Mine eyes have seen the glory

I have broken through a barrier and have glimpsed truth once more. (Long, rambling post ahead.)

The last time was New Year's Day, this year -- a cliche, to be sure, but it happened. Having watched Serenity the previous night and recalling Jacob's recap on TWoP -- one of the pieces that had begun my journey away from the dark in the first place -- something happened in the night, in my dreams, as my mind wandered unbound by the conventions of waking reality, and I woke up with what can only be described as revelation.

But, as I have said, there is no reaching the ideal for us. I had only (prepare to groan) taken my first step into a larger world. I still had -- and still have -- a great distance to go, but in a journey without an end, any progress is significant.

In the months since then, I have refined what I realized that morning, and in doing so come to some conclusions so disparate from those realizations that they might be considered entirely new thoughts of their own. But one paradigm remained: I was focused inward, always. Even as I observed others, and tried to learn to understand, and have faith in, and have mercy on (love) humanity, I was always introspective. My contemplations were from my room, often lying on my bed, feeling a desperate need to act but feeling unable, imprisoned, trapped by myself.

But I pushed forward despite this (and my many other) problem. Slowly, I forced myself to open up, to begin to truly see people for what they were. From myself I moved towards others (the psychology crowd have a term for this development, I believe) and the world around me.

Many times I considered going outside, walking, running, doing something -- just getting out in the world and observing as I knew, somehow, that I had to do. But I did not. I would not. Something in me was still afraid -- of what? I do not know. It doesn't matter now, to me -- though I wish I knew, as it might help others in the same boat (pardon the cliche).

Going to the graduation parties, I think, was the first step (to taking this next step). If I could convince myself I had a destination, I had no issues with walking. I walked to Laura's -- a half hour in eight-five degrees -- and, eventually, Ciara's -- an hour and a half in seventy-five degrees. It was on Ciara's, as I have detailed, that I began to notice nature -- or at least, began to notice it again. (When I was younger, many years ago, my parents sent me to a day camp during the summers in which we occasionally went on "nature hikes" through the woods. I recall always volunteering for them and enjoying them immensely.) At Chelsea's, some -- Chelsea, Trevor, and Dessie, I know, and probably others -- went on a "nature hike" of their own (apparently Chelsea has an affinity for the outdoors), but I did not join them, for reasons-- relevant but that will not be discussed here.

In any case, all these events prepared for tonight's step. With my television nonfunctional (for reasons irrelevant and thus that I won't go into) and my Internet connection down (an annoyingly increasing occurrence, damn Mediacom), I was left to ponder my own thoughts, as I had often done. In recent days the thought had occurred to me that if I had a laptop (and a wireless Internet connection), I would spend a lot of time outside, for I do enjoy the outdoors. So I decided that since I had nothing else to do, I would take my contemplations outside. I climbed up on top of my swingset's roof at first, as I have infamously done elsewhere, and then relegated myself to sitting on a bench at ground level. I went inside a short while later, feeling the beginnings of something but still not finding what I had been searching for.

After a short interlude inside, I knew what I had to do. I pulled out one of my old notebooks from school and ripped out the notes (English) that had been inside, leaving behind all the remaining blank paper. Then I gathered my pens and a pencil from my old binder and put them, along with the book (The Man in the High Castle) Shields has lent me in my jacket pocket. I put my jacket on and grabbed my notebook and slipped out.

My plan was to trek over to the park, climb the swingset, and write from there-- possibly one of my projects, or just whatever came to mind. I knew I needed a change in perspective-- Shields had us watching Dead Poets' Society before we left, which probably explains my desire to be high (not like that).

But things did not go according to plan, as often happens. (Dirk Gently came to mind along the way: "I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.") I reached the road in front of the middle school, and I thought-- why wait? why not just start writing now? And so I opened my notebook, took out a pen, and started jotting down whatever came to mind. Most of it is gibberish, short observations and sketches of what I saw/heard/smelled (no touching or tasting this first time), along with the occasionally non sequitor or rambling philosophical questioning.

I traveled down past the middle school, climbed a fence into a baseball field, climbed (with difficulty) a fence to get back out, wandered down into the park, passed a few couples making out in the dark, then meandered past the playground (my original destination, now ignored) and the volleyball sandpit (where, to my amazement, a group of young teenagers were still playing in the by-now sunless darkness), outside the fence of the stadium, and down my old route home from school. Inexplicably I began to hum "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" about half-way into my journey, and kept it up intermittently all the way home. In all, I was out over an hour and a half; when I left, the sun was high and the world was lit, and when I returned, all was dark except for street lights.

Several concepts recurred to me throughout my journey. The first was: see through a child's eyes. I wanted to abandon all preconceptions and conventions and judgements and simply note whatever I found interesting or amusing or simply came unbidden into my mind. Nothing was off-limits. The first step towards learning is to forget everything you have been taught and accept that you know nothing. Only then can you begin to think for yourself and truly learn and experience life. (Socrates: "All I know is that I know nothing.")

The second was: an attempt to record an experience is inherently impossible and flawed. Experience cannot be recorded, stored, and then reviewed at leisure; everything is a one-time shot, and there are no second chances, so always do everything you can. (Robin Williams as John Keating: "Carpe diem! Sieze the day, boys! Make your lives extraordinary!") Yet then, what is the point of what I was doing in the first place, writing down my observations and thoughts in stream of consciousness of the most abhorrent form? I decided that a record such as this could not be treated as a record but as a work of its own, to create an experience of its own related but inherently separate from that which I personally experienced -- just as the experience of reading a novel is related but inherently separate for each person. I could not write intending to record what I sensed; I could only write intending to create a work inspired by what I sensed.

When I first started, I was annoyed by the crudity of my tools -- many times I wished for a camera to photograph what I could not accurately sketch, or a tape recorder to capture what I could not accurately write. But I realize that (while I still hope to take a camera, at the very least, on my next trip) the work did not depend on the tools, that it was in fact liberating to be working without any such illusions of accuracy and instead be constantly reminded that I was not recording but creating.

I've already gone on far too long about this; I of course cannot describe how powerful the experience was to me, all that I saw and heard and just experienced. I have missed so much in my introspection, focusing only on myself, when there is an entire world out there to explore. I wrote along the way: "Books are better than nothing, but they are no substitute for real experience." How many times has that sentiment been echoed, and yet I did not hear?

We cannot hear the truth except when it is spoken by our own voices.