Muchness
If nothing else, the volume of it all is enough in its own right.
**If you enjoy reading Strange Animals please like, share, and subscribe**
It begins in a wave.
Let it roll, like the tide, when you hide behind the words. But when you ride the tide, you have to stay on top. Otherwise, you slide. And then it feels like you’re trying too hard like you just want to stop. But when you ride it right, it’s comfortable, even if it doesn’t last. Sometimes you look ahead and slip; sometimes you look back and slip. But when you’re exactly on, on the bell curve, it feels right. You can breathe. You can keep going. Not quite a flow state, but something close to it. Something sustainable. At least for a while.
Is there love there? Is there happiness there? Is there meaning there? I don’t know. I don’t think so. But the longer you stay with it, the more it opens, like a door to the universe. You see the screen. You see your fingers. You see yourself. And you try to sustain it. But the writing doesn’t depend on it. The writing doesn’t depend on you. It happens anyway. Whether you suffer through it or ride it gently - it doesn’t matter. The writing moves. And before you know it, it’s already something.
And in the end, it says this:
I’m getting old. My hands are starting to look like those of an older person. My face is changing. Not because I’m tired - I slept well. Not because I drank - I didn’t. My face changes. Period. I’m getting older. I hope not too old. There’s still so much in me and I love to explore. I just wish I wasn’t so afraid.
And sometimes I’m not. But the sheer potential of self, the sheer potential of existence - it’s too much, too beautiful. It forces me to rage at my own pathologies. I need to make peace with that. Of course. Meditate. Of course. Equanimity. I know.
But it’s so damn hard to love existence the way it deserves - to stand in awe of it, as one should - and at the same time know how little you can do with it. Perhaps the only truly grand gesture is to be broken by it. To be crushed by its beauty. To be erased by its sheer muchness.
To be drowned in it - not as punishment, but as proof. Proof that you were porous enough to feel it. That, for a moment, the world got in.
If nothing else, the volume of it all is enough in its own right.