In Loving Memory of Cyril Connolly
May 23rd, 12am: Exam Anxiety. I close my eyes to attempt the voyage of sleep. Still blackness with its loud bangs and painful whispers invade my private sanctuary. They paint frescos on shifting water depicting savage battlefields where the Gods of Ennui toy with soldiers as if they were but sandcastles, delicately formed only to be torn down by mere whim. There! Look! Do you see? The battlefield headquarters. Little men of grand importance are writing equations and drawing graphs. At the centre stands the general, desperately grasping everything in sight, organising all the equations and graphs into neat piles. In the corner, lengthy reports on battle tactics, past battles with the enemy, and troop information are stacked and freshly polished. Wooden torches stand like silent sentinels at every edge whilst the smell of aluminium fear overcasts the space. Can you ‘see’ now? The futility of it all. What use are graphs, equations, and reports in such brutality as war? In fact, this may perhaps be the one question over which Materialists and Spiritualists unite and declare in triumphant harmony, “It is human reason alone that can avert war, dear Palinurus!” But alas, all I see is shifting water. Neither, the battle, nor the mighty Reason are clear. The only certainties are the Gods and the inevitability of Tomorrow.
June 4th, 8pm: The Weekend. Busy streets with drawn faces outlined by golden twilight. The air sprays rosemary, fig, and dark wine. Bars cry, buildings whisper in cryptic languages to those that might heed its pleas, and the city unanimously sings “Chasser la honte du jour”. The casino awakes from its morning slumber and roars its mighty roar, beckoning its servants to feed it with warm hope and lost faith. The lovers march confidently arm-in-arm to distant bliss not knowing that there is no pain in life equal to that which each can inflict on the other. Dinners are held with wild smiles, underscored by the cheerful cacophony of the crowd. For it is only on scented nights such as these that food takes on a mystical quality, it is enriched by the air and the company. “Why Palinurus?”, the hedonist asks, “Why is your voice chained with pain at such pleasures?”. Do you not see? This Grand Café at Night will be nothing more than a memory, which the Day will seize upon and attack with vicious neuroses. Heidegger, you see, had it backwards. Our potentialities are not limited to some essential purpose due to the Grand Inquisitor of Time, rather, it is the vindictiveness of this Inquisitor himself that exacerbates our potentialities ad infinitum. We seek to drink from pools of liquid aether and expect the next to be more elegant than the last, unaware that these pools all have the same metallic taste (if only perceivable at the nape of one’s neck). But is it not great to drink! Drink away fellow children! Drown in the Lethe, and give the finger to the Inquisitor if but for one night. Judgement will rise in the morning and soon nothing, but rusty metal will sit on your tongue.
“You spit fire and half-truths Palinurus. You see wonders and horrors and believe only in the latter. What of solutions? I see none. You cannot be content in unyielding pain so just take your pick. You are well read I see, so choose! Should you require tranquillity I have Plato, Epicurus, Lao Tzu, Buddha, and Christ. Synthesis? Reconciliation? I have Voltaire, Camus, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Sartre. Enough with all the dualisms and moody dispositions! No one wants a navigator that cannot navigate. What say you? Speak!”
I choose humanity dear mystery man. The pain of which you speak is never so unyielding as to justify the quick pronouncement of steel on flesh. It is pain common to all humanity, whether admitted or not, perhaps better described as Angst. It is metal at the back of your throat, vibrations of the lungs, a fading of starlight from the eyes, weakness of the stomach, and paralysis of the mind. We are simply beings in time, always aware of the road not taken, and that creates a parallax in vision, where, despite the beauty of the path, we are inclined to see chthonic monsters. You speak of Great thinkers, but do they not all try to unravel the mystery of humanity? What arrogance! What great feats they must have accomplished to step outside of time and view humanity in their little castles of sand. You speak of solutions, but perhaps it is you that I hear wailing in dark and empty groves, begging the Greats for but one last drop of sweet liquid aether. No? Well, well, I suggest you venture out in search of more reflective pools so that you may see with the soul and not the eyes. If you insist however, dear mystery man, then in my arrogance I proclaim the solution to be quite simple: Reprieve from Angst simply requires the abandonment of time. Chainsaw the sacred groves of Reason and Memory, leave the pools undrunk and still, and remain eternally in the blackness from which you sprang. You see now don’t you? The price for this miracle cure is your humanity.