June 2013 Archives

I. The Problem

Unfortunately, the impulse to refuse participation can lead nowhere: it's not as if reality is going to correct itself due to a withdrawal, nor, as one could extrapolate, to a critique. So what is the weary traveler to do?

Historical tropes have been asserted to provide passage out of such a quandary, but the sad truth is that these claims are without substance. The fact is, there is no way out, and it is really more a matter of the skill of accommodation in taking passage without absorbing too much damage or distress.

Several observations may thus be of use to the wayfarer, and they are recorded here in a spirit of comradely disclosure. Rest assured, there is no falsehood herein; nonetheless, reality is adaptive, and the information here may not in fact provide the hoped-for facilitation. if that is the case, one can only consider that everything passes with time, if there is any consolation to be obtained in reflecting on such a truth.

II. Partial Reality

Some have argued that the existence of partial reality proves the presence of a Maker's hand: lest, the argument goes, how else could something be incompletely made, if there were not a process of making to be incomplete? I won't address the transparent tautology of this line of thought, but do wish to acknowledge this one of many examples of trying to explain insubstantial reality, which is a vain and pointless endeavor. What good did it do the thinker of this thought whilst encountering a partial reality? Do I really have to answer that question?

What may be of use is the simple observation that any skein with an edge has, by definition, another side. The savvy traveler who positions themselves to acquire leverage to the internal side may discover whole new sets of orientation.

III. Interleaved Reality

Interleaved reality is such a peculiar phenomenon that it is infrequently identified as such, but rather taken as complexity of some sort. One reliable detection methodology is verification, by any one of a number of means, that more than one time exists in the container. Once facile with such an appraisal, the traveler may feel at ease - well, perhaps not at ease, but at least not disordered and broken - with absorbing in turn the various temporal inputs, and, thus having mapped them, parsing them individually.

IV. False Reality

Verification is not a possibility when dealing with false reality, because there is no thing which it is not (within the container, of course). Whilst I am loath to promote investment in any kind of vagary or self-delusional "perception", one must confirm that it is possible to "suss out" false reality with the benefit of extensive and, likely, painful experience. Beyond that, in all honesty, there is not much that can be said about such a comprehensive manifestation.

V. Concluding Remarks

I was hoping to address a much wider range of insubstantial realities, including duplicate reality, parallel reality, folded reality, and the particularly disconcerting inverted reality, but there is a strange buzzing in my ear which is causing me quite a bit of discomfort, and I am unable to commit further words to this document at the moment.

Although it seemed to have nothing whatever to do with me, I saw that my arm - my lower arm, the left - was jutting out at an unnatural angle over the trench. The salient fact was that a copious river of blood was coursing along its length, spilling over the sides on its way to pouring itself more substantially over the wrist. It was a captivating sight - the blood an astonishingly deep and saturated red, the volume seemingly impossible - and it first it didn't occur to me either that the arm was mine, nor do take any action regarding it.

As I was wondering at the full volume of the flow, I was noticing an unusual scent  at the back of my nose and throat; I imagined that I heard the flow of blood, and from that moment I remember nothing until awakening in the pool.

The atmosphere could hardly have been more different. Everywhere there was blue: blue sky, blue water, figures I could hazily make out on the periphery in blue: robes? towels? clothing? I felt barely awake, and was unable to become more so; teetering on the edge of sleep, or unconsciousness, I vaguely ascertained that I was floating, my head, lolling side to side, fixed somehow above the water.

A sudden turbulence in the water startled me, and I felt myself beginning to spin, round and round, with increasing speed, while the surrounding blues all darkened towards purple and then into increasingly deep shades of red; and, as the speed became intolerable, red was everywhere: both deep and bright, and again I tasted the strange scent. I realized I was flowing down my own arm in the river of blood, splashing over the wrist. descending towards the trench far below; and a word fixed itself in my mind, as if it explained everything; "Nerve".

It doesn't make any sense to me either. But that's what happened.

I.

First off, it's right in the center, at the top - and it's easy to tell the main trunk from any branches, both by location (center!) and potency.

Secondly, there are all the resonating confirmations: the nectar, the thrumming, the sudden broadened perspective.

So it's not as if anyone got lost, no matter what they say.

It's really more a matter of vacating - perhaps even vacation.

The scattering of the light: go forth and multiply! Of course, no one said, forget yourself.

But it happens.

II.

Where am I? 

That's the most likely initial question that comes forth when one has lost one's way. Often accompanied by panicked scanning of the surroundings, and perhaps the rending of garments, both literal and figurative, such a query may indicate the first dim light of remembering. 

But the descent to the admission of not-knowing is not the first step: it is the base. And, given the lost state that landed the protagonist there, finding the quiet space would be perhaps the best that one could do.

Of course, it rarely happens. More likely, memory is leveraged to create an image out of of trauma, and that image then provides a seeming path forward. Never mind that it is a path inward; assiduously followed, it may in itself lead to the quiet place. Or, to another heart-breaking, mind-shattering dead end, eventually terminating where one began: at not-knowing.

Welcome back.

III.

The secret that nothing is everything is not well known, despite its being trumpeted relentlessly by existence. Its converse, usually instructional when encountered, is more commonly acknowledged, especially  in the particular: things are nothing. But whereas the aforementioned secret is liberating and expanding, the latter is usually experienced as a downer: illusion, loss, death. 

The good news is, back to not-knowing.

IV.

Once back, the opportunity to regain the quiet space again presents itself. Navigation is straight-forward - after all, there's nowhere to go - and every other place is noisy, changeable and distracting.

So it is recommended to regain the quiet space. Straight up, into the resonance, the thrumming is a palpable guide, and nectar, although simply an inherent attribute, greets one like a reward.