I think there are some important things worth considering when one is or falls in love. There is, firstly, an insurmountable desire, an intense longing, the need to sate a primal drive. This, I would say, is the "lesser" form of love. This is not lesser as in worth less; this lesser should be taken to mean low-level, basic, fundamental. This need is essentially the core neurobiological aspect of love. And it is indeed a need because lesser love, in its most basic form, is the basis of all human relationships, of all human affinities. It is social, it is sexual, it is physical and it is chemical.
But there is something else that happens when love happens. Something that does not happen to all those who think or know or feel themselves in love. This other aspect is a psychic binding between two beings. This is the greater form of love. It is, I think, very much a rarer level of attachment that is not usually reached in a love affair. What are its characteristics? Well, first and foremost it requires little impetus once it is engendered, but necessitates a fierce commitment to be attained. But paradoxically, this commitment is not replete with force or drive. Rather, it has a kinetic energy behind it. That is, there is tremendous potential impetus behind this transition into "greater" love, but its force is never overtly demonstrated. The ascent to this kind of love is almost like a conceding in the face of a much stronger, much more powerful adversary, one that does not need to utilise their unmatched weaponry. It is love achieved through superior, yet unused, firepower.
Secondly, this binding leads to complete devotion, such that is, arguably, wholly irrational. This devotion is effectively a wilful relinquishing of one's well-being for another. Now, I do not mean that one actively disregards one's well-being; I simply mean that one would wilfully supplant one's own well-being with another's. And this is irrational as self-preservation (and, therefore, well-being of self) is the prime mandate of living beings. Therefore, we can say that higher love, true love, is beyond the natural order of life, beyond the in-woven reason that directs (for the most part) higher awareness and volition. This rare, exquisite love is, I would argue, a step toward a greater form of being. It is a transcending into the next echelon of reality.
M.M. — 24-May-2015
24 May 2015
23 May 2015
I Killed Myself
"The man who lives without conflict, who lives with beauty and love, is not frightened of death because to love is to die." — Jiddu Krishnamurti
One Saturday afternoon, I killed myself.
The murder was deliberated, calculated and formulated.
It was exact, meticulous and carried out with vengeful prejudice.
I assembled the pyre, upon which I threw myself and was immolated.
I went out to the ends of the earth, far to the nowhere-places of the world;
I went to the barren deserts, and the primordial realms of ice,
and to the summits of kilometre-high mountains that assail the sky—
I travelled these distances to dig my own grave.
I dug it, my place to rest for eternity, with my own very hands.
And there I lay myself, and buried myself, and died, and rotted away.
In the deepest trenches of the wrathful ocean I drowned myself,
and let my decrepit and withered soul sink down to the forgotten-darkness.
The Man I was—he who had an aching heart—I killed him.
I saw in him too much pain, felt too much of his pent up passion;
I knew these things too well of him—and so I sentenced him to die.
He was too connected to the world, both the external and his own.
The weight of perception and emotion was inhuman,
the heft of his heart too burdensome for me.
In all things he saw myself. At all times he strived, this maddened Man.
A son of Icarus, he flew too high to kiss the sun.
He burned, he burned. He burned and so he had to die.
Yes, it was all of him. Every particle of his being. I destroyed it all.
I nullified his conation, erased his mind and memory, throttled his weakening breath.
With razor-sharp implements I cut, I cut. I cut out his fear, severed his fear from him.
I was relentless, methodical. I left no trace of him. Yes, I annihilated him.
And when there was nothing left,
only he-I was left....
*
One afternoon, I killed myself. And it was then that I was born.
From out of the fire and ashes, from out the grave,
ascended from the abyssal deep, released from the death-grasp—
I came into new being, of the same form, but not;
as a murderer of the Self, and life-giver of the Self.
From death I became myself,
I became my own Love.
M.M. — 23-May-2015
One Saturday afternoon, I killed myself.
The murder was deliberated, calculated and formulated.
It was exact, meticulous and carried out with vengeful prejudice.
I assembled the pyre, upon which I threw myself and was immolated.
I went out to the ends of the earth, far to the nowhere-places of the world;
I went to the barren deserts, and the primordial realms of ice,
and to the summits of kilometre-high mountains that assail the sky—
I travelled these distances to dig my own grave.
I dug it, my place to rest for eternity, with my own very hands.
And there I lay myself, and buried myself, and died, and rotted away.
In the deepest trenches of the wrathful ocean I drowned myself,
and let my decrepit and withered soul sink down to the forgotten-darkness.
The Man I was—he who had an aching heart—I killed him.
I saw in him too much pain, felt too much of his pent up passion;
I knew these things too well of him—and so I sentenced him to die.
He was too connected to the world, both the external and his own.
The weight of perception and emotion was inhuman,
the heft of his heart too burdensome for me.
In all things he saw myself. At all times he strived, this maddened Man.
A son of Icarus, he flew too high to kiss the sun.
He burned, he burned. He burned and so he had to die.
Yes, it was all of him. Every particle of his being. I destroyed it all.
I nullified his conation, erased his mind and memory, throttled his weakening breath.
