this place is intimidating
no. i’m not talking about my house. it’s cozy here (luckily for me). i’m talking about this world. this earth on which we live. this tiny minuscule of an unending universe. this place is intimidating as there is so so much here for a man to know it all. and yet if you see keenly, there is almost nothing, for everything is just dust in the wind (remember the song?).
when i attempt to uncoil these numberless layers of knowledge in this world, i reach a state of what derrida calls “aporia”. you cannot really understand it. yeah, you may try to study the high patterns of these complex structures that work together to put us in a mode of wonder. but such an endeavor wouldn’t really yield to any tangible consequence. in most respects, you would find yourself deserted in a vast ocean of captivating whirlpools, without a sign of hope towards land.
so, shall i take this state of “aporia” as the natural state of being for the human lot? or can there be a higher order to this state to which we may subject ourselves too? jove knows, perhaps, or even he doesn’t.
we came out of nothing and we are sure of disappearing into oblivion. still, all that matters is here and now in this very life, because you may not get another. and so when i see people behaving eerily in anticipation of a nymph-full of an afterlife, i raise both my eyebrows and sigh. it’s like not having the cake you got for a candy that waits you. i mean not one single soul has survived death, and nobody has the video footage of a glimpse into the paradise. so why waste time pondering over the state of afterlife? that knowledge is forbidden to mankind.
every man has two arenas to face all his life. one, which is under his control and acting on which shall yield him results. the other is that which is beyond his control and on which he has no authority to alter — death is one such area; what your neighbor thinks about you is another. yet in most cases, the poor mortal is intimidated by the stuff that exceeds his capacity of control, and does very little about the things that he can reign over — starting with the man himself.
it is believed that all one needs to know is oneself.
“knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” — aristotle
now, wisdom might have a beginning, as per aristotle, but it certainly does not seem to have an end, for the vast amount of knowledge out there. but once you allow yourself into the whirlpool of learning, you activate your wisdom-wheel and the world appears to be a less intimidating entity, because then you free yourself of the dark shadows of ignorance. your inquisition will somehow turn on the lights.
this quest is all that humanity has. and this hope of achieving omniscience someday is what keeps us going.
