 1990s, I partially weaned myself from the gratification that wrath offered.

Against the grain, I experimented with strategies for motivating myself through crafty joy and purified desire and the longing for freedom. I played with ideas that helped me shed the habit of seeing the worst in everything and everyone. In its place I built a new habit of looking for the best.

But I never formally renounced my affiliation with the strategies of discernment and skepticism. I didn't become a fundamentalist apostate preaching the doctrine of fanatical optimism. At the bottom of my wild heart, I knew I couldn't thrive without at least a tincture of the ferocity and outrage that had driven so much of my earlier self-expression.

Even at the height of my infatuation with the beautiful truths that swarmed into me while writing Pronoia, I nurtured a relationship with the awful truths. And I didn't hide that from my readers.

Yes, I did purposely go overboard in championing the cause of liberation and pleasure and ingenuity and integrity and renewal and harmony and love.

My book's destiny was, after all, to serve as a counterbalance to the trendy predominance of bad news and paranoid attitudes. It was meant to be an antidote for the pandemic of snark.

But I made sure that Pronoia also contained numerous "Homeopathic Medicine Spells," talismans that cram long lists of the world's evils inside ritually consecrated mandalas. These spells diffuse the hypnotizing lure of doom and gloom by acknowledging the horrors.

Pronoia also has many variations on a theme captured in William Vollman's testimony: "The most important and enjoyable thing in life is doing something that’s a complicated, tricky problem that you don’t know how to solve."

Furthermore, the book stops far short of calling for the autocratic imposition of good cheer. I say I can tolerate the news media filling up half their pages and airwaves and bandwidths with poker-faced accounts of decline and degeneration, misery and destruction. All I seek is equal time for stories that inspire us to adore life instead of fearing it. And I'd gladly accept 25 percent. Even 14 percent.

So Pronoia hints at a paradoxical philosophy more complex than a naive quest for beauty and benevolence. It welcomes in a taste of darkness, acknowledging the shadows in the big picture.

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Read lots of free excerpts from Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

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THE OXYMORONIC TAO

Life is a bitch, and then you die.

AND

life is a conspiracy to shower you with blessings.

Everything is totally fucked up

AND

everything is perfect just the way it is.

Both. And.

In light of these paradoxical truths, I am developing an anti-belief belief system. It's a fresh spiritual tradition—not the old style Tao, but rather the Oxymoronic Tao—a mutated, updated version of the Tao: Tao with an attitude.

Not the calm, abstract, passive, world-weary, everything-is-everything Tao of the ancient sage Lao-Tse. But the fragrant, shimmering, electrifying Tao of the outrageous now, where each discrete glint of individuated beauty is discernible amidst the mass of confusion, rousing us to revelry and activism.

Not a Tao sitting in cool, unflappable contemplation of the ultimate unity of the wound and the cure. But rather a Tao that foments an aggressive affirmative action program for artfully highlighting and rejoicing in incongruous juxtapositions. A Tao that romances the contradictions with an exuberant experimentalism and whips up slathering throbs of fertile mojo.

The Oxymoronic Tao is a Tao that doesn't pacify and dial down our martial force. Rather, it supercharges us, hooking us up to the elemental power that flows wherever opposites unite.

Here's the bonus. With the Tao as our fuel, our vision opens to the reality that opposites are always uniting everywhere. It makes anything and everything we gaze upon turn into the philosopher's stone, the grail, the pearl of great price, the treasure beyond measure.

The Oxymoronic Tao ushers us into a blissful abyss where we are pummeled and caressed by an erotic crush of screamingly tender contradictions. Our fixations crack apart. Our egos ache. We swoon with the stark elation that comes from knowing how freaking interesting everything is.

We're shocked and healed, healed and shocked. Every worry is a source of wonder that rips us out of our ignorance. Every miracle blows our minds so mercilessly we can't help but cry out with a bewildered, volcanic longing for more miracles.

Here's what I must do to live full time in the Oxymoronic Tao: strive to master the art of living in both the material world and the spiritual realm at the same time—The Overt Real World and The Other Real World. I strive to love them both. Revere them both. Treasure them both.

