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Again, and without apology, I lead into what appears paradoxical. Toward the man who can either believe or say with some confidence “I know my knowing is wrong, incorrect, and not merely incomplete” (as most any, even the proudest of us, would not hesitate to say “I know I don’t know everything!”)…but that all my assumptions about knowing, what I think it is, how it functions in me to lead me, and how it is to me irreducible…is all wrong“.

I suppose, in short, it is some admission of having glimpsed or experienced matters in such a way of having learned there is nothing of myself on which I can depend for anything (especially “my knowing”) and that it is not, in all, subject to change. And this would be the truth of this matter of knowing. And that it has even been in some way, by function of this thing I call “my knowing” and by which I proceed in all; that has caused (or been used) to lead me (and I do suppose any man) into such estate. Thinking “I know” leads me ( does it not lead all?) to that place of seeing that it has not been at all as it had appeared. I thought it bedrock…but now find it no more than shifting sand.

Do not doubt there is some terror in this and to this. I am not speaking as one more comfortable in his own bed. There is a starkness that is, and to some if it appears too bold to say, terrorizing. Something is able to “monkey with” my consciousness.

Listen if you can to what may sound ridiculous examples. I believe they are terribly hard to understand because we are afraid to (even terrified to) face their simplicity. They are far too easy to us, which makes them very, very, hard. Have we talked about Ernest Rutherford (known as “The Father of Nuclear Physics”)?

For this I will quote another, Karl Smallwood, who wrote of it in his article (searchable by Google) with his far more engaging style than I can manage entitled, “The Physicist Who Was Scared of Falling Through his Bedroom Floor”

I shall excerpt that portion subsequent to how and when Rutherford learned atoms are constituted of mostly empty space:

“…basically it shows the path of the particles Rutherford was firing and his observed results, mainly that the majority of them passed straight through the atoms inside the gold sheet, indicating that they were mostly empty space.

Now this is where the story gets adorable, because the legend goes that after discovering this fact  Rutherford was totally freaked out to learn that approximately 99% of the entire physical world he was standing in was composed of nothing but empty space. To make it even worse, Rutherford was the first person to make this discovery, meaning he was literally the only person on the planet who was aware of this fact at that point in time.

Rutherford was reportedly so freaked out that when awoke the next morning, upon trying to climb out of bed, Rutherford stopped his foot from hitting the floor and climbed back into bed, purely because he was scared his foot would slip through his floorboards, because hell, they were technically 99% empty freaking space after all. If you really think about it, the fraction of Rutherford’s floor that physically existed was technically a statistical anomaly, we’re not surprised the guy was scared to climb out of bed.

As for why he didn’t think he’d slip through the atoms making up his bed, we’re guessing the part of our brain that makes us think hiding under the covers would stop monsters when we’re kids was working its ***-damn ass off in Rutherford’s brain that day. Eventually, sense prevailed and Rutherford did climb out of bed and changed the face of physics as we know it instead of hiding and crying until he died of starvation like we probably would have.”

Is it easy to understand? Hard to understand?

Now I might take issue (and do) with this statement and appraisal:

“the fraction of Rutherford’s floor that physically existed (Italics mine) was technically a statistical anomaly, we’re not surprised the guy was scared to climb out of bed.”

We are terrified to admit that this thing which, in the above referred to space, and that we would call empty or “the nothing” does actually exist…physically in our reality. Space exists. It is too much, (or “Is it too much…?”) for us to engage that…(what we might call) “the nothing”…exists. Space (or what we might think of, or prefer to call “the emptiness”…or even “the nothing”) is as much part and parcel (and by volume far greater) to the all in which we are. Not only so in regards to what we may call the “solid” or material matters we perceive looking outwardly at the universe…but that we ourselves (as most know themselves in being a material or physical being) are also and no less.

And also and no less pertaining to all matters of “ourselves”…yes, even consciousness…can one find himself “falling though the gaps” (holes or emptiness) of his own mind and consciousness?

Have you?

And…what is it, or what would it be that is doing “the falling”? Is it the “real” passing through emptiness of nothingness? Or is it the unreal…passing through (or falling through) what is actually “the more real”? How real…is emptiness? Space?

How real is the “I” I believe…I know?

Too much?

Too bad.

Or

Too good?

Depending.

How much of crazy have you been equipped to handle?

How much of your own insanity makes sense to you…thinking that by “knowing something” you are now able to bite off more for the handling…that will not bring terror?

