The next Move was intellectual, and consolidated the first Move. I read in Alexander's Space Time and Deity his theory of "Enjoyment" and "Contemplation." These are technical terms in Alexander's philosophy; "Enjoyment" has nothing to do with pleasure, nor "Contemplation" with the contemplative life. When you see a table you "enjoy" the act of seeing and "contemplate" the table. Later, if you took up Optics and thought about Seeing itself, you would be contemplating the seeing and enjoying the thought. ... We do not "think a thought" in the same sense in which we "think that Herodotus is unreliable." When we think a thought, "thought" is a cognate accusative (like "blow" in "strike a blow"). We enjoy the thought (that Herodotus is unreliable) and, in so doing, contemplate the unreliability of Herodotus.

I accepted this distinction at once and have ever since regarded it as an indispensable tool of thought. ... It seemed to me self-evident that one essential property of love, hate, fear, hope, or desire was attention to their object. To cease thinking about or attending to the woman is, so far, to cease loving; to cease thinking about or attending to the dreaded thing is, so far, to cease being afraid. But to attend to your own love or fear is to cease attending to the loved or dreaded object. In other words the enjoyment and the contemplation of our inner activities are incompatible. You cannot hope and also think about hoping at the same moment. ... This was not merely a logical result of Alexander's analysis, but could be verified in daily and hourly experience. The surest means of disarming an anger or a lust was to turn your attention from the girl or insult and start examining the passion itself. The surest way of spoiling a pleasure was to start examining your satisfaction. But if so, it followed that all introspection is in one respect misleading. In introspection we try to look "inside ourselves" and see what is going on. But nearly everything that was going on a moment before is stopped by the very act of our turning to look at it. Unfortunately this does not mean that introspection finds nothing. On the contrary, it finds precisely what is left behind by the suspension of all our normal activities; and what is left behind is mainly mental images and physical sensations. The great error is to mistake this mere sediment or track or byproduct for the activities themselves. That is how many men may come to believe that thought is only unspoken words, or the appreciation of poetry only a collection of mental pictures, when these are in reality are what the thought or the appreciation, when interrupted, leave behind. ... We do not love, fear, or think without knowing it. Instead of the twofold division into Conscious and Unconscious, we need a threefold division: the Unconscious, the Enjoyed, and the Contemplated.

This discovery flashed a new light back on my whole life. I saw that in all my waitings and watching for Joy, all my vain hope to find some mental content on which I could, so to speak, lay my finger and say, "This is it," had been a futile attempt to contemplate the enjoyed. ... I knew now that they were merely the mental track left by the passage of Joy - not the wave but the wave's imprint on the sand.

There was no doubt that Joy was a desire. But a desire is turned not to itself but to its object. Not only that, but it owes all its character to its object. Erotic love is not like desire for food, nay, a love for one woman differs from a love for another woman in the very same way and the very same degree as the two women differ from one another. ... The form of the desired is in the desire. ... Joy itself, considered simply as an event in my own mind, turned out to be of no value at all. All the value lay in that of which Joy was desiring. And that object, quite clearly, was no state of my own mind or body at all. In a way, I had proved this by elimination. ... Inexorably Joy proclaimed, "You want - I myself am your want of - something other, outside, not you nor any state of you." I did not yet ask, Who is the desired? only What is it? But this brought me already into the region of awe, for I thus understood that in deepest solitude there is a road right out of the self, a commerce with something which, by refusing to identify itself with any object of the senses, or anything whereof we have biological or social need, or anything imagined, or any state of our own minds, proclaims itself sheerly objective. Far more objective than bodies, for it is not, like them, clothed in our senses; the naked Other, imageless (though our imagination salutes it with a hundred images), unknown, undefined, desired. 

But, of course, what mattered most of all was my deep-seated hatred of authority, my monstrous individualism, my lawlessness. No word in my vocabulary expressed deeper hatred than the word Interference. But Christianity placed at the center what seemed then seemed to me a transcendental Interferer. 

If this picture were true then no sort of "treaty with reality" could ever be possible. There was no region even in the innermost depth of one's soul (nay, there least of all) which one could surround with a barbed wire fence and guard with a notice No Admittance. And that was what I wanted; some area, however small, of which I could say to all other beings, "This is my business and mine only."

“What, in conclusion, of joy? For that, after all, is what the story has mainly been about. To tell you the truth, the subject has lost nearly all interest for me since I became a Christian. I cannot, indeed, complain, like Wordsworth, that the visionary gleam has passed away. I believe (if the thing were at all worth recording) that the old stab, the old bittersweet, has come to me as often and as sharply since my conversion as at any time of my life whatever. 

