When you’re on the wrong side of zero, nothing is something.

What is real? Sure, some people are going to answer that matter and energy are the only things that really are, but what we call sensation: is that not real, too? Feelings, too — sadness is real, and happiness. Yes, they can be described in terms of electrochemical reactions in our brain and nervous system; we can even cause feelings to occur or diminish by applications of electricity or medication; but even just that perception of “I am”: all the books of philosophy exist to try and explain it, and all of them combined have yet to do it justice. The experience of it all is real, however inexplicable it may be. Descartes has even said that our experiencing nothing but our own being is the one thing that he could not doubt, even in his quest to doubt everything.

Perhaps, though, what is real can include things that are subject to doubt. Some people think there is no truth, merely facts, and then there are others that believe just about everything they hear. There seems to be, however, something to be seen about those we call wise. Even if the truth is not absolutely observable, these whom we call enlightened seem all to be pointing in the direction where it may be. Their ideas may be radical, but they say things that may be relevant to us if we deem it important to look closer. Plato, for instance, said we are like ones who live in a cave, who see only the shadows of the true forms that exist outside. The one named Jesus said that the Kingdom of Heaven is inside you…. What is real? At least ask. You may find your own answers surprise you.

There are stories in me I have yet to tell, both ordinary and strange, both common and fantastic. Some come easy; some are from life; some are beyond the reach of ordinary senses, understood implicitly in our relations with the collective unconscious. I do not know what it will take for me to loose some of these, what psychology I must subscribe to that it will make sense to even me, who is the one relating the workings of this errant mind. Some of these are merely dreams that have filtered into my waking hour, some I cannot imagine from what source they originate. Some I wish not ever to tell.

It is work to tell them right, and perhaps that is the issue. Some are not worth the bother. Some I can tell you in few, mere words, some I do not think I have ever seen words arcane enough to describe them. The storyteller sifts through the hands of his consciousness that which can be told, that which matters enough that he relate, that which he cannot help but to speak: to keep what he can keep, and to wonder why we choose what we choose. These stories in me: I say to you that some do not yet exist, only the hope: a zero with an asterisk, whose footnote is yet to be written.

(I wonder how many stories have died, never spoken.)

Some people are happy just dreaming. I am not one such as those — I’d rather try and make something of them, even if I were to fail, and rudely. Dreams are too fluffy for my tastes: better one slap in the face than an eternity of feathers.

The Dream

In vastest night, a stranded dream —
A stone to mark an endless stream;
I walked within its flight of doors
Where boomed the light a solid oar
To dredge my ship through Heaven’s floor.

Flowered there a sweetest breeze
Which sent through lost a tear of please…
To wander was the truest route,
And stories we’re to be about
Were inked by tears which God shed out.

Mountains formed of purest mist,
Hallways rose as angels wished,
Spoke the Lord, and cities lit,
Words the steel of buildings built;
Chairs of light where we will sit.

Opening a book of air,
I read a spirit resting there:
He turned a page of destiny
Where I was written as a tree
Whose every leaf an eye to see.

My ship grew tired, I grew near
Toward the weight of earthly here;
The stone sunk roots into the now,
The dream recalled the lonely crowds
Wherein its power is endowed.

Life has to be given a meaning because of the obvious fact that it has no meaning.

In my mind, I throw around big words, extemporaneous words, words I really don’t know if I will ever use them right. The audience doesn’t think twice about them (usually), lets them sift into the mist of consciousness without reflection — the audience being me. I wonder who I’m trying to impress. These words: they sometimes have big ideas attached to them, made overly complicated in some manner, and these, too, I think I have something of a mishandle on. Yes, yes, I’ve looked them up, but who can be sure he truly understands the concept of enantiodromia? Who knows? I may actually be correct in some of these musings of mine, but I think I like some of these thoughts that don’t have the correct definite translation to them. I sometimes find out the correct meanings, and I think to myself, “Mine was so much cooler.” I guess that’s how things go.

The Wise Man
A children’s story for grown-ups.

There was a man who wrote a book of wisdom. “If you follow every word,” he said, “you will be very happy. I know because I follow none of it, and I am very sad.” It sold very well, and the man became very famous.

Many people tried to talk to him; reporters followed him wherever he went. “Why are you following me?” he asked the reporters.

They replied, “Because you are a very wise man. We want to know what you have to say about everything.”

He thought for a moment, rubbing his chin, then said, “Everything is rubbish, if you look at it in a certain way. Everything is precious, if you look at it in another way. I look at the world in both ways — everything is precious rubbish, the garbage of God. Now, stop following me.”

The reporters jotted this down, but they did not stop following him. Moreover, there was a crowd gathered around his house who would not leave.

He asked them, “Why don’t you go home?”

“Because you are a very wise man,” they said. “We want to know how to live life.”

He paused, thinking, rubbing his chin again, then said, “Many before me have already told you how to live life. If you won’t listen to them, you won’t listen to me. Now, go home.”

The people nodded, yes, yes, but they stayed where they were.

Then the man realized his mistake — he had believed them when they said that he was a very wise man. He would show them how stupid he really was. It happened to be winter, and it was bitterly cold outside, so he took off all his clothes and walked out of his home naked.

“It is a sign!” the people shouted. “We must all be naked, like he is!” And they all took off their clothes and stood shivering in the cold.

He stared at all of them for a little while, then as he turned his back to them to go back inside, he told them all, “Put your clothes back on. You’ll all catch a cold.”

