Quotidian transcendence.

Wordsworth said,

"I fixed my view

Upon the top of that same craggy ridge,

The horizon's utmost boundary; for above

Was nothing but the stars and the gray sky.

She was an elfin pinnace; lustily

I dipped my oars into the silent lake,

And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat

Went heaving through the water like a swan;

When, from behind that craggy steep till then

The horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge,

As if with voluntary power instinct,

Upreared its head. I struck and struck again,

And growing still in stature the grim shape

Towered up between me and the stars, and still,

For so it seemed, with purpose of its own

And measured motion like a living thing,

Strode after me.

And Sartre had his own version,

"Her mouth snapped out the last words: a varnished mauve-

tinted mouth, like a crimson insect intent upon devouring that

ashen visage. 'She's feeling humiliated,' though Mathieu, 'she

hates me.' He felt sick. The room seemed suddenly cleared of

its pink haze: there were great blank spaces between the ob-

jects it contained. And Mathieu thought: 'It is I who have

done this to her!' The lamp, the mirror with its leaden reflec-

tions, the clock on the mantelpiece, the armchair, the half-

opened wardrobe, suddenly appeared to him like pitiless mech-

anisms, adrift and pursuing their tenuous existences in the

void, rigidly insistent, like the underside of a gramophone

record obstinately grinding out its tune. Mathieu shook him-

self, but could not detach himself from that sinister, raucous

world."

The Prayer of Manasses says,

"Thou therefore, O Lord, that art

the God of the just, has not appointed

repentance to the just, as to Abraham,

and Isaac, and Jacob, which have not

sinned against thee; but thou hast ap-

pointed repentance unto me that am a

sinner: for I have sinned above the

number of the sands in the sea. My trans-

gressions, O Lord, are multiplied, and I am

not worthy to behold and see the height

of heaven for the multitude of mine in-

iquities."

And this is furthered by Genesis 4: 19,

"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou

eat bread, till thou return unto the

ground; for out of it was thou taken:

for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt

thou return."

St Paul said, "Walk in the Spirit/and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh" (Galatians 5:17).

Literature, theology, but what about science? The forefather of modern physics, Albert Einstein, said,

"I don't try to imagine a personal God; it suffices to stand in

awe at the structure of the world, insofar as it allows our

inadequate sense to appreciate it."

Leading existentialist writer Simone de Beauvoir said,

"... the individual is defined only by his relationship to the world and to other individuals; he exists only by transcending himself, and his freedom can be achieved only through the freedom of others. He justifies his existence by a movement which, like freedom, springs from his heart but which leads him out of himself."

Even Buddha knew what was going on, "He who experiences the unity of life sees his own Self in all beings, and all beings in his own Self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye."

Kalki Bhagavan called it 'The Oneness', Sartre knew it as 'ennui', the Romantics spoke of it as 'the sublime', the religious call it 'God', Voltaire could call it 'deism', some philosophers could probably speak of it as 'existentialism', and Einstein might have said it was 'awe'. But what were they talking about? Well. They were talking about those moments. Those tiny moments. Those fleeting, temporal, inexplicable, heart-stopping moments where the mind transcends the body and you find yourself connected with everything: words in a language which starts to deconstruct itself as you listen, where sounds are meaningless and energy is nothing; where the very fabric of their nature starts to melt into the air, and the air itself turns thick with the weight of the ages; you can see, feel, hear, suck the every syllable from each and every word, and it means nothing and everything; then the gentle buzzing of an insect in your ear, which searches out every drip of pollen, every smattering of perfume, to savour and enjoy for time immemorial; seeking out the conversations which mean nothing to it - the insect - oblivious - glides gently towards the grass... every blade of grass, where due slides inexorably towards the parched ground; a ground stretching upwards unto the sky; and a sky which stretches infinitely: beyond your view, beyond your sight, beyond your imagination, beyond the imagination of anyone, anywhere, anything; transcending itself into heaven, shifting into the galaxies, the milky way, Orion, the Bear, a quasar; drifting unstoppably towards infinity and nothingness in the vast emptiness of absence; where time is meaningless and the world a figment; short-lived and over before the first aching breathe of the aeons escapes.

