Looking Fair and Square at the World Submerged (or Hither and Thither)
“We want to stand upon our own feet and look fair and square at the world,” so said Bertrand Russell.
Often before taking a plunge, we test the waters. We dip the tips our feet a few nanometers into them to see if they’re just right. We judge the depth. We screw our eyes in concentration to try and discover if there are unknown monsters lurking a little bit below the surface. And then if the variables are of the right measures, we take a deep breath and we do that yawp that Professor Keating in Dead Poets’ Society was talking about. Exhilaration follows exhilaration, and then there’s that moment of peace, a second of death. Our eyes open to that aqueous, dreamy reality. Bubbles. Hundred of them. There may be that smile, or dilated pupils of awe perhaps. And before that bestial instinct of taking a lungful of breath kicks in—and this is the moment where I switch to the first person—I sometimes ask myself, So where do we go from here? Do I stay here and see if I could, by sheer force of human will, stay a little bit longer, exist in the muffled peace a heartbeat longer? What is up there in the world while I’m down here? Are the waves still racing to curl up in a moment of perfection only to crash down on the shore to its ordered chaotic destruction? Are the cliffs still holding strong the trees? Are the branches and leaves still dancing to the harmony of the salty breeze?
Unless my plunge heralded the end of the world, the answer would be all in the affirmative. Yes, they are still doing the things they do every day. The sun and the stars are still trekking up their course in the firmaments. And, yes, life happens still in the world. Even without you. (Another person shift here.)
So what makes you so special then?
Nothing really. Not a damn good reason. Except perhaps those that you’ve put up and built. Or perhaps it is the opposite—up there, they’re rejoicing for a hair breadth of time that you’re not tearing anything apart.
So life happens without you. It’s as if you’ve never even existed at all, I think. Are your thoughts swirling up there in the clouds still? Are your dreams still hoping above the surface? Newp. You’re where you are, my friend, and so are everything about you.
Why go up for air then? Why?
Because you’re a man after all, that’s why. A beast pretending to have control over what he does, what he cannot, and the overall outcome of the aggregate of all his did and didn’t. Men have to claw out from the hole they made for themselves to create yet another dent in the world. Let me digress a pip—“the genius of the hole: no matter how long you spend climbing out, you can still fall back down in an instant.” That’s from a computer game, by the way. Now back to the current thought.
Men having to have to something done is the general assertion in order for everything to make sense. To create. To destroy. To etch their names on walls, be it even just a slab of rock, a tombstone. Like pissing dogs. To leave memories on the minds of those who have known them—their parents, their brothers and sisters, their friends, their wives and husbands. Or if they’re lucky, to put themselves on the pages of books and echo for eternity, that is, depending on the paper’s lifetime and their fellows’ inherently fickle minds.
Is that all there is? Do we just have to make some point or other to the general mankind or to our individual relationships and then just vanish, violently or peaceably?
I’ve always thought that questions are more beautiful than answers. They have the curves of the question marks anyway. But really, they carry much force for they carry possibility, or potency as we called it in Metaphysics class. Answers just provide one with a dull period that could be mistaken for a smudge, or an angry exclamation point. They’re not even sufficient enough to stand on their own most often for they lead to tons of other questions. You may think that this way, answers can give possibilities too. Right you may be. But there was a question before the answer, and before the question was nothing—or something that led to the question. Chickens and eggs, anyone?
So why flail your arms and desperately kick up your legs for air? Why not just melt away then?
What the hell is the point in making a point? Point for the sake of making a point? Or is it making one for something else? What’s that in the something else that makes it a big deal then? Sense? Meaning? Meaninglessness?
Eternity? Why play for something unknown then? Because it is grander than playing for something known, like a mere championship ring or a million bucks?
Difference? What’s wrong with sameness? Because the difference is an improvement?
Betterment? How is it that we simple men crave for the complex? Because tile is better than mud?
Why not just plain unbridled love? Or loathing for that matter?
But why are you in the world when it would still go on spinning without you? Without Newton, the apple would have fallen on someone else’s head most likely. Without Einstein, another mind would have “relativized” everything. Without Russell, another soul would have “analyticized” philosophy. Without me, perhaps it would be you writing this.
Isn’t all of these just so?
Please note, however, that this is not a death wish or a suicide note. No matter how much I walk around personifying agnosticism, my upbringing and education succeeded in ingraining the unavoidable Catholic guilt. I’m just asking a question while submerged in the world’s dreams and hopes and thoughts.
And I, yet again, managed to deliver the final note with a period. Ain’t that just grand? Fuck. (Oh, wait, that was a question mark before I cussed. I should cuss less. Damn.)
