| The EndFor at least three
years, I’ve been in caught in an endless litany of inquiry. This should not be surprising to those who know
me; a question becomes, an answer appears, and suddenly there are four
questions to follow up that answer. Clearly,
little has come from this system but personal dissatisfaction and
self-derision. Yet, as this process
continues and I come to realize how little I will ever know, I experience the
sort of unintentional but welcome growth that becomes clear only after looking
back at remnants of my thoughts.
It is with mild embarrassment that
I look back at my old Xanga entries.
This is not limited to Xanga entries, of course; yesterday I looked over
the paper I received the best mark for last year, and its incoherence astounded
me; it seemed almost as if I didn’t know what I was writing about at the
beginning and that the true topic gradually revealed itself (granted I had
written it quite hastily in about 5 hours and it looked the way it was supposed
to; I’ll take my tongue out of my cheek now).
When I try to convince myself that it was not I who wrote these things but
someone else, I might laugh or find myself wholly irritated at the ignorance
that these words had cloaked themselves in.
But the truth is (despite what some philosophers, including myself at
one point, would have you believe) I wrote them, just as I write these
words. As dissimilar as a past version
of myself may be to my transient current version, it is and was and will still
be me, no matter how metamorphosed the latter personage might seem from the
former (the irony here is lost on all but myself).
I thought an excellent way to start
my inquiry would be by looking into myself, following my ancestors’ philosophy
of knowing yourself before you go to petition the god or before you enter
politics, depending on who is interpreting the term ΓΝΩΘΙ ΣΕΑΥΤΟΝ.
But I had been a bit reluctant, as it were, to really know myself
because I was afraid that what I would come to know would not just be
unpleasant, but altogether terrifying. I
was afraid that there was some sort of horrid, rotten core to me that was just
itching to come to the surface and wreak havoc.
But I was forced beneath the surface, led to confront the monster
within, only to realize that his existence was entirely fictional. I am no terror. Despite the potential for harm and evil that
so dwells within my heart it is balanced by my potential for good and is
overwhelmed entirely by my free will, which I have come to believe and
understand is the most valuable part of any human existence.
I suppose my point is, during these years, I’ve
come a long way by means of (drool…dative) this litany despite, or rather, as a
result of the feelings of discontent that endless reasoning bring before
me. I realize this now. I truly realize, with comforting horror that I
can’t cognitively know anything at all. If
this existence is a 7000 piece puzzle, the most I could ever hope for if I
lived for eternity is to have a small sliver of one of the layers of the cardboard
that makes up the edge of a piece. But
this knowledge of the lack of knowledge is a dreadful burden to bear, and
understanding this sometimes makes me wonder if it would have been easier to
have abandoned the path of inquiry and opted for the easier road of
complacence. But these are merely the
cries of a weak man.
However, I must affirm that reason,
despite the gift of comforting horror, is not alone for humanity (of which I
find myself the worst member) for reason is impossible without faith, and faith
is incomprehensible without reason. And
yet, I think I finally understand love.
Only through it is anything ever revealed, and what is revealed is the
most beautiful in existence.
It is thus that I have decided to
retire my Xanga page. Its usefulness has
been overdrawn. I have chosen my words carefully at last, and there is no accident anywhere here. My struggle for growth
has scarcely begun, but it cannot continue here standing upon the foundations
of ignorance. I officially continue here : http://vanvek.blogspot.com/
One last note; it is with deep
regret that I find myself all too late enthralled with the work of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn. May his memory be eternal. I end this with a quote
of his that I found on another blog, and I believe it is the most appropriate
way to end this:
“…. It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed
within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me
that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between
classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human
heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates
with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of
good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small
corner of evil.
…. If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil
deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and
destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of
every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
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