I.

Are there not too many words? They are base, baser than the rock we stand on, than the sand that devours our enemies and scrubs away the wreckage of the world. There are too many words in this world, and not enough ears. They bloat the brain like bad humours, make our minds thick with unlistening. We have grown to lock away the words among us as the oyster locks away irritations. We encase them with our assumptions and make them beautiful. Their true meanings are forever encrusted with a skin of desires that reflect only ourselves, that create only shapes that we ourselves had formed long before words were ever spoken to us. In a universe of language, we have lost all meaning.

II.

We are world’s the ultimate imbalance, because we consume far more than we create. Our senses are the ultimate predators, deeply, eternally hungry for the latest distractions to blind us with their novelty. Such universes we create, use and discard in a minute! How many channels have you flipped today? Radio, TV, internet, giant conduits that feed light and sound directly into our brains. Take a fireman’s hose and point it at your face and turn it on.

Let your eyes fall from the page to your feet, and see them as you would see them for the first time in your life. Stand in the place where you are; think about direction, wonder why you haven’t before. Close the book, shut off the TV, unplug the computer, and listen to the sounds of the universe around you. They call you to a deeper understanding of the mystic, the voice in the wilderness that calls not with words but with meanings. Here are no ad campaigns, no 300 satellite channels, no internet revolutions to call you with promises of distraction. Only silence, and the wordless beat of reality.

III.

Are there not too many things? Can you count the lines in the sidewalk, the flyers of credit card companies, the grains of unbrewed coffee in the entire city? Are there not too few things? Can you feed the world’s children with your rice bowl, can you buy every beggar man’s wares on the sidewalks where the concrete lines are like prison bars? Do you have enough shoes to last you a lifetime?

IV.

Are there not too many people? How often have you crossed a city street and tried to count the people brushing up against you? The number of people working in your building. The number of people in slow cars traveling in the opposite lane in rush hour. Are they real? Do they exist only when they encounter your notice? Are there legions of faceless shadows pretending to be people, gray drones without definition or true existence, outlines standing in the place of real people until you glance their way?

Are you one of them?

V.

I have watched from a window a world I in which I am only half-believed, half-realized. I see other people’s eyes, ten billion possibilities, and only one body to contain them all, and sometimes I recognize myself in them. When this happens I will call out your name, and you will turn to me in joy at finding a long-lost friend again, and we will rejoice for a moment at finding brief companionship amidst the vast deep timeless loneliness that we all share.

29 September 2002

guide me