Watching Death

Almost two years ago I had to look after a hamster, and though it was supposed to be temporary the little creature ended up living with me permanently. I decided to call him Charlie. In many ways I liked watching him roll blindly in his ball because watching him was like watching people going about their daily business with such a deep air of oblivion about them.

Anyway, Charlie the hamster has been very sick these past couple of weeks and his sickness has now taken a turn for the worst. It’s funny how he’d always seemed more or less fine, and even when we got worried at times for his health for one reason or other, I realise now how fine and healthy he was then compared to that invisible veil of death I can sense floating about him now… one moment he was full of life, the next you could just tell… it just showed at once - death looming, like a ghost creeping up on the poor little creature.

I was watching him last night and this morning as he lay panting and lethargic, and it was like watching the ultimate struggle between whatever you want to call that ‘spark’ of life that animates all living creatures and the mere shell of a body, the vessel for that spark… and as that vessel breaks down, breaks away from its helm, it is like watching Charlie’s spark making one last stand before leaving or vacating that vessel for good… it doesn’t really feel like that spark is about to switch off to nothingness at once but more like it is about to leave, jump ship - vacating what will soon be no more than a corpse that will eventually turn to dust. And though I am writing about a little creature, isn't it the exact same fate that awaits even the most powerful of humans? Perhaps the tears I feel swelling in my eyes are down to that stark reminder courtesy of Charlie’s sickness.

I am reminded of the inexorable passing of time, of this invisible ticking clock far grander than any man-made one, of this pendulum whose dance can never be tampered with, of the ultimate hourglass whose sand once passed never gets a second chance. All this I am reminded of just watching little Charlie… I am then reminded of my greatest fears, which have always included the fear of loss, and this I have felt since I was very little. I suppose I felt it the moment I was able to understand the fact that I only had one person in my life that truly cared about and knew me - my mother. Once I understood just how potentially alone I was in this world, that I had no one other than her, the seed of fear when it comes to loss took hold at once. The biggest tale-tell sign of a child afraid of loss (to an unhealthy extent) may well be his or her attempts at taming that fear while still quite young. I remember imagining and playing out scenes where I was told that my mother had died, and I would imagine how the police would come knock on the door to let me know - and then, as I was playing the scene real, heavy tears of pain and sorrow would roll down my cheeks… I wasn’t just playing out some imaginary scene, I was really living it on an emotional level.

I find myself checking on Charlie several times a day... I see the intense tiredness weighing like a ton of lead on his tiny body now deformed by whatever sickness that’s killing him, and I can sense what it must feel like right towards the end when the wariness spawned by a constant crescendo of pain and the weight of heavy eyelids drunk on exhaustion all lead to the increasingly overwhelming urge to let go in favour of just ‘sleep’… a drifting into oblivion that knows no returns, inescapable some day. So I watch that little furry animal dying away day after day and it reminds me of the Living condition as a whole and how in the end it’s the same for all of us, whether we are humans or mere critters - once the vessel gives out, whatever it is that animated it has to vacate the premises for good. I guess I’m dreading the contrast that’s to come at some point in the near future between the sight of a very living animal and that of his irreversibly lifeless corpse… The contrast that shows you point-blank and without preamble just how unfathomable and irreversible - how deserting - Death is in essence. One moment there is life, the next it can go out just like a candle’s flame blown out by the wind.

And so I watch him huddled in one corner, unable to open his eyes anymore. From time to time he shifts, slowly and painfully, from one trembling side to the other, eyes now forever closed - and I keep thinking: he is about to leave the same way he came into this world, weak, blind and powerless. Naked, stripped of all strength... but the will to live is truly the last one to go - until the very last moment that will remains, till the vessel is just too broken and not even the will to live can put off the end.

In some parts of the world death is as much a part of life as a newborn’s first breath. Though its implacable hand is revered and feared at once there is a certain sense of acceptance Man learns to nurture along the way - a strange acceptance based on striking a balance between what manages to live and what must unfortunately leave. But to me the most striking part of death is the contrast between one moment - full of life and vitality - and the next as I am made to stare into emptiness, a vacant vessel.

Urban hermit

I find myself not having much to say anymore... it's not like I've stopped thinking 'too much', it's just that every time I attempt to put these thoughts into words I'm struck by the fact that I can never express more than a mere fraction of a bigger whole. It doesn't matter what the thought, idea or theory is about - it can never humanly be expressed in its entirety (in the most depth) because language itself in all its limitations prevents the expression of all the factors, intricacies and other numerous shades of reason involved and needing to be expressed at once for that one single thought, idea or theory to be perfectly whole, complete. What can I say... this realisation is increasingly leading me to favour silence.

