That Thing Called I

The stage is dark, with a dim little light shining precisely in the middle and sitting under it, an odd little figure. Female, human, barely visible. The sound of fine tuning an old radio is audible, accompanied by a plangent yet melodical sound.

I suppose I'm quite happy. It feels happy to me, what I imagine it to be. I mean, who knows, right? Life is so complex and you're, like ... you're just this tiny little piece within a tiny little piece, isn't it? I love being here, at least I'm here, you know? It's always better to live than not to, I'd say. So much to make of it, isn't there? So incredibly much.

Well, of course I sometimes find it overwhelming. I ... just halt for a moment when that happens, you understand? It's not really like pausing, well ... well yes, it's a little like pausing. I let my mind rest, sort of, try to find out what matters. Find out what matters in silence. I walk steady once I know ... but the knowing? Ha! Right? Well, what else ... ?

I feel a lot, probably a little more than most. Scary, sometimes, I think. I have no words for it. It's ... a little out of the ordinary, maybe ... I mean just possibly exaggerated. I enjoy fall a lot. It's a passionate season in a way, it ... it just makes me want to go outside, see the leaves become something of a glowy orange. It's a kind of ... natural magic maybe, I don't know?

I always repeat things in my head, endlessly, like a tune that never stops bugging you. I mean ... I'm not that tune, of course, you know ... what I mean? I replay, and change. I like the idea of alternatives, even those I know will never happen. And those that could still happen. The future. Glowy, glowy future. I believe it is ... so painfully far away and yet so scarily close by, no?

I sometimes wonder if I don't have too much of it, the thinking and the feeling. I ... well, honestly, it is making little holes in my scull. I'm kidding, obviously, it's a metaphor of course but ... no, seriously, I. I'm sorry, I forgot what I wanted to say, silly me. Right? I love the stars. Don't you? I look at them and think about how, in a way, they contain ... the dreams of mankind. The wishes, the mythologies ...

Well ehhh ... what else can I add? It's foggy sometimes, this life. It can be, I mean no it is, actually, so mindblowing and yet so absolutely frightening, ... heck, it can even be both at the same time! I do not need to tell you, do I? I ... well, to sum up ... I am human, of course”, laughs “but I am sure that you already knew. What else am I? Well ... I just wouldn't know. I mean ... would you?”

And then there was some sort of strange yet peaceful silence.

Between two worlds

I have always enjoyed philosophy, history, anthropology, and all of the natural sciences. But I have never truly understood this one poignant human capacity to lie to ourselves, in a way, that requires more vigilence than is commonly attributed to most individuals. I find it strange to write, because I tend to think more than I write and often find it troublesome to summarize my thoughts. But I have something to say, and for lack of ability to express it shortly, I must write and I must simply hope that the exercise will not be futile – that I will not stop after two pages for I will deem my train of thoughts impossible to follow and get off this powerful train at the next stop.

What has befallen humanity? I do not know, but a part of me thinks, nothing has befallen it at all. That something has is, simply put, the idea that something went wrong, that humanity was great and harmonious until it fell into a hole, never to recover. And to some extent it has, but for this we must understand not history, but thought. Because history never truly changes, it repeats itself endlessly as if it were caught in a time loop. As if everything only had a limited number of potential courses and outcomes, and once they have been walked, they must all be walked again by the following generations. Over and over. We may say that after the Greeks we no longer believed in essences anymore, but is this true?

Has not Hegel believed in the essence of freedom and thought? Has not Kant believed in the essence of morality? Has not liberalism pursued the goal of essential freedom of speech and thought and of essential freedom from harm? And do we not think our truths are essentially right, or at least more right than those of other people? Is this not why our wars against terrorists and other perceived evils are so essentially driven by fear and the wish to extinguish this fear? We humans must think in essences, for it appears so hard to us to move in this world without them.

It is not simple to walk a difficult path, termed life, and have nothing steady to hold on to, when in this society meanings and values are being altered every single day, with every new discovery, with every new opportunity. Of course, needing the eternal to survive the fragile is a sign of weakness in Nietzsche's eyes.. and he is right. He who upholds essential truths is too scared to admit they are not out there. But it is also a sign of strength, to uphold essential principles in a human world so void of them. So which way must we walk? What world shall we live in? One filled with wonder, or one filled with reality?

And how would I know that reality contains no wonder, at least none larger than the miracle of life itself? It seems to be the tip of the worldly iceberg, to assume to know what lies beneath the water. An exaggerated belief in nothingness, senselessness as opposed to constructed meaning, eternal moral value. The creative power of destruction is so often being ignored, when the fear to reconstruct out of nothing is far larger than the joy to drown in it. To be one with the flow of time: appearance & disappearance. I face two worlds, once again. And I turn away from what I wish to see to what you fear is really there. I toss a coin and I walk, in this world of which I talk.