“Sadness gives depth, happiness gives height. Sadness gives roots, happiness gives branches. Happiness is like a tree going into the sky, and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth. Both are needed, and the higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes simultaneously. The bigger the tree, the bigger will be its roots. In fact, it is always in proportion. That's its balance.”
- Osho Rajneesh
As the earnest young gentleman progresses onwards towards the inevitable darkness of eternity and without the certainty of purpose he'd hoped that would bring, he often needs to stop and take stock of things. As he nears decrepitude, cantankerousness, and his future as a helpless invalid the young man ought to take a *moral inventory. ** ***
The above is basically the text book definition of "mortality" with all of the insidiousness and evil it implies. The great killer of vitality: somber thoughts of death and its inevitable (and occasionally imminent) arrival. The vivacious youth running down the hall of the imperial star destroyer being chased by some shadowy figure casting long and ominous shadows. It's only in the third act of this mini play that the author reveals it was only a cleaning droid and the "vivaciousness" was merely artistic license being applied to a "pretty groovy trip from like, the other weekend."**** *****
More often than he wants, that "trail of remembrance" brings with it joy as well as pain. It's impossible to look back on any tragedy and not also find a bit of hope. Just as suffering, pain, and death are part of the human natural condition, hope is the natural human mental condition. Our hero looks back on his painful days and that sweet sorrow he hoped to hold on to slips through his fingers and gets lost in the waters of memory. That's actually why the greeks always associated memory with water.^
There's no immediacy to life anymore and our hero can't help but begrudgingly give in to the flow of the river because try though he might, he can never seem to stand in the same river twice. There's different waters constantly moving past and the fish all look strange and if he watches long enough, even the rocks and mud under his feet slowly move under the onslaught of the ceaseless current.
Insanity is something elusive, clearly. However, it can be loosely defined (metaphorically) by standing in a river and trying to grab hold of the same molecules of water with successive grabs. It won't happen and the gentle man can turn into a vile, angry demon that looks like he's pretending to be a bear catching salmon as he furiously paws at the river water.^^ Scientists have claimed it is possible to do something like this (theoretically) but scientists are all assholes dressed in lab coats.^^^
If our man refuses to let go of the past he runs the risk never finding the future. The opposite is also true.^^^^ This is because his hands would get all wrinkly like he spent too much time in the tub and no one would want to talk to him because his street name would be "Jack-Off Johnson" because everyone would (wrongfully) assume his hands were so wrinkly due to excessive masturbation. No one means to imply masturbation is wrong, it's just unseemly to go out in public all the time looking like he just rubbed one out in the bathroom.^^^^^
The unseemly man shies from his responsibilities to share the wisdom of the rivers. The scientist would rather let the rivers all dry up in their global warming pyramid scheme to control all the water than even intelligently join in the discourse of river wisdom. The foolish man drowns.
The true gentleman, however, knows all these things about rivers and masturbating and pretty groovy trips and he decides instead to share his knowledge and educate the masses. In his benevolence, he sees fit to share the backlog of wisdom~ as well as any future river wisdom or any other wisdom gleaned from metaphors with natural phenomenas.~~
*"Whatever the fuck that means"
**Using an old "netbook" (which is basically just marketing slang for a tiny ass laptop with a terribly awkward keyboard layout) that I salvaged from wherever computers go when they get shitty from running some weird windows/ubuntu bastard and want to just give up and die. Computer island, I'd imagine. For the curious: Inspiron 910 currently running Linux Mint 13 Xfce - only a few minor issues with the wireless but that only took a little bit of head-scratching and some good old fashioned downloading packages from their near idiot proof software center.
***This reminds me of my old history paper writing days except the web editor I'm using to type this (on aforementioned awkward keyboard) doesn't allow me to do proper looking footnotes. Asterisks are working for now but I can't imagine a ninth or tenth "footnote" not looking textually strange.
****Time frame approximate.
*****Even though I used two "footnotes" to footnote about these "footnotes", I am still going to switch to an alternative signifier of for these "footnotes" since five asterisks looks excessive and I dare not attempt six because that's just excessive. Additionally, the more "footnotes" I have will make this look all that more well researched even though I'm really only referencing myself.
^True story, even though the greeks (then and now) are generally a despicable people.
^^Obviously this is artistic license as well because there was no mention of the man roaring in any fashion and bears ALWAYS roar when they try and catch salmon because they're so fierce.
^^^I have no idea if scientists have made this claim but it sure sounds like some ludicrous shit those haughty assholes would say.
^^^^No idea, this may or may not be true.
^^^^^Masturbate (or do vigorous sex (and smoke weed)) everyday.
~You can find this in the recent outpouring of posts to this here old "web" "site". Ye Olde Blog, as I like to call it.
~~Ideally, the forthcoming outpouring of posts to Ye Olde Blog.
