Peaks
Lowlands
Life:
The impossible plateau
life
Mantra — field of happening
Be. Let whatever happens, come to pass.
To be: embraced by a field of happening.
There is nothing imperfect, even contradiction
and desire – let it all come.
Allow motes of dust to float
the heaviest pain to sink
there is nothing at all that does not belong –
let anger and irritation play their part
but release them and go on.
Close your eyes and dig deep.
Study the phenomenology of thoughts
the strange ocean of being
overpowering pain, elusive pleasures
Be. Embrace the field of happening.
life as song
That this life is a song
a rhythm in time
it is a string of melody
an intoxication of chords
a synthesis of possibilities
an improvisation of pattern
that it is wandering
a spontaneous unity
an organic experience of circumstances
a multiplicity in simplicity
that it is an urgency to vibrate
a progress through novelty
a passage through uncertainty
a metamorphosis through seasons
that this life is a surprise
a song in disguise
there is little doubt.
Coherence
It is impossible to remain coherent. It is an effort beyond human ability – and wonderfully convenient, it is only humans that desire coherence. Life, if you allow it to be, is too intense; and if you look for the words to describe or preserve it, then this intensity travels from wonder to monotony. There is not one single day that is ordinary – only because we are so intimidated by existence that we willingly enter that repulsive state of awareness called “normality”, which is to say, a trivial encounter with known and familiar objects. So, hours may seem like pleasant arenas, where nothing may occur too unexpectedly; but certainly the night comes, or leisure, or what bothers us immensely: waiting comes and hours turn into monsters, ordinary things into blasphemies. We then need to escape, leave this desolate stability; we need chaos, disorder, frenzy! Why? Because all along we’ve faked our pretty little ordered world. We did not want to see things too deeply, we ignored them so we could continue our 9-to-5 placid existence. So, when our hypocrisy is too heavy to bear, we desire madly to return to the world we ignored – we want to embrace the enigmatic, to unite with what is becoming and does not yet bear a name. So we rush away from ourselves only to wake up the next day sick with regret, as if we betrayed ourselves by indulging too much in the irrational. We bounce from one end to the other, grasping for complete coherence on the one hand and on the other, we strip ourselves naked for our plunge into unadulterated confusion. We are unable to leave permanently the false illusion we’ve created, but we fear to stay too long at the other shore, where laws, customs, languages, thoughts and egos break down.
Smooth sounding rain
Smooth sounding rain stroked manifold layers of green quivering leaves
.
Smooth sounding rain stroked manifold layers of green quivering leaves
.
Smooth sounding rain stroked manifold layers of green quivering leaves.
Silence within the great symphony of rain.
Silence whilst listening to a thousand voices of cold tropical drops smashing into leaves and edges.
Silence that is grey;
profoundly incomprehensible.
And a voice that wraps things full of wonder with words full of emptiness.
A sight that dwells endlessly on a dream planet, a dream life.
A layer of skin that pierces darkness and absorbs the world into a
nugget of perception.
To breathe in awe of all surrounding perplexing forms, a close connection with improbability.
Then it stops, the ever-changing new turns old and rigid. Common, ordinary minutes.
Then again and again there is a plan, a prospect. The vertigo of wonder disappears…
routine conquers anew.
Echoing thunder is heard… far beyond the touchable.
To be one with what has been,
what is
what will be…
An undesirable confession
An undesirable confession
(or lack of conformity)
There are no guidelines. Understand this sentence, remember it daily – it is essential to the journey of life. There have never been any guidelines. If ever a semblance of direction has been portrayed by some ideology or religion, it is only an attempt at a guideline. It is not certain, not even provable. Every faith in a transcendental code by which we can live our lives is today being un-made, perhaps only because it was originally man-made. We are lost, forsaken in the remote chaos of a lonely planet, with no guiding hand that would lead us to any certainty – to any firm truth.
I set these words forth not in the spirit to challenge those that are able to find comfort in this oppressive world; on the contrary, I report only the widespread experience of constriction and confusion that is rooted in the mind of 21st century Homo sapiens. I am wholly willing to commit to the idea and passion of a benevolent god or cosmic purpose, something which will deliver the long-sought peace that most of us have been searching for. Yet, the more intense the search, the horizon of faith turns darker and frailer. How can I believe in something I don’t feel? – this is the question that exiles us into metaphysical orphanage. No matter how fervently we search for that ultimate reality, the journey is always daunting, constantly haunted by self-doubt, fear and irrational panic of that impenetrable unknown which is the substratum of our everyday lives. So the desire of guidance, the search for something greater than one’s self, is suspended and there remains only a perception of enclosure – a trap in which we all belong.
So, once the awareness of the impossibility of escape is made clear, should we assume our defeat? Should we not analyze the environment of our perplexity and express the conditions of our despair?
What exactly is our trap, what constrains us to impotence? I am only one more man lost in the maze, able only to postulate wild theories of decay. But here are my thoughts:
Insecurity shapes our early life. We depend extensively on the care of our parents until we become sufficiently independent to take care of ourselves. From the very start we look for something beyond ourselves to help us deal with our hostile environment and to give us the comfort of control; control over the unpredictability of the world. By the time we reach the age of reason we are accustomed to depend on other sources, whether it’s our parents, god or social institutions. Naturally these fall short from achieving this and we return to our capsule of solitude. Even the most passionate advocates of religion shudder in fear – didn’t Jesus himself before his death utter words of irrevocable loneliness? (My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?)