With razor-sharp implements I cut, I cut. I cut out his fear, severed his fear from him.
I was relentless, methodical. I left no trace of him. Yes, I annihilated him.
And when there was nothing left,
only he-I was left....
*
One afternoon, I killed myself. And it was then that I was born.
From out of the fire and ashes, from out the grave,
ascended from the abyssal deep, released from the death-grasp—
I came into new being, of the same form, but not;
as a murderer of the Self, and life-giver of the Self.
From death I became myself,
I became my own Love.
M.M. — 23-May-2015
20 May 2015
Love, Damnation
No worse damnation than love.
A riot and torrent within a mind confined.
Mounting pressure pushing against the walls.
No escape, nowhere to escape to.
Not even in the wilderness of dream.
Not even in death-like sleep, or forlorn night.
Her onset was thunderous pummelling.
A wrenching of the soul, slowly becoming askew.
Withering heart, kept perpetual.
Writhing from the start, with no end foreseeable.
Every solution is a grand idea, and circular.
The wave has overcome and the dry shore wiped away.
The recession of the waters a decision for time.
M.M. — 20-May-2015
A riot and torrent within a mind confined.
Mounting pressure pushing against the walls.
No escape, nowhere to escape to.
Not even in the wilderness of dream.
Not even in death-like sleep, or forlorn night.
Her onset was thunderous pummelling.
A wrenching of the soul, slowly becoming askew.
Withering heart, kept perpetual.
Writhing from the start, with no end foreseeable.
Every solution is a grand idea, and circular.
The wave has overcome and the dry shore wiped away.
The recession of the waters a decision for time.
M.M. — 20-May-2015
13 May 2015
Where we come from
We came from the stars
We were born amongst the first fires
Within the processes that have continued for billions of years
we were forged and fashioned
The wombs of suns were our first home
and we stood, side by side, with the fragments of the cosmos
Do you remember? Do you remember the light? And the darkness?
I can still feel the heat and hear the vibrating atoms
I am taken back to the First Moment in my dreams and daytime reveries
This is where we come from
In the cradle of the universe, out in the measureless distance
Our origin and terminal repose
M.M. — 13-May-2015
We were born amongst the first fires
Within the processes that have continued for billions of years
we were forged and fashioned
The wombs of suns were our first home
and we stood, side by side, with the fragments of the cosmos
Do you remember? Do you remember the light? And the darkness?
I can still feel the heat and hear the vibrating atoms
I am taken back to the First Moment in my dreams and daytime reveries
This is where we come from
In the cradle of the universe, out in the measureless distance
Our origin and terminal repose
M.M. — 13-May-2015
11 May 2015
"Darkness is a strange thing"
Transcribed from an audio recording.
Darkness is a strange thing. It has no real dimension, no possible way of being measured, as such. It seems to have some sort of depth, occupy some sort of space. But...its extent is...difficult to appraise, to gauge. Nightly I stare into the abyss and contemplate within it, both of it and the things that manifest themselves within it, as I sit there, as I am there.... There are things alive and living in the darkness. And not to be misunderstood, but not all things in the dark are dark. There are colourful things, lively with...almost a strange plumage of fascinating colours...or so it seems. They move freely in the dark, like they dart around, like sparks of light coming off, or sparking off, and just as soon extinguishing, or being extinguished. They move around in this dimensionless void. And yet they don't seem to go anywhere, per se. Maybe it's me who goes and they stay, in the same space, the same position. The infinity of the blackness is probably the most salient of things, its most salient characteristic. Its infinity...is represented by the...limitless...thoughts...that are conjured within it. They are so multifaceted, to say the least. Again, not all dark, but there certainly are some quite dark ones.... Sometimes I'm here for what seems like extended periods of time. But it's not really; it's just that time is almost...a void concept, a null concept. It does not apply in the void. As if there were no beginning and no end. Just as there is no width or height or depth. There is simply infinity and eternity.... And it is the most curious thing I've ever come across in my life.
M.M. — 22:52, 02-May-2015
Darkness is a strange thing. It has no real dimension, no possible way of being measured, as such. It seems to have some sort of depth, occupy some sort of space. But...its extent is...difficult to appraise, to gauge. Nightly I stare into the abyss and contemplate within it, both of it and the things that manifest themselves within it, as I sit there, as I am there.... There are things alive and living in the darkness. And not to be misunderstood, but not all things in the dark are dark. There are colourful things, lively with...almost a strange plumage of fascinating colours...or so it seems. They move freely in the dark, like they dart around, like sparks of light coming off, or sparking off, and just as soon extinguishing, or being extinguished. They move around in this dimensionless void. And yet they don't seem to go anywhere, per se. Maybe it's me who goes and they stay, in the same space, the same position. The infinity of the blackness is probably the most salient of things, its most salient characteristic. Its infinity...is represented by the...limitless...thoughts...that are conjured within it. They are so multifaceted, to say the least. Again, not all dark, but there certainly are some quite dark ones.... Sometimes I'm here for what seems like extended periods of time. But it's not really; it's just that time is almost...a void concept, a null concept. It does not apply in the void. As if there were no beginning and no end. Just as there is no width or height or depth. There is simply infinity and eternity.... And it is the most curious thing I've ever come across in my life.