If you can have just one of these then you would die a happy man or woman. Go out and seek. Find these tiny little moments and then become spellbound by their ensnaring ebullience. If you don't know what to look out for, then I cannot explain it to you. It is entirely beyond words: generations of writers more talented than I have tried, and failed, to explain it. It is unexplainable. Not in the sense that it has no explanation, but that no explanation is worthy of doing it even half an ounce of justice. It is in these moments that we can disassociate, disconnect wholly from the banality of everyday existence: we can seek solace in the infinite, the immutable vastness of consciousness -- for that is what we are. From consciousness we art, and unto consciousness we return. I'm sorry I cannot convey the utter joy at the feeling, and I'm not even sure if I've ever felt it. Think of it like a smudge on your glasses: just on the periphery of your conscious-thought, there is a spark; if you look at it it fades into obscurity, clouded over by the blackness of human ignorance; let the spark flicker and fly, and let chaos reign in your subconscious -- therein will you find the unspeakable, the unexplainable, the unexpected, the unaccepted, the incalculable and untenable nothingness of everything.

It's insane. Honest to god. Even writing these words. OK. This is the closest I think I have ever come: insomnia based hallucinations. It's like that moment where you've had just enough drink to feel uninhibited, but not enough to be completely profligate: when your mind just feels ever so slightly disconnected from your body, and you start to make grandiose gestures for no reason whatsoever. That is the feeling you are after. Maybe meditation.

Whatever. Go find it.

I'm not sure what got me thinking about this, but I think it is merely the culmination of a few weeks where I have become further and further distanced from the small-things in life (hence the quotidian allusion); becoming increasingly introextroverted in a weird sort of amalgamation. Utter disassociation is an alarming concept at first, but it seems to have its benefits. Given my psychological state at the moment (buoyant, though for no reason) it is good to have some kind of connection with the baser emotions -- they are keeping me from becoming severed entirely from the minutia of life and all of its associated foibles. It's confusing insomuch as I am not becoming insouciant, far from it; no, I appear to be working as a contradiction in terms. The farther I drift, the more interested and acquainted I become. I know this doesn't make any sense, but I'm just throwing some stuff out there and seeing if anything sticks. It's as if I am walking through a dense fog, where random, abstract shapes are forming and fading in front of my eyes: I can only make lose connections, possibilities, abstractions, deductions; nothing substantive. Total separation of thought and process. When I see these shapes I am not really seeing them, rather I am feeling them. They are I, and I are they. Possibly the drugs. Hmm. Any way, the point of all this metaphysical rambling is just to make a case for seeming-indifference. I get a daily flagellating for appearing nonchalant to people whom I am alleged to care for (for instance, telling a suicidal friend that they should, 'do whatever makes them happy'). I think what is happening, however, is a miscommunication. I am not indifferent, oh no, I am not at home to Mssrs. Ambivalence & Apathy. I am opposed: I am the binary, dear people. My distance gives me perspective (which, incidentally, I could have done with a few months ago (lolsuicide)). Well. No. That implies I have some kind of individual, moral prerogative -- some kind of self-appointed, self-regenerating, all-imbuing authority. I don't have anything like that. But I might be able to prod you in the right direction until you get this naturalist's epiphany. Other than that my disconnection is fundamentally useless, in that any advice I could give would deal solely in generalities and platitudes: what the fuck do I know? I'm way over here.

Y'all gonna need a telescope to see me soon. Actually. You're not. I'm not really disconnected. At least, not in any meaningful way. I am still here, and I am still functioning normally, and I am still able to hold conversation, and I can still type, and I can still work, and I can still assist you with your proof-reading, and I can still make random jokes about how awesome it is to rape children, and I can laugh at you when you say that the library is 'like South Africa' because of the 'apartheid'. I can do all that shit, but it's as if I'm seeing it from above myself.

I think I have become a narcissist.

Just as a little caveat: the majority of this isn't true, I was just in the mood for writing and this all spewed out. I do not see myself as above, either figuratively or intellectually or literally, and I certainly have not had 'all-disassociation'. I am still fine, honest. It's just a bit strange to feel that the mundane finally doesn't really bother you.