I sent this to a close friend of mine over two years ago now, bordering on three. My naivety is really very disgusting, especially to the me of the present. Time has corrected my delusion. I do not believe anything has changed. I can only express my disbelief at the thought that I could ever have been a vessel for hope.
If today has taught me anything, or merely reinforced an established axiom, it is the fundamental truth that I am a solitary person by nature, definition, and character. There is a barrier between my consciousness and the reality that surrounds it. And though that boundary can be breached, all of my external sensations will be perceived from behind several layers of detachment; I will never understand some emotions in their raw element, only though layers of abstraction. Be it the internet, writing, or any number of means, the utility remains the same. Another required obstacle to experience.
I can grasp cogently what you say you experience, but not feel it. That will always be beyond me.
Stop trying to convince me that I am more than a loose collection of animated dust.
Do not tell me there is more to me beyond lifeless flesh.
Do not assert that I have ever done more than just existed throughout the course of my life.
Do not pretend that I have ever accomplished anything besides existing.
Desist from believing I am capable of anything more than mere uncertain existence.
Do not mistake an oasis for an ocean.
Stop deluding yourself before you delude me too.
As I am presently in an uncertain and unbalanced state of mind, I have decided to seize the initiative and endeavour to look into myself; as much as I am afraid of being repulsed by what I may see.
I sometimes wonder about what I am doing with myself, but then I wake up, and have my senses restored. To think is to doubt, and doubt has eroded much of my self-confidence; destroying much of myself in its wake. Does happiness consist of not thinking? Is mindlessness, the primal, animal happiness, the only answer?
One can forgive a child for being afraid of the dark, but it would be inexcusable for an adult to be frightened of the light. Why does it burn so?
I am uncertain of my present, unaware of my future and estranged from my past. I am as hollow as my words.
I have granted myself the space of this post to make an interjection, perhaps injecting some personality into this blog in the process; however, despite my best exertions, this quite meagre, almost embarrassing, post amounts to my total creative/intellectual output tonight.
I cannot write. I do not have a subject to wax lyrical upon. I am empty, and yet, I am full of emptiness. Writing is a means of communication, but what am I communicating, besides my subconscious need to communicate?
I have been told, multiple times, that setting goals helps maintain a sense of direction in one’s life, providing things to work towards, and I can see how goals may distract one from the anomie that life can often engender. Goals can serve to bind one to life, whereas inertia can only carry you so far.
With that in mind, I have compiled a list of things to do in the near future, following the completion, and certain failure, of my HSC. At present, they comprise of the following:
Any other suggestions?
I would like to preface this entry with an utterance of gratitude towards Jemma, for providing me with the subject of this, admittedly, directionless post. I apologise in advance.
“Yet, at the same time, as the Eastern sages also knew, man is a worm and food for worms. This is the paradox: he is out of nature and hopelessly in it; he is dual, up in the stars and yet housed in a heart-pumping, breath-gasping body that once belonged to a fish and still carries the gill-marks to prove it. His body is a material fleshy casing that is alien to him in many ways—the strangest and most repugnant way being that it aches and bleeds and will decay and die.” - Ernest Becker.
Death. I do not quite know what to make of it, but I used to commonly perceive it as being an answer, to a question yet unknown. One might venture to say that the question is life, but I like to see life as a statement, rather than a question in need of solving. That doesn’t really say anything, I can concede, but it makes for a nice platitude.
It is safe to say that Death is a concept that inspires much contemplation among the living, it has been the catalyst of an inordinate amount of thoughts on my part alone, I find it ironic to a degree that Death can be the cause of so much anxiety on the part of the living, for what can be known of it without experiencing Death itself? But, moreover, how is it defined?
Of course, there is no single, definitive answer, but I suppose that objectively Death is the end of life, and its antithesis, the negation of conscious being, non-existence, and the like. We cannot even comprehend it, it is futile to picture nothingness, Death is only understood by abstraction, the creation of ideas, as seen in the definition above.
With this definition, however flawed, in mind, it can be concluded that as Death is, in a rather deliciously sardonic fashion, the consummation of life, being its final destination, we are all at once dying, by the act of living. We’re dying as soon as we are born, that is we are approaching death from the outset of life, however bleak that sounds, it is our lot, and to deny it would be futile. To live is to die.