He realized from this that no matter what he did, the people would think him wise, and they would do what he did, no matter how stupid it was. He was sorry that he had ever written the book, of which he followed nothing anyway. He just happened to know the heart well enough to know what was good for it, even if it was advice he’d never follow himself.

Then, he knew what he had to do; he began writing another book. This time, he told people to do exactly what he always did, which was the complete opposite of the first book. The publisher was confused, but the man was famous now, so the publisher published it. The people were confused, but they believed everything that came from the man, so they did what the book told them to do.

Reporters began to ask him, “Why did you contradict yourself in your second book?”

“Because,” he said, “the first book made me famous, so I wrote the opposite to take that fame away.”

The people outside his home were unhappy, since they did everything the second book told them to do. They cried, “Why did you do this to us? We did everything the second book told us to do, and now we are very sad.”

He answered them, “Now you are just like me, because I do all those things, and so you all must now be very wise. So if you have any questions about life or anything, ask yourself.”

He went inside his house, and eventually, all the reporters and other people went away. For the first time in his life, the man was happy. But he didn’t try to figure out why — that was how the trouble had started in the first place.

All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant’s revolving door.

I imagine the number of people who died in their desire to have what I have right at this moment. Often, it was not even so they could have it themselves. And what do I desire?

The meaning of life is to aspire to something noble, something that is beyond us, and then for even a single instant to know that one is worth more than whatever pound of flesh keeps him alive. Even if we fail, to truly desire, to truly strive neck and neck with destiny — such is to live as life never knows. No one can ever stop us from knowing what this is: bound and gagged, trapped in a sack, thrown into the ocean: one can even in this most extreme state decide within himself that he is worthy, and discover meaning, die understanding a secret very few do. I wager none of us reading this will ever encounter such a fate, and so it would seem we have it easy in comparison. But many of us act like it is such with us, that we are trapped in a life we did not make. It doesn’t matter. The secret is within us all: both the question and the answer. Make sure when you’re asking what the meaning of life is, to discover what you’re really asking. And if you know, find the courage to face what the real answer may be, for that is the only prerequisite. To live life as it is: something that will never happen again.

Even if we have nothing to say, we all want to be heard.

I am amazed by people. Their capacity for creativity, intelligence, even kindness — these can genuinely surprise me. Their negatives, what many people focus on: as for their stupidity and sin, I am intimate with these, for their source has been me: I understand them. Yes, it is true that I sometimes shake my head at some of our leaders’ mistakes (cringe at others), but for the most part, I know I am not one to talk as far as idiocy is concerned. The good parts, though: we are incredible creatures. “Average” human beings are all capable of astounding things; and we do not notice these marvels because we are surrounded by them. That is what I think — that the plenitude, not the dearth, of blessings we are given, which thoroughly inundate us make us take for granted all that is wonderful. All that I might find fault with is that we do not take advantage, we do not do as much as we are able. For what we can do: I think we do not know yet. It is beyond our imaginings… that being both praise, and criticism.

I imagine that there be things we are not meant to know.
Wisdom is to discern just which of the fruits are beyond our reach,
and which of them only need a bit of climbing to be plucked.

I am a believer in things I do not understand. Do you think me foolish? And yet, we all do it, all the time. You believe in gravity, do you not? But do you understand it? Even the most intelligent scientists all thought they understood it until Einstein came along and showed them, no, they really didn’t. To the best of our greatest knowledge, we probably still don’t understand it. Yet we all believe in it. Now, when I believe in God, it is not subject to the mathematical rigor that gravity is, but think me not some distinct moron who cares to put his trust in something without any basis whatsoever.

We believe in gravity primarily because when we drop something, it falls to the ground. We believe in something because we can relate a cause to an effect. I believe in God, too, in a rational manner, whether you care to deem that that is possible or not. For one, I find that my prayers get answered — repeatedly. Now, you may explain this away as “coincidence,” but enough has happened to me that believe that if I didn’t believe it was God, answering me, would be like dropping something again and again, watching it fall repeatedly, and not believing that there was this thing called “gravity”. It would be irrational for me not to believe.

I was once a fully functional atheist, and I couldn’t see how anyone could believe that there could be anything like a “God” out there. To me, everything rational could be proved, and you could not prove that God was, nor did I think it possible. But in the end, I just had to understand how little I actually understand. If you want proof, yourself, try this: pray this simple prayer, not at any specific deity in particular, to see if anyone or anything will hear: “If you are there, show me.” That, more or less, is what happened to me; I was shown — and now, I believe. To think that faith is fundamentally irrational is for one to believe that he has figured it out. It actually shows how little you know.

If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning — just as, if there were no light in the universe, and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know that it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

Love is so simple, we’ll never understand it.

Arches

Through the arches of my imagination
there flow streams
of purest nonsense, cold waters
of nothingness that vaporize
whenever one tries to feel anything there.
Thought, I conjecture,
is something of a bird, flitting
from point to point, never resting
too long on one wondering
lest it slip into the folds of a dream, forget
just where it last had roosted.
My soul is the armor
I wear on the inside, that protects me
from myself. I have heard tell
of a few who have worn
so many holes in their barrier garment
that nothing impedes
the mind from any of its
theories of cruelty, the heart
from its black, incalculable corruptions.
Are you so made? What
runs through your streams,
and flies through your trees? And do you
have any stronghold in yourself
where the one in the mirror lives,
whose eyes you do not
wish to forget, and wonder, “Who is this?”