Seeing Nothing! High School Graduation Yearbook Poem: from 1970
Seeing nothing,
he searched for Godot,
found Steppenwolf,
and touched feet with the wall
Reflections and Explanations of “Seeing Nothing!”
Jungian psychology holds that in the Unconscious and Collective Unconscious there are archetypes which would likely act similarly to having “scripts” or preprogrammed plans within consciousness. In looking back at the Seeing Nothing poem, the poem would appear a bit prophetic of some future events and situations that were to happen to me later in my life. Also, the line about “Steppenwolf,” which reflects a Steppenwolf-split personality between a higher ‘divine’ personality and a lower ‘animal’ persona, would seem to express a conflict that happened within me, but also in society in general. In the wider ‘society’ there has been a definite decline in religious affiliation but also a decline in belief and even acceptance of spirituality.
Waiting for Godot
In the Waiting for Godot play, the author, Samuel Beckett, has the two main characters, Vladimir and Estragon, waiting around - seemingly aimlessly - for the arrival of a person named Godot. Godot never arrives! Similar to the characters of Beckett’s play, in my own life, in high school and college and later, I searched for an unknown something or somebody – waiting for that mystery-answer to life to appear. But, of course, that never happened since, in all reality, at the time, I really didn’t have the faintest idea what I was looking for. So, in my own life, my life at the time was metaphorically a mirror reflection of Beckett’s play, Waiting for Godot. From 1970 to 1981, I searched for Godot, when, in 1981 I had my precognitive “What a nightmare” spiritual-psychic experience – which started me on an entirely different journey and quest.
Also, in regard to “Waiting for Godot, I had some awareness in high school of the play, but I definitely had not heard that it had been suggested by Deirdre Blair that due to the common references to “feet” in the play that it might be an unconscious play on the slang term for boot, "godillot or godasse." In my short poem, of course, the concluding line was “and touched feet with the wall.”
Steppenwolf
Due to the fact that, in my upbringing, I had no awareness or education in spirituality or psychic and consciously thought them superstitious nonsense at the time, there was an intense emotional and spiritual fight going on. Essentially, then, in part due to the lack of any central purpose or meaning, for all practical purposes there were two personalities battling it out. One personality was a “rationalist” or materialist personality that regarded spirit and spirituality as superstitious nonsense. And in conflict with that materialist personality, there was a “spiritual” personality that believed in “Sprit” and a more pervasive “Spirit”, as in a universal intelligence to the universe, or God, as it were. It definitely wasn’t as if the spiritual experience had sprinkled some “fairy dust” on me. There were a lot of emotions, a lot of unknowns, and a lot of fears. It was a pretty gritty fight, in all truth.
So, the reference to Steppenwolf, who in the novel by Herman Hesse, had a split personality between an “animal” personality and a “human” and “higher spiritual” personality was definitely a prophetic observation. One analyst noted that Hesse felt there was an obsession with the “suffering and despair” of Steppenwolf eliminating the human potential for “transcendence and healing.”
Also, it is unclear whether the climatic murder of Hermine by Steppenwolf actually occurred or whether that was in truth just another illusion and hallucination of the “Magic Theater.” Some believe that Hesse tries to juxtapose the physical causal reality with a higher “metaphysical” Truth. In any case, in my life the struggle between what is real and what is illusion was a fairly constant struggle. The bottom line for me was that the two somewhat conflicting -philosophies-ideologies became entangled and it took me something like twenty to thirty years to sort things out. So, for me the reference to Steppenwolf represents a bizarre synchronicity and an incredibly eerily very prophetic.
Bokononism and ‘Feet Touching the Wall’
From Cat’s Cradle, written, by Kurt Vonnegut, Bokononism is a fictitious religion whose foundation is the principle of “foma.” In essence, foma, are held to be harmless untruths. The sacred Books of Bokonon, begin with this admonition: "Don't be a fool! Close this book at once! It is nothing but foma! All of the true things that I am about to tell you are shameless lies." The most sacred Truth of the Bokonon religion is to "Live by the foma that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy." So, the Truth of the religion is that if you believe in their lives you will have peace of mind, be righteous, and live the good life. Boko-Maru, the pinnacle of Bokononist worship, is the ultimate intimate act of prolonged touch and contact between the four naked soles of the feet of two persons. Of course, many people these days see God and religion as a “delusion” and “untruth.” I can’t help but comment that without “Spirit, Truth, and Compassion” religion is really just a farce.
Lastly, the poem, at the end, refers to “the wall” and it seems a little curious and perhaps even eerie with a touch of synchronicity that I began writing and connecting with people just as Trump with his “Wall” came onto the stage. Though, on the other hand, “the wall” could possibly symbolize the barrier I run up against frequently when I try to connect with people about spirituality and especially “transcendental” spirituality.