When I do this well, I’m not exactly dreaming while awake or being awake in my dreams, but both simultaneously. I am at home in a ceaseless lucid dream with eyes wide open, the sun at midnight filling up half the sky, and the full moon at noon in the other half.

Alas, I have not yet mastered this art. I’m still toiling. Still aspiring.

When I finally am able to fully inhabit the Oxymoronic Tao, it will be because I've become adept at living both outside and inside of time. I will adore our special snatch of history with the liberated compassion that comes from being blended with the eleven-dimensional consciousness of the NonBinary Logos—even as I exult in being ground up by the wheels of linear time; even as I exercise my skill for joyfully plucking the essential teaching from each perplexing, glorious, shattering, victorious moment; even as I thrill to the majestic spectacle of my body constantly transforming into different versions of itself, all its atoms regularly exchanged for new ones in the cyclical interplay of apocalypse and rebirth.

That's not quite happening with the completeness I hope it will someday. My wild heart isn’t ripe enough. I have not achieved the knack of being torn apart and woven back together a hundred times a day by life's wrenching insistence on cramming delight and loss into every perception. Three times a day, yes, and eight on a good day. But not yet a hundred.

I do have an ever-growing tolerance for, even a budding attraction to, being simultaneously seared and comforted by extravagant beauty and desolate longing. But I am not yet strong enough to surrender to the nonstop searing and comforting. And I will need to do that if I want to feel at home full-time in the Oxymoronic Tao.

I am more than halfway there, though. I know what it's like to be annihilated by the pouring-out-of-my-skin empathy I feel for all the other creatures I live among. And I know what it's like to reel with rapture as I am rocked by the visceral thrill of my blood resonating with your blood, of my nerves reliving the memory that they are made of the same stardust yours are.

Someday I will hum, ever-changing and ever-constant, in the grip of both those states simultaneously. Not just in rare fits of agonizing joy, but on an ongoing basis. As a constant meditation. As a daily spiritual practice.

In some of my lucid waking dreams, I am already there. I have achieved the triumphant crucifixion. I have grabbed the gift from the future. I have begun to incarnate the mutant archetype into my flesh and blood.

For now, I call the archetype the Oxymoronic Tao. If I am faithful to its serpentine laws, though, I will change its name frequently in the coming eons.

That's one secret, I suspect, to making sure it will keep working for me, turning everything and everyone into the philosopher's stone, the grail, the pearl of great price, the treasure beyond measure.

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Listen to my song “Shadow Blessings”:

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Free Will Astrology For the Week of March 21

ARIES (March 21-April 19): I suspect you will soon have far more beginners' luck than you ever thought possible. For best results—to generate even more wildly abundant torrents of good luck—you could adopt what Zen Buddhists called “beginner’s mind.” That means gazing upon everyone and everything as if encountering it for the first time. Here are other qualities I expect to be flowing freely through you in the coming weeks: spontaneity, curiosity, innocence, candor, and unpredictability. To the degree that you cultivate these states, you will invite even more beginner’s luck into your life.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Taurus artist Salvador Dali was prone to exaggerate for dramatic effect. We should remember that as we read his quote: "Mistakes are almost always of a sacred nature. Never try to correct them. On the contrary: Rationalize them; understand them thoroughly." While that eccentric advice may not always be 100-percent accurate or useful, I think it will be true and helpful for you in the coming weeks. Have maximum fun making sacred mistakes, Taurus! Learn all you can from them. Use them to improve your life.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): The professional fun advisors here at Free Will Astrology International Headquarters have concluded that your Party Hardy Potential Rating for the coming weeks is 9.8 (out of 10). In fact, this may be the Party Hardy Phase of the Year for you. You could gather the benefits of maximum revelry and conviviality with minimal side effects. Here’s a meditation to get you in the right mood: Imagine mixing business and pleasure with such panache that they blend into a gleeful, fruitful synergy.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Cancerian author and psychotherapist Virginia Satir (1916–1988) was renowned as the “Mother of Family Therapy.” Her research led her to conclude, “We need four hugs a day for survival. We need eight hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth.” That 12-hug recommendation seems daunting to achieve, but I hope you will strive for it in the coming weeks. You are in a phase when maximum growth is possible—and pushing to the frontiers of hugging will help you activate the full potential. (PS: Don’t force anyone to hug you. Make sure it’s consensual.)

