Anti-Enkidu
m.youtube.com/watch?v=vJgGs9WpGt0
Between strife and love lay not the cornacopia of soulful wisdom as is told by some philosophers, but a mere echo of individuality and finality calling for us to stay and in bargain to accept, or to leave, like Odysseus lost further and further out, searching to the metre of a rhythmic oaring in the sea in the unknown, from place to place, paddling to ships bell, the ding struck against the brass mold civilized men are increasingly cast in, unable to ever quite crack it, that act of yearning to hear the immortal man himself that carved that mold, beyond the crafted sound of limitations.
The guiding romance of myth, of coming of age, the acts of a play, makes little sense against the grinding phenomena of exploratory life, and the marvelous sights seen through a solitary nature doesn’t quell the demures of the soul that drives one him forth from place to place, in a impossible search for something invisible… a hidden logic who’s only parallel is the pattern unfolding in dreams, guiding us forward into the familiar unknown.
Gilgamesh wept for Ekindu, as Castor did for Pullox, as did Rumi for Shams. All explored and marked the limits of the soul in contrast to one another. Ekindu entered the city just as Adam left the Garden, but where is the story of Anti-Ekindu, the man who leaves it from a unfamthable, unknowable grief to travel back to alone?
Stifling silent chills in frozen forests, dew in the morning fields, fog over the ocean, virgin sunrises on beaches, harsh sand on the dunes, mountains in the distances on the plains. Those images sustain the spirit like meager food on a fast, but does not quelch the flames like a soothing rain. A sense of wonder is no substitute for a content soul, and the search is never satisfied by the sights beheld. It is a beginning, not a end, and the drive forward untenable, however charmed and beautiful. The end is always hidden, but little by little gained in a new understanding of man’s relation to a larger world, in how to become human, understood to a higher degree than anyone before.
Imagine setting out on a walk, all sights familiar, friends waving hello. A drive to push farther than you have walked before overtakes you, to see a sight beyond what you have known before. A sight further, and further, heartbeat and joy overwhelm. You travelled too far to turn back, sleep wherever, silent beneath the stars, life and people you know running through your head. Next day, a look back, and a look forward. Each day forward, that was the choice. People no longer wave but stare fearful or in disbelief, as the stresses of the wear and tear of the journey wreaks havoc. Your a stranger in each land, but the people always seem the same, despite being so different, and you yourself despite your appearance seems the same you as ever. Architecture changes, environments fade. Impossible beauty and wonders. New ideas,beautiful women, new ways of perceiving. A constant internal conversation.
Linger too long, memories will haunt you. Questions. Why threatens finality, a impossibility to accept. A end always ready, one by embracing civilized life, or of exploration, both hollow and incomplete in different ways, like dawn and dusk,so similar yet different.
A man in torment, yet the fullest man. Everystep forward is a step of further understanding, weathering the constructs supposition, tearing down the walls built up between feeling and reason constructed over a lifetime.
However complete, you are alone, the heart is not satisfied, for two sorts of memories now torment. Of the places left behind, and the life left behind. The irony is, there is no return in this journey, for the return to the old home and the old ways doesn’t eradicate the memories those other places visited and that other life left behind. A man can never have both, yet we crave it, a spirit emblazoned in the solitary journey into the ever changing unknown, and the loving familiarity of the life in the community. Most we can find, is that quality in another, and it will always come up both deep and shallow. Erotic beauty and soulful intimacy is not the same as discovering the sublime found on the edge of a dream after a long journey in a distant, trying place. The longing for love and shelter is not the same as a warm embrace. The conflict drives the maelstrom of the spirit, and the bard that sings every song, the artist behind every stroke, aims to express this conflict we all experience just a little, but only a few truly understand the twisting nature of.