Yet, the reverse also holds true, to die is to live. It is interesting to ponder the relationship between life and Death, one would assume they are diametrically opposed, but, as with all opposing concepts, they share an almost dialectical relationship. Without Death, Life would not be as, well, lively, not to mention boring. It is the knowledge of our mortality that drives life forward, with the promise of an end, we are discouraged from wasting the time we have to spend alive. In my view, it is the fear of dying that motivates humankind into action. Death acts as a challenge, to be answered with the fruits of one’s life. The fact of man’s mortality forces us to seek out immortality, a means of circumventing Death, by way of art, achievement, culture, and children, who are often likened as being extensions of their parents. Humans, with their vanity and egotism, must find lasting existence in another form, material, as above, or immaterial, through memories and so forth. We can be said to be constantly in search of permanence.
A similar view is proposed by Dr. Ernest Becker in The Denial of Death, in which he describes civilisation as a symbolic defence mechanism against the knowledge of our mortality. Dr. Becker argues that with the creation of hero systems, or what he terms causa sui, mankind hopes transcend Death, by allying himself to something which they feel will last forever, part of something eternal; something that will never die, compared to their physical bodies that will die one day. This imbues in us a sense of meaning, a belief in our importance from a universal perspective. Yet, this is all illusory, traditional hero systems such as religion are failing, and will continue to fail.
We as individuals are nothing, and therein lies our freedom. We are going to die, yes, but until then, live. There is not much else one can do in the meantime. Instead of externalising the basis of our lives in things outside of ourselves, we should find a justification for our lives within us. Else, there would be little choice but to commit suicide. I may, in the near future, compose a text post concerning suicide, from a philosophical and rational frame of reference, there is much for me to say about it.
Returning to the topic in question, what is Death? I still don’t fucking know, but I do know that it doesn’t matter. If Death is in actuality an answer, then we must continue asking questions until, finally, Death answers us.
This did not make any sense at all, but I had fun writing it.
All through the night, your glorious eyes
Were gazing down in mine,
And, with a full heart’s thankful sighs,
I blessed that watch divine.
This may sound random, but I would like to regale one of my fondest remembrances of the moon. My friend and I were both rather drunk and we were stumbling trying to ascend a large hill with poorly built patchwork stairs, we were making slow progress, inhibited by the altitude and the length of the grass. When we reached the summit however, the sight that greeted us was so potent in its beauty and grandeur, it defies description.
The universe itself was above us in its entirety, almost as if it was there for us alone. Each star shone as bright as a sun in its own right, and there were so many visible, I could scarcely believe the universe could contain them all.
Thought followed thought, star followed star,
Through boundless regions, on;
While one sweet influence, near and far,
Thrilled through, and proved us one!
Above all and accompanying the amazingly beautiful cosmic vista, was the moon smiling upon us with its gently radiant illumination. At that height it was as if we could touch it, as cliché and lame as it sounds, we felt as if we were in communion with it, and its immanence elevated us to an exalted state of existence.
I was at peace, and drank your beams
As they were life to me;
And revelled in my changeful dreams,
Like petrel on the sea.
As drunk as we both were, upon seeing that majestic celestial body suspended in the achingly bright nightsky, we were both instantly sobered, and stood together in awe for a good hour. The moon never seemed so close, so personal. To me, that was the single most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life hitherto.
Why did the morning dawn to break
So great, so pure, a spell;
And scorch with fire the tranquil cheek,
Where your cool radiance fell?
Oh, stars, and dreams, and gentle night;
Oh, night and stars, return!
And hide me from the hostile light
That does not warm, but burn;
That drains the blood of suffering men;
Drinks tears, instead of dew;
Let me sleep through his blinding reign,
And only wake with you!
Adjacent is the well-known “Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog”, an oil painting by the German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich, composed 1818. Depicted is a man dressed in the clothing of, presumably, the early 19th Century middle class, perhaps a Philosopher or of some such academic profession. The figure stands alone at the summit of a height, overlooking a great expanse shrouded in fog, into which he gazes contemplatively. The resonance the image stirs with me is intensely personal and difficult to express in words. The lone figure at the crest, to me, is very similar to my own personal solitude at the time I was first exposed to it; Having endured my own period of hardship, ascending my own ‘rocky mountain’, so to speak. The miasma of fog, concealing the horizon, also hearkens to my mind the uncertainty of the future, reflecting my personal indecision about my future course through life. The insignificance of the subject figure, lost in the enormity of nature, is also especially poignant, highlighting the role of the individual in a universal scale. Sorry, I do feel my words are doing the painting little justice, and serve nothing but to undermine its importance to me. Do not, however, allow the weakness of my writing detract from the sublimity of the artwork before you. My, that was a longer caption than expected; suffice to say this hardly qualifies as a ‘caption’. I felt the need to say it, however, and so it is said.