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Have you been genuinely amazed anytime recently? Have you done something truly amazing? If not, it’s time to play catch-up. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, you need and deserve exciting adventures that boggle your soul in all the best ways. You should be wandering out on the frontiers and tracking down provocative mysteries. You could grow even smarter than you already are if you expose yourself to challenges that will amaze you and inspire you to be amazing.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): I invite you to perform a magic spell that will help prepare you for the rich, slippery soul work you have ahead of you. I’ll offer a suggestion, but feel free to compose your own ritual. First, go outside where it’s raining or misting, or find a waterfall. Stand with your legs apart and arms spread out as you turn your face up toward the falling moisture. As you drink it in, tell yourself you will be extra fluid and flowing in the coming weeks. Promise yourself you will stimulate and treasure succulent feelings. You will cultivate the sensation that everything you need is streaming in your direction.

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LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): You are gliding into the climax of your re-education about togetherness, intimacy, and collaboration. The lessons you’ve been learning have deepened your reservoir of wisdom about the nature of love. And in the coming weeks, even further teachings will arrive; even more openings and invitations will be available. You will be offered the chance to earn what could in effect be a master's degree in relationships. It'll be challenging work, but rewarding and interesting. Do as best as you can. Don't demand perfection from yourself or anyone else.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Now is not a favorable phase to gamble on unknown entities. Nor should you allow seemingly well-meaning people to transgress your boundaries. Another Big No: Don’t heed the advice of fear-mongers or nagging scolds, whether they’re inside or outside your head. On the other hand, dear Scorpio, the coming weeks will be an excellent time for the following actions. 1. Phase out attachments to alliances and love interests that have exhausted their possibilities. 2. Seek the necessary resources to transform or outgrow a frustrating fact about your life. 3. Name truths that other people seem intent on ignoring and avoiding. 4. Conjure simple, small, slow, practical magic to make simple, small, slow, practical progress.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Falling in love is fun! It’s also exciting, enriching, inspiring, transformative, world-shaking, and educational. Wouldn’t it be fabulous if we could keep falling in love anew three or four times a year for as long as we live? We might always be our best selves, showing our most creative and generous sides, continually expanding our power to express our soulful intelligence. Alas, it’s not practical or realistic to always be falling in love with another new person. Here’s a possible alternative: What if we enlarged our understanding of what we could fall in love with? Maybe we would become perpetually infatuated with brilliant teachings, magical places, high adventures, and great art and music. The coming weeks will be an excellent time for you to cultivate this skill.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): I’m perplexed by spiritual teachers who fanatically preach the doctrine that we should BE HERE NOW as much as possible. Living with full enjoyment in the present moment is a valuable practice, but dismissing or demeaning the past is shortsighted. Our lives are forged from our histories. We should revere the stories we are made of, visit them regularly, and keep learning from them. Keep this in mind, Capricorn. It’s an excellent time to heal your memories and to be healed by them. Cultivate deep gratitude for your past as you give the old days all your love. Enjoy this quote from novelist Gregory Maguire: “Memory is part of the present. It builds us up inside; it knits our bones to our muscles and keeps our heart pumping. It is memory that reminds our bodies to work, and memory that reminds our spirits to work, too: it keeps us who we are.”

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Controversial author William S. Burroughs was a rough, tough troublemaker. But he had some wisdom that will soon be extra useful for you. He said that love is the best natural painkiller available. I bring this to your attention not because I believe you will experience more pain than the rest of us in the coming months. Rather, I am predicting you will have extra power to alleviate your pain—especially when you raise your capacity to give and receive love.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): The planet Saturn entered Pisces in March 2023 and won't depart for good until February 2026. Is that a bad thing or good thing for you Pisceans? Some astrologers might say you are in a challenging time when you must make cutbacks and take on increased responsibility. I have a different perspective. I believe this is a phase when you can get closer than ever before to knowing exactly what you want and how to accomplish what you want. In my view, you are being called to shed secondary wishes that distract you from your life’s central goals. I see this period as a homecoming—your invitation to glide into robust alignment with your soul’s code.