The Book of the Die. Luke Rhinehart
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if I cared … That is controlled folly.’
It might well be argued that dice-living is simply a new version of controlled folly. Don Juan is happy Carlos asked, but also knows it doesn’t make any difference. And Don Juan tells Carlos that he exercises his controlled folly with everyone and does it every single time he acts. ‘My acts are sincere,’ he says, ‘but they are only the acts of an actor.’
The idea of everything being controlled folly and the acts of an actor frightens Carlos as it does most humans, and Don Juan’s further explanations frighten him even more. ‘Everything I do in regard to myself and my fellow men is folly, because nothing matters … Once a man learns to see he finds himself alone in the world with nothing but controlled folly.’
If you’ve read all the Carlos Castaneda books then you’ll see that the Carlos of these books doesn’t seem to get this message of Don Juan’s. Carlos began his first book as a serious young man and ended his last one equally seriously. In the books he never reaches the serenity and playfulness so vibrant in Don Juan when he speaks of nothing mattering and his life being all controlled folly. He never cackles away in life as Don Juan does. Yet in ‘real life’, a few people who met the author Carlos Castaneda in person (as opposed to the character he created of himself in his books) say that he was a quite playful person, perfectly happy to play games and change his personality at the drop of a hat. He apparently delegated the original staid, controlled Carlos to his books so that the liberated Carlos could live outside them. And his notorious secretiveness was consistent with escaping from the pressures of being the person people expected him to be.
And no one can list options and cast a die and turn over decision-making to chance unless he or she has made a basic hidden assumption: the decision isn’t that important. Dicing is simply one of many ways to attack seriousness. If you list six options, some moral, some immoral, some ambitious and some trivial, some spiritual and some lusty, and let chance decide what you do, then you are in effect challenging the seriousness of your acts, you are saying it doesn’t matter what I do. When the die chooses an action I choose to do it with all my heart – that is the dice-person’s controlled folly.
Dice-living works because it forces one to let go of importance, of self-importance, of seriousness. Other paths to enlightenment present the danger that the path itself is solemn and serious and the seeker never achieves the insight that the path itself may be part of the sickness and that he must let go of it too. Dicing is controlled folly, and because it is folly the danger of taking it too seriously is minimal.
CARRYING THE WORLD ON YOUR SHOULDERS IS TOUGH. THE WISE MAN LEARNS TO SHRUG.
‘The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.’ — Someone
‘The price of eternal vigilance,’ commented Whim, ‘is freedom.’
Education is, at one and the same time, a great liberator and a great narrower. On the one hand, education gives us greater options, skills and experiences, but on the other it inculcates certain illusions about life and reason that inhibit our taking advantage of the knowledge and skills being given to us. It is in inculcating consistency and seriousness as virtues that education most fails us.
‘Billy just loves to read all the time …’
But wouldn’t he sometimes much prefer to be outside hanging out with the gang?
‘Isn’t Joannie sweet? She always lets the other person win.’
Imagine how miserable Joannie’s going to be in later years if she’s been trained always to let the other person win.
‘Sylvia’s so pretty and grown up; she just loves to dress up all the time.’
Sure. So what do you do when she climbs a tree or splashes in a mud puddle with those clothes? You call her a bad girl. And a whole set of wonderful options are banned from her life.
‘My Brad can’t stand to lose. The kid’s a fighter. He’ll battle you to the last ounce of his strength and if you win, watch out: he’ll probably try to steal the trophy.’
Sure. And if you keep saying that, imagine what a fun guy Brad’s going to be when he grows up.
Parents mouth a thousand oversimplifications a year that betray the truth in the child’s heart: Billy ached to be out splashing in the mud with the other boys, but …; Joannie wanted to chew the penis off her brother every time he won, but …; and Sylvia daydreamed of a world in which she wouldn’t have to worry about how she looked.
Patterns are prostitution to the patter of parents. Adults rule and they reward patterns. Patterns it is. And eventual boredom.
What if we were to bring up our children differently? Reward them for being inconsistent, for varying their habits, tastes, interests, roles? Reward them for hacking around instead of seriousness? We could discipline them to be reliably various, to be conscientiously inconsistent, determinedly habit-free – even of ‘good’ habits.
‘Oh, my Johnny, he’s so wonderful. Last year he got all “A”s on his report card and this year he’s getting mostly “C”s and “D”s. We’re so proud.’
‘Marie! Don’t you dare brush your teeth again tonight! It’s getting to be a regular habit!’
‘What, my boy, haven’t told a lie yet, today? Well, go to your room and stay there until you can think one up.’
‘What should I wear, Mother?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, Sylvia. Why don’t you try the cardigan that makes you look flat-chested and that ugly skirt your grandmother picked up at the thrift store and always twists?’
‘Sounds cool.’
‘Goddamn son of mine. Hasn’t goofed off in a week. If I don’t find the lawn unmowed or his room a mess one of these days, I’m going to blow my top at him.’
‘Oh, Barbara, your drawings all tend to look like the thing you’re drawing. You seem unable to let yourself go.’
‘This essay is too logical and well-organized. If you expect to develop as a writer you must learn to digress and be irrelevant at all times.’
Of course, we’re exaggerating here. Consistency and reason and even seriousness are absolutely necessary in many educational games and should in such cases be used to the hilt. But though logic and consistency are necessary in maths and science and clear thinking, they are not always useful in living, where lightness and looseness are perhaps better virtues.
The child, we are informed, needs to see order and consistency in the world or he becomes insecure and afraid. But what order and consistency? Perhaps he might grow equally well with consistent, dependable inconsistency. Life is in fact that way. If parents would only admit and praise inconsistency, children wouldn’t be so frightened of their parents’ hypocrisy and ignorance.
‘Sometimes I’ll spank you for spilling your milk and sometimes I won’t give a damn.’
‘Occasionally I like you when you rebel against me, son, and at other times I feel like kicking the shit out of you.’
‘I’m usually pleased with your good grades in school, but sometimes I think you’re an awful grind.’
Such is the way adults feel; such is the way children know they feel.
Why not bring up our children to value humour and playfulness and condemn seriousness? We certainly don’t do so now. The ‘class clown’ is always somewhat looked down upon; he might better be honoured as valedictorian. Children who are mischievous are called ‘imps’ or ‘little devils’. We know what sort of a person a ‘little angel’ is. Laughter in a library is outlawed. If the kids were reading the right books, laughter would be mandatory – although, of course, making it mandatory would effectively kill it.
And of course that is the problem: there is a natural war on between rules and humour, rules and playfulness. Education and society,