Edge Lord

Nature becomes herself naturally. But to both see and experience the world of man as a natural process is a more difficult task requiring attention and perspective. Everywhere you look, there is nature. Both urban sidewalks and the mountains are her domain. She lives in the suburbs, the city centers, the mountains, the reefs, the rivers, and the bays. You will see her ripping herself apart as she tediously cuts through mountain rocks and concrete slabs with her tiny blades made of grass. Without nature's self-destructive blessing, there is no life.  Blessed are the busy thriving cities clogged with traffic and bloated with thoughtless pedestrians, for nature has given them her kiss of life. Cursed is the Sea of Tranquility, for it knows only peace. There are believers who would end the human race on behalf of the planet; their will is the will of nature and life. There are believers who would end the Earth on behalf of the human race; their will is the will of nature and life. N

Son, a man is a combination of a number of things. By that I mean, a man is a bundle of many characteristics. A man is not simple. But a hero, the kind in books, movies, paintings, allegories—what have you—may have only one particular defining characteristic. And when viewed in hindsight, it may seem like the greatest of our forefathers were the embodiment of a particular, singular virtue; but that is not so: they were men. The telling of history is like the crafting of an imperfect image, a representation,  a caricature designed for a purpose, interwoven with ideology and agenda. Even the greatest historical figures were men who were not different from us in any fundamental way—men whose essence was, in reality, a combination of a number of things. Son, a man—or a woman—or any sufficiently-intelligent self-conscious entity—is the combination of a number of things. First, a man is made from dust, or perhaps atoms—something mundane, vulgar, and lifeless. Then a man is

Another day slips past me. And then another week. And now a month…. I sink further from the ideal. I feel a high-calling continuing to grow away from my reach. When I was younger, I comforted myself with the thought that there was still time for an impressive virtue or talent to suddenly blossom in my life. Now, as I get older, the ceiling of my capabilities is more apparent, and that realization is disheartening. The gap between my sense of naïve entitlement-to-greatness and my actual place in life continues to grow. And it elicits despair. I live the life of a man, a well-fed, social, literate man. What do I have to complain about? The state of man: —subjugated to an ape-like existence The ape-ness is inescapable. I cannot do without social hierarchy, or food, or sex, or any of the other vulgar-and-base conditions of this existence. But there seems to be something hidden in ape-ness. I imagine that in a different time, or in a different human/cu

There was I, in a luke-warm black sea. Above me was a sky or cavern-ceiling. Dim constellations of dubious form. I kept swimming. When I could not swim, I floated. I closed my eyes; Accepted despair. I awoke to a rhythmic beating of wings, carrying me up. ... The alchemist says, "The spirit must be rescued from the waters. "It cannot be sieved or filtered. It must rise of its own volition." ... The water floats, as a sphere, touching not the glass of the retort. The soul circumambulates until it gives up its spirit. The spirit is lifted to escape the retort, guided by the principle of the air, the angel, the wind of paradise. ... The angel is four wings, brown and white. ... The black water is found in the deep, gathered in abyssal wells, carried up, in dark earthen vessels. Placed in the alembic, the black water gathers, like an orb, reluctant to touch the ignoble, the lowly the earthly, the common, the things on the sur

Found in a sketchbook, written in December 2018 ... Layers of paradigm: Science (method, not body of knowledge) > Logic > Language & Grammar > Image & Symbol > Sensation & Intuition > Drive & Instinct .... I, for no good reason thought that, if I dug deeper, I would find the  source-of-meaning-and-creation. But under the surface—below, as far as I could go—I found nothing . It was void. But, before I touched the void (falling into it), I found madness. Below the surface—below the appearance of things—nothing corresponded to my conception of order. The underworld [the depths of the psyche] abides by principles that will never agree with that which exists in consciousness. Waking life [our conscious experience] is the fruit of a garden named  will. But who is the gardener? .. I followed a path. And I don't know why I chose it. It promised me knowledge—knowledge hidden in plain sight. It said "The path is treacherous but worthwhile.&

Long story short: When I get wrapped up in worrying about losing what I have—namely, my material possessions—I remember that I will die. ... I like my things. I like my job, my new apartment, my jacket, my boots (whose price I can never tell my parents), as well all the other material possessions I am accumulating. I don't just like my things. I love them. They're all expressions of who I am. I spent time, money, and mindful care picking (most of) them out. And I like shoving my things in peoples faces, parading myself everywhere I go. But my love and purchases of material goods are more than socio-economic flexing. I worry—constantly. One reoccurring theme involves a sharp and sinking sense of anxiety in my gut when I think about potentially losing my things because I have lost my job or the economy has imploded or the proletariate revolution is finally upon us. (I haven't been saving because I keep buying too many things, so i'm extra stressed, and I'm str

What if folding laundry is really important? What if, today, when I folded my laundry, it was important that I did so with care and attention? What if, folding laundry deserves as much care and attention as anything else? Everything is a metaphor. (For what? I don't know. But everything is a metaphor.) Everything we touch is a metaphor for our self: the way we make our bed (or don't make it at all), the way our jeans crease, the shape and depth of the bags under our eyes, the length and trace of a lingering glance when a beautiful person passes by, the amount of sugar one puts in tea, the type of tea one drinks, one's gait,  one's pace, one's posture, and one's cadence of speech. Is your laundry piled? Is it unfolded or dirty? Has it grown mold yet? Is it perfectly tucked away in a cedar scented drawer? Whatever it is, it is a metaphor. I'm not saying that you should go clean your room. Maybe it's fine the way it is. I searched my heart, and

Some people just don't get it. Some people just don't ever learn. Some people are incorrigible. Humans are free yet incorrigible. Some things won't be learned by certain people. Some habits will never change. Some values will never change. Some people will always have a gambling addiction. Some people will always run late. Some people will never stop living paycheck to paycheck. Some things never change. But blessed are the incorrigible, for theirs is nature. Blessed are the incorrigible, for they are each a mountain—unmovable. ... The lesson: Don't waste time trying to change nature. Don't beg a mountain to move. Scale it, or walk around.

If you don't believe anything I write here, you're going to have a bad time. If you believe everything I write here, you're going to have a worse time than I did. ... Live the life of a thousand aphorisms. ... You can't own what you worship. (It owns you.) ... Strife is the law of life. You don't need to spend long seeking it out. Strife will find you. ... Listen, it is not necessary to pursue pleasure nor greatness nor wealth. It is sufficient to live a life dedicated to mindfully avoiding suffering. ... The Logos  is the word (stories, narratives, values in the form of the written and spoken word) that carved their way through time and death and war and famine and plague and generation. Seek it. Learn from it. Its other name is History.  ... God, they say, is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent—all-knowing, all-present, all-powerful. Man, is omnivore— all-consuming. ... At the center of being is void. When the self tries t

There is a thought experiment that goes something like this: Try to imagine the best possible future. Then, try to live your life in a way so that future can come true. The highest good (that I can think of) is a collective human project in which we overcome death and suffering. We rescue the dead from death—past and future. If humans continue to pursue technology, we may eventually reach the point where we can overcome death. We may be able to reach the point where consciousness is no longer dependent upon a biological human body. If can we master time, matter, and biology, then, I suppose, future-people can harvest the consciouses, the souls, of people moments before they die. The metaphysics of time travel and the ontology of the human soul are beyond the scope of this post. However, the idea is that  it might be possible to go back in time and snatch souls before death ; that's the gist. What I have described here is the only form of universal salvation I can think of