Verneinung des Willens
The turmoil and faux-turmoil and dramas and faux-dramas of others and also nearly all that which is other brings me no pleasure. I don’t invest in or measure who said what or who fell out with who over whatever whenever and wherever it happened.
If I were to watch a colony of ants consume itself the only satisfaction I would derive would be derived from the unintentional patterns this violent, collective act of consumption would create. Silly creatures making complex pictures. A kaleidoscopic and bloodthirsting majesty and nothing, absolutely nothing, beyond that.
‘It could be worse,’ she said. ‘All that recycled laughter, shackled to recycled appearances. Yep, they’d drown (or at least swim) in their own carelessness — if they didn’t care so bloody much.’
I watch myself, almost as impartial spectator, sharpen my knife on the rod-formed ceramics of the ceramic rod. The cold, hard grey and blue of the blade matches the cold, hard slate directly underneath. The angle at which the blade moves, in turn, across each side of the sharpening rod is also in its own way a pleasing geometry. As I switch from side to side traces of angularity stay visible, trailing in the air, and this too delights me.
(Caveat: I’m intending, with my knife, to score the flesh of a goose, this is not a murder-tilted manifesto with love forlorn — or imagined slights — as soil).
If I was small enough and had an accompanying, requisite vision I would feel warm and smile at the patterned arrangement of turmeric on the linen.
In my mind I respond (observe?) to these two (three? more?) seemingly unrelated pieces of qualia.
And I now understand what perfection consists in. It hovers near me on diaphanous wings.
The principle functions of an overactive amygdala, now, neutered.
Tiny little moments of clarity and purity and symmetry; everything captured only through rhythm and cadence and because of this, ultimately, unchanging. Unfeeling, crystaline, immaculate.
