Monday, September 7, 2009
What's that on the floor? Has it always been there? Where have I seen it before? Perhaps it was the middle of January that I first saw the mark on the floor. In order to fix a date, it is necessary to remember what one saw. So now I think of the the weather on that day; I think of the food I had eaten. Yes, it must have been January.
How readily our thoughts swarm upon a new object, lifting it a little way, as ants carry a blade of leaf so feverishly, and then leave it...I might get up, to have a look at the mark, but I dare not; because once a thing's done, no one ever knows how it happened. Ah, the mystery of life, the inaccuracy of thought, the ignorance of humanity!
Why if one wants to compare life to anything, one must liken it to being blown through a hurricane - landing at the other end without even a single hair on one's head; shot out at the feet of God entirely naked; tumbling head over heels in the street like brown paper parcels being blown in the wind; with one's hair flying head back like the tail of a race horse. Yes, it seems to express the rapidity of life, the perpetual waste and repair, all so casual, all so haphazard...
What was I just doing? I want to think quietly, calmly and spaciously, never to be interrupted, never to have to rise from my chair, to slip easily from one thought to another without any sense of hostility or obstacle. I want to sink deeper and deeper, away from the surface, with its hard separate facts. To steady myself, I catch hold of any idea that first passes...Banana...its familiarity relaxes me. It was the game he and I used to play; banana...(things that are yellow)...smoker's teeth...banana again...(things that have its shape)...dildo...and we would pause and stare at each other for a moment...and we would laugh. O how we laughed...
What was I thinking of? I shower of thoughts fell from some high heaven onto my mind. I wish I could hit upon a pleasant track of thought, a track indirectly reflecting credit upon myself, for those are the most pleasant thoughts, and very frequent in the minds of mouse-coloured people, who believe genuinely that they dislike to hear their own praises. They are thoughts like this: I was with that particular group, discussing films; I said how the portrayal of Asian-Americans in Final Destination 4 are all seen as replicated mannequins. All the time I'm dressing up the figure of myself in my own mind, lovingly, yet not openly adoring it, for if I did that I should stop myself. We have to protect ourselves from idolatry that could make it ridiculous, or too unlike the original to be believed any longer.
My God, I hate my reflection, always having that dead look. Suppose the looking glass smashes, the image disappears, and the figure with a forest of depths is no longer there, but only the shell of a person which is seen by other people. What is knowledge? What are our learned men save the descendants of witches and hermits who crouched in caves and in woods brewing herbs, interrogating mice and writing down the language of the stars? I can imagine a world, a world where one could slice one's thoughts as easily as a fish slices water with its fin.
There's no harm in putting a stop to one's disagreeable thoughts by looking at something(Oh look there's a mark on the floor) Indeed, now that I have fixed my eyes upon it, I feel that I have grasped the plank in the sea; I feel a satisfying sense of reality. Here is something definite, something real; like waking up from a nightmare, to worship reality, to worship solidity, to worship the impersonal world which is proof of some existence other than ours.
Where was I? What had it all been about? A banana? Ants? Humanity? Film? A game? I can't remember a thing. Everything is moving, falling, slipping, vanishing....I'm peckish. Maybe I'll have some chocolate(Oh look there's a mark on the floor) That's it...it was about a mark on the floor.
Argh it's a spider!
fire and ice clashed at [10:24 AM]