The Land We've Gotten Ourselves To

Assessing the land we've gotten ourselves to, he says, not particularly wanting to speak in plural, but feeling a little self-conscious about saying something like that in the singular first.

As I've said before, I like the figure of life as a journey. Which probably has something to do with all of the journeys, allegorical and literal, that are taken in the Bible. Children of Israel from Egypt, Christ through the Wilderness, Yea though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow, etc. Going somewhere, sometimes with a place in mind, sometimes without. One place I'm journeying towards is my own death-- and where else? We are quick to say that each one must live up to his potential, in life. Therefore, another potential journey would be toward Best-Justin.

Luckily, it's not true. Sojourners we are, and sojourners we will be whether we do well in the land of our sojourn or not, whether we find a way to make the population think us brave and good, and find a way to take advantage of conventions, or whether we do not.

I say: realize the sojourn. Which sounds phenomenally pop savvy. All these conventions that we fulfill along the way to make ourselves feel as though we've done well, in order to effect ourselves a livelihood: contigent swirls of being we've fallen into, in with. Best-Justin is a chimera of these contigent swirls.

The real pleasure is the falling, and the knowing of it. The falling through temporary cultural vapor. The deeper and slower vapors: earth, plant, flesh.

We are through being. Which can mean in three ways, though one's not true, yet.

The first two: It's who we are, and how we have our being. And when we're through with it, when we've gotten through it all, and there's nothing next, then after that, what kind of being will rise up, out of the abyss, to welcome us?

The saying of it easily slips into sentimentalism, and yet I can feel my own presence, if I stop typing for a moment. And it drives me to speak.