Befriending the Ancients (starting with Zhuangzi)
This month, I practiced imaginative and creative exercises in order to foster a parasocial relationship with a dead philosopher.
I sometimes tell people that I am in “the honeymoon phase” when I read the works of a philosopher for the first time. By this I mean: a period of time where I am charitable towards the philosophy of an author like I would be towards that of a loved one. During this phase, what I am interested in is to understand every aspect of their philosophical system (understood broadly; theoretical system or way of life). I try, as much as I can, to side with this system against all possible objections, and I try, at all times, to see the world through the lens of that philosophy. It is a kind of infatuation. When this happens, I am provided with a kind of companionship that is very precious to me, since the philosophy in question stays by my side in the course of my daily life.
I would wager that this is not a rare phenomenon among philosophy enthusiasts. Some kind of full-on “nerding out” has to be happening behind closed doors. But the details of that “nerding out” are not always expressed explicitly. Maybe we find them embarrassing. When Eli Kramer offered to reveal the “dirty secret” of professional philosophy, he formulated it in this way: “We so-called philosophers are best understood as those hooked on the feeling of doing philosophy”1, that is, of playing with philosophical ideas, for the sake of the playfulness itself. This is taboo because it seems, on the face of it, to lack “seriousness” and to be very “isolated”; to require an “ivory tower” disconnected from society. But it does not have to remain taboo. It can be defended.2
I see Helen De Cruz’s article, Friendship with the ancients3, as accomplishing very much the same thing: leaking a guilty secret about philosophical enthusiasm. An open secret to some, but something a bit repressed. And they do leak that secret in a way that eliminates any guilt that might surround it: breaking the taboo and defending the practice. In this article, they focus on friendship with the ancients:
“Friendship with the ancients: The set of creative practices and engagements
with works of deceased authors that allows us to imagine them as friends
and to enter into a parasocial relationship with them.”4
I believe this is the same kind of parasocial relationship I have when I become infatuated with philosophical systems. More specifically, Helen de Cruz defends the idea that such a parasocial relationship is a variant of the broader phenomenon of “philosophical friendship”. They explain that the virtues one might gain from philosophical friendship with a real life companion, one might acquire also in the context of a parasocial relationship with a dead philosopher; mediated by the texts they left behind.
Helen De Cruz spends time defending the idea that philosophical friendship (whether you actually met the friend or not) does not entail lowering your critical thinking towards their ideas, and in fact creates an atmosphere of trust that allows you to engage with those ideas in a deeper way, which might even sharpen your critical thinking. I did not need much persuading on that front, since the entire reason I had coined the ironic term “honeymoon phase” was to communicate to my fellow college students the dynamic interplay between the first “glowing” phase of the relationship and the secondary phase where criticism becomes possible. As in “I am absorbing it all right now, but I will be able to criticize it later”. But, clearly, I needed a better vocabulary for this. The article puts it in a more precise and nuanced way than the problematic cliché of the “honeymoon period” which suggests some kind of present illusion and future disenchantment (problematic both because it might not be a good way of describing/living a marriage, and not a good way of describing/living friendship with the ancients).
