True Sadness

When I try to take my look away from the monument I created myself, I recall one unflattering detail of my sensation to Alan. I recall my childhood turquoise blanket which was a witness to the sufferings tearing my childhood soul apart because a spirit from another world settled there – love which, with its sharp blade, separated platonic passion from carnal, and sensation from vice. Alan’s sensation gave birth to intimacy that was immediately joined by vice, which made me dream of Alan and I was scared of my thoughts. My appetence to Alan didn’t stop my appetence to girls, in fact, it didn’t distinguish between these appetences. Separating different beings, “the sensation” presents each of them with freshness of perception and happiness – my separation to men and women happened just because of the knowledge of vice which is stored in a man and lack of the knowledge of a vice which lives in a woman; it makes me behave correspondingly and forms a different attitude to those. Dreaming of sensual pleasures, first, my soul was in the field of sensation, and so, it dreamed of a woman but the further my soul took me, the further I went from the sensation and the more I dreamed of Alan – the deeper I gave in to vice. This work is done by every soul of each person, and the ways are quite definite. You can separate vice into two parts, throwing away one of them, and so, you will be dreaming of women as you would about men. You can deny vice, and it – due to its nature, and everything natural is very resilient – will evolve into other forms and will start to manifest itself in your activities. You can surrender to vice but then the sensations will disappear. You can always coordinate sensations and vice but then you will be dependent of love which gave birth to this contradiction. Can we comprehend vice? My appetence later was forgotten but the thought of it came back to me after what had happened.

From aside, Alan might have triggered completely different feelings that I had. I sometimes understood that I had never seen such a combination of obtusity and originality. He actually could infuriate with his stupidity but his unique outlook made him attractive. I think he himself realized his worthlessness and with all his effort was trying to become better, seeing the only one way to this – to be original. When he was not allowed to be himself, he immediately started a conflict: usually a calm person, he burst out becoming a brainless bull or a hysterical little girl. While growing up, Alan was dreaming of different ways of his development. Having learned about the past era, he wanted to escape “the island” and study the whole planet finding other places of life. Later, like the majority of other residents, he dreamed of building a perfect society on “the island”. Having read utopian literature, he thought that the problem of a perfect society had always been in the scale of this project realization – everything seemed too abstract. In our case the problem of the scale was solved naturally.

In the moments of loneliness Alan strived for going to the desert and wandering there until his remnants of memory disappear together with the sensation of time. He used to recall that in his childhood science attracted him because imagination didn’t aspire to comprehend the truth – it aspired to invent it. Later, Alan took up more practical ways of comprehension, this is how he could directly influence the truth and get a feedback. But the limits of such comprehension made him bored quite fast, because his imagination couldn’t find any life in it. He admired electricity, which fascinated his imagination, but household devices which depended on it, made him frustrated. All these ways joined in Alan by the time of his growing-up, and he always had to jump from one concept to another, producing an impression of a reserved but curious young man with a bit of a wild look. The idea to organize the trip abroad came to him in the moment of the deepest self-identification crisis: after a number of obsessive aspirations to do whatever but not to halt at one thing. He studied the motions of ants in an anthill, took up ornithology, arduously tried to understand the relativity theory and ecstatically went through cookbooks.

But let us come back to just another attempt of islanders to go beyond the border. It must be noted that on the day when Alan told me about his idea to go beyond, a retired patient died of a stroke. I had been taking care of this patient for a month and studied him well, even though he couldn’t say a comprehensible word. His image pierced through the mask of his disease: he made an impression of a stingy and capricious person because of his sunk look independent of his memory. Alan would see the results of neglected flaccidity in the man – he was always irritated by people without natural generosity, what made him behave really courteously with hypocritical people who, in the first place, try to represent benevolence and sympathy. That day he died of doctors’ malpractice, who prescribed him incompatible medicines. But their attempts to interact with him initially looked like communication of prison wardens with a retarded criminal. When I was first taken to him, he was tied to bed, as he was said to “show aggression”, but in the first two hours in his room I was able to acquire rapport – I had no sympathy to his mutilated body and no pity to his condition but the desire to communicate with a person who appeared to be in one room with me. This was the reason why the care for him was given to me, and I started to feel direct responsibility for his life, which refined my perception. That is why his death impressed me – I was furious.

If we look more attentively, our mentality works like a camera obscura: our consciousness presents some dark soggy room with a tiny hole, and an ethereal divine hand sends us shapes of the external world with a ray of light, but we receive an inverse and vague image and we have to cleanse the field of our turmoil of those vague images; though more often we concentrate on these scattered pictures, keeping only impressions and, finally, we live not in our mentality, which like an eye has to look to see, but in the kaleidoscope of our impressions, which turns our turmoil into a dense forest with various plants and insects with no colour, smell, taste or matter but with an enviable submission to our narcissism.