Now, what I’m about to expose may seem far-fetched, perhaps there are a few arguments I have skipped to reach the end. The emptiness felt from this lost of trust in the original sources of comfort (parents, religion, social/political establishments) needs to be fulfilled. That’s when a new monument is erected; an indestructible idol substitutes our previous dependence and consolidates itself as the last resort. What is this new idol?
Very simply: a rôle. We fashion a rôle for our lives, an identity of what we should be that is safely kept within and no longer outside. A phantom so powerful it literally controls the direction of our lives. But how did we substitute external comfort for internal obligation? Weren’t we already terrified of our loneliness that we begged for a new sense of communal belonging? We coil within ourselves because we feel disappointed about the outside world, finding it untrustworthy. We need to believe in something and the only thing that came to fill this part was our artificial identity. We created a set of standards, goals and principles by which we guide our lives, something that could not be shaken up very easily and could stand the erosion of change.
Our subconscious harbors this identity which is so elusive we suddenly lose track of its agenda – our original choices are forgotten but they mark the remaining course of our lives. We become slaves to our rôle which was initially fashioned to give us comfort but now only oppresses us with the urgency of its fulfillment. It is a double-bind, we are trapped by our desire to feel valuable, significant or united to something greater than us but we have not found this in our modern lives. We then submit shamelessly to the commands of a career which mortifies us with achieving more and more; exhausted by the end of the night our lives feel empty, confused, lost in innumerable desires.
This sense of urgency comes about from the competition we experience every day. Competition for a better role, a more reputable identity. Deep down we are all celebrities to our own egos and because of this we yearn to become as celebrities to others. Frankly, however, we wish others to see us as we want to be, but not as we truly are. We compete blindly with each other to create the “better” person, whatever this is. There are no universal standards by which we can judge who is a better person, it is relative to the values of each human being.
This competitiveness is best seen in large cities. Cities are breeders of competition, urging its inhabitants to outrun each other. The conveniences that a city provides to its dwellers are irrelevant compared to the pressures and hostilities it creates. A decisive change of perspective is urgently needed: that of de-urbanization. How long can human beings last in a state of high tension, when large concentrations of men and women fight daily, physically and psychologically, to be on top? The greatest concern is, do they even know why they are bustling about?
What if this is true? We regard ourselves too highly during the day but then return unsatisfied to bed; panicky with the feeling that we have no control and even our goals in life are to be doubted. The idol of the ego must inevitably fall too, leaving us naked in despair, gagging with the question: who am I?
The world’s a machine
^ A by ytuquike
http://ytuquike.deviantart.com/art/A-32785575
Let me tell you something. It may be a hard pill to swallow. No, on second thought, maybe my criticism is hollow and attempts to belittle a world too powerful to be challenged. Besides, most people are already aware of what I’m about to say. We all are. But it doesn’t matter. I must get it out; otherwise I’ll wallow in my own disgust and perpetuate a system too cruel in its indifference.
I‘ve been sitting here for seven hours. Patiently chatting with customers over the internet, satisfying their demands, answering their recurrent questions. Yeah, it’s as simple as it sounds. A few minutes here with a Dan from South Africa, a few seconds there with a Marysia from Bulgaria. I’m connected to the world but between me and the rest of the globe there’s a box that displays organized patches of light and allows me to interact with people I will probably never encounter, physically or virtually, again. It’s just that – organization – that bothers me. Here I am at the threshold of a global society and my enthusiasm is imprisoned under a thick layer of discomfort.
It doesn’t make sense to me. How we got here and all that. I was involuntarily born into a world that had organized itself in this way without my consent. Here I am functioning according to it, adding fuel to its monstrous engine by my insignificant but necessary participation in its affairs. I am a mere appendage to this colossal machine, a machine that keeps rolling on and on without any constraints – makes me wonder if we could stop it should we desire to?
That fact is that it is here, an organization a priori to my existence, and I must operate according to its rules; my life with its sufferings and joys must fit the frame of modernity; my dreams are shortened by 40 hours a week which are mandatory for my basic survival. I’m no utopian, I don’t trust in any universal remedy for happiness and prosperity, yet even with my mistrust in progress I’ve perceived the approach of a conviction that promises a better world, a saner reality.
Hadn’t fear regulated most of our expectations, or if habit wouldn’t paralyze our imagination, would we still be living for minimal wages and restricting life to those scarce hours of leisure that work “allows” us? While trapped in those routines of cement and asphalt, how often do we get to experience the beauty of nature which, according to poets and sages, delivers endless moments of delight and communion with the divine?
I don’t know, I don’t care. I will continue to intoxicate myself with the monotony of uneventful hours… who cares what a screw thinks when the machine can operate without it. New screws will be born to furnish The Machine with the elixir of eternal life, namely:
Our conformity.
