17. Doing Not Being

I run my hand over the grass and I feel the texture of the individual blades — their sharp, freshly-cut edges tickling the skin of my palm. This is a singular experience. I am touching this particular patch of grass at this particular time with this particular hand. This has never been done and it will not be done again. Not here, not now, not by me.

I bring my hands into my lap and close my eyes. I am seated on the grass. I can feel it pressing against my bare legs. I let the feeling go, so that it becomes one with the ordinary condition of my body. I ignore everything I can hear or smell, everything outside of me. I am the singular experience now. What is it to be me, in the absence of the external world? What is it to have this particular body? I am alive, I know, but what is it to be alive?

16. The Process Of Creation Advances

The task of creation is always unfinished. From every newly crafted thing, a new arrangement of meanings emerges, and from that, new possibilities appear. New possibilities beget new questions, and something further must be created in response.

As the process of creation advances, meanings become more detailed and questions become more nuanced. The target of these questions cannot ever be reached. It is the heart of our experience as living beings, as entities that are both subject and object. It is perhaps even the heart of existence itself. To attempt to name it necessarily fails, because it is everything and nothing at the same time. All that we can do is to create and create again and, through our creations, uncover as much of it as we possibly can.

15. So Many Eggs

Every idea I have is an egg. My eggs are kept warm in the incubator that is me. Each day, some of the eggs will hatch and out will emerge a new being that is capable of living on its own. The being will take the form of a fragment, like this one. It will emerge from its egg and onto the page where it will live. Usually this process goes smoothly, but if I try to hatch an egg by force, what appears on the page is not a living being but a lifeless mess — not unlike what I would get if I took a real egg and threw it at the wall. Each egg must be ready to hatch before the being inside can emerge properly and coherently. I must be patient. Some eggs will take months, or even years, to hatch. Waiting can be difficult when it feels like a particular egg might be a special one. I wish there were a way to speed up the process, so that I could express myself continuously, so that I could, at all times, create new beings and send them out into the world. But it cannot be so. Forcing the matter produces nothing but a mess. I remind myself that I am fortunate there are so many eggs. Every day, one or two are ready to hatch. To prepare myself for them, I keep a careful inventory of the incubator. I look inside myself to see which eggs are beginning to show the first cracks. If I watch carefully, then I can give these new beings the best possible chance to arrive on the page with potential and vigour.

14. Not Even Miracles

The ordinary basic facts of the universe are necessary facts, and so anything and everything that exists is necessary as well. Everything that happens in the universe follows necessarily from the basic facts through causality. A cause produces an effect, which then causes some further effect, and so on. In this universe, there is no such thing as contingency. The chain of causes and effects is perfect. Everything that happens does so because it must happen. There is no way that anything could ever be other than what it already is. Possibility does not actually exist. It is an illusion produced by a lack of knowledge. There is only one way that things can be from now until the end of time.

13. Others Like Him

Every morning he goes through the same process when he wakes. It takes place automatically as his consciousness returns to him. As the calm serenity of the dreamscape recedes, he becomes situated in the world — not only in the physical world of his body, but also in the virtual world of life and work and other people. He enters conscious reality and he feels inside himself a void appear and grow prominent.

12. The Eternal Now

It feels like time is my enemy. I only have so much of it, and every moment that passes is one I will never get back. I can see how much time has passed without being used well, and in noticing this a feeling of regret follows. It feels like time is taking something from me and I can do nothing to stop it. It feels like I am being swallowed by an infinite abyss.

11. Always On The Move

A human being is always on the move. Sometimes we move to accomplish an important task. Sometimes we move around frenetically, without purpose or intention. Sometimes we move in order to feel ourselves moving.

Movement does not necessarily mean moving through the physical world. We can be physically stationary and still moving. Sitting in quiet reflection does not mean you are not moving.

Real movement is change. It is vital, it is transformational, and it means growth. If you are in quiet reflection then you are engaged in this kind of movement. False movement is repetition. It is mechanical, it is sameness, and it means stagnation. To move in this way is mindless, and the body is abandoned to its own devices. Such activity not always harmful, but it cannot sustain a life. To live we must be moving, and so we must also be changing. Stagnation means death.

10. One Word And Not Another

Judgments can limit the scope of my awareness. If I rush to judge everything I see, then I cut myself off from the opportunity to experience it fully. I have to open myself up and allow everything in as it is. I have to be sensitive to nuances and complexities. I have to hold my judgments at a distance and consider their opposites. I have to allow myself to see even those things I judge to be bad or wrong or ugly.

9. Senseless Language

Language and reason are deeply intertwined. Words are connected through rules we call grammar. For these rules to function they must fit together coherently — they must be for the most part logical. The rules can be bent and even changed, but they cannot be completely eliminated. A language without rules could not communicate anything at all. It is because you and I agree on the rules of grammar that you can read this sentence and it has a meaning for you. We can change our agreement at any time, but we must still agree. The rules we have agreed on are the reasons why our sentences take one particular form and not another.