When Worlds Collide

Some weeks ago, I was literally overwhelmed by a moment which was, at its core, probably the most poetic of my life. I shared it with no one; as experiences go, it was mine alone, unwitnessed by others. Had someone indeed been watching, it would have appeared to be no more than a silent pose, some still-life of a mundane act.

But within me, alone in my home on the Fourth of July, as I prepared to bathe after a sun-filled day at the lake, proverbial worlds were colliding. Without warning -- or as we might say in The South, I was just sitting there, minding my own business, when all of the sudden... -- I became an object of philosophical transmorgrification.

It's funny how these things happen. And if I described it for you straight-up, I'm afraid I wouldn't do it justice. So please forgive my decision to speak about it in analogy and metaphor.

I guess you could say I was awestruck by a thought. To boil it down as simply as possible, an idea entered my consciousness that forced me to consider how nihilistic my view of life had become.

I'm not sure where this all started. But what I do know is that one week before, a classmate with whom I'm developing a friendship said to me, "So, you don't believe there's a soul?"

No, I had replied. And after she left, I wrote this note to myself: Ascribing meaning and intent to the existace of 'energy' in the universe strikes me as the human compulsion to anthropomorphize everything.

A week later, I was asked to consider whether I really stood behind those words. It prompted some (pardon the euphamism) soul-searching of a magnitude to which I have never exposed myself.

This afternoon, I engaged in a lengthy conversation with S2 -- dragged out by my constant questioning and my stubborn resistance -- in which I admitted two consequences of this philosophical transmorgrification.

First, I described in apparently rather poignant terms the way I have come to view the world in terms of the fundamental isolation of the Self from all Others. I say "apparently rather poignant" not because S2 was moved, but because I was. Sitting there with my words, I felt the crushing sadness and solitude of that way of seeing the world. While describing my personal philosophy, I had the curious experience of observing it with sadness and also taking the first real steps toward releasing it.

Second, I spoke some words, wrenched out of me by myself at the bidding of S2's direct question: "What does your intuition tell you happened in that moment?" The answer to that question remains far too personal for me to discuss on this blog right now. Except to say that, for me, after I uttered them, I heard the distinct creaking of yet another closet door opening up, desperately in need of some WD-40.

Words are funny things. Between the mouth of the speaker and the ears of the listener, even without a second-language in the mix, so much can get lost in translation.

I let some of the rattiest, most unnerving words I've ever said come out of my mouth, and S2 looked unfazed. In fact, she said my turn of phrase was "beautiful." There was not so much as an eye-brow raised.

Still, though, I thought my world might crack open when I uttered the words. When I crossed a threshold I have been relucant to cross. When I came out (at least to my best friend, if not the rest of you just yet).

Yet there was no calamity.

Instead, there was S2, yawning every so often (thanks, I imagine, to my wearisome analysis), and saying upon our parting, "You have a busy life, UCM. A very, very busy innner life. Which is both a blessing and a curse."

I can see my way to the curse very easily. But the blessing? That is rarely so clear.

And when ideas, thoughts and experiences cause the delicate constellation of my inner heavens to shift, rushing worlds toward collision, my mind is inclined to shift into disaster mode. I assume everything is going to hell, and I want to dig into the rubble immediately and sort the living from the dead.

It's a noble instinct when lives are at stake. But when it's philosophy that has been thrown into tumult, even when the blast zone is wide enough to included the most fundamental and strongly held principles of one's world view, it would be wise to act from the outset as if the cleanup will be a long-term excavation. Like the delicate uncovering of remains at Pompeii.

This has been my struggle for the past week and a half. I wanted to do something to resolve my dilemma. I exhausted myself with a mental exercise, debating how much I believed my own experience. For now, I've decided to take my hands off he wheels a litle bit. Having "outed" myself to S2, perhaps I can now relax and employ a more useful approach in how I process this mysterious experience.

Step One: Let the dust settle.