None of These Things and Less

Work backwards.

“I am a bad artist”

“Why are you a bad artist?”

“Because I can’t cleanly produce accurate proportions.”

“And why not?”

“Because I can’t.”

What happened? Did you get stuck? It sounds hard to do what you’re doing. But you need to- if you stop now, you might as well give up forever- because giving up a million times is giving up once for a long period of time. It could even cost you your life.

Start from where you left off.

“And why not?”

“… because I don’t spend enough time on it. And because my hands aren’t steady.”

“-because you don’t spend enough time at it- that’s something you can contro-”

“-but-”

“-but nothing. What you can control is all that matters. It is the very end, the beginning, and the middle of what it is you do. There is nothing outside that particular box of which you will ever be capable of- to pretend otherwise is folly, akin very much to telling yourself you can sketch a true-to-form four-dimensional object.”

“So…” frustration. “So, I… should spend more time working on it. But…”

“But you have a reason that’s hard, right? Likely more than a few?”

“I- I just… it’s hard to concentrate, it’s hard to make myself sit down and do it. And, and I don’t know why, I just…”

“So then don’t”

“What?”

“At least, right now. Stop. Do something else.”

“But I need to know-”

“You don’t need to know why right now. Answering only comes from questioning. Questioning is an active process, an experience, and something not solely done with words, in conversation, or in the privacy of one’s own clouded and busy mind.”

“So I should… what should I do?”

“Whatever your heart desires. For a while. What’s does your brain want you to try?”

“Everything.”

“To be sure… but don’t forget to try one thing at a time.”

“The most prudent thing?”

“No, no. Perhaps the most exciting thing possible,”

“Well, but I- I can’t, I shouldn’t- there’s nothing I’d like more, but I just… I can’t.”

“And why not?”

“Well, I… because… because it would be…”

“I see.”

“…”

“Do something, or risk losing everything. Do everything and risk losing something.”

“Do something, or risk losing…”

“Everything.”

Finality. Can’t you sense it? That’s the end of the line. Act now. Do something, lest you be sent careening over the edge of a cliff.

No?

Well, I suppose you could hang on for dear life, and ignore the world as it zips by those little windows.

Wouldn’t that be nice? You don’t even have to open your eyes, if you want- it’s all gone so fast. You can just play nice with escapism until there’s nothing left to escape.

 

Hmm… you don’t seem altogether so happy with that suggestion. My apologies…

“What would I even be missing?”

“I’m sure others have told you all about it,”

“Well, yes, but how can I be sure they’re not just saying those things? Or that I’d even experience them myself? Maybe I’m just fundamentally different,”

“Different from who? And, you can never be certain.”

“To be sure…”

“Sure,”

“Sure?”

“Well, yes.”

“Well…”

“In a manner of speaking,”

“What?”

“Yes, you’re stuck in the bottom of a very dark, very dry well.”

“To be certain…”

“To be certain is to deny fanciful wanderings of the mind, and to grasp concrete truths. To be certain is to know, to know is to have wandered. To wander is to experience. To experience is to question, and to question is to live.”

“What do you mean… ‘to live’?”

“I mean to question is to live, and to live is to learn, so the meaning of living is found in the experience of questioning.”

“I think I’d disagree, if I follow.”

“I’d love if you’d follow, but I agree you might not- to experience is to question- you can never turn it off.”

“The questioning? Or the experiencing?”

“In a word, yes.”

“Are you certain?”

“Oh, to be sure.”

“Can I go to sleep now?”

“Can you?”

“…goodnight…”

“Always a pleasure,”

“Certainly…”