It is just the analogy I recollected but not from the death, that I had seen a lot of times, but from a legendary abyss between people – detachment. Pronouncing this word with just a touch with it I find myself in that room smelling of medicines, besotted with its sharpness and with a feeling of detachment as if you are in the devil’s office. Limitless vials and syringes as vessels of an ancient alchemist surrounded the dying, in order to press the soul to the body and not let it go, but they did serve to the decomposition of this body just as the room itself – decomposing of the various smells. Earlier I liked this combination of smells for their specific atmosphere of worship of a human’s desire to live, as frankincense opens the temple doors to worship the desire to believe. But it is a peculiar law of feelings that affects our perception.

We do not live by judgments, we live in a special world of feelings, an endless stream engulfing our energy, which can be renewed only by our suffering, and we can guess that by the movement of our thoughts, whose acuteness, in a greater degree, is shown in the moments of deep loneliness or loss, when we are ready to perform really heroic actions in good faith, with no conceptions and arrangements – on the contrary, all the chaos of these ideas confines our mentality in the moments of pleasure, which delivers envy, and we begin to consider all the received pleasures as a part of justification for our previous sufferings, but the true nature of the feeling is that it cannot be an entity, and so we have to form different feelings towards familiar places and people, familiar events and thoughts – they are in fact difficult to distinguish in our mentality, and we sometimes perceive more details of environment that thoughts in a person; additionally, we constantly have to feel our own existence, which is hardest to do, because we don’t want to reject places, people, thoughts and events as their loss leads to the loss of ourselves, our warm corner of life, in which I futilely tried to put the death of this man – with all my persistence I wanted to make it my own comprehension of life, but this spiritual passion emerged not due to his death but as a result of its incomprehensibility for myself and the impossibility to react to it in any way because I (if we remember my own feelings) have always seen sufferings and I understood that death was a real gift for that man, although, the thought of it was so exotic for my mentality that I was trying to outvoice myself so as to conclude that continuation of life would be the best outcome for him because the man’s identity and his sufferings joined in an integral whole and the real face showed only when the sufferings disappeared and I started to find living feelings towards him as I stopped seeing his sufferings. And now I see living feelings towards Alan too.

It was midday when this patient died.

To distract myself I accepted Alan’s earlier invitation to visit a famous venue orotundly called “Port Charlotte”, that offered the best smoking narcotic mixes, which disgusted me. Because of his eccentricity, Alan visited this place quite often. He always persuaded me that this experience is a wonderful method of work with one’s mentality. Without excessive attraction, these mixes could open new ways for contemplation, Alan said to me, and that day I yielded to his suasions but because of the horrific fear of this harmless action I decided to note down all my experiences in order to gain myself back deciphering the notes if something goes wrong. This experience was overshadowed by the necessity to communicate with Alan’s friends, whom I had never liked, but I needed to distract. Being in the basement of an old residential house on Owen Street, which crept out like a dead man’s bony arm from a grave in this quickly developing district of our island, I was irritated by each perceived object – this building of architecture, forever painted pink, made an impression of a dummy which is tried to be presented as a museum exhibit; this Alan’s drug habit made me despise all of him, as it subdued all his enriched impulses of self-realization with a vulgar attempt to leave for the lair of his fantasies, but on that day even more irritation was caused by the street name with the surname meaningless to me, so I submerged into this patch of the conceptual approach to life comprehension with a squeamish feeling towards myself.

On this joyless and boring patch, in addition to my nasty disposition, Alan introduced me to a so-called disciple of art, whom he admired, however, this young man completed my picture of loneliness because he seemed a really “vulgar larva of society” (using Mr. Huxley’s expression). But it was him who made me look at Alan in a different way – as if by accident, providence put these two people together to make their faults intensify each other. Staying in the presence of this man I realized why I had always considered Alan “weaselly” – I even felt “weaselly” myself. The worst was the fact that a mediocrity considered himself something unique and stood in front of his art not giving it its own word. This genius was beaming with “simplicity of truth” in this dark room of the painted building, but in a complex refraction we see a more colourless yet more clear image than looking at a direct source of light: mediocrity always strives to shine filling the space of impression with dancing shadows – this is why we cannot descry what a person or their art really are.