I suppose if one could one might say…”Ask Rutherford”…about “need to know”…about experiments prompted by need to know that reveal the terrifying, show that things are not at all as previously assumed to be…that all is upended by what might even be called better knowing…

But, you really don’t have to ask Rutherford…you already are in your own little laboratory.

Have you found anything that scares you? The you that you assume…is the you?

Even terrifies that…you?

Is something able to monkey with what you believe is your knowing?

Or, are you the one who is far too clever to be made a fool of to himself?

There is one more clever who knows…how to deal with the clever.

To know one thing purely or clearly, even indisputably…we may come to understand is no small matter (or asking). We may say “I am”, assured to ourselves this is so, this is true, this is indisputable in all, and there think such foundation is firm. But what do any know (if knowing or believeing they do know anything) apart from change? If the “I am” is no less changing…even in such discovery of knowing (going from not knowing to now knowing, as in waking up) then at what particular point is that “I” of such stasis as can be known? Like trying to hit an ever moving target, or in some understanding of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle here applied to our own consciousness…the one observing the “I” in its ever moving estate, can never really know it fully.

If we add to this (who can’t?) some knowledge of death as the ultimate change in estate for the “I”, and as into which the I is ever proceeding…and our assumption is that there is a coming time in which the I will be not, and of such duration as imagined interminable (or indeterminable) and without end…then whatever small space (or length of time) such I may presently occupy along that infinite continuum is surely as nothing. Nothing at all. Even thus undoing any presumption of a sure present estate; for it is always in change, and always moving toward its not being.

Therefore “I am” may be far better stated “I am becoming not”…and that for a long, long time. Like forever after. Were we to “throw in” (so to speak) the time interminable before what says “I am” (before birth and awakening to consciousness)…we begin to see how weaker still is such presumption of knowing, as even most claimed fundamental knowing that “I am” is a firm foundation of any knowing. Yeah…it’s not only weak, but perfectly so. Even as I write, and you perchance read, our “I am” is in total flux.

So, what is?

Is anything in a full state of being of itself?

For if we say “everything is changing” as an a priori, or pooh pooh such considerations as absurdly framed cleverness, then we might as well go whole hog and say nothing is ever truly known. But even that statement contradicts itself if claiming to know that, or state that as truth.

To understand we are always given to “look with a kinder eye” upon ourselves in matters of all judgments goes far beyond mere seeming legal matters or matters pertaining to what might be called the moral sphere. Surely it is more plainly apparent when speaking of matters of guilt and its assigning; but to come to see it suffuses the whole of the foundation of our thinking, touching matters of our logic and reasoning (what appear the colder, cleaner, or more precise matters) is not as easily apparent. Yet we all are given in deepest recesses to our way of thinking, very much thought of and known to us as our own, and even from which almost all of our identity in, and of, ourselves is developed.

Even our coldest logic, which is like an internal mathematics to us…precise, unambiguous, tidy and built upon to form what might be called our world view, our way of seeing and understanding things, is chock full of ingredients neither knowingly placed nor accounted for. And when faced with the reality of these matters (to whatever extent) we most often seek a housecleaning of sorts, especially if, when found, they have led to some calamity. We are presented with some frustration of our thinking, or of our knowing, that we may discover is due to some residual taint previously unaccounted for that has skewed our sight as to hide what we are now in as consequence. We are self persuaded that if able to start from a perfectly clean slate, uninfluenced from outside, (or even others) that our own logical process(es), then pure, would serve us better. Then surely…we would know…and understand what appears to us as the outside through which we move in time and actions would be, not only better understood, but even more controllable. It is, in that sense, back to “If I had only known then what I know now…” or “I should have known better”.

Yet, what prevented me?

Let me find that disposition and be rid of it so it will not lead to calamity again, and now “I will know better”. But the very shovel we dig with is no less a product of such disposition to thinking “I can know better…and will”. And when such is embraced we hold to us a new starting line, a new place of venture out from, better equipped with some knowing and thinking “now I am better prepared to meet the unknowns that tripped me up last time.” Rarely are we so established in understanding that any knowing also presents a whole new set of “not knowings” into which we venture.

