the error-making organ, a human strategy, 412

412

Looking down on a valley from a restful state, one that required no sacrifices, is not the same as looking down on that same valley from a height acquired through sacrifice ... from a distance of exhilaration.  One viewer never fully understands the other, yet each presumes to share the same wonder or boredom.

Along these same lines, within a single human, the error-making organ is incapable of leaning on its next state ... does not even believe in its existence.  From one moment to the next, one can pass through tremendous leaps of the “spirit” ... a single letter in the mail, for example, can send one floating toward bliss or sinking into despair.  This current frame of reference, filled or emptied of the stuff of life, is both the beginning and the end.  That we are in a new room is certain, but we fail to find a door.


There must have been times when a human has, out of despair, decided to end life by leaping from a tall building.  By the time he reached the uppermost floor, however, his metabolism … his exhilaration had risen to such a degree, his reasoning powers had been operating at such a higher level that he had in fact become a different species ... for whom the original problem was no longer relevant.  He was suddenly happy and secure ... since in this room too he found no doors.

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