However, what did catch me off guard, was Helen de Cruz’s discussion of imaginative practices one might engage in to strike a friendship with the ancients. This idea is supported by several quotes. Take for example, this quote from Machiavelli where he describes having imaginary conversations with ancient authors:
“On the coming of evening, I return to my house and enter my study; and at
the door I take off the day’s clothing, covered with mud and dust, and put
on garments regal and courtly; and reclothed appropriately, I enter the
ancient courts of ancient men, where, received by them with affection, I
feed on that food which only is mine and which I was born for, where I am
not ashamed to speak with them and to ask them the reason for their actions;
and they in their kindness answer me; and for four hours of time I
do not feel boredom, I forget every trouble, I do not dread poverty, I am not
frightened by death; entirely I give myself over to them … I have noted
everything in their conversation which has profited me, and have
composed a little work On Princedoms, where I go as deeply as I can into
considerations on this subject, debating what a princedom is, of what kinds
they are, how they are gained, how they are kept, why they are lost
(Machiavelli 1961: 142).”5
My first reaction when I read this was: “wait… is he speaking metaphorically? Or does he literally do all of this?”. My confusion was born of the fact that my relationship with dead authors never involved an imaginary exercise like this. In spite of the fact that I am prone to daydreaming and to imaginary conversations from time to time (see my attempt at Daydreaming Meditation6), I never literally imagined myself talking to a dead philosopher. When I think back on what I identify as my “parasocial” relationship with a philosopher, all I remember is a relationship with their text, and an appreciation of a few anecdotes about them, only insofar as they help to understand the text. I remember the way I really got into Levinas and wrote my Master’s thesis on him: at some point I found out that I could see a TV interview of him on YouTube, and I truly recoiled in horror and refused to watch it. It seemed too taboo to see him in the flesh: “Levinas is his books”, I thought, “not this guy!” In fact, one thing that I really appreciated about Helen De Cruz’ article is the emphasis on the text and its constraints; “an intimate personal understanding can arise purely textually”7. That seems right to me. It really resonates with my experience of friendship with the ancients. You wrestle with the text only, even though secondary literature, anecdotes about the author, and even your own life experiences and struggles, can participate in your understanding of the text. But the text is paramount. Thus, I was dismayed: what does Machiavelli do for four hours? Is it just a fancy way of describing him reading a text, or is he literally imagining conversations? And with what level of detail?
Because of that dismay, I decided that I would dedicate September 2024 to trying to strike a friendship with an ancient philosopher, aided by the practice of imaginary dialogue. It was a “test” that I wanted to perform. I wanted to see if it was feasible. And personally, I didn’t think it would work. Given that, historically, my “honeymoon philosophy phases” AND my bouts of daydreaming AND my parasocial relationships (in non-philosophical contexts) tended to spring up organically, I thought that, surely, trying to impose some kind of voluntary formal practice *on a schedule* would not be conducive to friendship with the ancients. I reasoned: “you can’t force something like this, and so it isn’t really a practice to cultivate when you want, but more something to fall into accidentally and not be ashamed of”. Like falling in love.
The experiment was the following: I was going to try to befriend Zhuangzi by reading his eponymous book and talking to him, and I was going to do the same with Husserl and his Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. I made this choice for two reasons: I was not familiar with Zhuangzi, whereas I was already pretty familiar with Husserl. This made for a nice contrast. The second contrast is that Zhuangzi can be classified as a philosopher belonging in the Philosophy as a Way of Life category: he proposes an outlook whose point is to transform you and whose shape does not quite fit contemporary academia. Husserl, on the other hand, most people would describe as a very dry academic. A strong case can be made that his phenomenology is a spiritual exercise or a way of life8. But it is dry academic prose that is most obvious at first. So I was curious how the “Way of Life” affiliation would factor into befriending the ancients. Wouldn’t the parasocial relationship hinge on feeling like the philosopher has “life advice” to give to you?
The result of the experiment is that I failed to connect with Husserl’s text entirely. It is only recently, in October, that I have begun to make progress with it, and to see how warming up to Husserl could be done (maybe), because I have found some good secondary literature about it (from Dermot Moran). Interestingly, this made it crystal clear to me that a good preface or a good commentary in secondary literature is very similar to a friend introducing you to another friend. I didn’t like the preface in my edition of the Crisis9, it sabotaged the meeting between two friends: it was strangely detached and ironic towards the text. At some point, it describes the Crisis as “a completely obsolete book”! No straightforward enthusiasm was to be found in that preface! That’s a shame, because having someone introduce you to someone else puts you in the right state of mind to make friends. I learned of Zhuangzi through Helen de Cruz and their philosophy of wonder10, and so I was ready to see the best of him. It makes the meeting possible. But this, compounding with other difficulties, made it impossible to connect with Husserl.
