Futurism logo

The Void

Chapter 1 of the Absurd Altitude

By Nicholas GoodmanPublished 6 years ago 10 min read
Like

"Yes Nicodemus! I understand that! But it's lofty! Those are ideals you hold high in your mind! It's true to you because you want it to be so! Look at the ground we stand on and see all is but a play on this universal mistake! I am not saying you need to agree, but if we are discussing matters of truth this must be the case."

Josephus always carried these sweeping statements with such brash confidence. but then again, he did have enough evidence to back himself up. Denying the fact of my feelings was outside the realm of possibility. To discover the truth I had to allow all truth to penetrate and this was one I couldn't escape. And what a feeling, this gloom spreading through my vision and out for miles was, what we called, the void.

Let me back up and explain the situation. It was a warm summer day. We had just gotten into Josephus' car and started driving towards the lake where we were heading to swim. The discussion built around constant disappointment and chronic apathy for living in reality. I always tend to take the more mystical route, and he, being the rationalist, uses his scientific mind to combat all illogical assessments of reality. I appreciated it in him, but only as much as I appreciate a sharp blow in order to remove a chronic pain. He was the band-aid ripper, he was the gooey wax ready to remove my hair, he was the carpet puller who showed me the true ground I stood upon.

I felt my argument crumbing.

"But there is something more inside of us! You can't deny these internal sensations that blossum out of the seeming nothingness! This awareness of consciousness! What explains that?! Why would nature program us to think and then allow for a fault where, when one questions its own mortality, this fallacy of living shows?"

Josephus responds:

"Here is where we must also question the perfection of nature. Yes, we as humans have marvelous machines. These bodies are beautiful displays of creation and what wonder nature produces. But, let us never forget, nature is in evolution. We are at a stage of development, constantly growing and shifting to higher reaches. What was once useful now begins to break, and we find our faults of the past begin to drop.

"What I hypothesize, and this is just an explanation for this strange sensation, is that we have seen past the reaches of nature's reason. Where we are intellectually has moved beyond what nature has to give us, which is reason.

"Man is a marvel to contemplate. We take flesh and blood, and this complex neurocognitive organ called a brain that takes in information, processes it, sprinkles it with value and worth, then spits out emotions and decisions for how to continue.

"This process of ongoing recirculation from extrinsic to intrinsic creates a relationship with our environment that gives and takes, always moving to a place of more pleasure then pain. But when you allow metacognition to roam in freedom, alone and isolated from all besides itself, the mind begins to eat itself.

"When you come to the realization that all that is has no wholesome purpose, a odd sensation happens where, for a moment, time stops and this hole begins to form. It is an awareness that cannot be forgotten, just as our awareness of awareness never goes away once reached. From up here, there's no turning back.

"This is the edge of the universe. This is the death of expanse. This is the void!"

I noticed myself starting to shake. Such a statement, such clarity I couldn't deny that those thoughts and worries circled my subconscious when I was continuing with my daily spiritual practices.

The soul is an interesting topic, one which has come under much scrupulous investigation and to which I always considered true. Through my many experiences on psychedelics, meditation, yoga, and daily living, I found several reasons (or so I thought) to justify the nature of such an energy. I can feel myself, I am aware of so much movement and there seems to be a part of my consciousness that is secure. To quote one of my personal favorites in the Hindu classics: "This Self cannot be cut, burnt, wetted or dried up. It is eternal, all-pervading, stable, ancient, and immovable " (Bhagavad Gita, Verse 2.24).

"So tell me then, Josephus, what constituent parts make up our soul? Where does this sense of control come from? Can you explain those experiences of clarity that come when the heart is opened and life blossoms anew? All the accounts of near death experience and astral projection! Dreams and imagination! What serves their purpose?"

He breathed slowly, simply, as to allow the air of intellect a smooth passage inside himself.

"Let me ask you, why does it seem easier to believe that we have this soul, a divine energy that makes us up, then to imagine the brain is the producer of all of these?

"We can see very clearly into our minds, in ways we have previously never found. The eastern mystics, Greek philosophers, hell, even the transcendentalists had little knowledge of the inner workings compared to today!

"What has been found is fascinating. There is a spot in your brain that controls the location of consciousness. Dreams seem to have some process of memory storage and information chunking. The imagination is a marvelous offshoot from the thinking capacity that turns emotional and feeling based instead of intellectual.

"That feeling of expanse, of heartfelt love for all, seems to come from a place flooded with neurochemicals oxytocin, serotonin, dopamine, adrenaline. I would wager that is a leftover feeling that comes from girls of any variety whom you are attracted to. Women create powerful sensations in us. This is, in my belief, why the Greek had so much negative talk around women. They often bastardized them, saying they were useful for sex and reproduction, nothing more. There's a quote that goes along the lines of saying teaching a woman to write is like giving poison to a snake.

