I believe it is becoming impossible for me to ever feel genuine. By this, I suppose I am referring to acquiring a sense of self that fits in with my person – assuming of course that one’s person is the amalgam of head, heart and spirit. I have perfected the projection though… a precariously designed hologram of who it is I think I want Maria to look, act, speak, think and feel like, but I now find myself horribly iffy about whether the many will ever become one. In all honesty, isn’t that the point: to be one…whatever, whoever or however ?
These new questions have forced me to recount whatever I may have read in the past about amorality. I find myself wondering if complete absence of a conscience will somehow manage to convince me of my place and posit my person. There are too many thoughts vying for attention in my head and the disjointed narrative that results is merely an outcome of many nothings that have fused to become an over-whelming, all-imperative Everything: my perpetual quarter life crisis to find my place. My crisis tends to deviate from the norm on this point, it is geared more towards finding whether I can fit in somewhere or with someone by remaining myself and not as much about finding the self in question. I hope that I will simply grow into my person with time, because the premise for the person has already been set …all it needs now is filling.
These new questions have forced me to recount whatever I may have read in the past about amorality. I find myself wondering if complete absence of a conscience will somehow manage to convince me of my place and posit my person. There are too many thoughts vying for attention in my head and the disjointed narrative that results is merely an outcome of many nothings that have fused to become an over-whelming, all-imperative Everything: my perpetual quarter life crisis to find my place. My crisis tends to deviate from the norm on this point, it is geared more towards finding whether I can fit in somewhere or with someone by remaining myself and not as much about finding the self in question. I hope that I will simply grow into my person with time, because the premise for the person has already been set …all it needs now is filling.
I wish, desperately, that I didn’t have a conscience, but then I wonder… if I stopped thinking in terms of tangents: Good/Bad, Positive/Negative/, Light/Dark, Masculine/Feminine, Yin/Yang, Flora/Fauna, Yes/ No…would I stop thinking altogether? I doubt that an absence of conscience will pre-empt an absence of context. Context usually emerges in the form of opposites and even if opposites aren’t good or bad, they will always carry the sentimental baggage of the connotation.
I think that if I can somehow manage to have no conscience and am no longer bound by morality then my perpetual emotional calisthenics will cease and I can play God for myself. Heck, I could even be God, since the eschatological opposite of the omnipresent, All-encompassing entity that is often said to be Everything should naturally be Nothing. Taken in the pedestrian context of monotheism it would probably go along these lines: If God is Everything than Satan would be Nothing, which makes more sense if weighed in the sage-old scales present in the law of opposites. In this context, if one were to believe in the former than the opposite should be considered an equal, not a subordinate as we are often lead to believe. Ergo, the absence of belief and subscription to anything would make one God, or the eschatological equivalent.
I mean seriously, we all know that every story is subject to whosoever is telling it. Since we have only ever heard ‘God’s’ account of the tales the balance has been painted to lean only on one side. I believe it was Mohammad Ali Clay who questioned why “the Chocolate Cake was the Devil’s cake and why Cream Cake was Angel cake”…Exactly, what makes one better than the other? Here is where I begin to feel amorality would be a problem, not believing, thinking and feeling in a context of tangents would mean to cease doing so altogether.
I think that if I can somehow manage to have no conscience and am no longer bound by morality then my perpetual emotional calisthenics will cease and I can play God for myself. Heck, I could even be God, since the eschatological opposite of the omnipresent, All-encompassing entity that is often said to be Everything should naturally be Nothing. Taken in the pedestrian context of monotheism it would probably go along these lines: If God is Everything than Satan would be Nothing, which makes more sense if weighed in the sage-old scales present in the law of opposites. In this context, if one were to believe in the former than the opposite should be considered an equal, not a subordinate as we are often lead to believe. Ergo, the absence of belief and subscription to anything would make one God, or the eschatological equivalent.
I mean seriously, we all know that every story is subject to whosoever is telling it. Since we have only ever heard ‘God’s’ account of the tales the balance has been painted to lean only on one side. I believe it was Mohammad Ali Clay who questioned why “the Chocolate Cake was the Devil’s cake and why Cream Cake was Angel cake”…Exactly, what makes one better than the other? Here is where I begin to feel amorality would be a problem, not believing, thinking and feeling in a context of tangents would mean to cease doing so altogether.
I fear it would mean embracing the inimitable full stop.
I fear it would mean voluntary death.
After all, not living -even when one is alive- is akin to death.
The option to embrace such an existence was first proffered to me by an Atheist, Psychology professor (do take a moment to marvel over the underwhelming lack of paradox here). I have recently met two brothers who have both helped and harrowed my struggle to navigate my nocturnal disbelief system. Both are more than twice my age and both appear to be the free-wandering-spirits that I have always hoped to be or find. The sheer largess of their presence is overwhelming, then again, this may just as well be my cavalier tendency to hang on to the words of any and every person who I feel I can learn from. But these two are different they have a gift: they can stop time.
When they sit in a room clocks begin to malfunction. The dials wheeze down to nothing. The second stick shallows into the hour hand and all is suspended. I do not know how many odes I have written in my head commemorating the lazy, summer afternoons spent in the stillness of their presence, perhaps as many as there have been afternoons.