M.M. — 22:52, 02-May-2015
06 May 2015
Possibility
Limitations. Today I realised just how entrenched in my psyche limitations are. Lately I've been considering my own happiness and whether I'm doing all that I can to nurture it. I've realised that (for lack of a better word) "attaining" my happiness is blocked by certain barriers. And I don't mean barriers in the physical or external world; I mean the boundaries that enclose me and bar me from going forward, toward all the things that I want and all the things I believe are necessary for my being happy. I can see the man I would be if I were completely happy—or rather the versions of myself where I am replete with happiness and the scenarios that would allow that to happen. But certain things prevent me from becoming that man.
It's unimportant to detail what those things are, rather, it is that I'm now very conscious of how...insubstantial...they now seem to me. These limitations, I feel, could be toppled so easily...and yet they are the most stalwart impediments that I push against every damn day. But to take an example, I'm constantly being torn between my emotional mind and my rational mind. Between my "weaponised" logic and my primal emotion. And although I don't believe reason and emotion to be mutually exclusive (that makes no sense to me), I find it quite difficult to find the right "balance" such that both work for and not against my well-being.
But to return to this idea of insubstantiality: what is it? Why do I feel these limitations in my head could be knocked down with a simple push of the hand? That I could attain this happiness that I so desire? It is the possibility of happiness. That's what it is. It is that it is possible to break through the barriers in my mind, that I can fight for what I want. It is that I have the drive, the capability and the will to become the man I fantasise about. And there it is: the groundwork for the manifestation of the Will. That is, the inherent, and limitless, volition within me—within all of us—that steers our very souls.
M.M. — 06-May-2015
It's unimportant to detail what those things are, rather, it is that I'm now very conscious of how...insubstantial...they now seem to me. These limitations, I feel, could be toppled so easily...and yet they are the most stalwart impediments that I push against every damn day. But to take an example, I'm constantly being torn between my emotional mind and my rational mind. Between my "weaponised" logic and my primal emotion. And although I don't believe reason and emotion to be mutually exclusive (that makes no sense to me), I find it quite difficult to find the right "balance" such that both work for and not against my well-being.
But to return to this idea of insubstantiality: what is it? Why do I feel these limitations in my head could be knocked down with a simple push of the hand? That I could attain this happiness that I so desire? It is the possibility of happiness. That's what it is. It is that it is possible to break through the barriers in my mind, that I can fight for what I want. It is that I have the drive, the capability and the will to become the man I fantasise about. And there it is: the groundwork for the manifestation of the Will. That is, the inherent, and limitless, volition within me—within all of us—that steers our very souls.
M.M. — 06-May-2015
03 May 2015
"Everday we fight our battles"
[Transcribed from an audio recording.]
For A.
Every day we fight our battles, each one of us. No matter how small or big, trivial or...fundamental, we all fight.... Sometimes I wonder what makes us fight, makes us continue. Why not just give up? What makes us so strong? Or want to be strong? Is it something that we're taught, something that we learn? Something that is expected of us? I don't think so. I think it's something that is...inherent in us. It is a natural part of us.... In my formative years, shall we say, I was so confused about who I was and what I was to become—or, who I wanted to be and what I thought I would become. But...there was something I always felt to be certain. That was my inner strength. It took me years to fully understand how to harness it. Even now I'm not sure how, how I learned to do that. But, then, that's just it: it's not learning, it's simply becoming. I became strong. I am strong. I know that it lives within me because it is a part of me, and I just know how to...live off it, drink from its source. Yes, I struggle every day—we all do. The reason why we don't just quit or give up is because...it's because our strength forbids it. It does not understand failure or capitulation. It is a foreign concept to it. No. We are not...ones for failure or defeat. We are victors. We are conquerors. And we will always strive against the tide.... Because...because we are...undefeatable.... We will always fight. We always fight until we have won.
M.M. — 22:59, 30-Apr-2015
For A.
Every day we fight our battles, each one of us. No matter how small or big, trivial or...fundamental, we all fight.... Sometimes I wonder what makes us fight, makes us continue. Why not just give up? What makes us so strong? Or want to be strong? Is it something that we're taught, something that we learn? Something that is expected of us? I don't think so. I think it's something that is...inherent in us. It is a natural part of us.... In my formative years, shall we say, I was so confused about who I was and what I was to become—or, who I wanted to be and what I thought I would become. But...there was something I always felt to be certain. That was my inner strength. It took me years to fully understand how to harness it. Even now I'm not sure how, how I learned to do that. But, then, that's just it: it's not learning, it's simply becoming. I became strong. I am strong. I know that it lives within me because it is a part of me, and I just know how to...live off it, drink from its source. Yes, I struggle every day—we all do. The reason why we don't just quit or give up is because...it's because our strength forbids it. It does not understand failure or capitulation. It is a foreign concept to it. No. We are not...ones for failure or defeat. We are victors. We are conquerors. And we will always strive against the tide.... Because...because we are...undefeatable.... We will always fight. We always fight until we have won.
M.M. — 22:59, 30-Apr-2015
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