But I now know that the experience, considered as a state of my own mind, had never had the kind of importance I once gave it. It was valuable only as a pointer to something other and outer. While that other was in doubt, the pointer naturally loomed large in my thoughts. When we are lost in the woods the sight of a signpost is a great matter. He who first sees it cries, ” Look! ” The whole party gathers round and stares. 

But when we have found the road and are passing signposts every few miles, we shall not stop and stare. They will encourage us and we shall be grateful to the authority that set them up. But we shall not stop and stare, or not much; not on this road, though their pillars are of silver and their lettering of gold. ” We would be at Jerusalem.”

CS Lewis, surprised by joy

Analogy of God's initiative

like hamlet approaching Shakespeare? No, the creation cannot approach the creator.

"If Shakespeare and Hamlet could ever meet, it must be Shakespeare's doing. Hamlet could initiate nothing" - CS Lewis, Surprised by Joy

“You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape? The words “compelle intrare,” compel them to come in, have been so abused be wicked men that we shudder at them; but, properly understood, they plumb the depth of the Divine mercy. The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.”

“What I’d like to understand,” said the Ghost, “is what you’re here for, as pleased as Punch, you, a bloody murderer, while I’ve been walking the streets down there and living in a place like a pigstye all these years. Look at me, now. I gone straight all my life. I don’t say I was a religious man and I don’t say I had no faults, far from it. But I done my best all my life, see? I done my best by everyone, that’s the sort of chap I was. I never asked for anything that wasn’t mine by rights. If I wanted a drink I paid for it and if I took my wages I done my job, see? That’s the sort I was and I don’t care who knows it. You may think you can put me down because you’re dressed up like that (which you weren’t when you worked under me) and I’m only a poor man. But I got to have my rights same as you, see?”

“Oh no. It’s not so bad as that. I haven’t got my rights, or I should not be here. You will not get yours either. You’ll get something far better. Never fear.”

“What do you keep on arguing for? I’m only telling you the sort of chap I am. I only want my rights. I’m not asking for anybody’s bleeding charity.”

“Then do. At once. Ask for the Bleeding Charity. Everything is here for the asking and nothing can be bought.”

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
C.S. Lewis 

Lewis noted that his grief, at times, felt like being intoxicated or dazed from a blow to the head: “. . . it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed.” It separated him from people, making it difficult to interact with them. “There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says . . . It is so uninteresting.” Yet he does did not desire to be alone. “I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me.” Lewis describes what I have observed clinically: people in mourning want to be with people without having to talk with them. Family and friends can be helpful by just being there.

Nicholi, Armand (2002-04-03). The Question of God (p. 199). Simon & Schuster, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

“If we really believe what we say we believe—if we really think that home is elsewhere and that this life is a ‘wandering to find home,’ why should we not look forward to the arrival?”

Nicholi, Armand (2002-04-03). The Question of God (p. 239). Simon & Schuster, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

“I have seen death fairly often and never yet been able to find it anything but extraordinary and rather incredible. The real person is so very real, so obviously living and different from what is left, that one cannot believe something has turned into nothing.”

Nicholi, Armand (2002-04-03). The Question of God (pp. 233-234). Simon & Schuster, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

When he made that decision, he began to feel the presence of Him whom he had desperately wanted not to meet. Finally, Lewis surrendered. “You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity term . . . I gave in, and admitted that God was God and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.”

Nicholi, Armand (2002-04-03). The Question of God (p. 85). Simon & Schuster, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

If he had all the answers, why did the question of God’s existence continue to preoccupy him? Perhaps Lewis would say we can never explain away God. Nor can we find rest until that deep-seated desire (experienced by both Freud and Lewis) is satisfied.

Nicholi, Armand (2002-04-03). The Question of God (p. 51). Simon & Schuster, Inc.. Kindle Edition.


Lewis said that when he was an atheist, his life also was full of contradictions. He writes: “I was at this time living, like so many Atheists . . . in a whirl of contradictions. I maintained that God did not exist. I was also very angry with God for not existing. I was also equally angry with Him for creating a world . . . why should creatures have the burden of existence forced on them without their consent?” Even as an atheist, Lewis realized his ambivalence toward God—a part of him wanting desperately that God not exist, another part strongly desiring His existence.

