12-15-2013, 12:00 AM
~
Serious thinking is corrosive to the layers of lies in which
we insulate ourselves, including our very selfhood, and most people, even the
ultra-smart, would do anything rather than subject themselves to prolonged and
repeated acid baths. (Recapitulation.)
Honest thought is invariably destructive and must ultimately
result in totality of self. In any case,
none of this recap stuff requires super-intelligence, just serious thought and
unbending intent.
The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain
For as much as a year Satan continued these visits, but at
last he came less often, and then for a long time he did not come at all.
This always made me lonely and melancholy. I felt that he was losing
interest in our tiny world and might at any time abandon his visits
entirely.
When one day he finally came to me I was overjoyed, but only for a little while.
He had come to say good-by, he told me, and for the last time. He
had investigations and undertakings in other corners of the universe, he said,
that would keep him busy for a longer period than I could wait for his
return.
"And you are going away, and will not come back any more?"
"Yes," he said. "We have comraded long together, and it
has been pleasant-pleasant for both; but I must go now, and we shall not see
each other any more."
"In this life, Satan, but in another? We shall meet in another,
surely?"
Then, all tranquilly and soberly, he made the strange answer,
"There is no other."
A subtle influence blew upon my spirit from his, bringing with it a vague, dim,
but blessed and hopeful feeling that the incredible words might be true-even
must be true.
"Have you never suspected this, Theodor?"
"No. How could I? But if it can only be true -"
"It is true."
A gust of thankfulness rose in my breast, but a doubt checked it before it
could issue in words, and I said, "But-but-we have seen that future
life-seen it in its actuality, and so -"
"It was a vision-it had no existence."
I could hardly breathe for the great hope that was struggling in me.
"A vision?-a vi -"
"Life itself is only a vision, a dream."
It was electrical. By God! I had had that very thought a thousand
times in my musings!
"Nothing exists; all is a dream. God-man-the world-the sun, the
moon, the wilderness of stars-a dream, all a dream; they have no
existence. Nothing exists save empty space-and you!"
"I!"
"And you are not you-you have no body, no blood, no bones, you are but a
thought. I myself have no existence; I am but a dream-your dream,
creature of your imagination. In a moment you will have realized this,
then you will banish me from your visions and I shall dissolve into the
nothingness out of which you made me...
"I am perishing already-I am failing-I am passing away. In a little
while you will be alone in shore less space, to wander its limit-less solitudes
without friend or comrade forever-for you will remain a thought, the only
existent thought, and by your nature inextinguishable, indestructible. But
I, your poor servant, have revealed you to yourself and set you free.
Dream other dreams, and better!
"Strange! that you should not have suspected years ago-centuries, ages,
eons, ago!-for you have existed, companionless, through all the
eternities. Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that your
universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction!
Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane-like all dreams: a
God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad
ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single
happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short;
who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children
to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children
with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and
invented hell-mouths mercy and invented hell-mouths Golden Rules, and
forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths
morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet
commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the
responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where
it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness,
invites this poor, abused slave to worship him!...
"You perceive, now, that these things are all impossible except in a
dream. You perceive that they are pure and puerile insanities, the silly
creations of an imagination that is not conscious of its freaks-in a word, that
they are a dream, and you the maker of it. The dream-marks are all present; you
should have recognized them earlier.
"It is true, that which I have revealed to you; there is no God, no
universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a
dream-a grotesque and foolish dream.
Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought-a vagrant thought, a
useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty
eternities!"
He vanished, and left me appalled; for I knew, and realized, that all he had
said was true.
Chapter 11 from The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain
Serious thinking is corrosive to the layers of lies in which
we insulate ourselves, including our very selfhood, and most people, even the
ultra-smart, would do anything rather than subject themselves to prolonged and
repeated acid baths. (Recapitulation.)
Honest thought is invariably destructive and must ultimately
result in totality of self. In any case,
none of this recap stuff requires super-intelligence, just serious thought and
unbending intent.
The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain
For as much as a year Satan continued these visits, but at
last he came less often, and then for a long time he did not come at all.
This always made me lonely and melancholy. I felt that he was losing
interest in our tiny world and might at any time abandon his visits
entirely.
When one day he finally came to me I was overjoyed, but only for a little while.
He had come to say good-by, he told me, and for the last time. He
had investigations and undertakings in other corners of the universe, he said,
that would keep him busy for a longer period than I could wait for his
return.
"And you are going away, and will not come back any more?"
"Yes," he said. "We have comraded long together, and it
has been pleasant-pleasant for both; but I must go now, and we shall not see
each other any more."
"In this life, Satan, but in another? We shall meet in another,
surely?"
Then, all tranquilly and soberly, he made the strange answer,
"There is no other."
A subtle influence blew upon my spirit from his, bringing with it a vague, dim,
but blessed and hopeful feeling that the incredible words might be true-even
must be true.
"Have you never suspected this, Theodor?"
"No. How could I? But if it can only be true -"
"It is true."
A gust of thankfulness rose in my breast, but a doubt checked it before it
could issue in words, and I said, "But-but-we have seen that future
life-seen it in its actuality, and so -"
"It was a vision-it had no existence."
I could hardly breathe for the great hope that was struggling in me.
"A vision?-a vi -"
"Life itself is only a vision, a dream."
It was electrical. By God! I had had that very thought a thousand
times in my musings!
"Nothing exists; all is a dream. God-man-the world-the sun, the
moon, the wilderness of stars-a dream, all a dream; they have no
existence. Nothing exists save empty space-and you!"
"I!"
"And you are not you-you have no body, no blood, no bones, you are but a
thought. I myself have no existence; I am but a dream-your dream,
creature of your imagination. In a moment you will have realized this,
then you will banish me from your visions and I shall dissolve into the
nothingness out of which you made me...
"I am perishing already-I am failing-I am passing away. In a little
while you will be alone in shore less space, to wander its limit-less solitudes
without friend or comrade forever-for you will remain a thought, the only
existent thought, and by your nature inextinguishable, indestructible. But
I, your poor servant, have revealed you to yourself and set you free.
Dream other dreams, and better!
"Strange! that you should not have suspected years ago-centuries, ages,
eons, ago!-for you have existed, companionless, through all the
eternities. Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that your
universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction!
Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane-like all dreams: a
God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad
ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single
happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short;
who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children
to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children
with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and
invented hell-mouths mercy and invented hell-mouths Golden Rules, and
forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths
morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet
commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the
responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where
it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness,
invites this poor, abused slave to worship him!...
"You perceive, now, that these things are all impossible except in a
dream. You perceive that they are pure and puerile insanities, the silly
creations of an imagination that is not conscious of its freaks-in a word, that
they are a dream, and you the maker of it. The dream-marks are all present; you
should have recognized them earlier.
"It is true, that which I have revealed to you; there is no God, no
universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a
dream-a grotesque and foolish dream.
Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought-a vagrant thought, a
useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty
eternities!"
He vanished, and left me appalled; for I knew, and realized, that all he had
said was true.
Chapter 11 from The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain