Ode to Shelley

Based on my friend's description of consciousness as a phenomenon, like a hurricane. Billions of water droplets make a hurricane. Billions of Neurons make a soul. maybe.

"O Life, O World, O Time,
O heavy handed Wave goodbye,
And blind and boundless leap,
No; plunge, into excruciating Infinity.

How can it be that we are each a Universe apart, and all in that same place, the space that the soul occupies while Life, and World, and Time pass by?

How can I finish this? How can I know that before I die, I’ll have told my life?
THIS is its own death;
That I cannot ensure that the things that I Know  to be good and true, will be discovered by others.
I Need to believe that if they love the things I love that That matters.

But Matter is the root of the problem the same way that death is sown into the seed of the tree that was always already going to die.
I Must know that even when I am not me; this human proxy, that my influence will have some impact, even if it's that of a drop of rain upon an infinity of Dark and Stormy seas.

What I know, is that your Thought, to me, is Happiness. And I hope that as we plunge into fathomless depth and darkness, and this desperate, desperate Need to believe and express that we matter, we can resonate together.

Author's Note

Be kind, Rewind.

Reviews

[.]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this poem. When I read the word "Shelley" I immediately thought of Percy Shelley. But after reading it, the poem's message reminded me more of John Keat's "Negative Capability" and how one accepts the uncertainties of certain phenomenons in life, and disregards any constraints of that particular context by just accepting it for what it is. Furthermore, this poem also reminded me of the term "emptiness" in the Buddhist religion, and how nothing remains the same but forever changes (rain drop reference to Marie). I do believe that souls can engage in valid connections through experience and relativity. The only issue -- in my opinion-- that allocates this would be that we all perceive "similar" events differently due to our perception. I believe that the closer we attempt to understand and share these experiences, the stronger the correlation of the connections between souls. Again, I really enjoyed this poem a lot. Great Job.

-Cord

[Epipsychologist]

Thanks Cord,

I always feel like Shelley and Keats were such opposites, in a way. Shelley had an immense intellect and carefully contrived the deeper meanings in his works, while Keats wielded negative capability like a thunder gun
(he just seems to intuitively know what is brilliantly beyond the human ken). Also, I entirely agree with you that "the closer we attempt to understand and share these experiences..." etc. We all have different experiences that bear some semblance of, and some distraction from, universal truths. Hence the Allegory of the Cave

[.]

That is a brilliant book.

[LJW]

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever"

The beauty of being a writer is that even if we only affect 1 person, what you speak of in this poem has ultimately been achieved.

As writers we must ask ourselves why are we writing. Are we writing as a means of catharsis? Are we writing to be remembered? I write in the hopes that 1 person will read something that I've written and never forget it. To me that is enough. It has always been enough.


I also love psychology medicine and philosophy. I believe Kahlil Gibran to be the greatest philosopher of all time. He didn't overthink things. He's not over state things. He was not aware he was a poet. :-)

[Tate Morgan]

What matters is what you leave in the heart of others and that said they remember your kindness more than your deeds

[Epipsychologist]

Agreed. when I talk of resonance, at the end of the poem, I really mean the influence of our essence more than our words or actions (although words and actions are usually indicative of our essences, what makes us Us).

[Pax]

profound, i read it a couple of times to get your point, thought i get little actually... must be language barrier again lol....
i see you're a seeker of reasons...
you seeks answers, truths of what lies beyond our imagination...
awesome write made me think deep.. :D

[Epipsychologist]

Thanks Pax. I'll try to explain it in prose, if I can. Try to imagine that the soul does not move through space or time. That is, we experience everything from "here" and the time is always the "present." Picture a video-game. The character is moving through a virtual universe, but doesn't move from where the T.V. is. Herman Hesse had a great analogy like this for time. Picture standing before a river. The current flowing past is like time passing, and you stand and watch it from the present. You are always in this space and time. Yet an infinity exists between you and every other human. Because we each experience our own "here" and "now," we cannot rightly say that we experience the same universe as anyone else, because time and space don't apply to the soul (only the body and mind). This is why Solopsism exists, I think, because there is an impossibility of actually knowing that anyone else actually has a soul, and is not a biological machine (automaton). How can we express to each other what it means to love things the WAY we do, if people love in different ways?
I cannot say, but what I know is that just by thinking about me and what I have to say, you have made me happy. There is a double meaning though, thinking about you makes me happy, hence "Your thought, to me, is happiness." That suggests that souls can cross each others paths and make valid connections with other souls.

[Dean]

I do not have a soul. I am a soul.

[Pax]

our souls connections is a fascinating event.... and your explination brings light... thank you for that... i understand your view much better now...

