Roots of the Norm

The Rock of the Norm Series : IIX

There's something a man never tells anybody else about himself. Perhaps he doesn't know. But the fact is … from the day he was born he has never been allowed to be truly himself. Too many responsibilities, rules, the law, social ethics and the like. He buries his disappointment deep in himself in a lake of melancholy that he may visit in his sleep.

 

On days in which we wake on the wrong side of the bed, we do one thing consistently … we complain about everything and insists that we are mad and we are not going to take it any more.

 

What incredible reason? ... what sublime purpose? … that all of us don't know ... justifies me in denial of myself? Pray tell us! We feel like screaming out these complaints sometimes.

 

Its complicated. I sought the same inquiry one time and was guided to a tree stump where I realized that the tree mushrooms sprouting on its sides told an interesting story. I spent the next few days examining the mushroom closely … it consisted of rings and had several wooden shapes on it which when examined in the shadows produced images of people not unlike human personalities.

 

It mixed with my own shadowy misgivings and some days later it appeared to me that the life of the tree was trying to understand why it had died even though it was founded on a validated seed.  It referred to a certain literal and simple experience of life in its expectations. The fact is the man who planted the tree had chopped it down.

 

In relating that to the experience of denial in our early childhood experience, we realize that we are doing exactly that … trying to determine why we were kept from expressing all of what we want. In its place it had commenced a voluminous study of sorts about life, creation and death that was somewhat rudimentary in content … so I took out all the books I could find on religion, faith and divinity studies and poured over them.

 

I figure I was right to have done that. The knowledge in the books represents the experiences of other men over the ages, in different parts of the experience. It provides a compendium of views about the human condition … sometimes they agree on issues and sometimes they contradict each other. But it helped me to create a perspective. In retrospect I realize that the scope and volume of information I came across in the books couldn't possibly have been undertaken by me alone in one lifetime.

 

All these fed into the unrequited strive indicated by the early eros sensations and eventually they came to understand their condition. The process continues to this day and I'm coming to meet the varied conditions of the lake of melancholy in other people. It's a curious learning experience for all. 

Reviews

[Aarea]

Hmmm, how true. Nice writing, it made me think.