And who knows, perhaps it is better to keep silent than forever taking part in incomplete utterance or exchanges of thoughts, understanding and knowledge.

These days I've reverted back to what I like to call a 'sponge state' whereby I'll spend my time soaking up knowledge, influences and experiences through books and research involving minimal social interaction... some might say 'urban hermit' would be a more accurate term to describe my current condition, and I suspect such a state of being or 'lifestyle' isn't such a rarity in cities nowadays. I'm not avoiding interaction with others as such, but will avoid it or at least aim to keep it to a minimum if given the choice.

Why?

Well, part of the reason is similar to a person fasting to cleanse the body. I need to keep away from social interaction to get a clearer sight of myself away from the tremendous amount of modern pressures and expectations. The moment I step into the streets, for instance, I am at once reminded of those pressures as though they had the power to permeate the air itself. Inside my head it feels too much like a million voices are  shouting at once, figuratively speaking - I am extremely self-conscious and therefore the presence of others acts as a terrible drain on my person. I have grown so sensitive to a certain sense of others' consciousness (because of my own heightened self-consciousness, I suppose) that I'll even find myself thinking of a particular person right before they manifest themselves in my life through, say, a phone call or email. If that sounds fun, well it isn't. It is the most emotionally draining 'sense' one could imagine. I find myself pushing that strange sense of awareness linked to others more often than not - pushing it out of me, rejecting it with all my might because otherwise it feels like white noise inside my head, so to speak.

And so in time I found that the more socially involved I was, the more that 'white noise' (spawned by my own unhealthily intense self-consciousness) grew. Similarly, the more I withdraw from social interaction, the quieter, clearer and more peaceful my mind grows.

Perhaps this time of relative social isolation has its purpose - I am much like the convalescent mind, but I could not find out the source of the ill, let alone attempt to cure it, if I remain immerse in the constant noise made not by a community in which I have roots, but a world at large from which I am mostly disconnected in essence.

But then when I think about notions like purpose, I am reminded of just how much better silence is when it comes to trying to explain just how pointless the quest for purpose really is to mankind. By wanting to have a so-called purpose or goal we actually strive towards the basic, primitive animal condition since all other creatures exist solely under Nature's clockwork dictate, each existing with precise, imposed goals to fulfil (mostly defined by so-called basic needs/survival instincts). If you think about it, by shaking our heads in despair, crying: "Oh dear, what is the point of life? What am I meant to do with my life? What is my purpose?!" we are not seeing that having no purpose is what frees us, as crazy as that may sound. It's only the primitive little chimp in us that gets scared of the idea... What this really means or what the ramifications are on a greater scale, I just don't know.

Between a loch and a forest

Only this morning I was getting lost in the depths of the Scottish forest... Between a hazy sea of green pastures, tall pines reaching for the foggy skies, and the brown smudge of rolling hills in the distance slithered away the mighty Loch Ness - but I never got a glimpse of the monster (except in my head).

I walked for miles under the glaring cover of clouds and rejoiced every time the gloom was stretched open for a moment to let the sunshine out into the valley, illuminating the sky and the swift-running streams cascading down below into the lazy meanders of a giant lake. With every step I took, it felt as though I was reaching out deeper into a whole other world... a fantasy, a dream...

At some point I reached a forest that looked dead in the clutches of a thick mist, with all the trees stretching towards the sky, their branches akin to naked, twisted arms painfully thrown upwards.

The moaning, screeching and cracking of their limbs in the gusty wind added to the air of gloom that weighed on the forest and I found myself hurrying away, throwing frightened glances around just in case some mischievous creature were to jump at me from the cover of these scarily naked trees.



Nothing happened.

Soon enough, I had reached the Shores of Nowhere where white pebbles shimmer even under the weight of thundery skies. I sat down on a rock by the lazy water that came in waves to caress my feet and stared at the procession of thick clouds gathering further into the horizon.


And then I got back on my feet, climbed a mountain, skipping for a while like a small child along a winding little path that snaked its way between thick bushes speckled with wild flowers and towering pines... gazed at the world down below from so far above, got soaked by a bout of torrential rain, jumped over puddles and streaks of mud, climbed atop small rocky hills on the way, whistled at the birds hiding high in the mighty trees, sung to myself nursery rhymes and various other songs that came to mind... and all the while there was no other around but me, as though I had truly entered another realm... that of ancient myths and legends... and as I walked, and walked, I felt free.

