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In 2013 Greg was diagnosed with a low
grade glioma, a type of brain tumour. After having two
operations on his brain to remove as much of the
cancerous tumour as possible, Greg is thankful that he
now has no discernible neurological defecit. The
experience, however, reinforced his earlier insights
into just how fragile this thing we call personality
actually is. To what extent the tumour in his brain,
roughly the size of a tennis ball, was responsible for
any one of his past or present personality traits or
indeed, his long-term clinical depression, is unknown
but Greg continues to explore these issues in his
writing and teaching.
Greg is 31 years old, lives in the North
of England, is engaged to be married and has a young son
called Noah. Greg's work is now focused on combining the
insights of Advaita and an Absurdist account of the
world. When asked what motivates him to write Greg
replies "I'm just like you, trying to figure out what
it's all about, life and all that, essentially I
subscribe to Camus' definition of mankind's predicament,
that we have this longing in our hearts for clarity and
a very human inability to meet those demands. We can
reduce the world to theories, this chair I'm sat on is
made of atoms which are composed of smaller particles
which we cannot see or locate, that are merely
mathematical probabilities etc. etc. but they are only
theories, the reality behind them will always transcend
them and be unreasonable, that is, not amenable to
thought or language and therefore both incommunicable
and I suppose essentially unintelligible. It's absurd,
absolutely absurd that we should even try to
understand this world, yet we do, we keep on trying.
What I'm trying to do is situate our attempts to
understand ourselves and the world within the context of
our knowing that such attempts will only ever amount to
"water slipping through our fingers". Can we really
accept the reality of this fact in a very deep way and
if we can then where can we take it? To my mind that is
the question. If the answer is nothing, if the question
leads to a kind of philosophical suicide in which I
realise that all of humanity's efforts to understand the
world are epiphenomena, a symptom of some need to feel
comfort in a hostile world then so be it; my mind will
become the silence of that desert with only perhaps a
single tumble weed rolling by occasionally. I'm being
deliberately facetious but you get the idea, If thought
is a desert, if that's really what all our attempts to
understand things amount to, then I want to know that
rather than continue living in an illusion, like the
gambling addict, you know, in Las Vegas with his
interior monologue that tells him he's living "the good
life".
Greg talks very fast and at length,
sometimes it can be hard to follow his train of thought
so I ask him, "Can you explain what your central
concerns are." To this he replies, "I want to see if
these ineffectual intellectual tools we human beings
have been given, our culturally-relative concepts, our
thought and reasoning skills, our language, can be used
self-consciously in ways that recognise their inherent
limits but nevertheless aim to point beyond them."
"Beyond them to what?" I ask.
"And that, right there is the problem!"
he replies, "The thing pointed to, whatever it is, is
ineffable. It's something that I and many others
throughout history have felt but never been able to
communicate in a way that can actually represent it, at
least not directly, if any discipline has come close to
communicating the experience it's poetry. Poetry can
point to that something behind our words, that
something, which is nothing really, that's beyond them,
before them or whatever but as soon as it is named it
ceases to be that thing and that's the problem. As soon
as a single word is spoken we have already said too
much, we are already further away from it and we know it
but still there is this urge to describe, this urge to
communicate. It's absurd and I don't know why we do it
but we do. And we can do it, but we have to do it
with the knowledge that it is absurd and accept the
absurdity of the situation with equanimity. if we can't go
beyond our situation then we have to wallow in it,
wallow in the absurdity of it all. Knowing we cannot
understand God and that the reality of God cannot be
contained in an idol we should create three million Gods
and worship whichever idol we like best. To do this is
fine but we have to know, while we are doing it, how
absurd it is; we have to be honest with ourselves and
say look I know this idol is not God but how is your
idea of God any different to my idol? You think you know
the one true God, that's impossible, that's absurd - the
arrogance! Thinking one can know God! If you worship an
idol, whether it's an idea, a word or a wooden statue,
at least do it without the illusion that you are doing
anything more profound than that!"
Greg knows he's talked far too much and
gives me permission to edit this for his profile. I was
intending to edit it but on second thoughts I'm going to
keep it like this because I think it is rather good.
END OF INTERVIEW
Dear Readers,
It has come to my attention that some of
my responses in the interview could be viewed as
offensive. If you were in any way offended by the views
I put forward in my interview then please accept my
sincere apologies.
To clarify matters I would like to say
that I was not accusing anyone of idolatry in the
interview. My point was simply that no person can ever
claim to have complete knowledge of a God who is truly
infinite as an infinite God will always exceed any
attempt to be captured within the confines of human
thought and language. My point was that until we can
step outside of culture, thought and language, until the
“doors of perception” have been completely cleansed and
we perceive “a
world in a grain of sand”
to quote William Blake, we cannot claim to know God.
As to the question of whether a God
exists, on that subject I will remain silent. I would
never presume to comment on God’s existence as I am too
aware of my limits. I am a mere man in the world and
God’s existence is not an issue that concerns me or one
I feel qualified to discuss.
I hope that is clear to you and I
apologise if it was not clear from the interview.
Yours with the utmost respect,
Greg
Any questions / comments to: [email protected]
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