Tinges of blue
I left the office shy of two o’clock
gaining inside a shudder that could reach
just beyond the boundary of solitude.
I raised this old neck of mine
the sky was me.
Belonging to dreams we no longer dare to glimpse
futures too powerful too bear
fears that out of plain habit
covered me like husks of wisdom.
So eternally blue – with the intensity of an S
similar to the smell of dawn, depths of now
bright as selflessness
blue as sky.
A kind of rejoicing, a mystic’s forgotten book
and the glory of erased words!
TO return, live a thousand sleeps
one more lonely death
varying degrees of godless hours
those dissipated moments
hungry of freedom, so easily obscured.
Bury me in lands of mute plants.
Blind pasts, unimportant futures.
The sky was me, I turned
I had gone away… hands overflowing possibility.
Awe and confusion swirled together
Pain by Hands of Crimson (deviantart)
We fling ourselves out into the depths of this tumultuous motion (there is always an implicit decision to stay alive) – we are agonizing in the effusion of forms, attitudes and energies of this world, we succumb to the simultaneity of all events, approaching a boiling point which will end in a devastating orgasm. This life that with relentless power can lift you to regions of unshakable astonishment will drop you with equal force into the pits of boredom and suicidal retreat. It becomes an experience so intense that all those wonderful insights attained by your constant awareness to the profundity of existing forms can be, and will be, torn apart by the abysmal fissure that comes in between reality and our conceptions. Our epoch has demystified the themes of history, art, philosophy, science – any study that pierces Being and divests it from the shallowness of routine – themes we are engaged in by our simple breathing and acting in a world that is constantly being measured, recorded, discussed and because of these, it is being doubted more than ever.
Out of the circumstance of standing on the axis of what is to come and while repeating beyond illusion the experience, over and over again, of existing as part and parcel of this monstrous universe – out of all these circumstances there arises a sentiment which remains for the most part unspoken yet when united to the urgency of our desires it wishes to break through as a divine voice, a repercussion that will echo through the immensity of space and time, an outpouring of this vital disbelief that defines our existence; in short, an eternal statement understood and recognized by everyone:
Can all this be real?
Exactly because the world’s diversity can only be matched by its incomprehensibility the human being, passenger in life, is unable to remain in the state of absolute veneration (the all-too-common fear of the unknown) and must distract himself with whatever nuisance is thrown in his way. Fortunately, there is excitement in monotony; there is pleasure in painful depressions.
We are obeying something vastly superior, something that always exceeds our two modern poisons: reason and technology. We aspired to imitate nature with those silly contrivances. We, subjects to our bodies, to history and the course of the planet, we return to bed every night insulted simply because we cannot deceive ourselves much longer: the world we have come out of has created itself and us without the tool of reason; and in that inexplicable unreasonableness it has fashioned machines infinitely superior to our latest technologies – we see it all around us, the biological world, a miraculous product abandoned by the silent God of Purposelessness.
After we finish with this continuous enigma, we open our eyes to challenge again the naked world, to tease it with our actions and desires….
“oh what a world” we say,
and reenter the game once again.
Fatalism
If we must submit to the irrationality of following all logic to its end, conclusions may turn shockingly paradoxical. I once heard that we have chosen our life from the very start and that our experience on this planet is simply the revelation of our original choice. If this were true then the absurdity of our suffering would be justified since we have chosen beforehand to experience it. The question that remains would be: why have we forgotten our original choice? Why does life present itself as an unknown unfolding instead of being the realization of one’s desire? By some obscure mechanism our original choice has been obliterated, life remains a permanent surprise. At first this seems like another form of fatalism except for the fact that we have chosen that predetermination. On the other hand, most people believe that the universe is a spontaneous happening and we must choose our way through the hazards of spontaneity. Our life is the result of all our choices, but how do we ever get to choose anything? I sat down the other day to think this one over and I discovered that my choices are really just reactions to whatever is presented to my mind. From the pettiest choices to the most important decisions I simply obey a feeling, logic or a whim. In all of these cases I am subject to what simply happens inside me. Should I buy a black or blue pen? I wait for a moment, experience a certain sensation of pleasure in black and I buy the black pen. Should I live in Costa Rica or in India, I wait for a moment, a logical-emotional labyrinth emerges in my mind and by the end of this involuntary frenzy, I make my decision. Naively speaking, thoughts are like emotions, they arise involuntarily and by a law of their own. Most people are identified with their thoughts, but if you ask them how they fabricate a thought they must inevitably answer: it simply happens. So, if my decisions are nothing but reactions to what is presented to my mind, what is allowing these perceptions? If we submit to modern scientific thinking, to explain a perception in the human mind we must pursue a long path through Psychology, Sociology, Biology, Evolution, Neurology, Chemistry, Physics, and we will end up with an ultimate theory for the universe as seen by man. In very simple terms, what we experience is the result of the whole arrangement of the cosmos, and if we knew every bit of information about this arrangement, we could predict ourselves. Again, we fall into an unremitting fatalism.
But what’s the use of all this reasoning and the contemporary compulsive adoration to logic and reason?
I choose not to know.
“Puppet on a string” by Steve Whitney
Beyond Language 
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