In Praise of Building Castles in the Air
Recently I cleaned out my filing cabinet and found some essays I wrote some 20 to 30 years ago. The following is such an essay.
Many have been accused of “building castles in the air” as a statement that their logic or observations lack credence due to its not being grounded in absolute certainty (Truth). I for one prefer the courage and humility offered then person willing to build castles in the air rather than hiding behind fictionalized Truth and certainty.
Now, building castles in the air does not mean making something up or being capricious. It is rather an attempt to form meaning without a need to ground this meaning in absolute Truth. A castle has much weight and substance and having it stand on its own is quite a feat.
Fear and Chaos
Most studiers of early humanity agree that man has long feared chaos. It would be difficult to find any culture of man which did not spend a great deal of energy creating a cosmos out of apparent chaos.
Mythology, ritual and ceremony are filled with examples of how early and modern man struggle to form cosmos out of chaos. Not only do they seek patterns, but they create patterns and habits and infuse them with meaning and significance. Primitive man, in particular, found meaning very tenuous and went to great lengths to insure order and predictability. In these societies the destruction of ceremony or sacredness would lead to the destruction of life itself.
Almost all creation myths start from a state of formlessness (often water). The world was formed out of this chaos.
Many anthropologists, cultural historians and comparative religion scholars such as Mircea Eliade noted how pervasive the need early man had of dividing the world into the realm of the sacred as opposed to the realm of the profane. Only that was found to be sacred had meaning and value. Everything profane was dangerous and prone to chaos.
Making something sacred was the very act of having something become a valued thing. In many ways a thing came into existence the moment it became sacred and emerged from the formless background of chaos.
Men developed rituals for many activities and created myths regarding many different objects in an attempt to give them meaning and significance. Most human activities such as farming and hunting became sacred when they mimicked the actions of the gods as demonstrated by a sacred dance or ceremony. Even common objects as stones and plants needed a ceremony to validate their importance (sacredness). In all these ceremonies the newly sacred object leaped out of chaos and into the world of meaning and significance.
Our world is neither imagined nor absolute, and neither is our knowledge of it. To accept and learn about the world without creating absolute truth, sacredness or certainty takes both courage and patience. Life is a process and has no specific goal or purpose. When gazing upon an ocean one can inherently feel and fear the formlessness and chaotic power of water. Yet, the desire to hide behind absolutes whether they be generated by myth, religion or science is not living life on its own terms. Building castles in the air without resorting to Truth is maybe the first step into our accepting and experiencing the life we are so fortunate to have.
In my next post I’ll continue with this essay which will go from the needs and habits of primitive man to those of modern man.
Jim Guido