Nicholi, Armand (2002-04-03). The Question of God (pp. 51-52). Simon & Schuster, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

“My happiest hours,” Lewis wrote, “are spent with three or four old friends in old clothes tramping together and putting up in small pubs—or else sitting up till the small hours in someone’s college rooms, talking nonsense, poetry, theology, metaphysics over beer, tea, and pipes. There’s no sound I like better than . . . laughter.” In another letter to his friend Greeves, Lewis writes: “friendship is the greatest of worldly goods. Certainly to me it is the chief happiness of life. If I had to give a piece of advice to a young man about a place to live, I think I shd. say, ‘sacrifice almost everything to live where you can be near your friends.’ I know I am v. fortunate in that respect . . .”

Nicholi, Armand (2002-04-03). The Question of God (p. 115). Simon & Schuster, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

he lists the personal experiences that led to his pessimism and that, in turn, formed the basis of his atheism: “The early loss of my mother, great unhappiness at school, and the shadow of the last war and presently the experience of it, had given me a very pessimistic view of existence. My atheism was based on it: and it still seems to me that far the strongest card in our enemies’ hand is the actual course of the world: and that, quite apart from particular evils like wars and revolutions. The inherent ‘vanity’ of the ‘creature,’ the fact that life preys on life, that all beauty and happiness is produced only to be destroyed—this was what stuck in my gullet.”

Nicholi, Armand (2002-04-03). The Question of God (p. 113). Simon & Schuster, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

“Indeed the best thing about happiness itself,” Lewis writes, “is that it liberates you from thinking about happiness—as the greatest pleasure that money can give us is to make it unnecessary to think about money . . .”

Nicholi, Armand (2002-04-03). The Question of God (p. 106). Simon & Schuster, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Although Lewis believes that all forms of pleasure, fun, happiness, and joy come from God, who gives these freely for all to enjoy, he admits that these earthly pleasures never completely satisfy us. “We have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy,” Lewis writes, but they never quite satisfy our yearnings. God withholds from us “the settled happiness and security which we all desire.” Otherwise, Lewis says, we would think this world our home rather than a place we are passing through. He writes that the Creator “refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant Inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for our home.”

Nicholi, Armand (2002-04-03). The Question of God (p. 105). Simon & Schuster, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

That is why those pathetic people who simply “want friends” can never make any. The very condition of having Friends is that we should want something else besides Friends. Where the truthful answer to the question Do you see the same truth? would be “I see nothing and I don’t care about the truth; I only want a Friend,” no Friendship can arise—though Affection of course may. There would be nothing for the Friendship to be about; and Friendship must be about something, even if it were only an enthusiasm for dominoes or white mice. Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow-travellers.
CS Lewis - the four love. 

We were even promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, "Blessed are they that mourn," and I accepted it. I've got nothing that I hadn't bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not in imagination. Yes; but should it, for a sane man, make quite such a difference as this? No. And it wouldn't for a man whose faith had been real faith and whose concern for other people's sorrows had been real concern. The case is too plain. If my house has collapsed at one blow, that is because it was a house of cards. ..... I thought I trusted the rope until it mattered to me whether it would bear me. Not it matters, and I find I didn't.


Bridge players tell me that there must be some money on the game ' or else people won't take it seriously.' Apparently it's like that. Your bid - for God or no God, for a good God or the Cosmic Sadist, for eternal life or nonentity - will not be serious if nothing much is staked on it. And you will never discover how serious it was until the stakes are raised horribly high, until you find that you are playing not four counters or for sixpences but for every penny you have in the world... Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself. 


- C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed - 

You must ask for God's help. Even when you have done so, it may seem to you for a long time that no help, or less help than you need, is being given. Never mind. After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again

Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again. We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and, on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven. The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection

Mere Christianity - CS Lewis, pg 88

The real black, diabolical pride, comes when you look down on others so much that you do not care what they think of you. Of course, it is very right, and often our duty, not to care what people think of us, if we do so for the right reason; namely, because we care so incomparably more what God thinks. Bu the proud man has a different reason for not caring. He says, "why should I care for the applause of that rabble as if their opinion were worthy anything? And even if their opinions were of value, am I the sort of man to blush with pleasure at a compliment like some chit of a girl at her first dance? No, I am an integrated, adult personality. All i have done has been done to satisfy my own ideals - or my artistic conscience - or the traditions of my family - or, in a word, because I'm That Kind of Chap. If the mob like it, let them. They're nothing to me.