They appear to be the same person, then again they aren’t. I think Mother Nature got it all botched up and their minds were plied apart forcefully, because they should have been the companion-conscience of the same person. Not the same person…there is a difference. They are like the ephemeral age-old voices that live inside the mind, the ones that proffer a response for every word spoken and unspoken by a person, these voices are almost always counter intuitive and contradictory, but only because they are equal enough to balance out the context. It is a lot like the ‘Yes-No’ paradigm, just a little tweak here and there and Yes, becomes a “Yes, I mean it won’t be possible” and a No becomes a “No, I mean I would like to see you tomorrow”.
The option to embrace such an existence was first proffered to me by an Atheist, Psychology professor (do take a moment to marvel over the underwhelming lack of paradox here). I have recently met two brothers who have both helped and harrowed my struggle to navigate my nocturnal disbelief system. Both are more than twice my age and both appear to be the free-wandering-spirits that I have always hoped to be or find. The sheer largess of their presence is overwhelming, then again, this may just as well be my cavalier tendency to hang on to the words of any and every person who I feel I can learn from. But these two are different they have a gift: they can stop time.
When they sit in a room clocks begin to malfunction. The dials wheeze down to nothing. The second stick shallows into the hour hand and all is suspended. I do not know how many odes I have written in my head commemorating the lazy, summer afternoons spent in the stillness of their presence, perhaps as many as there have been afternoons.
They appear to be the same person, then again they aren’t. I think Mother Nature got it all botched up and their minds were plied apart forcefully, because they should have been the companion-conscience of the same person. Not the same person…there is a difference. They are like the ephemeral age-old voices that live inside the mind, the ones that proffer a response for every word spoken and unspoken by a person, these voices are almost always counter intuitive and contradictory, but only because they are equal enough to balance out the context. It is a lot like the ‘Yes-No’ paradigm, just a little tweak here and there and Yes, becomes a “Yes, I mean it won’t be possible” and a No becomes a “No, I mean I would like to see you tomorrow”.
There is a thin line between the two, butter paper thin.
The first time I met both of them together they were sitting on a couch, clad in shorts and T-shirts, calm and conversation. They looked altogether too much like Bookends. I hadn’t yet met anyone who epitomized the Simon and Garfunkel lament, but now I have. The older one appears to be a sprite. He smiles an awful lot and it is a beautiful smile, but in my experience the most beautiful smiles tend to overcompensate for something, perhaps an overwhelming need to smile, because the subject has already dealt with too many frowns. I do this too, smile all the time to somehow delude myself into thinking that means I’m happy ‘all the time’ – believe it or not, it often works. This one climbs mountains and trots the twisted trajectory of landscape in search of something. I do not know if he knows what the search is all about or if there is a finish line, but I like to think he does it just because he can.
The first time I met both of them together they were sitting on a couch, clad in shorts and T-shirts, calm and conversation. They looked altogether too much like Bookends. I hadn’t yet met anyone who epitomized the Simon and Garfunkel lament, but now I have. The older one appears to be a sprite. He smiles an awful lot and it is a beautiful smile, but in my experience the most beautiful smiles tend to overcompensate for something, perhaps an overwhelming need to smile, because the subject has already dealt with too many frowns. I do this too, smile all the time to somehow delude myself into thinking that means I’m happy ‘all the time’ – believe it or not, it often works. This one climbs mountains and trots the twisted trajectory of landscape in search of something. I do not know if he knows what the search is all about or if there is a finish line, but I like to think he does it just because he can.
I suppose there are still something’s I need to believe in.
The younger one appears slightly more jaded, which is reflected best - I feel - in his sense of humor. Here too I find that I can relate all too well. That which They call Black humor interlaced with wry, cynicism and backed by knowledge is the perfect battalion to counter the insipid triteness of the compound other. This one said something delightful to convince me that a flushing out of all my toxic ideological baggage was in order, if I was ever to free myself. He said “Isn’t God after all that bottomless pit into which man empties his spiritual bowels.” Sure it isn’t as eloquent as Rousseau, but that is probably why it works. He calls it the cesspool concept: amorality refurbished. Me likey.
I usually resent redefining myself or my disbeliefs in the context of any form of paradigm or under influence, but in the case of independent bookends there is always an advantage…there are no limits to the number of volumes one can fit between them.
There are no limits to possibilities and the possibilities are subsequently limitless.
The younger one appears slightly more jaded, which is reflected best - I feel - in his sense of humor. Here too I find that I can relate all too well. That which They call Black humor interlaced with wry, cynicism and backed by knowledge is the perfect battalion to counter the insipid triteness of the compound other. This one said something delightful to convince me that a flushing out of all my toxic ideological baggage was in order, if I was ever to free myself. He said “Isn’t God after all that bottomless pit into which man empties his spiritual bowels.” Sure it isn’t as eloquent as Rousseau, but that is probably why it works. He calls it the cesspool concept: amorality refurbished. Me likey.
I usually resent redefining myself or my disbeliefs in the context of any form of paradigm or under influence, but in the case of independent bookends there is always an advantage…there are no limits to the number of volumes one can fit between them.
There are no limits to possibilities and the possibilities are subsequently limitless.
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