Knowledge

To have knowledge is to discover, to discern what was previously unperceived, and perhaps the parts of the word itself carry a warning about the nature of such a realisation – that the moment one comes into knowledge of something, one crosses a line, one steps over an edge into an unfamiliar darkness the dimensions of which only slowly become apparent, a "ledge" beyond which gravity loses its certainty and after which we may be free to fall.

To have knowledge, then, is to subject oneself to considerable danger, to the whim of fact that may come either as a dawn of realisation or a discovery that plunges one into an abyss. This is because hope lies in the indeterminate, the ambiguous and the unknown. It is curiosity that places us at the rim of the precipice, yet ironically it is also hope that makes us take the step into space.

To want to have knowledge is therefore a leap of faith. We stand at the threshold with our hearts wildly beating, our breath faltering, our souls rigid as the firmness of faith fights our fear of falling, and the struggle might lead to a standstill if it were not for a lingering doubt in all things human. We fall forward finally with the weight of a question mark on our backs.

Falling, is therefore about the loss of innocence, and if we fall what rushes toward us with the violence of reality is then the hugeness of consequence, the inevitability of The End because ignorance is no longer a defence and the one invisible force we can believe in turns out to be gravity. It is about Adam and Eve, but it is also about Abraham and Isaac.

Knowledge, then, is as much about knowing the lines we are about to cross as it is about knowing the truth. To have knowledge is also to know the ledge we cannot step over: the dreams we should have never have lived in, the memories we should never have lived out, the words we should have left unshared. We will fall hard and fast when we step unknowingly over that ledge, if we do not have the faith to walk on air.

Hong Kong

Edith Wharton once said that if we all stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time, and I guess that applies to our trip to Hong Kong. The first thought that probably came to my mind when I arrived was that Hong Kong was somehow a real city, founded firmly on the strength of capitalism and the principle of laissez faire, the buildings arrayed and aligned according to the will of the invisible hand rather than governmental edict. After the somewhat regimental nature of the past two years, Hong Kong provided a stark contrast with its unfettered lifestyle and freewheeling rollercoasters, though the unrelenting push of market forces did seem to take its toll on pedestrian walking speeds and general stress levels amongst the population. Still the food was good, Ocean Park was great, Macau amazingly glitzy and the company awesome, so the trip overall turned out splendid :)

On the other hand, I think the rollercoasters in Hong Kong prepared me well for the reeling and lurching of my first few driving lessons.

The flowers of the field

Life has been familiar, comfortable and commonplace in a thoroughly satisfying way, with none of the edginess, disquiet and desperate pursuits that characterize so much of our time. This must be what a happy retirement is like, where time and freedom are synonymous with each other and life is a handpicked assortment of people, places and events, filled with enough decadence and laughter to put the past into perspective and enough convenient surprises and fulfilled expectations to make so much of the future worth looking forward to.

All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever.

- 1 Peter 1:24

Choosing life

I think I've seen it quite often in the past few months; we shouldn't let emotions get the better of us, especially the bitter, acrimonious feelings that tend to turn people into sullen and petulant beings. We assume that all thoughts and actions emanate essentially from character and personality, but all too often forget that caustic and resentful sentiments and behaviour in turn have the insidious effect of corroding the bits of goodness in people, leaving behind what is acrid and acerbic, like something gone bad.

Two of the greatest tragedies occur when a person's expectations are incongruent with his abilities, or when the circumstances that life deals to him are incommensurate with the potential that nature has endowed him with. But the protagonist in either case need not be a tragic hero, like a Macbeth drawing arms against morality and destiny, nor like a Miltonian Satan falling further into a darkness not of the Deep but of his own creation. A person of real ability would take life into his hands, and not crush it, but shape it into a design of his own choosing.

These days

I think it's a mistake to accept life's banalities without discrimination or discernment, to let those prosaic insipidities accumulate like a descending mist of tiny, indivisible and irreducible errands, slowly filling up the bracket of each day, the hours devoured by the trite, the tedious and the trivial. Consciousness is a disposition too complex to be concerned with what is stale and vapid, and what takes over when consciousness melts away is the same insentient, obtuse oblivion that keeps the clouds afloat and gives worker ants their zest for labour.

Sometimes colour seems to drain from the world, especially in moments like these when the streets are filling up with rain and you can't tell the hour of the day by the shade of the sky, and time spends itself in the slow, steady count of one to twelve. I spend it on the piano, with a book, or in thought, during days like these when the world is washing out to sea in the rain. Thankfully there'll be no space for banalities in the next few months, because life has been too good for that: life, which we should speak of only in the present tense, and though we may wave to the past and at the future, we must remember to spend our time in the present doing more than waving. I also remember you, for life reminds me about you, and you remind me about living.

How shall a man be purple?

When Florus was deliberating whether he should go down to Nero's spectacles and also perform in them himself, Agrippinus said to him, "Go down": and when Florus asked Agrippinus, "Why do not you go down?" Agrippinus replied, "Because I do not even deliberate about the matter." For he who has once brought himself to deliberate about such matters, and to calculate the value of external things, comes very near to those who have forgotten their own character. For why do you ask me the question, whether death is preferable or life? I say "life." "Pain or pleasure?" I say "pleasure." But if I do not take a part in the tragic acting, I shall have my head struck off. Go then and take a part, but I will not. "Why?" Because you consider yourself to be only one thread of those which are in the tunic. Well then it was fitting for you to take care how you should be like the rest of men, just as the thread has no design to be anything superior to the other threads. But I wish to be purple, that small part which is bright, and makes all the rest appear graceful and beautiful. Why then do you tell me to make myself like the many? and if I do, how shall I still be purple?

- Epictetus: The Discourses, How a Man on every occasion can maintain his Proper Character

Today

Freedom is a word spelt in three letters, and fittingly enough, in capitals. The date had always been approaching, but in fits and starts, sometimes magnified out of proportion by occasional spells of euphoria or delusion, sometimes shrinking back into microscopic insignificance when seen across the vast distance and darkness of sleepless 50 km road marches. There is no need nor reason to sentimentalise the experience, because it swayed between banality and burnout, but letting these two years lapse without having taken notice of those odd moments worth remembering would have been a waste, for there were people worth appreciating and events worth reliving.

We are all in search of lost time; we are all looking for the threads that used to bind the most ineffable moments of our lives together, and what we cannot regain we have to wait for, and we wait in the hope that what we cannot find, someone we have yet to meet will return to us with smiles and kind words.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way — in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only..." - Charles Dickens