The opposite happened with Zhuangzi. First of all, the preface by Burton Watson (and his translation of the work!11), was very useful. (though it did put me off the chapters that it identified as non-authentic, not written by Zhuangzi himself, and that might become a missed opportunity). It gave me very useful advice about reading him:
“In the end, the best way to approach Zhuangzi, I
believe, is not to attempt to subject his thought to rational
and systematic analysis, but to read and reread his words
until one has ceased to think of what he is saying and
instead has developed an intuitive sense of the mind moving
behind the words, and of the world in which it moves.”12
Zhuangzi is a daoist philosopher who, through anecdotes and fables, expresses the ineffable Way. It is therefore imperative, in a way, just to “vibe” with the text. This can sound daunting to someone who wants to come away with a conceptual understanding of his philosophy, but this is made very easy by the fact that there is a lot of humour to the text. And humour is this thing that you can “get”, without knowing how to explain it, and then reproduce for yourself. The amount of humour and Alice-in-wonderland style dialogue and magic events in that text really surprised me! Yet, it was a very pleasant surprise, as it made the use of imaginary exercises rather accessible to me!
First, I took a little while to get acquainted with the first chapters, in order to “get the point”. Then, towards the middle of the month, I began to get “visions”. Not hallucinations, but daydreams helped along by the prompt “What would Zhuangzi do? What would Zhangzi say to me?”. In an early instance, I imagined myself saying to Zhuangzi: “I want to be wise.” (a pretty typical yearning of mine, dear reader) And him responding: “You want to be wise, on top of everything else?” This was a striking paradoxical response. I was expecting the Master to approve of the search for wisdom, but all of a sudden the search was being treated like a capricious luxury. It forced me to consider that there might be something artificial to the way I was trying to become wise, something counter-productive. Maybe there was a distinction to be made between stilted wisdom-seeking and natural wisdom-seeking. It’s a distinction I was familiar with – nothing groundbreaking – but the question was: what was Zhuangzi’s version of that distinction? In any case, getting the right tone and the right irreverent humor from my imagined Zhuangzi was paramount to feel like I was talking to him authentically (though not literally).
Once the right “tone” was found, I could converse with him more extensively. I fell into a pattern that brought me immense joy, consolation and clarity throughout the month: I would read two little stories from the Zhuangzi, and then I would write down a fictional dialogue between me and the Master. I felt that this exercise was similar to the one called “active imagination”, which comes from Jungian psychoanalysis: you use art to let certain images speak to you, and you know you’re doing it right when those images gain a certain level of autonomy. It doesn’t feel like you are the one supplying their side of the dialogue. I was trying to let Zhuangzi surprise me. Probably both because I wanted to avoid “sock puppeteering” the philosopher – making him say things he wouldn’t have said just because they would feel good to me – and also because his book resorts to surprise and fantastical images.
There is obviously a real difficulty there: on the one hand, you don’t want him to say things he wouldn’t have said, but on the other hand, you cannot merely repeat things that you know for absolute certain he would have said, based on proof that he has already said it (that would be sterile and boring). Thus, much like with active imagination, but also with hermeneutics in general, you have no choice but to bring something to the table, to approach the text with something that is currently bothering you, and to wonder how the answers apply to your question. That’s how I would always start: I would try to express something that is weighing on my mind. And then I would wonder what Zhuangzi would say to that. But in crafting his response I would try to not craft his response; to just go with the flow. To let his character speak as if I wasn’t the one writing his responses. To be honest, I have some facility with this exercise. Perhaps more than average. I am very “suggestible” as the hypnotists would say. My reconstructed Zhuangzi was perhaps not accurate – it was perhaps, at times, more an amalgamation of things inspired by other strands of Eastern Philosophy, or by figures like Socrates or Diogenes, or even by unconscious desires in the moment – but what matters is that it was striving to be accurate, while not ‘striving’ in a boring textbook kind of way.
