"In the Grotto"...another essay...

I sometimes take pleasure in some of the simplest things you can imagine. It is a good thing that I have this attitude, since as a working father of two teenage boys I barely have time for anything fancy in my life. I won't bore you with the details of all the little things that make me smile, but I will share the latest one that happened over the weekend. It is very common that before my oldest son heads out of the house, if we cross paths he will stop and tell me where he is headed with his friends. I appreciate that gesture immensely because it truly beats the uncertainty of not knowing were he is at during the day. One typical hangout is a small gazebo that was constructed by the city at the corner where the drugstore, pizza, and sandwich place were built just a few years back. Little did the establishments know that this small landmark would turn into a teenage refuge hangout. I have many times driven by on my way back from work and caught from the corner of my eye the unmistakable shape of my oldest son's silhouette. When this happens, and knowing that boys are usually hungry, I then pull into the parking lot and buy a couple of pizzas from the corner shop and simply walked them over to the bunch hanging out and doing their thing. As I drive away and image always comes to mind and makes me smile of piranhas diving into a bloody piece of meat thrown into the Amazon river! From there I just continue the shorter than a mile uphill drive to my home. Less than an hour later though, my son calls me from his cell phone asking if I would not mind going to pick him up so that he does not have to walk up the steep hill to get home. This might sound a bit dumb, but I love it when he calls asking me to pick him up. For one, it's nice to hear him after he has had a good time, his whole demeanor is nice and pleasant. Also, it gives me a chance to talk to him for a few minutes while we ride together in my car. That is why anytime that I am home and he calls, no matter at what time, I put on some shoes and go and get him. As we rode back home I asked him if he had written anything lately, to which he opened a cool psychedelic pouch that a friend game him as a present and pulled out a stack of at least fifty pages and said "all of this...do you want to read one?" The jackpot sign flashes in my head and I eagerly say "yes!" To which he pulls out two typed pages and hands them over to me with a curiously interesting smile. I'm driving, so the only thing I can preview is the title "In the Grotto" to which I comment, "I'll read it today..." as we pull into the driveway and we both exit back into our separate lives once again.

I've read the essay and even though it has a bit of his convoluted and complicated thinking process, I've found it interesting and entertaining at the same time. As usual, I find more than one meaning to his way of thinking, so even though it might be cryptic in nature, after reading it several times I usually am able to see much more of his mind, than just his ability to write fancy words. I am particularly fond of his choice of characters, which even though might easily be identified as the core of humanity, it also represents to me what he finds to be important and relevant to him. I've transcribed it here for you all to read, enjoy, and of course comment if you wish:

In the Grotto

Lost deep within the nameless forest of overgrown vegetation that was once a place of title and importance to the animals that inhabited it, there does exist an open clearing and humble oasis, a brief respite of nourishment for the little apes that roamed the surrounding tangles of trees and foliage. The ground of this valley is of tall woven grass, dancing in the breath of wind echoing out the great hallway to the west, tall willows folding inwards into a patchy earthen roof, like a throat or a tunnel, with no perceivable end. Embedded into the vine-infested northern wall was a sunken grotto, a shallow flooded cave covered by the roof of what had at one time been a profitable alcoholic establishment in some long forgotten age. It opened up into a grand body of water, fed by a thin offshoot of a river leading out of the eastern sea and collected by a hole in the ground uncannily dissimilar to its surroundings.


Through the lush overgrowth one could make out metal structures of ancient design, large formal blocks embedded with the intent of momentary self importance decaying from the inside out, bars protruding from the ground attached to slabs of writing, symbols without meaning or message, their intent lost alongside the matter of their intentions. From the door formed out of time and mind entered Memory, a being of an ulterior plane of existence, who saw through the eyes of the little apes playing by the water, who spoke without words to himself and to all, in the varying amounts whichever of the all would allow themselves to hear. He knew this land and the nature behind it through any and all of the angles it could be known. This gave him an interpretation beyond judgment or precedent, an understanding of the understandableness in what he witnessed. He hung in the folds of space imperceivable and incomprehensive to the primitive creatures and watched them with a quiet foresight.


