a decent into impossibility
On a warm winter afternoon, it dawned on me that there are three ways to describe anything that is set before you, at any given moment. First, by what it is. Second, by what it is not. Third and perhaps most importantly, by what it could be. I sit here, in the agreeable silence of my room, and my mind cannot help but make noise purely for the sake of self-amusement. It’s almost as if it is uncomfortable with the absence of stimuli. It’s almost as if there is something in me that refuses to deal with lack. With nothingness.
So yes, I find myself in awe of the organic way in which my mind seeks out the potential in the void I am parading before it. This calls to mind the first two verses in the holy book, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” And the spirit of my mind, supposing it has one, is hovering above this room. Using its energies to milk out the rackets and clatter of every being and thing in close proximity to my person. And this… is exciting.
It really is.
It feels overwhelming sometimes to know that there is a sense of presence and continuity behind my every thought. Granted, this continuity is at the expense of rest, nevertheless, I suppose that true rest, whatever “true” may mean thus far, is not really possible. There seems to be a striving spirit, perhaps related to the hovering spirit, that calls into being to-dos. From children whose mental faculties are yet to fully develop to the elderly whose brains have pretty much retired… there is always something to do. Some task to get done. Even when sleeping, the assignment is to stay asleep until a given moment. Even in death, the business of the hour is to stay dead… and to keep on… not living. Now you may say to me, Oh what a burden. But I suppose it only seems so only at first glance… and I want to sit here today to attempt to convince you that the absence of true rest is a clever ploy on the creator’s part indeed.
To do so, we must first agree on what this “true rest” I write of is. I suppose that by “true”, I mean “absolute”. And by rest, I mean “abolition”. This naturally implies that total termination or complete cessation of being is not possible. Once you are, by God’s infinite wisdom, spoken and crafted into existence, you are forever tasked with the activity of being. Enduringly after something and permanently aware of deficiencies in the entities around you. I am asserting here that being in itself involves an act of obedience to the call to action. For there is no point at which we can achieve true inaction. Like I briefly pontificated a little while above, even in the act of being dead, we are tasked with staying dead. With ensuring that our dead state remains true, for as long as one’s belief affords them. For the Christians believe that physical death will be countered by resurrection at the return of the Christ. The agnostics and atheists, yes, the Godless - for it is not possible to be “god”less – I have been told they believe in some form of “ceasing” to exist after death. But even in that, you’re tasked with staying outside of existence and never to return. But still in a state of not-being. So to not be… is still to be.
In this essence, it is to be the opposite of being. A state that does not contain any excitement, if I must inject my opinion here. A state whose task is plain and monotonous. And what joy is there in that, my dear reader? What hope for participation lies in… lying rotten in the ground or floating about in some dimension of non-existence beyond this writer’s imagination?
It’s like being a star in a one-scene play. Except you can’t even be the star because there seems to be a lot of my peers longing for such an inactive being, revealing how cramped this descent to impossibility is. Craving for the absence of activity, for an absolute sense of purposelessness. And this… puzzles me.
It really does.
It seems to me that we’ve lost our ability to really weigh the reality of what lies ahead. Or perhaps… who lies ahead. For what is even more important than what you get to do, is who you become. And I don’t want to be a used-to! I don’t want to have to face the point of no return that all things must come to and can now be defined as what they are, what they are not, and what they used to be. Oh, what a pain to even watch my ink bring this vision to life. What a sad sad state to find yourself in… when the “could be” is essentially distant. When your potential is without-a-hint-of-a-query … ineffectual.
Certainly, sad is what she wrote.
That is a tragic play that I would not cast any part of you, my dear reader. And no… not out of jealousy for you to shine, for starring in this kind of play is nothing but a terrible use of the preciousness in your current state. Indeed, it is a preciousness — to find yourself at a point where a livable existence awaits you in the past, present, and future… only because you came to terms with the fact that you will forever be, and you might as well be something that could be.
