Another day slips



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/cultural embodiment, a person would call this hidden quality the divine... They would say something along the lines of God in man.
Despair…this realization that I am not entitled to greatness (greatness on human terms) is a necessary condition of cultivating my soul. My simple every day experience is becoming richer.

The things I aspired to in my youth—fame, wealth, unearned greatness, unearned power—are becoming false idols: inauthentic desires imposed by the ambivalent forces of Life and culture and society.
What was it that I really wanted as a child? Did I even want anything? Was I not a self-propelled wheel?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Heart in Darkness

In the dark, I wandered, Past walls of stone, some wet, others dry. Cavern and bricked labyrinth. Obsidian and lime. Carefully, I stepped. But recklessly I meandered. For long lost, I already was. But there, in the darkness, after many days, I found a heart, Redder than red. It was flesh. And it was blood.  And it was mineral. Encrusted with living ruby. Brilliant, even in the stygian hollow. There, it beats. 
Read more

Will and the Ape

When you're writing a story, you're supposed to know what your protagonist wants. If you don't do that, then you don't have a real character. And that strikes me as a really obvious metaphor for real life: if you don't really know what you want, then you don't have a really well-developed character. If you don't know what you want in a particular situation,  then someone else will want on your behalf,  and you will serve them.  This is a rule with few exceptions. ... It's important to get to a place where you can act according to your subjective experience–your visceral, unedited reactions; that is, your natural reactions. Most people tend to be alienated from their natural reactions, their "true will".  Natural, uncensored, candid, flowing—I have found these to be a suitable goalpost for crafting (nearly all) my reactions to social situations. However, the challenge is that human nature is ape-like, impish, infantile,
Read more

A Philosopher and a Cathedral

One of my favorite professors was an unassuming middle aged man, but the man was a real philosopher. Most days during this particular spring quarter,  he wore a faded Under Armor pullover hoodie, awful sandal-shoes, and cargo shorts. And regrettably, I enrolled for only one of his lecture series on empiricism, namely the works of Locke, Hume, and Berkeley. I thought to myself, "Are one of those men right? Will I call myself an empiricist after this course?" As the philosopher lectured one day, I felt the sense that I had stepped into a beautiful gothic cathedral. And with every argument he made, a new hall or wing would come into view. His lecturing would reveal the general shape and contours of the architecture. And with each question that was asked and then answered, a small hidden corner would be illuminated where there would be intricate carvings, latticework, or paintings. It was a beautiful place to visit—a place to worship (a) greater being. I studied the intricac
Read more