And so it remains again, and always, double edged. Even were we to utter such rubric as “the more I know (or learn), the more I realize I don’t know”, we remain convinced there is a knowing attainable that is unshakable to us. Who, if given the temerity to even utter such, does not continue to seek after knowing? Knowing by doing such (if he were true to such stating), he is only embracing all the more unknowing? Our own logic here is undone. It would tell us start here, build up with this next, then this, then this…and finally what can be known…will be. But if and when we might even see we are now led into the greater of unknowns and unknowing, we can’t help ourselves.

Can one (or any?) bear witness to such a consciousness?

To speak of a matter such as guilt, if it can even first be established that such a matter is, leaves one in a very peculiar place. Being so very subjective in experience, perhaps even exquisitely so, causes any discussion of it, particularly if proceeding from any notion of its attribute-ability, extremely precarious and difficult. Assigning guilt to another, or projecting it for its reception and acceptance by that other is easily frustrated. In some way it requires a prior assumption of another projection being embraced as not only practicable in all practicality, but also as itself a true matter able to be exercised to, or of, some verity. That is the assumption that “If I were you…” can stand. But, can it?

Not unlike “If I had only known better” or “If I only knew then what I know now“, whose insertion or projection is to another time or made of us as taking our present self and “moving” it to an earlier now (which to us is a then) “If I were you…” also signals an assumption of the facility with which one can become, or be another. When looked at this way the utter frivolity and vanity of its presumption to us becomes absurd. And yet we say it, do we not?

We understand that this observation is made subject to saying “It’s just a phrase, just a play with words that are not really meant that way described” and so the conclusion of absurdity is itself absurd. Or “It’s merely another way of saying one is experiencing some regret at prior choices or motions in the lacking of a fuller informing that is now present” Or in this other case (If I were you…) one is merely saying that given the situation or circumstance expressed by one to another, one is saying “If in that same circumstance, I would do this”.

But is it not absurd? For which is the more vainly presumptive, that the one with full belly can so enter the experience of the hungry man and advise him (thinking he is no less fully understanding of that circumstance, though his belly be full) being neither pressed presently at all with the all the attendant pressing(s) that comes with starving in experience, and insert himself; or that one by simple imagining has access to all experience(s)…even or especially those he is not presently in?

Now, one could say “But I have known hunger”…(or faced such a decision, using whatever situation for example) and therefore I am equipped to make such judgments about one in such a circumstance. But that one would have to imagine that his own experience of hunger (when brought to it is carrying all his own prior experiences and knowings) and that these are all the same across the board.

But, are they?

We carry into each circumstance our own informing about that circumstance. For whom of us does not know himself as only himself, and to himself unique, even to all that has formed him/her? We cannot have it both ways, or can we? That in all our presumed uniqueness we only show that this matter, this matter of seeking to hold to all our own uniqueness is so common to each, that in that way by claiming our own uniqueness we simply show we are the most common of men? Yes, each one is unique…just like everyone else. Have I tossed some dust upon your preeminence? Sorry, but not sorry.

For we are odd in our assessments, ourselves being more of a mystery to ourselves than others mostly. For where and when we might generally look at another and think “I know why so and so did that” believing we can see motive(s), to ourselves when caught we more generally wonder “why on earth did I do that?” And so, and in that way, though we might even concede each is unique (if pressed to it) we find ourselves a little more so, having a bit more uniqueness (if you will) due to our believing we are bit more mysterious in the workings of our self.

And if we take what would appear an opposite view; that is, saying all (others) are ignorant of their own motives, but not me of mine, as in “I know why I do things”, then the moment we are pressed to admit to some fault we are doubly guilty…for we claim to do with full knowing. Is it any wonder then how this is so easily circumvented of ourselves in resistance to admission of fault? Just don’t admit to fault and the wearing of guilt (and attendant shame) never need be acknowledged nor worn. This then becomes a matter of will or wills and the why of the saying above:

Assigning guilt to another, or projecting it for its reception and acceptance by that other is easily frustrated.

Do you see how we get into trouble…even, or especially, in such matter as assigning guilt? Even to ourselves. If taking the position in regards to any bad acting we hold only others guilty of motives of all malevolence, while we let ourselves off with plea of ignorance; or conversely, find all others guilty of ignorance while holding knowing to ourselves, we are the more guilty when our own fault is found. We are so bound either way…in being guilty of carrying an unjust balance.

And if all are guilty, no doubt so is our own sense of justice skewed.

Who escapes the charge of looking with a kinder eye upon themselves than upon any other?

But why do we? How couldn’t we?