"Now, I don't agree with these sexist remarks, but I see why they do. To be so overthrown by emotion and not understand why would scare the shit out of me as well! It wasn't women's fault, it was mans misunderstanding that caused him to fall into a deep state of animalistic lust and skirk his responsibilities, thus causing chaos. Needing to keep his power and position, a man would often blame a woman, not his own lack of self control.

"Back to our original point. That all expansive love can come from a removal of fear, sure, but how can you say you are connecting with divine love? How can you be sure? To me, it seems more truthful to say it's made by the brain."

The interesting thing about this whole debate was that I wanted this to happen. I constantly asked for such a heavy handed blowout of perspective to enter my consciousness. Now that it's here, I find fear more prevalent than the excitement I was expecting.

He had some points. I always look at life with a mysterious eye of marvel. As a poet, the magic captures me more then the marked moments. To have things explained to me almost takes away their Essence. I looked at science as useful, beneficial, needed, but inevitably tragic, as it often sucked the soul, or what I would call the soul, out of the mystery that is life.

True, understanding is important if we hope to hone our ability to break down things into groups, classifications, regions, Subsections and the like. But as of now, I find no joy in this, I see it as a way to remove the reality and replace it with symbolic idolatry.

What was that quote from the bible?

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God."

Take the jealous god part and replace it with reality. Reality gets jealous when you make images of the world and consider them holier then the world itself. Take the word water for example. If you bow to water and think that repeating that word will quench your thirst, you are surely a fool! The word "Water" is only a sound, or a symbol, we make with our mouths to communicate where the wet, clear, mouth quenching liquid rests!

This is how I feel about science...the symbols overwhelm the reality and we are left with a simplified, dumbed down version of life. I think this quote by nietszce captures it well: "thoughts are the shadows of our feelings -- always darker, emptier and simpler"

You feel life. It is not something that is a thought. When life becomes thoughts instead of feelings, you have found a way to hack into the neurocomputer of your brain and override the central circuitry! Now instead of living, you are thinking about living, you think about the dance that Is currently happening vs dancing, which is, to quote my beautiful friend Sonia, Allowing yourself to be folded into the rolling cusp of the now.

But, we must take into account the beauty and magnificent wonder that has come from such intelligent, mathematical, scientific research. It is my job to learn how to look at life wholesomely, but still use the symbols to analyze life, knowing they are not a true representation of what life is.

It is a wondrously strange feeling to simultaneously feel humble and wrong while relieved and internally content. Some part of your mind is lost, trying to comprehend the koan that will never be understood rationally. You see, the rational mind, at least mine, attempts to control and conquer all it sees. The ego comes and wants to know all and make all succumb to its will. So when I reach a state where the ego is incorrect, yet feels totally content, a sort of paradoxical enigma is present. It's lovely. It's strange. It's rapturous.

At this moment I began to cry. Not a cry of defeat, not one of sadness, instead it was a weeping for the knowledge I had been searching for. Unbeknownst to me, truth is where I love to be. So my heart broke open and started expanding. I felt a peace long gone begin to wrap itself around me.

"You are right. You are absolutely right."

He responds, in a soft, careful manor:

"Look, I don't mean to be so domineering, but if you are claiming to know the truth of life, have some concrete evidence to back it up. I find my desire comes to ache for a soul, but I realize that reaching for fantasy won't help me live in conjunction with reality. What is that quote by chogyam trumpa? You must land on the rocky surface of your reality?!"

Every time he quoted Buddhist teachers to defend his materialistic view of life, it seemed to cut deeper, as if my attachment to their knowledge was so sure and when I found out it had been turned on its head I suffered a harsher blow.

"You're completely right. I'm sorry, this is just so difficult for me to wrap my mind around. I've built the last four years of my existence on this foundation, only to have it crumble. There is a sense of contentment for coming to a place that feels more truthful, but I also feel the floor has just dropped off and I can't sense the ground."

Josephus says, "Welcome to the void. All are welcome, but you can't turn back once you're here. It's a difficult battle to fight, looking for a purpose when there is none, but it's one countless of us have suffered through and made it to the end, glad to have tried to create wonder in this seemingly absurd life. Yes, nothing you do has meaning; yes, all is null and useless. But we still have pleasure, there is still a desire to love, there is still chance for enjoyment; you just gotta get used to the terrain."

And what a feverous journey it's been trying to find peace in such known chaos.

religion
Like

About the Creator

Nicholas Goodman

Poet. Writer. Avid Tea enthusiast. Truth seeker. Love maker. Wondering what makes the world smile and how I can create that in words.

https://www.instagram.com/alloflovespoetry/

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.