Lament I: Energy, Community, Stalks

השם,

Heat. Fire. Chemical reactions; combustion; the transfiguration of being through the transformation of energy.

I have such little a thing.

I took a bath today, השם, and I had such little energy to step out of the tub. I could not imagine willingly changing my state from lukewarm to cold, so I turned the facet such that the water would be just slightly too hot. I knew that if I induced sweat and that itchiness from the hot water, my animal instincts would find the energy to step out.

I did have a flash of imagination, though. I imagined a world where I did have the energy to handle basic things beyond my animal body, and it felt real to the point that it truly felt like it was just barely slipping through my fingers. השם, I felt that possibility state manifest in some corner of my intellect just for a flash.

How depressing it is to feel it escape my hands.

Even more depressing, I would say, השם, is the cruelty of our thermodynamic existence. There are actions which are good in the sense that they, to an extent, inhibit entropy: cleaning, socializing, healthy eating.

Yet there comes to a point where the energy to fulfill those good actions does not exist.

Of this nature, I have discussed in detail previously… I suppose all I must do is submit. Flower in concrete. Scarce things are valuable because such little of it exists.

I truly am something trapped inside flesh. Tragedy in the classical sense.

The labor of my life is to discern what is necessary and what is not; this is an enormous project with no destination. This axiom leads to significant self-harm in the name of truth: part of me burns when I reject something false but deeply comfortable. Where does that energy go? Who knows.

Loneliness has been on my mind lately, השם. In Genesis it is stated that humans are not meant to be alone, and Moses himself lamented to you on his inability to please his followers in the camps regarding their thirst for meat. And thus you had Moses gather the wise, and together they overcame that struggle. Addition in the purest sense.

I truly know that aloneness violates your design, for I have experienced myself that feeling of those thousand pins which hold the face together loosen their grip to the threshold, that feeling of the despair of an unraveling that is both real and imaginary.

But, השם, doesn't joining a community involve absolute risk of truth? I have written extensively on the self-preservation of systems… and the movement away from what is true in favor of what is cohesive looms over the collective. I find this slightly horrifying. Contradiction: I need community as a human, but communities hardly ever discern what is necessary.

What am I to do?

Purity in itself can be a trap. Simone Weil herself wrote in her London journal of watering "the supernatural stalk" even at the expense of her natural stalk, and so she died in pursuit of truth. She both deeply loved this world and deeply despised this world.

Indeed, I love this world with a fervor but I despise the fact that I am here.

Possibility: join a community, excel in studies of you, and once all is done I withdraw with the life-serving connections I made. Problem: reduction of people into tools, or an atrocity. (This would be simple and breathe both energy and life into me. But I can't accept it. See?)

Another possibility: join a community, excel in studies of you, and stay within it. Problem: possibility of corrupted truth, my pride and snobishness of the metaphysical realm. If my life's work is discernment, can I handle the fact that no collective is capable of such a thing? I don't imagine myself to be that judgemental… but I fail at times. I am much more concerned on my harm to the other in this sense than the harm against my own axiom.

I look at the lengths of the two paragraphs above, השם, and it is abundantly clear that I must work on myself through relation to others.

Individuals, individuals, individuals… I must look towards the individuals rather than the stain of the collective. The anguish inflicted upon me from this may be my cross to bear.

The watering of both the supernatural and natural stalks despite finite water, each extracting from the soil of the other…

How uncomfortable.

David