Chris Milne Writes: Poetry, Philosophy and Essays

I am awoken. Indeterminable light flashes before my eyes. I close them. A life has just passed. For one’s existence is just the ephemeral conscious experience of our sense perceptions….

I am awoken. Indeterminable light flashes before my eyes. I close them. I open them again. I start to make out a shape. Does it want to hurt me? I close them. A life has just passed. Evolution created biological mechanistic informational processing beings. To what end? Everyone loves to ask, “why are we here?”. The wise sage knows this question is futile, like most big questions. With the other ones; why did the universe begin, why/where did life start; these questions grounded in the nature of reality may be explained. Intelligence can find a way to sort out the data of reality – create abstractions, test models and hypothesis, confirm ideas with irrefutable proof – but it cannot ever answer the questions of ethics. For ethics is the domain, not of intelligence, but of emotion; nay, of beauty, of love, of passion and pleasure. Intelligence is an abstract model creation mechanism. It is used to sort out the array of sensory data into intelligible pieces of knowledge to feed the understanding – with its insatiable hunger – to create better models of reality, to create better plans of actions. But, all human action is teleological; whether the mind, the intelligence itself knows it or not – for our mind is the greatest deceiver – the truth cannot be refuted. For how else could human action be predicted? We all have a nature, a set of biological functions and tools to sate ourselves – to become tepid, become full, become satisfied. But we are above the normal mode of action that biology uses. We have intelligence, we are homo sapiens after all. But are we truly wise? Since we still ask such questions that bothered the ancients.

I am awoken. I look up to see a comforting face. It is the eternal mother. The bringer of all existence. She gleams at me with a smile that radiates tranquility. In Her presence, only peace can be found. A tear dribbles from her eyes, as she smiles wide and laughs – laughs of joy at my existence. You ask why we’re here? I say who bloody cares. Here we are, on this giant rock filled with molten lava covered with destructive yet nurturing seas. We are surrounded by an Eden of existence – more biological beings then our intelligence can sort and deceiver since our time as the wise men. Yet we still allow our ego to cloud our vision, to interrupt our interpretation of reality. Only the ego asks why we are here. The unconscious, the primordial – the non-ephemeral part of our being – maybe our DNA? Maybe our collective unconscious? Whatever the essence of it is, it knows the answer.

I close my eyes. I hear the tunes of my mother’s voice. The comforting reverberations of her conscious experience translated into words soothes me. Nothing is more comforting than the words of our mothers. They always know what to say, don’t they. For they know the truth – the bringers of life.

I open them again. Instead, now, I peer off a cliff. An endless void below, of rock and stone – the plates of our fiery world pierce up, and create the magnificent scape below me. Ahead is a figure. A head, a face. They gaze into my eyes. Instead of the immense calm that radiates from the presence of our mother, this figure presents me with anxiety. The figure gazes right through me, into me, into the core of my being, my essence. I feel a pull towards them, and fall into the void… I close my eyes.

You see, the inevitable truth is that we all fall into the void. But we are here now, nay? Why spend your time asking such questions of why, instead of living! Take this gift granted from life, evolution, the cosmos, whatever you want to believe in! Don’t ask why, ask how! How do I live, how do I be a good person, how do I love? Take life by the hands and live my friends! Intelligence and our models drive us so far into ourselves. Self-consciousness instead of making the world a better place, has forced us into our own world. Never before I believe has man been more into himself. I find a world rife with intelligence and impressive creations of the mind. I am amazed at our ability to understand reality, ourselves and to mold it – use it for our telos. But what saddens me the most is that a world rife with such intelligence is still filled with such horror, such immense chaos and suffering. Why then, does self-consciousness not drive us to create a world with more order, a world with less suffering? Sure it does, some may argue, for we see the immense rise of health across the world. People are suffering less, no doubt about it. My fear, my anxiety, my indignation of the world is that it is not enough. For we are only concerned with the battlefield within, the ego versus reality. Our nature versus Her Nature, the earth, the cosmos, the eternal. We focus more on the battle inside then the soldiers we are! For we are all soldiers, fighting against inertia and entropy, fighting against the universes natural pull towards rest, towards renewed destruction. But why not become the best warriors?

I am awoken. I am now faced with the many faces of my children, and grandchildren. “Papa, I am afraid” my youngest grandson says to me. “Oh my child, fear not. Life is a cycle, and death is just as important as birth. For if I did not die, there would be no room for you.” “But you will be gone, and I will miss you”. “Oh my dear boy, I will miss you more. For my time with you – and all of you – is what makes life worth living. The joys I spent carrying for my children, watching them grow and become their own selves – there is nothing more rewarding a man can experience. And you, my dear son, have taught me what it feels like to be young again. To be impressed by the swaying of the trees, the flying of the birds. For without your fresh look, I may have died with a dull lens. Though my physical form may be gone, so to shall all. The truest saying ever stated is as thus: “all this too, shall pass” and my child, so will your fear. You will eventually have your own children and bring more love and joy into this world. But you will always have a piece of me – for positive shared experience is the meaning of life. It is the time you feel most alive, most in the moment, most you! For when time is not felt, and flies by like the clouds and the sun, then you know you are truly alive. And my boy, those days will come for you I promise. You will one day find yourself so immersed in the immensity of existence, the beauty of it all, so in love with life, that you forget about it all. And forget it, please my dear boy. For your name shall be called, and the primordial cycle will return, and your journey will be over too. And maybe one day you shall also look down at the face of your grandson, and comfort his fear too. And you – because you lived, because you loved – can help him do the same. For is that not what this is all about?” I close my eyes. A life has passed.