Within this same plane of existence, wandered another being from the door of time and mind: Moment. He too saw through the eyes of the apes, yet rather than patterns and predictions he would see the beauty and tragedy of individual awareness. He saw the soft moonbeams escaping from in between the leaves to illuminate the water, glowing as if from the inside, washing the grotto with light, dancing off the walls of the cave every time it rippled, and the sight of this pleased him deeply. He then say the haunting remnants of abandoned buildings and evidence of their once abundant creators, with no inclinations as to their disappearance, and this troubled him deeply. He inquired to Memory, "What happened to the creatures that erected these structures? I forget much and do not remember their histories."


"They were not unlike the apes in the valley," Memory replied. "They were of the moment, much like yourself. Because they understood not anything beyond the moment, they feared what it might hold. But most of all, they feared death, the absence of moment, as they did not understand nor appreciate its nature. This fear caused them to indulge in the moment, to indulge in passion, to indulge in power, to indulge in love and lust and hate and anger, to indulge, ultimately, in themselves. Their indulgences were rationalized and protected by delusions, by morality, by religion, by government, and these delusions were in turn rationalized and protected by indulgences, an unnecessary cycle of fear. But some of them believed in delusions different than others, and they felt that this threatened the validity of theirs, so they protected it using the same fear it had manifested from. They would kill each other over the masses, all in the name of delusions and fear. They would condition the young to be the same, to serve the delusion, motivated by fear, fear of being wrong, fear of being unhappy, fear of imprisonment, fear of eternal damnation, fear of death. As they found new, grander ways to instill this fear, the consequences grew exponentially up until the inevitable event horizon. A method of motivation got into the wrong hands of a man so twisted by delusions he used it and killed almost every living thing on this planet."


Moment paused to fully appreciate the tragedy of what he had just been told, "How truly terrible. What a dark drama the tale of these poor creatures is, foiled by what they were striving to protect, blind or at least dispassionate to the consequences of their actions. Although perhaps this place is better off without theme because of it."


"Look at the apes," interjected Memory, "They already act in the same way. The one atop the rock appears to be the leader of this group. He has lived long, he is fast to learn, he gathers the most food. The rest of them see this and they try to mimic it, because he is the one indulging the most out of life and successfully avoiding death. Allow what to them may seem like a very long time to pass, and these relationships and interactions will get more complicated, the delusion will have changed but the fear will still be there, the species will have learned but they will always act through ignorance. That is the nature of all life, functional ignorance. There was nothing wrong with the species of men, they were just alive, they were just aware, they were just animals, and eventually these animals will do the exact same thing. You could point fingers at all the people killed without reason, talking of actions unjust, but to believe these actions unjust is merely another delusion, motivated by more fear of death. The acts of man or beast are neither just nor unjust, neither good nor bad, they just are."


It took Moment some brief effort to find some passion in the idea of dispassionateness, but it was there. "I am of the moment, I only know of the delusions I indulge in, I only know that I know nothing, so I can never fully appreciate and understand such truths, yet I can appreciate and understand the qualities and implications of those truths. They are of an eternal cosmic harmony, cyclistic and communal, fundamental and intricate, a deterministic order underlying the chaos. It is of an infinitely beautiful and tragic potential, which to me is both infinitely beautiful and tragic. The deepest passion lies within the lack of passion, as to even comprehend of something so pure and so grand is beyond any potential capabilities of comprehension, a perpetual indulgence." Moment watched once again through the eyes of the apes, now with an even deeper appreciation for the inevitable tragedy of their species, and for the dramatic beauty of the journey.


In the folds of space inconceivable and incomprehensive to Moment and Memory hung a being of ulterior plane of existence with no name and no manner. He had no one to talk to and nothing to say, and the nature of men and apes, Moment and Memory, time and mind, were nothing more than components to and of him. He saw through their eyes, as they saw through the eyes of the apes, playing among the ruins of New York, drunk off the strange liquid they discovered in the back of the grotto, too busy with intoxications and indulgences and delusions to take notice of anything besides themselves.


End.