I think I'm getting addicted to long, strenuous walks. They have so far proved the only thing that helps soothe what some choose to call the 'restlessness' of the soul.

Ruminations

I'd almost forgotten one of the rare good scenes in the 'modern' StarWars trilogy telling the ill-fated story of Anakin Skywalker before he turned into Darth Vader. The scene above, along with the music, manages to capture superbly the fateful moment that leads the hero to his own downfall while at the same time showing how everything that unfolds next hinges on one single decision.

We seem to take decisions everyday, from what time we should get up or what we should have for lunch to what school we should send our kids to or if we should even settle down and have kids at all.
But most decisions are influenced by an array of factors already at play that are likely to push us into one particular choice whether we're aware of those factors or not.

In more ways than one, Life is like a narrowing road winding its way into the distance. The moment we get born is arguably when the person's life choices (or 'realm of possibilities') are at their largest, but as the person grows older and an increasing number of internal and external factors are added on along the way, that road narrows down to a thinner and thinner path with less and less room for options to make any turn at all. And as this Life road becomes thinner over time, leaving the person increasingly stuck walking on a thin thread leaving next to no room for anything except walking on ahead, the variety of choices and the dreams or aspirations the person once had dwindle down to obscurity.

I personally like to keep my realm of possibilities as wide as possible, meaning that to this day my Life's road remains much wider than a lot of people out there. One of the biggest downsides in this is that walking along a wider road leaves you prone to getting stuck wandering blindly in circles without even noticing it. I should know for I seem to have got stuck in those circles several times already. And maybe every time I think I've emerged from one it's only to fall straight back into another one.

But what's worse? Walking down a thinning path with blinkers on, or leaving the path wide enough to take the risk of getting lost?

For what it's worth, I don't think I'm getting it. I'm not getting the point... Again, it's like having something right in front of you and not being able to see it. Like searching for a watch everywhere for days only to realise it was sitting in plain sight on your desk all along.

Writer's Block Part II

I feel like a puppet whose strings have been severed, leaving my body slumping to the ground deep below like a broken rag doll... floating away into a netherworld stretching between two realms - society's version of Reality and Reality itself.

I have been made to question whether there is such a thing as too much realism. I went from being intrinsically abstract, idealistic, dreamy and introspective to this person I am now and who I do not know what to make of. I have actually changed so much in the space of 3 years that I can no longer relate to what I wrote in the past, be it in thoughts or in fictional writing. I can't lie to myself, nor can I hide from the fact that I have changed because the writer's block stems from that.

I stare at all my past writings, endlessly wondering: "So that's it, then? All of this never meant anything...It was never me..." Does this mean I might as well burn it all? If I can no longer relate to my writings then it was never really me, or rather it never tapped into the core of I - because if it had, then it would feel more constant and I would still be able to relate no matter how much I changes around the periphery of that core.

Travelling down the river Styx, hopeless shadow of what I once was,

I remember a little girl who would have been good.

I remember the one that should have been and stare at the fraud that took her place,

Reflected in the dark waters of Nowhere.

(Pre-Dive into the Void, Aug. 2006)

If life is about completing 'circles' then this time I may be found leaning over the little boat as I reach out with my hand towards the reflection staring back at me. Whether this move makes the little boat capsize remains to be seen, but even if it does and I find myself drowning, so what?

We cannot 'find' ourselves for there never was anything lost and needing to be found in the first place - everything was always there, but we may not always have been able to see it. If I cannot see then I must train my eyes, inside and out.

I really am pulling a Santiago...

Writer's Block

These days I feel like picking up a bag, throw that bag over my shoulders and walk out the door. Where to? nowhere, everywhere... Just walking. Walking, walking, walking... into the distance, from sunrise to sunset. What a sublime vanishing act this would be.

Words are stuck inside my head like an old chewing gum stuck under a seat. How much more vivid can you get?

So many young people travelling the world these days... but I can never quite shake the feeling that the only reason I want to travel is this search for that all-elusive clarity within, and sometimes just so I could escape my own self. And it doesn't work. It could never work. How could it? You can't 'find' yourself no matter where you go. If you couldn't 'find' yourself right where you are now, you won't 'find' yourself even on top of the highest mountain in the world. Everything, every answer, every solution, every meaning that is ever created, it's all already there and there is nothing to be found because it was always there.

So why can't we see it? Why can't I see it? What is this 'everything that was always there' that I keep searching for as though it needs to be found?