The result is a lot of dialogues with some kind of push and pull dynamic at their core, where Zhuangzi would challenge me over and over to attain wisdom. First, I would express something that was bothering me, and then express either complete befuddlement, or some understanding of what would be a wise way to deal with it, in my opinion. In response Zhuangzi, like a gadfly philosopher, would attack my false certainties and bewilder me further until some deeper wisdom emerged.
Here’s an example of such a dialogue. I show it to you as I have written it, except when I felt like editing it a little might make the prose clearer to anyone who is not me (only the italicized comments are added after the fact):
Me – I have felt a lot of the peace that you talk about. Harmony with the world, harmony with people… Giving up on straining so hard.... All those schemes, all of this tunnel vision... I have had wise moments where I turned my back on them. And what a relief it’s been! It’s difficult: I truly am so stubborn! I guess I can’t help but ask: what can I do to stop being so stubborn with “control”, and “productivity”, and all of that?
Zhuangzi – What is the opposite of stubbornness?
Me – Curiosity?
Z – And what is the opposite of curiosity?
Me – Well… *finding myself unable to process the query*13... stubbornness?
Z – Hmmm, well…. [said with a playful unsatisfied tone]
Me- Is it not? I guess it’s dogmatism?
Z – And where does dogma come from?
Me – I have received dogma from society, from my parents, and their parents, etc.
Z – So the answer to your original question would be?
Me – I must reject the dogma of society.
Z – But you don’t want to.
Me – I’m scared to.
Z – And so you are unwilling to change.
Me - …14
Z – You don’t have to will yourself to be brave. Courage can fall on you like a gentle rain. But first you have to be not so wary of change. Think of this: What if they take you away from your house? Well, alright, but what if they put you somewhere fantastical? In the heart of a mountain inlaid with gold? What if you have to beg for food and coin on the side of the road? Well, alright, but what if you meet someone interesting there, like a saint or a crocodile?15
Me – I like that. I don’t understand why I like this strange image. After all, this is not going to turn into something magical and interesting like that, right?
Z – You don’t know that.16
Me – I guess, in a way I don’t. So if they tell me: “no more money for you, you are a leech on society, and you have to work where you’ll receive mockery, disease17, and contempt…” “and what have you been doing all this time? wasting your time, doing nothing, accomplishing nothing?” If they tell me all of this, and they “send me somewhere”, how can I see that Heaven is sending me to the mountain inlaid with gold? To the saint and the crocodile?
Z – They’re small men. You are talking about them sending you places, but it is Heaven that sends you places. I can tell you are excited to meet the saint and the crocodile. So you have your answer.
Me – It does sound exciting.
After experiencing this kind of dialogue, I am more at peace and more joyful. Like Machiavelli, “I do not feel boredom, I forget every trouble, I do not dread poverty, I am not frightened by death” Because of Zhuangzi’s particular style, I am also more open to marvel at the world. Somehow, I repeat to myself “I will meet the saint and the crocodile”, a strange image that I find very meaningful, even though I have very little idea what it means. It is a pleasant echo of the book of Zhuangzi. It is less inspired, to be sure, merely a pastiche, but truly something that puts a spring in my step.
I have found these encounters with Zhuangzi so inspiring that I have resolved to practice diligently the wei-wu-wei (action without action) that he kept pointing me towards, for my next Philosophical Exercise experiment (October 2024). I do so, following his instruction. For he has told me this during our last meeting : “The Way is not to come to me to drink milk at my tit. We can fish together and travel along the river. I know only a few spots, enough to get by. That is the Way. Along the river we go.” For a while I didn’t understand why Zhuangzi was such a stern teacher with me (I even got annoyed at him), since the image of him I cherished the most was that of a tranquil sage who fishes along the river. But I now understand that he was rebelling against the role I kept giving him, until we finally reconciled over the idea that “he wasn’t there to heal my warts”. “For there is a Way beyond health and unhealth, beyond winning and losing.” There are things larger than the both of us, he said to me in conversation: “Do you see the sunlight? It has nothing to do with you. Except for the fact that you are coasting along on some of the dust particles that float within that beam of light.”