[Baby Ricochet]

The first stanza made me think of Melville's Moby Dick. I read it back in 03 when we were in Afghanistan. That was one long, boring tour in the shittiest place on earth dog. No s**t. I get the impression you sit around and talk a lot of s**t with other intellectuals. That's cool. I do remember reading a Buddhist thing that said the seeds of misery are sown into our own desires. The Buddhists nailed that one. They nailed a lot of s**t. They have the only Spiritual discipline that makes any sense to me

[Epipsychologist]

Yeah, I do philosophize a good bit. But actually I go out and do crazy, dangerous, and illegal things for fun sometimes. I've always been a fighter, but now that I'm older I have to tone it back. I'm not good at writing about it, so it doesn't come up in my work too often. Action and violence are hard to write about, for me. There's no vocabulary for what it feels like to fight.

[Marie]

As the drop slide into the shining sea, it does ot lose it own escence but is expanded by others at it expands them.

[Epipsychologist]

Yep, but they are never the same rain drop again. I think that's the hard part about death. There is enough evidence, I think, in the world to know that memories die with brain, and that's what makes it so sad. To me anyway.

[Dean]

When you finish Julia Assante's book, I think you will find that they do not die.

[Dean]

oops....meant for Marie. I referred to Assante's "The Last Frontier." Wonderful book.

[Epipsychologist]

Ah, I want to ask what it's about, but I get depressed when I look at the list of books I have to read for grades and then realize any new books want fit into my free time, but still, What is it?

[Dean]

It is about communication with the dead. One of the best books I've read on the subject. If it interests you, do take the time to read it!

[Epipsychologist]

Hmm, well if we're on the topic of mortality, lately I've been imagining that the worst part about death would be the loss of wanting and caring for and about things. I think not caring about the things one loved would be even worse than not remembering them. (The two ideas aren't inextricably bound. A man named Clive Wearing developed a neuro-virus that made him forget everything except deeply ingrained facts. He could still play the symphonies he'd composed, but he would come to a violent shudder at the termination of each piece, whence he would spread his eyes in terror, presumably trying to realize what those emotions recalled. He also had a wife. He couldn't remember her name, or that he had married her, but Clive would kiss her and say that he loved her. So again, I could deal with forgetting (after all, "the tree of knowledge is not that of life") but that I should stop caring about the greatest, or the most heinous things, is a terrible thought.

[Dean]

you are correct

[Marie]

I'm not so certain about that. The little carings could be lossed in the greater. But being mortal I cannot relate to that.
As far as communication with the dead, I believe it to be impossible. But I will still try to look it up...

[Tate Morgan]

what i think grants us the ability to be remembered are the things we impress upon our children giving them our wisdom ahead of time so they do not have to live and learn the hard way.
My duty in this life is clear
pass love from the child within me
Along with prayers from those that died
for all the hopes of things to be


While I tie my child to the past
going back to antiquity
He takes me into the future
granting us immortality

[Riley Mistwood]

Very well done. liked it very much

[Starfruitanimal]

sweet dude, very interesting style words heavy..

[Damien Davison]

I enjoyed this, it was different for me to see all those words capitalized, every time I'd hit one it'd punch me in the mind... Great job, great flow.

[Epipsychologist]

Thanks, I was hoping that capitalizing those abstractions might give them more of an Essence in peoples mind, like they can be thought of as things.

[Damien Davison]

Haha exactly like you just did there, popping my mind like that, great job lol! I look forward to reading some more of your work, great writing as well, not just the capital punches!

[Epipsychologist]

Ha, thanks. You too. Incidentally your "I Need a Smoke" poem influenced me to have several tonight, but it's okay, I'll quit tomorrow.

[Dean]

did you?

[Epipsychologist]

Yes, actually!

[Dean]

Then congratulations. I once did it too. One of the best things I ever did, and I've never gone back.

Liked the exchange on Keats and Shelley...the two often compared.

[Epipsychologist]

I'm hoping I can stay quite. I've also just quite drinking for the time, and decided that I might as well quite pleasure in general! But I've been thinking about drives, and comparing Shelley and Byron more in my mind. All the younger Romantics were burning with them, they were unignorable, and I think that's what Shelley refers to when he says "the lightning of the mind" of the poet. Shelley had intellectual drives just as powerful as Byron's sexual drives, it seems, but maybe both had at least a lot of each.

[Dean]

sex should not be given up! Booze? Well, maybe if it's a problem. I'm never one to want to abandon pleasure....and the poets offer more than their share.

[Epipsychologist]

Actually, sex is not on the list of surrendered pleasures. But I think limiting myself in the others might further my ends in that drive anyway.

[Dean]

Perhaps so, But your list will change. By the way, I've also enjoyed your
previous exchange on the subjects of soul and consciousness. The nunber of books I have devoured on those subjects is vast. And, I have many more on my list to fill the hours I have left in this life.

[Epipsychologist]

Thank you Dean. I try to take psychology by its Latin roots, the study of the soul. I think that if we want answers we have to examine things about what it means to experience life, and life is experienced through the mind. That said, one cannot be an objective psychologist while citing Shelley and Wordsworth. I think that's why I like to get my metaphysical ideas out in leisure writing. Though there may be a day when metaphysics can be studies objectively, I hope.

[Dean]

Objectivity, I think, is not the answer. But openness is.