When words are stuck, there's always the use of colours. I've just sort of finished my copy of a Van Gogh but I messed up the patterns on the church's windows. Oh well.

Looking around in my bedroom, what do I see? There is a scattering of old paintings I copied as a teenager - a clumsy rendition of Monet's La Liseuse, a more successful attempt at reproducing one of his winter landscapes (The Magpie), a pencil drawing of Paris' Sacré Coeur next to a sketch of Manet's Venice painting, all of this surrounded by postcards stuck on the wall with blue tack; George Stubbs' Whistlejacket, a few of Turner's fiery seas, Renoir's Lakeside Landscape, and even a still life by Courbet. On the other side and right above the first of two bookshelves stands a copy of Van Gogh's Sunflowers I painted over a decade ago. Further on a copy of Monet's Impression, Sunrise next to a calendar depicting the Lake District and a poster of an old fashioned red double decker bus with the Houses of Parliament in the background. Turn around from there and you will find the writer's desk, full of junk, crunched-up paper, a small stereo, not one but two printers, a messy pile of books, candles, a phone, some hand cream, a few empty cups of tea or coffee, a notepad, a laptop on which I am typing, a scattering of pocket-size flashdrives, and then in one tiny corner right beside the window... three photographs. One of a crystal blue lake nestled between snowy mounts, one of my cat lying across piles of papers scribbled all over, and a tiny picture of my old black cat.

You do not want to look down at the floor where canvas, paints and brushes sit together in a tangle right now. The bed is a knot of sheets, really, and on one of the pillows rests a copy of Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov which I started reading yesterday.

I cannot find myself anywhere but wherever I'm at. What is it that I am not seeing? This urge or longing for far away reaches, the need to walk, and walk, and walk... it is an illusion. Or perhaps I do need to go on a long walking pilgrimage of sorts where I would walk, and walk, and I would not stop until complete physical exhaustion to get rid of the surplus of inner energy. 

If there is nothing to be found, and if everything was always there then why, oh why can I not see it?

Retour aux sources

To have the freedom to do as we please isn't freedom, but to do what we love is. I'd almost forgotten how peaceful and settling it was for me to structure my day fully around the arts. It always feels like home... immersing myself in music while painting, and then immersing myself in writing, without forgetting to lose myself in research - and that research can vary from reading the dictionary for hours in search of new words and turns of phrases, to analysing novels (paying careful attention to other writers' way with words, devices used and style) or simply getting stuck in random books according to what I need to describe in a story. I've been known to borrow books from the library on trees, flowers, architecture, clothing and even carpentry just to get the vocabulary and feel to it just 'right'.
And these things aren't chores, they're the most wonderful pastimes one could have - at least to me. By the time I'm done doing all this throughout the day, it's already night time. But I stopped doing all this years ago as life got in the way. Of course, Life always gets in the way. But the truth is that part of me, no matter how much I knew what I loved, always seemed intent on letting herself be distracted. It's like... knowing exactly where home and fulfilment is and yet like a revolted child choose to wander away in defiance. And that I have done so much that today I realised how much time had passed away from 'home'.

Hesitantly, I retrieved the dusty brushes and paints from their dark corner, sat down on the floor, took a deep breath and... I started painting again. I thought to myself: "I'm so rusty..." The fact is, I haven't painted in almost 8 years. I decided to try my hand with one of my unfinished copies of masters (which I never dutifully copied to the letter). Before I stopped painting completely, I had started on two very different styles: one was a Monet, the other a Van Gogh. I decided to get back in the swing of things with Van Gogh, and my... I'd forgotten how special it was to try and copy his works. You can't be gentle, and you certainly can't be shy when it comes to the amount of paint needed. I started off shy, though, and then slowly my hand loosened its stiffness and I began to feel the same way painting had always made me feel - free to feel the colours, almost like entering some sort of strange trance where the mixing of colours becomes a quest to find the exact one needed... a ritual in itself where the brush is dancing and twirling from the wooden palette to the canvas. And you can't see the result at once! Oh no, you can't. You have to keep at it with the utmost sense of raw passion awakening within but contained in the bursts of colours dancing for you.

I have to admit I am no 'real' painter, but the art itself has always tapped right into the core of my emotions - the colours.

After my frantic dance with colours, I went to wash away the paint on my fingers and sat back down to focus on the writing, just letting it flow and seeing where it'd take me. No need to rush, I am very rusty. Alone in the house, with only myself and the burning passion within no longer distracted by the outside world, I immerse myself in my own bubble and forget everything and everyone. And that is I.

Unfinished business... and far from complete!