A god nevertheless

An epiphany

Chapter 7   A god nevertheless

 

 

 

 

Charles walked over into his study and viewed the shelf with the novels. When faced with difficult issues and choices, it was his practice not to force the issue. It causes a level of responsibility that the individual cannot satisfy in time to come.

 

Instead, a man who relies on intelligent problem solving must come to appreciate the love of the passions for spontaneity. The passions draw their impulses from enthusiasm. If something is not fun doing, it is probably not worth doing.

 

On account of this, a thinking individual manages mental blocks by undertaking an activity that is random and unplanned as a way of affirming to the passions that he is committed to the principles of freewill and spontaneity.

 

He was looking for a guide to his actions regarding Shelley. With such an inquiry, he reached out to the copy of the Aeneid by Virgil. Holding the book in both hands, he turned over a number of pages to arrive at a random page. When he stopped, he realized that it was page 12.

 

Thereafter, he sat down and read it, with a view to finding something relevant. Page 12 revealed the position of Aeneas as being driven by storms to the coast of Libya. He meets a nymph who inquires as to his whereabouts and intentions.

 

Aeneas replies as follows,

 

"Could you with patience hear, or I relate,

O nymph, the tedious annals of our fate!

Thro' such a train of woes if I should run,

The day would sooner than the tale be done!”

 

Thereafter, he creates an introduction to himself.

 

“The good Aeneas am I call'd- a name,

While Fortune favor'd, not unknown to fame.

My household gods, companions of my woes,

With pious care I rescued from our foes.”

 

Charles took a moment to consider the relevance of the passage to his situation. He had retired from the academic circuit and was in some way wind tossed onto a new experience. In meeting Shelley, he was  trying to revive some sense of his personal happiness. It appeared to him that he had allowed Shelley to take over his own sense of curiosity about himself.

 

He continued reading the page. He needed to have a guide on how he was to respond to McClellan. In the second part, he hears the voice of a parent who advises him thus, the extracts of his speech being,

 

“Have courage: to the gods permit the rest,

 

The winds are chang'd, your friends from danger free;

 

Twelve swans behold in beauteous order move,

 

Now, all united in a goodly team,

 

They skim the ground, and seek the quiet stream.

 

Not otherwise your ships, and ev'ry friend,”

 

Whether or not such a method is reliable in decision making has not been researched upon. But Charles always subscribed to the fact that our lives are closely guided, with the view to a greater achievement over time. Such are the instruments of nature that man has come to call the fates.

 

He subscribed to the practice completely and for want of a better way, he placed a certain watching brief on the way these came to influence him in his decision making. This is what he came to accomplish in his meeting with his own Satyr and Chimera. It was a compromise on the part of man, to allow for the fates to take a part in our lives.

 

The decision called him to cool his ardor about Shelley. That she is just a nymph in search of fun. As regards McClellan, it intimated to him that the company is honest and would use his research results with care.

 

The expression twelve swans intimated to him, the approval of the world. The mother goddesses, both in the east and west, use the symbol of the swan as the world. In Indian literature, this is represented as the philosophy of the Hamsa.

 

 

 

 

In Massandra, the fates had guided Mike to confront his denials in front of the Satyr. It is a well practiced art on the part of most people to keep private, the intimations of their sexual impulses, that seek glory and vain prestige.

 

The impact of these has been to call on the role of women, as being responsible for revealing these hidden natures, into an exposure for better management. The technique causes an inordinate amount of fear both on the part of the men and women.

 

But despite the best efforts of the women, some parts of the experience are impossible to divulge. That is perhaps why the fates brought to us the gay phenomenon in the world, to pry apart other clandestine misgivings and expose our impulses to the light of day.

 

In the East, this cultivated a rethinking on past dependencies on legends and persuaded the societies to take a straight forward approach to life in the world. In the West, the events have guided the societies to take a closer look at their social natures and identities and to refine that for greater purpose.

 

Mike wondered about the comment the Chimera made about Gangothri. He realized that it was his own self that brought itself to comment about Gangothri. Did it represent his own bias about eastern paganism and the potential for disaster? Was it simply a representation of his own vanity about himself and the consequent put-down and dismissal of everything else? He had to know for sure.

 

He called the number in Srinagar. Someone he was not familiar with answered the phone.

 

“Gangothri please,” he asked.

 

“Who is this?” the voice had asked.

 

“A friend,” he had responded.

 

“Sir, I need to know who it is,” the voice had answered.

 

He cut off the line. It didn't tell him a great deal about whether the knowledge represented in his intimations were true. However, it did say enough for him to conjecture the possibility that it might be so. That had to be enough.

 

His mind turned elsewhere. He had to find Adele, the sister of Bosennica, the man who came into notoriety as the butcher of  Kressenica. He had loved her and had at one time thought the world of her.