HowTo:Be Deep
The day has grown long, and twilight once again is descending upon an unsuspecting world. Hitherto your life has had meaning; heretofore you were whole. But now...now you are older and wearier. You're racing slowly toward inevitable decay, a proverbial O.J. Simpson barreling down the road of life in the Ford Bronco of age at the healthy clip of one year per year. No longer can you hide in your childish games, played with yourself in the dark of twilights past. No longer can anything be what it seems; indeed, no longer can anything be what it is. Your life is forever altered in the waning light of the rippling sun, under the soft outline of a new moon. This isn't simply your backyard anymore, it's your second womb, for out of this meadow so beautiful you will be born again. Out of this meadow so idyllic and pure, you will learn how to be deep.
Step 1: Embrace the mystery of eternity
Gaze into the sky on a moonlit night and let the twinkling stars shower your eyes with their ancient light. Look upon the night's scattered offering and reflect, as the puddle from a cleansing rain so dutifully repaints the misty landscape for passersby. Reflect on not the stars themselves but the space between them, a blackness so deep and so beautiful and so very unlike Silas from The DaVinci Code. Do not resist the void; let it pull you in, draw you in, let it become part of you and you a part of it. Fear does not exist here, nor space, nor time - but your journey has scarcely begun.
For decades, if not longer, mankind has found itself repulsed by mystery. Every question must have an answer, and every answer, an opposite answer. But an answer comes in an instant, and disappears with a flash. A question is eternal. The cosmos has no Snapple Facts.
It is in this void, this blackness, this nothingness, this lack of existence, this featureless, boundless, lightless void, that you must discover the questions.
Step 1a: Embrace the eternity of mystery
Ponder this: will we ever truly know the answer? Will we ever taste the sweet nectar of ultimate knowledge, truly be satisfied in a life so fleeting? Indeed, more than likely we will not achieve such nirvana in this one life. The concept of an answer is constructed by the minds of the weak, a crutch on which lesser intellects lean in order to shield themselves from the immense journey ahead. The world is more open than Grand Theft Auto, and its ass is considerably more bad. See this, accept it, and love it. Now, take your first step on the path - and know there will never be a last.
Step 2: Know your enemy
As you gaze at the waning light, lo! You find yourself running, running, running like a fearless jackal into the very heart of knowledge. But suddenly you look up, and you've moved not an inch forward. Rather, you have been taken back by unseen chains, binding your very soul to the darkness you wish to shed. You must journey far into the recesses of that which you fear in order to one day destroy the darkness within. Abscond from your pondering place and enter the nearest corporate shopping machine and gaze all around. The mirrors tell you what you are, the mannequins, what you are to be. A receipt of purchase is all you need to realize the folly of this path. Purge yourself of the pain and anger you feel; cry into the cold windy night, buffeted by the cancerous aroma of cigarette smoke.
Step 2a: Let your enemy know you
Soft whimpers in the night. Soft shivers in your fright. You have conquered yourself...or begun to; there still is much to learn. Suddenly, sounds reach your ears - horrible sounds of distressed ignorance rapidly approaching. Falling to the ground in defeat, you are thrown to the ground like a rag doll. Kick, punch, kick, choke, vomit, kick, choke, punch, stab. You realize that purgation has only just begun as you lie prone on the ground, incapacitated by your inability to move or breathe. On this bed of asphalt in the room of the world, your soul will be your nocturnal emission tonight.
Step 3: Bleed yourself of your past
Mistakes. We are urged never to make them, and yet, every kindergartner with their all-too-mortal share of childish wisdom knows that Everyone Mistakes. You, foolish morsel of dust adorning the tip of the universe's mascara pencil, are certainly no exception. Every moment of every day you've ever lived has been filled with regret, regret you can't forget. Just as every rose has its thorn, so too does every person have his pain. Let it all out tonight, lying under the light of the darkness; with tomorrow uncertain, perhaps this silent blackness will become your crypt. As you let go of all the pain, all the anger, all the sadness, you again can see light. You are picked up by your newfound levity, your load lightened. As you speed away in the back of your rediscovery of life, you hope against all hope that this is the beginning of something beautiful.
Step 3a: Bleed your past of yourself
Snap. A crisp sound and a flash of light: a holographic shadow of yourself has been born. Many people possess multitudes of these daguerreotypes, these snapshots of themselves forever stuck in time by a single immobile image. Dozens upon dozens of them line your walls, dominate your attic stuffed in prisons one might call "albums," and permanently trap a sliver of your soul within the impossible reaches of 1999. No longer shall it constrict you, immovable in that one place, baseball cap awkwardly askew on your brow, golden front teeth glistening in the New Jersey sun.
Hoist a cutting apparatus and set about freeing your former self from the vile documents. Once all apparitions of your past are freed, gather them all in a pit and set the mass ablaze. The cleansing fires should dissolve the tenuous grasp between time and space the pictures once enforced upon your metaphysical continuum. A rush of emotion and thought should be unearthed within your consciousness just as your genetic ascendants pull up to your physical abode. Suffer not the woes they raise over the cleansing pyre, your body and mind are of greater import than the ancient prisons of constructed memory.
Step 4: Find comfort in futility
As you float along your journey betwixt the uncertainties of infinity and the unsaveability of mankind, with questions pumping through your mind as blood pumps through your veins, you may stop, and wonder, as you are now wont to do, why any of this is worthwhile. You may find your spirit draining from your body as the stopper of comfort is pulled from the bathtub of reality, and the rubber duckie of inconvenient truths can no longer be pushed aside. But take heart, and make thought. This is no mere side effect, hidden away in the fine print. It is a vital juncture in your journey of being.
You whisper "Why?" as you stare at the empty ceiling above your bed, the tabula rasa you wish you could become. "Why?" you say, journeying through the house you once knew but that now belongs to a stranger. "Why?" you scream, stumbling out into the dark night and cursing your own ignorance. "Why? Why? Why?!" you bellow repeatedly, challenging the night sky that once seemed so friendly in its malice. You slam your eyes closed to reclaim that darkness, all the while pronouncing your frustration to the Universe, for minutes, hours on end; an eternity. "Why..." you mutter, defeated, to the uniformed man sitting in front of you, all but invisible as he whisks you away to the place where people who dare to ask the unanswerable go.
Step 4a: Find futility in comfort
Clink clink clink, says the metal grate behind which the damned lay trapped. Sign this please, says the mighty sentinel against whom the damned throw themselves. You really did it this time you fucking retard, says the graying witch whose gold has saved you from the accursed dungeon wherein the damned are damned. Out of the frying pan and into the fire of the eyes of the sorceress, you run until you can no longer run. Where are you, you wonder. And, suddenly, you know.
You've finally found some peace, if you've followed the steps you yourself have taken in a past or future journey. Yet you have recognized the end and its inherent nonexistence. Fear brings you to a grinding halt, pain and anguish once again taking hold as you passionately make the night realize your dismay. Suddenly, behind you, you feel a single solitary ray, the beginning of a new day, and finally the truth dawns on you. You thought these steps were all in preparation for something new; little did you know, you were being deep the whole time.
Or you could just
be a pool.
