The Amber Trap.

Trapped.

There is no future, no solution.

Dorothy Parker said,

      Razors pain you;
      Rivers are damp.
      Acids stain you,
      And drugs cause cramp.

      Guns aren't lawful;
      Nooses give.
      Gas smells awful--
      You might as well live!

But she lied. The real problem is entrapment. A half attempt is a million times worse than success. Success and/or failure destroys those you love. Your survival instinct drags you kicking and crying into the the future you don't want.

Hope. There is only one hope and that is, in the words of Swinburne..

      From too much love of living,
      From hope and fear set free,
      We thank with brief thanksgiving,
      Whatever gods may be,
      That no life lives forever,
      That dead men rise up never,
      That even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea.

In my own words..

There is only one steady state, And that is steady down.

That dreadful, steady sinking into "normality".

That horrid creeping feeling, that maybe, just maybe, Life is real after all.

That fear, tearing fear, that beyond the window pane of my eyes, is the world. And I am Embedded Inescably in it like a fly in amber.

Then the worm squirms. Frantic, desparate. I don't know what I fear more.

My body knows that I will kill it if this continues. It flails against death.

But my mind shrieks terror of life.

LOOK AT IT. LOOK DAMMIT! Look there. See that railway station. No DON'T LOOK AT IT ABSTRACT LIKE THAT! SEE IT! See the reality. The sordidness. The connectness. The complexity. The solidness. The infinite detail. Oh the mind screaming bloody implications of its existence. No it doesn't go away when you close your eyes and it extends beyond where your eyes see. SEE IT! See it whole.

Remove the veil of words and then zenlike SEE!

Then run screaming with fear. Hide in words. Hide in abstractions. Hide in theology philosophy in love in hope in belief. BUT HIDE!

Anything to hide from the truth. The truth that we are caught like flies in amber in a vast gridlocked universe that cares as much for us as the amber does for the fly.

The ideas, the abstractions aren't flowing fast enough. I'm sinking deeper into the amber.

Kick and scrabble. Drink coffee, beer, wine. Trawl the 'net for more abstractions. Memes. (Hey those beautiful bodies are about as unrealistic as you get...)

Music. Lots of music. Blues. Schubert. Maybe if I'm not too far gone I can hook my mind onto a Bach fugue and adsorb onto it.

Kick the routine around. Stay up all night. (A good dose of fizzy vitamins cancels some of the physical side effects of that.) Beauty in art in music in bodies in ideas in nature in love whatever.

HAH! The abstractions flow. I'm flowing in a tide of ideas. Reality is just another abstraction.

The abstractions flow too fast. I'm walking midst drooling idiots. The truth is before them and they see it not. The beauty of the world, the beauty of love, the beauty of God, the beauty of the ideas should dazzle them.

They should burst out singing, bursting their hearts and breaking their voices like a raging celestial choir at the beauty.

HAH!

They tramp robot like over it.

I HATE THE BRAIN DEAD MORONS!

Living is like walking through treacle. I have the ideas, but bending the stiffness of details is _so_ hard. Everything is so hard and treacly. I bang my fists against it.

I'm tiring.

Hey?

What is this?

A pen top.

No pen though.

Where did the pen go?

The pen must be somewhere.

What a horrible thought.

The pen is somewhere.

The world is complex enough to include a pen top and a pen elsewhere.

I begin to see zenlike again. I begin to see the amber trap. I begin to see reality again.

And so the cycle must begin again.

Comments, queries and conversation.

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