The Web of Life, Part 14: Is It Serious?

All really humane people admit that they’re rascals. That’s, you see, on the side of the not respectable, the selfish. But so, also, all humane people should admit that they’re jokers; that they are playing games and playing tricks. That I am doing it on you; I am most ready to admit this. I hoaxed you all into coming here to tell you—what? It was a trap, you see? But I’m going to make it an entertaining trap so that you won’t feel so badly about it.

Now, this is philosophy, but I think philosophy is like music. You go to a concert and you listen to somebody play Bach, or Mozart, or Beethoven, and what’s all that about? You know, it isn’t about anything except dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee, dee-dee diddly-dee, you know? That’s what it’s about. And so, in the same way, as I conceive my work as a philosopher, I am simply pointing out that existence is the same kind of a thing as a Bach invention. It’s going this way, and that way, and hills, and water is going tch-tch-tch-tch-tch-tch-tch all out there, and the fish are going around in it, breeding, and the ducks are going this, that, and the other, and that’s the same thing as dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee, dee diddly-dee, see?

So, if you can admit that—that that’s what it’s all about—you have a little problem. Because there’s not only the threat that it really might be serious, and that you shouldn’t be laughing about this, but there’s also a kind of opposite. Then are you saying it’s merely just fiddling around? I mean, are you saying that it’s only a game? Is that all there is to it? What do you think? You see, this again is a question that everybody has to think things through. What did you want? Didn’t you want a game? Did you want it to be serious in the end? Think about the question. What kind of a thing would you like God to be? What would you like to do for eternity? Really?

Here is Jan van Eyck, who paints the eschatological picture of the Last Judgement. What a strange man he must have been. Here is heaven above, and hell below. And in heaven, here’s God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, all that together, and the virgin Mary, and the Apostles, and they are all sitting in committee, and they have an aisle—you know, just like in church—and there they are, facing each other, and they’re all sitting there very solemnly.

Now, I don’t know what it’s about. But below, right at the end of the aisle, you see, where all these Apostles are sitting, is Saint Michael: a rather gorgeous figure in beautiful armor with wings. And underneath him is a batwinged skull. And beneath those batwings all horrors is let loose. Michael is about to slosh that skull, you see, with his sword. But below; whoo! There are nude bodies—some of them comely—and they’re all squirming in there, and they’re being eating by worms. And they are eating the worms, and it’s a kind of a mush. It’s like the sort of situation you find when you turn up a big rock and there’s all that going on underneath. Now, there’s no question whatever that van Eyck, the painter, had more fun painting that part of the picture, than he did painting the top part.

So, in the same way with Hieronymus Bosch, and with Bruegel, they painted every kind of weird, surrealistic deviltry going on, and they really loved it. But they couldn’t admit it. Now, the only time when the holy people had a ball, was when, for example, the Islamic artists made arabesques. And the Celtic artists made fantastically intricate lattices to decorate the margins of their gospels and missals. They are unbelievably beautiful. Or take stained glass, or something like that.

But what are they doing? What’s it all about? So you asked the question, then what will you do in heaven? And the thing you wanna do, of course, is to get mixed up in this tshhhh twtwtwtwtwt. See it’s like the musician: he likes to take a melody, and he likes to put another melody that fits in with it, and another one that fits in with both, and then a fourth one, and arrange them together, and then invents an instrument like an organ that he plays with two hands, then he adds foot pedals so he can play with his two feet. And he’d get this hand doing one rhythm, this is doing another, this is doing another, and this doing another. See, that makes it complicated.

And so, when drummers get together and play, somebody starts out with a certain rhythm, and then that rhythm has holes in it. In other words, it has certain silences. And the next drummer fills those silences in an interesting way. He comes and picks out a pattern. And what do you imagine DNA is? The basic form of biological existence. Now, DNA is like a necklace—like Charlotte's wearing—with different kinds of beads in it. And according to the order, and the way those beads are arranged, so you get genes, and so you get the particular form of life that emerges from those genes.

So what we are doing—basic down, way down—is saying, She loves me, she don’t, she have me, she won’t, she would if she could, but she can’t. You see? Or, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief. This is the way life is going on. And as a result comes all this, you see?

The question is then, you see—in you heart of hearts—you can take the attitude that all this is terrible, or that it’s dreadfully serious. You see, you can play comedies, or you can play tragedies, farces, histories and romances, and all that kind of thing, and you can take these various attitudes to it. But if you are awakened, and, as it were, you’ve been let in to the secret—which is what we’ve been talking about, see? Because the web is also the curtain, you know? The veil. The veil which hides the face of God from the angels, you see? There’s always this veil.

That’s why we like a strip tease: because there’s an implication that this—you should never give the show completely away; always should be a little bit of a veil left, you see? There always is. Because even if you find the strip tease artist gets completely naked, there’s really something hidden. What’s the motivation? What sort of a person is she? Would I really like to embrace her? Or will she have bad breath? You know? Or something. And you never really know. You never really get to the bottom. That’s why everybody—all men poets say that women are basically mysterious. And they ought to be. So are men basically mysterious, from women’s point of view—although they play that they’re not. See, this is the way it goes: men are supposed to be very open, and they say, Well, of a certain situation, this is the way it is. After all, it’s perfectly rational; a matter of practical affairs. And women say, Well, I’m not quite as articulate as you are, but I know there’s something you’ve left out, but I can’t explain it. And by this means everything is kept going.