My final recommendation would be that if you are less “suggestible” than me, less inclined to spontaneously write dialogues like this, you might want to try out a slight variation of this exercise, where you write a letter to the dead philosopher. Writing a letter this way forces you to anticipate how they might react (in fact I encourage you to inject this prompt into your fictional letter: “Now, now, I know what you are going to say about this:…”) and this goes a long way to accomplishing the exercise without the hassle of talking with a stranger’s voice. In any case, I’m sure you can find a way that works for you. And let me know how it goes.
(PS: On this blog, we explore a new philosophical exercise every month. In the previous episode, we tried the mind-blowing Jhana meditation, and before that, we experimented with The Joyful Practice of Stoic Death Writing)
(09/10/2024)
Pierrick Simon
my email: lemiroirtranquille@outlook.fr
(do not hesitate to reach out)
Bluesky: @pierricksimon.bsky.social
Twitter: @PhiloTranquille
NOTES:
1Eli Kramer - Playing Philosopher King: A Deweyan (Re)consolation of Philosophy for Pandemic Times (and the Times to Come) - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/363520638_Playing_Philosopher_King_A_Deweyan_Reconsolation_of_Philosophy_for_Pandemic_Times_and_the_Times_to_Come
2Kramer defends the idea in his article. In addition, the present blog – “Philosophical Exercises” – is a similar attempt to break the taboo: philosophical exercises are a bit like games and they are very fun. See my first article : https://philosophicalexercises.blogspot.com/2023/08/how-philosophical-exercises-can-improve.html
3https://philpapers.org/rec/DECFWT Helen de Cruz, Friendship with the ancients
4p.2.
5Machiavelli, Niccolò (1961) ‘Niccoló Machiavelli to Francesco Vettori‘, 10 December 1513.
In Allan Gilbert (ed.), The letters of Machiavelli. A selection (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press), pp. 139–144.
7p.14.
8Exercices spirituels dans la phénoménologie de Husserl – Xavier Pavie
9La crise des sciences européennes et la phénoménologie transcendantale - Translated and prefaced by Gérard Granel
10Helen de Cruz – Wonderstruck: How Wonder and Awe Shape the Way We Think - https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691232126/wonderstruck
11Burton Watson – The Complete Works of Zhuangzi
12preface
13I genuinely wrote this part. In the moment, I was stunned. Zhuangzi was playing with me. If B is the opposite of A, shouldn’t A be the opposite of B? Instead, he leads me to an answer that widens the scope of the investigation. We zoom out from the individual problem to include more people and the issue of transmission.
14This moment is uncharacteristic of my exchanges with Zhuangzi. It is not uncharacteristic of me to fall silent and to mark it like this “…”, however usually, he waited for me to speak again, and did not offer some explanation without heavy prompting on my part. This is a departure from that.
15This strange reasoning is inspired by a passage in the Zhuangzi where a character is fully open to being transformed by old age and disease, by being made crooked by the Creator. This character goes further and claims “Why no, what would I resent? If the process continues, perhaps in time he’ll transform my left arm into a rooster. In that case I’ll keep watch during the night. Or perhaps in time he’ll transform my right arm into a cross-bow pellet, and I’ll shoot down an owl for roasting.” [CHAPTER 6: THE GREAT AND VENERABLE TEACHER] This character argues for resourcefulness in the face of fantastical changes, and clearly those strange images left an impression on me.
16When he says that, I realize I have fallen into a delightful trap. I go to say the naive thing “life is not going to be as interesting as that”, not realizing that this is clear set-up for the profound thought that, in fact, life is going to be pretty interesting no matter what, and I am so ignorant of the future, that it might as well be as fantastical as those images, for all I know and for all I care.
17A reference to the Covid19 pandemic.
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