I am not one for believing in after-lives. The notion of an alternate dimension for being, quite ironically also fulfilling a repression of the most natural state of anxiety, without any proof whatsoever except in the context of legends surrounding the literal institutionalization of anxiety repression, seems a bit far-out for me. Besides, any "spiritual" experience I might have had leads me towards the opposite notion--that the very deep anxiety of death is paramount to our experience of living because death is so inescapable, and so total. In as much as I can say to have ever felt most "alive", I was feeling quite heightened sensations of being near death. Therefore, to justify a belief in a life after the ceasing of life (the number 1 precedes 2 for a reason) seems all the more paradoxical to me, and paradoxical in the sense of a misleading repression.
But:
Let's spare the existentialism. Regardless of anything ultimate, immediate or otherwise, I find it a fun exercise to think about some sort of perennial dimension of being. Like, if there was one moment you could see as stretching to infinity--what would it be? If you could live one particular day over and over again forever (whatever that means) what day would it be?
It's stupid:
In a lot of ways, to occupy one's time with such hypotheticals. And boring, most of the time, to recall them to others, simply because they will of course disagree, and not understand whatever emotions you might have about a particular segment of space and time that might convince you that space and time should encompass all of existence, or at least to the extent of ceaseless repetition.
But then again, what is a better pursuit? Focusing on my job? Earning money? Making some sort of art-piece of a transitory, physical nature meant to inspire and transmit those sorts of endless, universal feelings one has trouble committing to words? (Well, maybe...)
Anyway:
As I get further and further into "real life", defined basically by the idea that I am not unilaterally focused on undergoing a set course of practice in the attempt to "get anywhere" in particular, say, graduate from school, or learn to do X well enough to do Y--it seems, actually, there is no time series I have as an alternative upon which to base my progress. In other words, what measure do I have by which to judge the relative efficacy of the passage of one minute to the next, if not the infinite? Some people say to live every moment as if it were your last... but this is idiotic, because "every moment" already supposed it is not your last, and the faux optimism of greeting-card maxims is certainly not something most people are thinking of in their actual last moment anyway. So why not think of every moment (to the extent that one needs to think about anything) in terms of some particular of the universal?
Not, a specific instance of the general--don't get me wrong. As if such generalized platitudes could apply to any actual experience. "Boy, as I enjoy this rainstorm I am really thinking of the glass as half full!" In other words, fuck what you've heard. What about if we instead, while its raining, and we're thinking about how beautiful it is, wonder at the slipperiness of the sublime? In a perfect world, does it ever rain? Sometimes I like the sun, sometimes I like the rain. How would a perfect world know what is right at any particular moment, and still have that instantaneous quality that makes it so wonderful to me? And in this proverbial "heaven", does one get beautifully caught in the rain every day, or only just the right amount of times so that it seems so poetically lovely? Or maybe, just maybe, the fact that as I am now caught in the rain it is so absurdly wonderful is a particular which could never be repeated, despite how universally delightful it is, which is part of what makes it so wonderful, and inspired my internal poetic-organ to start sluffing its teary-eyed musings from every available duct and slit?
No:
I'm not on drugs right now. Though the cold medicine is making my lungs feel so much better, and health is its own high coming out of being sick. See extraneous bullshit above, for more details.
Happiness:
Is as transitory as anything else, and it is it's own particular of life's universal (see bullshit above). But still, we mostly try to seek it out, even if only as a brief respite from pain. The daily, particular repressions making every day life sustainable. The booze, the drugs, the sex, the television, the music, the color, and the light. A good, sustainable neurosis is its own heaven on earth--a little bit of psychosis makes us sane. You can ask anyone. Even the greeting cards know it.
What is it:
What is your personal psychosis? What do you fantasize? What images do you lay over the real world of phenomena in-itself: the phenomena that is only-for-you, reaching some sort of crazy, manic tug-of-war stasis with your environment? What's your idea of heaven, constantly spilling over into this dimension so we can continue to live until we die?
I like:
Traveling, journeying, arriving, and departing. I think of the ocean, a certain place I know. I don't live there, I have to go there. Upon arriving, I'm trapped against the waves. I don't like deep water, or going over or under it. After I get to the shore I have to keep moving, laterally, one way or the other along the coast. There are forests that lead right up to the ocean, unlike on the east coast, where the forests are cities. The forests are dark themselves, just like the water, but I can breathe in the depths of the trees. I never stay long at the coast; I can't stay, I have to move. Unlike the pits of the plains one can fall into for years, not even realizing that as the earth turns one stays in the same place until finally one makes it to the rim of the depression the rest of the environment has continued to change. That's the bad kind of stasis, the forever that is never. The waves are better--and though I respect the rotting of the soil, this brilliant putrification can't happen without water; the desert, the pure mineral, the anti-ocean, sediment past: it mummifies, it doesn't decompose. Nothing accelerates destruction like the creatures who need water to survive.
At the beach I saw a dead seal. It's distinguishing features had been gnawed and chewed; it's interior swelled by the gas waste of those working on the inside. It lay on the beach like a sphere, out of place, with no question of it remaining for long.
The rocks are also spherical, erroded that way by the harmonics of gravity and the universally particular inertia. Wood caught in the mix looks like the rock, erroded the same way, only faster. Still, the seal was winning the race.
I go to the beach with my partner--there is lot's I could say about her. Ocean metaphors would dull it though--not the sort of erosion I seek. But there's water there, don't get me wrong. I'm just not going to put it to words. She's a particular I would rather keep to myself.
Eventually, always, eternally, we end up leaving the beach. We return to the other stuff, where we came from. It's not all bad, stuff that's not the beach. But I think about it as we leave, heading back through the trees. I'll think of it again too, as I think of other stuff.
There's an awful lot of stuff to think about. I guess I'll have time to think about most of it eventually.
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