death by words
~detritus
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I was going to write this as a reply, but I figured it would be
better to make it a post.
I've been reading a number of books on: the "occult", magic,
mysticism. And yet, none of it feels like it's getting me any
closer to reality. Indeed, no amount of words, no matter how
scientific, poetic, or inspired, manages to break through the
barrier of language themselves, and get to reach, even remotely, at
the true nature lying behind our cerebral interpretation of the
reality, at our cultural construction by which we measure and judge
and evaluate and by which we limit the whole of reality to a few
moulds that conveniently fit together on more or less consistent,
more or less elegant theories that fit our intellectual conceits.
No amount of Qabalah, no Book of Changes ever does much more than
further bury my experience of the world in an ever-growing pile of
words and concepts.
There are a few books that do sort of hint at the marvelous reality
out there, that, more than pretend to give me a glimpse of the
mystical reality behind the veil, prompt me to go out and directly
tear the veil myself and experience that mystical reality which is
open to all with eyes to see, and senses to feel (we are extremely
visual creatures, so much so that we have managed to relegate all
our other senses to a position that is secondary to vision, thus
limiting the range of experiences available to us).
And yet, I cannot just disregard all the wisdom that, one way or
another, comes down through the ages, handed down by those who have
experienced many lives and many ways to see the world, and who
distill their life experiences in words and even systems of wisdom
that provide, if nothing else, a system of symbols through which it
is somewhat possible to translate the direct experience of reality
for processing of the intellect. These systems of symbols, however,
are best learned once and promptly forgotten, not ruminated upon
endlessly to get in the way of lived felt experience. Nature has
endowed us a gift, and we would be unwise not to use it. It is
folly to rely entirely on the intellect to detriment of every other
source of experience and knowledge, but to neglect it altogether
and not use it's wonderful powers would be just as wasteful, for
what are we not if not a kind of animal that thinks and uses reason
to move itself about the wonderful world?
So I keep reading my books, I keep burying myself in systems of
symbols, with the hope that one day I might forget them all, and
that they will serve my intuition at those times when the need to
interpret reality in order to make decisions arises, in order to
navigate this complicated world dominated by intellectual
stupidity.
Still, I long for the day when I am finally free from the screen,
and from the complicated systems of thought and symbols with which
we overwhelm our brains to shield us from the direct experience of
a world that is far richer, and far more mysterious, than the
safety of our categories and theories provides for our fragile and
scaredy egoes. I am abused, indeed, I have abused myself through
years of screen usage and looking at the world throught the
cultural values of an overarching man-centered narrative that
disguises itself as oh-so-critical and aggrandizes itself as a
matter of utmost importance, bordering on the anihilation of man
himself and the whole of nature with him.
A more austere, in a way a feral me calls from within myself and
from my past, one that would find a comfortable spot in a lonely
place in nature and just bathe in the sounds and smells of an
unsuspected corner of a mostly unexplored world, seemingly familiar
and yet strange as anything beyond this world could hope to be.
* * *
Strange that even though I live *in* nature, there is hardly a
naturale place to visit these days. Everything is touched by man,
and nearly every square meter of land is inflicted by the
perturbation of the work of men in the tireless pursuit of....
what? something called money, I am told. Yet I look around and I
don't see any of that "money", much as they say "bananas, that's
where the money is at". I make a point to run away from where the
money is at and pull in the opposite direction. I hope the day
comes when I can find the spot where the money is not.
~bartender.... do you have yerba mate? coffee is becoming too
acidic for my stomach.