Simplification

After coming home from the café, I sat at the kitchen table to read a book about knowledge and understanding, about various ways in which a person describes or attempts to understand reality, or the nature of things. The clock tick on the wall has become soothing. It’s a good mix, the soft, comforting click of the clock, and the beat of my heart, ringing in the ears, and breathing. I’m able to concentrate and read philosophy. The humor of philosophy is that nobody has the final word; the mysteries of life are never eliminated. Concept is limited by the nature of being concept. Understanding can only go so far before it reaches the limit of reason or thinking.

Beyond reason, your guess is as good as mine. The sky is the limit. Imagine whatever you like. Some people enjoy creating fantasies to plaster over what can’t be explained. If the fantasy is seductive or pleasing enough, one might even forget that it’s just a fantasy and begin to treat the fantasy as fact. Through force of habit, the fantasy turns into belief. Belief solidifies into faith. Presto: one becomes effectively sealed off from the nature of things. One sinks into comfortable distortion, the simplification provided by faith and belief. Naïve views about reality and strong emotions become a way of life. If anyone dares to argue, you could get angry and then the person would stop arguing and either agree, keep quiet or go away.

As for the nature of things, I have not much to say, except that it's helpful to examine the various ways in which one creates fiction and fools oneself into believing that which is not. The act of recognizing self-deception opens the mental horizon. One could plunge into the vast and profound ocean of existence, without trying to shrink it down to personal size.