The above quote is from the last assigned reading for my mysticism class (which I’m really going to miss). It’s the shortest essay (in verse) that I’ve had to read for that class; albeit one of those that one need re-read for a lifetime——and through reading other books and essays on  similar themes, eventually start to ‘see’ what is being said.  In the meantime, one feels the weight of something beautiful, and a desire to know it.

So when I got to the quote above, I stopped reading for a bit because it read like something familiar. It seems like the rewording of the fear of the unknown. We all know it, not just philosophers. What tomorrow will bring is a total darkness. One can’t see into it, until one is already immersed in its light.  I suppose the most common darkness is death because one never knows when it will come and where it will lead. Though the period before one’s existence is the same. Once, we did not exist—— in bodies at least; there were no thoughts of us. Now we exist, and there are thoughts of us. Someday we shall die, and those who know us may remember us. If we leave anything of ‘worth’ behind, we might still be remembered, though it is very likely that if the world remains; and people keep replacing people, there will be a time when no one would think of us, and in a sense it would be like we never existed. And in a sense, we never did; unless we remain always aware of ourselves even without bodies, and a presence that can be recognized by the senses in this physical world.

It seems to me that the more we know, the more we know that we do not know. It is like every time we discover an answer to something, it is actually not an answer but the knowledge of a new question,”and so it goes” as said by Kurt Vonnegut. A man who once had a physical presence in this world.

Happy Monday!