And I think he understands how much I despise him and so he closes even more in his shell because the opinion similar to mine is encountered not for the first time, and it serves just as a confirmation of poor judgement of the “collective consciousness”, although, observing it from my position, I can see the manifestation of this phenomenon towards him too. Genuine people of art, whom I love, unlike Mr. X, didn’t suffer from “conceptualism” though their approach was not understood by many – I’d better say, it was understood by all but it took time to perceive it, it required concentration and presence of some kind of ambition. They didn’t shine with meaninglessness but tried to find its reflection in their own lives, so their art didn’t lose gravity – it could be imperfect, undeveloped or unfinished, but it had spirit while Mr. X paraded his impotence of creative outlook, showing hard work and achieving “high quality” in unworthy things, which made a spectator feel own pretension. Does a spectator have to feel their presence in a work of art at all, does he have to feel that he is addressed? I don’t think so – the difference between people is so tiny that we can raise our creative outlook to Olympus, that will be inaccessible to the others, that is why I see the right way in creating a single outlook with a spectator not in achieving infinite levels of abstraction, which lose their content more each time an author (similar to Mr. X) tries to input more meaning in them. In the limitless vastness of my ego, I can imagine that my text will be read by people of next generations, it is possible that our island will disappear and the Earth will be united again, and my text will present only historic value, but all of this is a farfetched position – eternity and supertemporal actuality manifests itself with a maximal closeness to the mysticism of an author’s current moment. While I am on the island, no matter how familiar and banal it is for me, no matter how much I want to go beyond – I will be writing about the island, not inventing something extra, and also about the project of going abroad, which Alan produced.

In the heat of such passion, because of influence of the irritating environment and even more irritating Mr. X, I was finally allowed to fulfil my experience when some of Alan’s friends had already passed substantive way in this direction. At some moment they reminded me of a pack of headless space chickens, but their condition helped me to relax and not to feel embarrassed by my notebook, in which I recorded my experience on a low and hardly noticeable table, falling deeper and deeper into the atmosphere of a smoke-filled room and dark green walls with velvety surface of floral patterns.

“First, it’s frightening, then you get used to it. I’m unreasonably fun. As if I’m in a dream. I’m afraid it will affect my cognitive abilities (fear of castration). There’s no time, I’m moving in time and space (!). I have no responsibility (!). I’m interested to learn. I don’t perceive all the reality. I have a feeling that I will forget it all like a dream. They say, the events will stay in my memory. We’ll see. I live with feelings. You must just think of a feeling and you start fulfilling it. I’m moved by something inner. It might be instincts, it might be a part of my thoughts that rule me. It’s not repressed, I don’t feel fear. I might not understand that I am alive. I don’t believe I can manage it to the table. I can’t think concretely (!) and invent. I can count, I’m totally rational, do what my brain orders, but with all it – it’s not ME. I am different. Level of banality decreased. I answer rationally but not the way I would answer. I am not ashamed. Although some repressed traits of character reappear. I start to obey the flock, looking for a leader. I’m eccentric, but I understand this is not real ME and so, I’m not afraid to behave this way. I am sometimes afraid to stay like this forever. I can’t articulate words well. The more I’m surprised with this difficulty, the bigger it becomes. It’s funny. I speak slowly. At first, I thought that my heart stopped but then I felt it was beating too slowly. It might not be true! I’m beyond the time. At some moment everything started to whirl but not for long. I perceive people as mine among those who have also taken it, others are not from our narrow world. There are only them and matter. At some moment voices started to be heard as prophetic, especially at the beginning. I think that nobody hears me. I suddenly thought that I am somewhere far away (!), something is happening to me, I’m in a dream”.

I am ashamed to admit that during this experience I almost started to love the people around me, including Mr. X, however, as I had expected, this experience later evoked negative reactions in me as I had always been dedicated to the love phenomenon of my soul to waste it on despised people. In addition, being charged with own impressions doesn’t give the output to new spheres, where the doubt in your own sensations must always serve as a defense from the monsters of your unrestrained fantasy, and where the question “Is our whole life a dream?” nourishes every receptor of our life with pleasant sensations of spiritual independence. Here I recall again the story of poor Hoici: once he dreamed that he was an owl whiter than a snowy desert, and the sensation of being this creature appealed to him so much that he covered unthinkable distances in his dream and closer to his wake he saw the eyes of a lonely wanderer who engulfed him with his sad blue look, and to the question: “Why are you so sad?” the wanderer answered: “I have been listening to this forest spirits’ tales for too long on condition that I will never tell them to people, but I told them to my beloved and they took away my ears. Waking up, Hoici couldn’t decide who he is: an owl, an earless wanderer or Hoici, and are those owls what they seem, and are people what they think of themselves?

But Alan was proud of his broad-mindedness and, probably, the leap of his narcotic imagination pushed him to develop the idea of going abroad, which he had mentioned before. He told me about his determination the next day in my room. He came early in the morning, which he hadn’t often done, and almost immediately went to the core of his topic, giving numerous reasons and tending to a cup almost every second – he seemed to be in a tense disposition and drank a lot of coffee. But for me, it was more interesting to gaze at morning rays of light on the table, which seemed especially golden and nonintrusive that day. But when I understood what Alan was talking about, his decision was unexpected to me and hinting me how badly we know our friends and relatives: or, rather we know their static state, but when comes the time of change, only true feelings and sensations remain stable, all the rest is swept from the field of our life.

