Something Else

There are times, and they are not infrequent, when I feel an urgency to define what it is I seek or, more to the point, what might seem worthy of seeking. For me, at least. So what is it? Goddamnit there must be something more than money or sex or fame, all so fleeting and all of which can be taken from you as easily as given. Surely it isn’t religion, such as it is described, for that has always left me emptier than when I began. If God is out there, he has long ago turned his gaze from me.

Is it some amalgam of these things?

I must be mad to think there is something else, must’nt I? These things I have named above have given shape to humanity’s cravings and quests since time has been recorded and, it is to be assumed, even further back in our murky past. Might it not be an utter waste of time to seek beyond the limits that we ourselves have determined through eons of success and failure, exultation and despair, satisfaction and disappointment? Perhaps it’s even arrogant to assume that there exists something which I could see that others have not.

But who says others have not? What if, not being able to give it a name, or a shape, these others have simply given up? What if they have in fact named it, but were misunderstood or simply a poor hand at expressing themselves? Yet I don’t think it matters much what has come before. Not now, not in this case. All that matters is that there are times when I truly feel that the satisfactions of the flesh, and those few barren pursuits offered for the soul, are so flimsy in comparison to what might be out there, or within, for the seeker determined and open-minded enough. Religions and spirituality are, for me, a deliberate desolation of the soul designed to replace the warmth of our inner fire with the phantom heat of a distant force, a godhead whose inscrutability is for some inexplicable reason wholly accepted by its proponents. I’m not just picking on Christianity here, or the creator-god religions. I have found little more solace in the earthier varieties; pagan or Buddhist meanderings just to name a couple, though I cannot say I have ever delved too deep into any of them. But this scrap of sanity I have held on to: That I trust my own judgment when a thing fills my soul with dread or ennui, or that I know that I am simply not fit for it. This is, sadly, ever my reaction to such “spiritual paths”, when shown to me in earnest.

Surely I have my own set of flaws in this endeavor, I cannot pretend that I don’t and I can’t see how it would profit me to do so. Probably I am too reluctant to ascribe to anything due to the husks of past attempts scattered behind me. I see so many who say they have changed their lives with this pursuit or that belief system, and yet to me they seem as fragile and scattered as before they began, as anyone else for that matter. If they have not gained from it, if they have not grown, then what worth can it be?

I do not say that there ‘must’ be something else. I simply hope there is and that I might be lucky enough to discover it. For the record, I wouldn’t keep it to myself, for in finding such a thing how could I not want to at least quietly show it to others? Though often that ends in being tied to a stick and barbequed for my trouble. Ah, what the heck. It’s worth a try.