At times in life I have experienced a feeling of being intellectually malnourished. That is not exactly what it is. I will try again; it is a sense that I cannot go beyond a certain level of ratiocination, that I am not bright enought to see further or see beyond. I do not compare myself with others. It is just a self-observation, like knowing I’m not good with figures. I feel limited. It is not a self-limitation — perhaps it is. What is notable is the feeling of insufficiency to deal with a problem or concern. It is not a feeling of stupidness. It is more like I’m missing some essential ingredients. i don’t feel amiss. I don’t feel depleted. I feel ill-equipped, and not a little over my head. i am well-motivated, intentions are reasonable and well-intended. I just don’t have enough gunpowder to set off a charge.
I often, like you, know better, wish to be better, hope to be better and am disappointed that these ends are apparently unattainable. I feel as if I have fingertnails without the requisite fingers; the reach exceeds the grasp. I had a recent urological test in which a pencil-size (#2)) catheter was inserted through my penis tip; it was without medication and excruciating. After the trauma, whenever I urinated there was a second in which bitterly severe burning occurred and then the release of urine. Every time I went to piss the expectation of that burning was a boundary I had to cross, with agony. At times the confluence of expectation of agony and the agony itself merge and I feel confounded, mired in distrress. I mention this because at times in life what I need to do, or what I expect to do clashes with the inability to accomplish these urges and I am left reeling with my mental pecker in hand. Ouch!
When I think back to the procedure which went awry, in which the doctor was frustrated by his inability to exercise his vaunted expertise, I realize how much physical pain I endured, and yet when I contrast this to the deaths of my wife, and my daughter, I realize that emotional pain makes the greater wound, lingers in its effects far much longer. I am in the awful situation of having suffered both agonies. Again I ask, what is fire? I simply don’t know, I simply don’t get it. I feel spiritually and psychologically macerated.
From the condo I see Pusch Ridge behind which Mt. Lemmon festers. The ridge is smoking now, no flames. People are dismayed by the event. They care about the land, it seems. I see it as a personal omen. A million years hence when Mt. Lemmon is lowland all memory of this June event will be erased, for no mind had contained it. There apparently seems, the world tells me, that only sentient beings can record and remember. And like fire, what is remembering, purely the act thereof? Free of value, free of judgment, what is it to remember? It is a very curious artifice. I will not cloud it with the remembrance of feelings. Simply, what is it to remember Mt. Lemmon afire this dry June?
Perhaps one of the agonies of sentience, of being aware, as a human being is our capacity to simply remember. Mt. Lemmon does not remember itself. It will erode, it will pass, all events natural upon its surface, in its granitic bowels, are unknown to it. Mt. Lemmon stands. It is the human mind that gives it real substance. And so, as Krishnamurti said, the observer is the observed. What I remember of the fire on the roof of the mountaintop is what is known of Mt. Lemmon, in addition to the memories of thousands of others. And whatever import the mountain holds for each of us contingent upon what we remember of it. And Mt. Lemmon will evolutionally evanesce in its own time.
And so we can remember. We can record. And what purpose does this serve, if any? Along Oracle Road which runs parallel to Pusch Ridge, part of the Catalinas, some individuals observe, some use cameras. And to what end? I am personally tired of recording and remembering. Ultimately it is wearisome. I do not want, for the time being, to get bogged down with feelings, just the state of remembering. I am here seems to be the foundation of remembering. Animals remember, but they have other uses for it, I imagine, than we do. Fear may be an abhorrent memory for an abused circus elephant. Ruefulness, sadness, guilt are the more exquisite components of human remembering.
To remember gives a sense of self and self-importance, existence. And over the millenia we have enlarged and embroidered upon remembering so that it is enhanced by a plethora of feelings. (The artifacts of any culture are remembrances.) What is sad to me is that we are given a gift that is a monumental tease, for when we die all that memory is done with. Moreover, when a species is eliminated, the Neanderthal, for one, no one is there to remember. A paleontologist works at remembering, but he is involved with conjecture and supposition. He never really experienced a Neanderthal. His is a dysfunctional remembering. The nagging and wrenching we experience about Uncas is that, indeed, he is the last of the Mohicans and he is sadly-sickenly saturated in a remembrance of things past.
I remember my deceased daughter and wife. I choose to. It gives me considerable pain, it gives me a wiry sustenance, it breaks my spirit — my heart, and it may serve no purpose. It is awful. It is fire. I don’t know what it is — or what its motives are. I remember because, like my heart, I cannot control its beating. It is part of my biology, species-specific, genetically determined.
Sadder still, it is as if remembering has not progressed to another level of awareness. Is there a kind of extended remembering? Can remembering evolve into a kind of prescience? All conjecture. It seems remembering is like a gas-filled Cadillace without an ignition key.
Sadder still, I feel, is that like Mt. Lemmon, we are gone, in a shorter period of time as well. Remembering is like being domesticated, tamed and then the compliance is never really put to purpose. Why break a horse if it will never be ridden?
What I am asking is basic. What is life? And I scorn any answer. I get off on the detective work. The Charlie Chan movies of the 30s and 40s, the ones featuring Sidnery Toler, were essentially plot-driven B movies. It was the plot, like a good tweed suit, that grabbed my interest. I don’t need denouement. I don’t give a damn about resolution. I am more interested in the spikes, the atonality of life, for whatever pattern there is, I could care less. Patterns are what we crave; they are the signs of order we desire.
So, I am simply asking again, what is fire? And there is no answer; but the questioning itself creates a patina of a kind between me and the world, which I find significantly interesting.
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