I guess, the end is near. The quest for a sense of self ends almost as much as it began, with neither questions nor answers. With only the moment. This moment, that i've been talking about so much. It is not so much what it means to be human, more likely it is what it means to be. I say this because human is as abstract a concept as art, or philosophy, more subjective than the meaning to life, more empty than reason.
Of the ordeal
One piece of writing that has gripped me everytime I read it is Neil Gaiman's Ordeal of the key. In his comic world, filled with oddities, and painted against a sureal reality, comes a comic ordeal that begins with a cup of tea.
I'd have to guess that any form of ordeal, such as a trip to the dentist, always begins with something sweet. Something wonderful, exhilerating, like a sugar rush that makes you calm, and puts you in a very focused frame of mind.
The ordeal, is mostly being extremely aware of what you do not posess. The truly wise know, they know nothing.
In this ordeal of the key our hero, Richard Mayhew, is faced with two conflicting realities. On one hand, is the life he has come to accept, that he has lost everything. On the other, somewhat maimed hand, is the life he has not come to accept. That he has lost everything.
This in its essence is what really hurts us, as thinking creatures. The conflicting realities of what we have lost and what we refuse to think we have lost. It is the ultimate conflict that sets us against ourselves, and blurs the line between reality, and denial.
Denial is too convinent a word, so let me elaborate. Denial is the Pinocchio within us so feverently wishing to turn into a real boy. It is the dreamer within us who are faithful, wishing against the mays' and mights' that we will become a real boy. It is the poet within us, believing in the greater good of our microcosmic universe screaming to believe in fairy tales, in happy endings, and cliches like true love.
Denial, in short is the reality of perception.
Of Memory
As I have come to understand, memory is another tool of reality. And like every tool, it is to be used. It is not a tool, in the same sense of an inanimate object. For it has a wiley life of its own. Like the trees, memory is slow to change. Its crystal qualities, like diamonds shine brightly, clear and finely cut, valued above all posession, and everlasting.
The first kiss, the first time making passionate, sweet tender love, that first heart stopping moment, when you realise you are the fish, hooked by the heart. That moment, when you decide to stop fighting, and surrender, and hope against all hope that the one who caught you will tag you and let you go, therefore granting meaning to your existance. If you were caught, your presence would be missed, and you were understood.
The crystal defining moment of memory defines us. For we are creatures of time, and just as fish are reputed to have short memories, so do we. For anything that exists within time is short.
Short is the time we take to forget, because our crystal memories are measured against eternity. Often do we swear, i'll never forget you, or i'll always love you, forever and ever and ever really, really. Amid the kisses and passionate throes, in the heated moment, our words define the ordeal of our being.
Creatures made in the image of God, who is timeless, and the flawed and fallen being. After all, we are human beings, and to be, is to embrace the moment.
It is sad, how memories erode. I imagine our memories are chucked in a big bag of moments, once they have become irrelevant to us, like in times when we make changes in our lives. Like frantic lovers, fucking, our diamonds rattle as we walk along our assigned path in life. They slash and re-shape themselves without the prescion care of a master diamond cutter. In the case of erotomaniacs, a solitare becomes a heart. Or for romantics, the princess is now a teardrop.
There is no way I know except one to keep our memories safe. It is a simple solution, and as simple solutions go, they are rather more effective. But before I reveal this answer to you, I must warn you not to mistake simplicity with ease, as is often done.
To keep our memories safe, we must keep them current. We must keep them timeless, like a Tiffany design. And praticse with painstaking care to to continue the existance of the moment. To cut more, deeper, brighter, more lovingly, the next one, and the one after. With a single-minded passion and zeal. To want more from the moment. To
demand, just as love demands.
But even then, it is not a real solution, because every man has a limit, for we are flawed beings, aspiring towards greatness, the eternal, and God.
Of Love
The meaning of life, lies in the validation of our existance. To have a meaningful life, one must attain contentment with ones self. Contentment is completely different from happiness. Happiness is an emotion, evoked from brain chemicals. Contentment is a state of mind, it is to understand onesself in respect to something eternal.
The Christian route to salvation lies in a contentment, and understanding of ones lot in life, in respect to Jesus, the eternal Son of Man. His birth and rebirth are the hope we have and the daring to believe in our state of being. We are content with our lives in believing we are saved, and infinately loved by the eternal trinity, validating our existance against the doomed world and its tretcherous snares.
For the other part, of our imperfect faith, for perfect love and trust do not exist among men, we seek the validation from the ones we love. For they too are eternal and timeless to us. The belief of our eternal devotion to them, creates an opposing eternity belonging to the other reality, where we dare to believe in fairy tales and happy endings.
And in our love, that so defines us as human beings, we are forced, into the eternal dance of life. Two steps forward, and two steps back, neither heading into either reality, always torn between the two. Doomed into the eternity of a future history, until our realities swinging like the ever expanding universe reaches its critical mass, it eventually collapses on itself.
And here we find at the core of every human being, creatures of the universe, by which time is defined, the densest particle. Oblivious to the existance of the multiverse, oblivious to the destructive nature of time, oblivious to the neverending struggle of seeking its validation from the external, without hopes of ever validating the dense core of its existance.
