Jan 2020
It's snowing outside, and as I watch the snow fall I feel again that great pull of cosmic whatever-you-call-it. That strange feeling that brings nostalgia and romance of things I never knew but somehow always wanted. Of places I've never been and adventures I long to go on.
It's cheesy and stupid, but all I want to do is write it down. I want to quantify it, to describe it in some way. I want to hold it, to see it. I want to experience it in more than just fractals of thought, through more than a few fleeting glimpses of spirit.
But I can't. As much as I try and as much as I want it, I will try again and again and always come up short. Perhaps it's simply too pure for me to understand. Some nobody like me, what could I know of that beautiful celestial creation, that wild and crazy feeling that joins the masses and transcends culture and history?
At one point or another, everyone hears the call of the snow, or the whispers of the wind. Some hear the shouts of the waterfall, others still the breathing of the grass. There are thousands around the world who, even now, are stuck in that mysterious place, that twilight landscape between reality and the desires of the spirit. They feel what I feel and hear what I hear.
The kings and queens of old heard it. So, too, the peasants and the slaves. The great poets sought it out, most dying in their search. Some people have even worshiped it, but to no avail.
I can't describe it. I never have, and I never will. Nor will anyone ever describe the feeling. But what I can say is that it will come again.
Tomorrow I'll see it in the sunrise, and you'll smell it in the crackling fire. People all around the world will be lost in that terrifying and enthralling feeling as they stand at a precipice or feel along the rough surface of a badly painted wall, and they'll stumble about trying to describe it, just as I foolishly attempt to do now.
After all of my tears and crumpled pages, only then will I realize the uselessness of doing so. I will cry some more and feel sad over some nothing that happens to mean a lot of things to me for whatever reason.
But in the end, I cannot express how thankful I am that neither I, nor anyone else, will ever describe this beautiful nothing. Because if we did, I'm afraid we would never feel it again.
It's cheesy and stupid, but all I want to do is write it down. I want to quantify it, to describe it in some way. I want to hold it, to see it. I want to experience it in more than just fractals of thought, through more than a few fleeting glimpses of spirit.
But I can't. As much as I try and as much as I want it, I will try again and again and always come up short. Perhaps it's simply too pure for me to understand. Some nobody like me, what could I know of that beautiful celestial creation, that wild and crazy feeling that joins the masses and transcends culture and history?
At one point or another, everyone hears the call of the snow, or the whispers of the wind. Some hear the shouts of the waterfall, others still the breathing of the grass. There are thousands around the world who, even now, are stuck in that mysterious place, that twilight landscape between reality and the desires of the spirit. They feel what I feel and hear what I hear.
The kings and queens of old heard it. So, too, the peasants and the slaves. The great poets sought it out, most dying in their search. Some people have even worshiped it, but to no avail.
I can't describe it. I never have, and I never will. Nor will anyone ever describe the feeling. But what I can say is that it will come again.
Tomorrow I'll see it in the sunrise, and you'll smell it in the crackling fire. People all around the world will be lost in that terrifying and enthralling feeling as they stand at a precipice or feel along the rough surface of a badly painted wall, and they'll stumble about trying to describe it, just as I foolishly attempt to do now.
After all of my tears and crumpled pages, only then will I realize the uselessness of doing so. I will cry some more and feel sad over some nothing that happens to mean a lot of things to me for whatever reason.
But in the end, I cannot express how thankful I am that neither I, nor anyone else, will ever describe this beautiful nothing. Because if we did, I'm afraid we would never feel it again.
