My Dinner with Andre Page #15

Because the wonderful thing

about scientific theories about things...

...is that they're based on experiments

that can be repeated.

Hmm.

Well, it's true, Wally.

I mean, you know,

following omens and so on...

...is probably just a way

of letting ourselves off the hook...

...so that we don't have to take individual

responsibility for our own actions.

But I mean, giving yourself over

to the unconscious...

...can leave you vulnerable to all sorts

of very frightening manipulation.

And in all the work that I was involved in,

there was always that danger.

And there was always that question

of tampering with people's lives...

...because if I lead one of these workshops,

then I do become partly a doctor...

...and partly a therapist,

and partly a priest.

And I'm not a doctor,

or a therapist, or a priest.

And already some

of these new monasteries...

...or communities or whatever

we've been talking about...

...are becoming institutionalized...

...and I guess even in a way, at times,

sort of fascistic.

You know, there's a sort of self-satisfied

elitist paranoia that grows up...

...a feeling of" them" and " us"...

that is very unsettling.

But I mean, uh, the thing is, Wally, I think

it's the exaggerated worship of science...

...that has led us into this situation.

I mean, science has been held up to us

as a magical force...

...that would somehow solve everything.

Well, quite the contrary.

It's done quite the contrary.

It's destroyed everything.

So that is what has really led,

I think...

...to this very strong, deep reaction

against science that we're seeing now...

...just as the Nazi demons that were

released in the '30s in Germany...

...were probably a reaction against

a certain oppressive kind of knowledge...

...and culture and rational thinking.

So I agree that we're talking about

something potentially very dangerous.

But modern science has not been

particularly less dangerous.

Right. Well, I agree with you.

I completely agree.

No, you know, the truth is...

I think I do know what really disturbs me

about the work you've described...

...and I don't even know if I can express it.

But somehow it seems that the whole point

of the work that you did in those workshops...

...when you get right down to it

and you ask what was it really about...

The whole point, really, I think...

...was to enable the people in the workshops,

including yourself...

...to somehow sort of strip away

every scrap of purposefulness...

...from certain selected moments.

And the point of it was so that you would

then all be able to experience...

...somehow just pure being.

In other words, you were trying to discover what

it would be like to live for certain moments...

...without having any particular thing

that you were supposed to be doing.

And I think

I just simply object to that.

I mean, I just don't think I accept the idea

that there should be moments...

...in which you're not trying

to do anything.

I think, uh,

it's our nature, uh, to do things.

I think we should do things.

I think that, uh, purposefulness...

...is part of our ineradicable

basic human structure.

And to say that we ought to

be able to live without it...

...is like saying that, uh, a tree ought to

be able to live without branches or roots.

But... But actually, without branches

or roots, it wouldn't be a tree.

I mean, it would just be a log.

Do you see what I'm saying?

Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

I mean, in other words, if I'm sitting at home

and I have nothing to do...

...well, I naturally reach for a book.

I mean, what would be so great about

just sitting there and, uh, doing nothing?

It just seems absurd.

And if Debby is there?

Well, that's just the same thing.

I mean, is there really

such a thing as, uh...

...two people doing nothing

but just being together?

I mean, would they simply then...

...be, uh, " relating,"

to use the word we're always using?

I mean, what would that mean?

I mean, either we're

gonna have a conversation...

...or we're going to, uh,

carry out the garbage...

...or we're going to do something,

separately or together.

I mean, do you see what I'm saying?

I mean, what does it mean

to just, uh, simply, uh, sit there?

That makes you nervous.

Well, well, why shouldn't it make me nervous?

It just seems ridiculous to me.

That's interesting, Wally.

You know, when I went to Ladakh in western

Tibet and stayed on a farm for a month...

...well, there, you know, when people come over

in the evening for tea, nobody says anything.

Unless there's something to say,

but there almost never is.

So they just sit there and drink their tea,

and it doesn't seem to bother them.

I mean, you see, the trouble, Wally,

with always being active and doing things...

...is that I think it's quite possible

to do all sorts of things...

...and at the same time

be completely dead inside.

I mean, you're doing all these things,

but are you doing them...

...because you really feel

an impulse to do them...

...or are you doing them mechanically,

as we were saying before?

Because I really do believe

that if you're just living mechanically...

...then you have to change your life.

I mean, you know, when you're young,

you go out on dates all the time.

You go dancing or something.

You're floating free.

And then one day suddenly

you find yourself in a relationship...

...and suddenly everything freezes.

And this can be true

in your work as well.

And I mean, of course,

if you're really alive inside...

...then of course there's no problem.

I mean, if you're living with somebody

in one little room...

...and there's a life going on between you

and the person you're living with...

...well, then a whole adventure

can be going on right in that room.

But there's always the danger

that things can go dead.

Then I really do think you have to kind of

become a hobo or something, you know...

...like Kerouac,

and go out on the road.

I really believe that.

You know, it's not that wonderful

to spend your life on the road.

My own overwhelming preference

is to stay in that room if you can.

But you know, if you live with somebody for

a long time, people are constantly saying...

"Well, of course it's not as great

as it used to be, but that's only natural.

The first blush of a romance goes,

and that's the way it has to be. "

Now, I totally disagree with that.

But I do think that you have to constantly ask

yourself the question, with total frankness:

Is your marriage still a marriage?

Is the sacramental element there?

Just as you have to ask about

the sacramental element in your work...

Is it still there?

I mean, it's a very frightening thing, Wally,

to have to suddenly realize...

...that, my God, I thought I was living my life,

but in fact I haven't been a human being.

I've been a performer.

I haven't been living. I've been acting.

I've... I've acted the role of the father.

I've acted the role of the husband.

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