– Physics, philosophy – they will never lead to significant advances because they don’t have anything new. We need a novel method of uncovering reality, which the island gives. We must be engaged in an idea of a real movement. These people sitting still and scared of everything that will not help them warm their flabby snouts must not be the landmarks in our search. They can’t even buy flowers to fuck well. Going beyond is a wonderful idea not to dry out in this bog. You know, I have been thinking a lot about mentality and concluded that you were right – everything that we see is an illusion. I am sure that we can invent an instrument to break this illusion and find the way to new realities…

After these words I felt such a stream of inner malice and violence that his words still sound in my head like a prophecy harbingering the upcoming disaster – I have never talked about the evanescence of reality and when I was talking about “illusion”, I only meant our personal inability to perceive accumulating layers of perception, which take so much of our energy, that we are often unable to understand everything according to its inner nature.

– I recall you were going to start a family? – I asked half-jokingly to stop this delirium, but indignation from my phrase spread over his face.

– Children are too easy, it’s the easiest way to achieve something, but then we will never move and will die of hunger on this island – sooner or later, it is going to happen as said in your lecture by… – here Alan mentioned the name which I completely forgot, but whose lectures he really liked – I was looking for these lectures later but couldn’t find, or I might not have wanted to find, – you must listen to them. He actually speaks about illusions which surround us.

– Yes, but I meant those illusions that are only in ourselves, and the problem itself never leaves our mentality. As if it exists only in us. Why do you think that we are surrounded by some worlds? – I had a feeling that I was talking to Alan for the first time, although, I had already had this impression before.

I gradually started to lose the thread of our conversation and started to concentrate on my own soul. Only some words and sensations were left in my memory after this dialogue. “Maybe, you don’t want to develop your idea yourself?”. “No, I meant a completely different thing”. “I think you go aside from the real way”. “What is the criterion of this way?”. “We can prove it. You can’t prove philosophy – it’s just a fib and yet another illusion”. “I don’t think so, do you want to go abroad the island?”. “Yes, this exit is the most important for our island, though being a dangerous enterprise”. “Whyever did you start to have such thoughts?”. “I was observing a bee flying in our flat, that was banging the glass to fly away but couldn’t notice an open window in two metres. It was so silly and limited. I didn’t help it because my help would have killed its will. I was just watching her hit and thought that we are banging in the same way. We are no less unhappy than this bee. Suddenly I was so furious with these snotty thoughts – I wanted to jump out of the window myself, but then returned to my human consciousness and understood that the window is our border”.

Earlier I liked various analogies, which seem to help to understand the topic, but later, when Alan did what he did, I found their dangerous meaning. Analogies are an attempt to manifest your thought for another person and they serve as an excellent way to explain, but any explanation is justification, even a scientific one is justification, which we recourse to admit our inability to understand a deeper truth than a shallow comparison of a person to a bee. But “I decided to go abroad and even if I go alone, so be it” and “I am used to being not understood by people, to inability of achieving synergy with them, although I expected another reaction from you, but you just stuck too deep in your thinking – lately I haven’t understood it at all”.

Ursula

Following my spiritual weakness, I agreed to think about my participation in the mission, although I was sure of my resounding refusal, again, due to my cowardice – contemplation of a faint-hearted philosopher was much nicer to me than useless bravado of newly-minted knights, but inside I agreed to observe the project process and take part in its preparation. I also hoped that Alan would face the strict principles of his beloved, who would take decisive measures in order to nip this project in the bud. Ursula. Incredibly skinny, a bit taller than Alan and with an eagle face. She was a real stalker in life, a strategist in communication, a curious child in thinking, and in my imagination was always presented as an amazon grown up in the wild forests abroad the island. Her original light mannerism shifted my understanding of beauty, and I started learning to find charm in all faces – both men’s and women’s, gradually removing the layers of sociality and intellectuality from genuine features, which have the traces of the life which moves parallelly with our social fate. That face, in which Ursula created her own kingdom with steadfast principles, felt in all her caprices, which I observed beyond the gate of their relationship. She spent most of her life in that kingdom, thus making the public feel the absence, where we can easily guess the arrogance, egotism and even the lack of intellect or – what is even worse for a social human – originality.

Symbolics of a social human is the most developed branch of science, of which nobody even speaks, because one swims in it like a fish in water or as an experienced comedian in the world of human vices. This symbolics fills our minds, which yearn for a real human, but cannot accept him, so we invent notions which, as we think, accurately describe a human soul – selfishness, avarice, gluttony and so on. But let us imagine that a man considers himself kind and in the moment of distraction forgets to leave a tip in a wonderful restaurant, where he had a date with a woman, who, following even a more ancient science than the symbolics of a social human, starts to rebuke him with her look, and he, not suspecting the mysterious conclusions, which circle around his head like a halo, constantly reminds himself of his kindness.