The Relative and the Absolute

Record One

The Questions of Insanity

I am insane.

Or maybe I am a sane person drowning in a sea of insane ones. Whatever it is I do not know. Neither do I care. What matters? My mind is hopelessly racked and bombarded by stupidity. Such explosions within my mind will eventually drive me crazy. Is this not true?

I am disillusioned.

All is gray uncertainty. The absolutes have fallen and the pillars to which I can cling are crumbling away. I am left floating, groping in empty space. No feeling, no emotion, just untouchable gray. No color, no warmth, just bleak shadowy winter. Am I to stay in this suspended state of animation forever? Perhaps all seems gray because I am gray within. I claim to be absolute, steadfast, and yet I am not. Is it possible to be absolute, unmoving from one phase to the next? Hence, the insanity, and what welcome to escape it brings. For if you are insane then your thoughts have no effect on you. Does one believe insane thoughts? No, of course not. How true. How so very true.

Perhaps I am dabbling in what should not be.

Depression and disillusionment are enemies to stay away from; their claws are well sharpened and experienced. Yet, I am not afraid. Or maybe the fear has consumed me. Anyway I shall not be turned from my pursuit of . . . of what? Realism? Absolutism? Yes, something of this nature and yet, more. But we shall see, won't we?

I am alone.

In a throng of millions, my loneliness is worn as a cold, hard, steel badge. Worn proudly. Worn proudly? Yes, worn proudly. My solitary pursuit can be stopped by others so I must withdraw into myself. Protection. I want no one but me to pursue what I must know. I want no advice, no help, no one's sympathy, I only want the truth, and people are baggage. This race is mine and mine alone. No! Do not even think to speak. My ears are closed. Your lips are chained. Now leave. I must continue to pursue.

There is an escape.

It is quick, sure. It is Death. It is a thought and yet it is an insane one. For Death is not the end. It is only the beginning. I will not step through its doorway into the hot, smoking fury of the world below. The Inferno shall not claim me. I do not wish for my life to be the brief bursts of a shooting star in the night sky, but the steadfastness of a sun. Is this possible to achieve? Oh, to end it all and not have to ponder. But no, insanity is only insane. What then is the escape, if there is one? Is my existence hopeless? If it is, then so is all of mankind's. Were we not created for a purpose? What is it then? I need to know. I can no longer stay in this uncertainty, this relative state of non-existence. I must reach out to grab the absolute.

The Future is such a mocker.

It is something you reach for and will never grasp. It stays just out of your reach in tomorrow. What lies ahead? And with hopelessness? A meager existence? I run and run and run and still come up empty. Future, you enjoy my folly, don't you? Your mocking laughter is slowly eating my heart out. What is a man without his heart, his soul? He is a nothing. He is a past life suspended in a cobweb of yesterday. Is this what is at the end of the race of life? Nothing? The Elders say not. But what of the Elders? Are they not people like me? Do I not lie sometimes? Perhaps the Elders lie so they will not be the only ones to fall off into the great chasm of Death. No, I will not listen to the Elders. I must find my own way . . . my own way. Perhaps it is folly but I know myself. I know not others.

I am gray.

Should my life be conformed to high bursts of good energy, high bursts of bad energy, and leaps across the fence? I think not. It should be a nice steady straight line with very few inflections up or down. The output should be pretty much the same, steady, sure. In that way I would stay sane, neither giddy from the drink of life nor depressed from its side effects. But is this possible? Or is it just another dream, another question?

So the pursuit continues as it clearly must. Explosions in the night of my mind mark in the mines of ignorance where I have stumbled. The mind cannot take too much more either. Is it but a little while until I am cast into the eternal oblivion of madness?