And why do you behold the mote that is in your brother’s eye but do not see the beam that is in your own?

In the matter of “like” (those things in which we find affinity) and likeness, there is much to be said. Were we to strip away all matters of affinity due to their emotional provocations that often stir our consciousness, we would most likely also discover how much of what we think we know also being stripped from us. We rarely consider how much of (what we consider) our knowing is merely attributable to such affinities. Our predilection to want to believe and know certain things and resistance to others; that we either go on to establish as known true to us, or seek to negate…that are simply based upon “like” and dislike, runs deep indeed. This has been touched upon.

We may even be persuaded within that we “like” the truth, or want only the truth. Even to know the truth. That we are and would be above all (truth be known!) the securest of guarantors for its safe keeping if, or in, its granting to us. The fickleness of others we may see and even eschew greatly of their multiple and manifest hypocrisies…but we trust ourselves to act and be, differently. It would be funny but for the ravages wrought of those thinking themselves able, and able to be, more right. Who could escape judgment for this?

Yes, here consciousness shows itself quite double edged; for to believe one knows a thing rightly comes with it some pressing to be consistent to its rightness of knowing that we find unable to fully uphold. We simply don’t like being nakedly displayed as hypocrite and liars. (Why that is is for another time) But…we do not like it. Suffice it to say for now we hate being shown how insubstantial (without substance) we truly are of ourselves. We like to think (and very much so) ourselves as real…even substantially…real. With all our capability to thence decide what is real. And true. Of some internal integration toward truth and upon such integration to truth that we esteem our own integrity.

Oops, there’s another knowing we hold attributable to only “like”. A pressing to see ourselves as being a certain way. In such way we want to.

Listen if you can. I surely don’t know where, or on to whom, these words might land. And if it appears as some picking on any in particular, it is enough to say there is enough hypocrisy to go ’round.

One holding to a purely materialistic view (if believing all that current science tells) that is, that all is simply, basically…even truly particulate in nature, even down to subatomic particles and built up to what is seen and known due to inherent forces present in, and of, and acting and interacting upon these particles; a purely deterministic view is likewise inescapable. In order for anything in or of that system to believe in choice (or such as would appears so, or be described so) would imply that such being of this thing called choice or option-ality is of position to control and effect all these most fundamental forces and particles of matter. For if consciousness is only a matter of these things, quaint notions as reason with attendant (or so called) rejection of illogic become not merely moot, but untenable. How could a thing of consequence (consciousness) owing in all to a certain order and arrangement of necessity for its being, hold sway over that to which it owes its being?

If you need a ridiculous example, I am not shy about being ridiculous. It is akin to a person telling their parents to mate so that he might be born. And yet, who of us most practically speaking does not embrace our own ability to effect, even and including to the judging of others for the effects of their being? But such hypocrisy is not limited to the merely materialistic minded, it would even be hypocrisy in that instance to embrace such a notion as hypocrisy as most would understand that word. Yet we act and react with others according to the extension of a principle embraced inwardly “I can effect…(and make choice how to)…therefore…I can rightly judge others according to this same measure for the effects I judge as to their being.”

And this occurs to such measure in each that together and in some agreement (are its foundations made more sure by agreement…if they are already all of false?) that “legally” it can be decided (chosen?) in the extreme of agreement that one can have such effect(s) by chosen action as to merit what we consider nullification of their being (death penalty). But what is one, or many…removing? Nullifying? The effects of certain particles…so arranged? But who of us isn’t (in that case) merely and also no more than certain particles…so arranged? Yes, it is rather hilarious that certain agglomerations of atoms think themselves “better” in some ridiculous notion of what is commonly called morality. But, who of us doesn’t?

Hypocrites (if hypocrisy exists) all.

But, and if, morality is itself also a consequence of consciousness (at least to, and in, man’s mind) the very consciousness we embrace as real to ourselves (at very least, our own) is no less the very consciousness before which we all stand accused.

How double edged it is having consciousness! On the one hand we would celebrate it (at very least, our own) as our supremest having, (even being terrified of its possible nullification) but eschew the very thing we find so inimical to our celebrations, no less carried in it, bonded to it, present without contradiction as suffused also throughout all its (consciousness’s) being…guilt.

What a party pooper.

Things are.

This precise order in word(s) may not enter our consciousness as such, but were we to clear away all other matters accruing to this most fundamental stating of the estate of our consciousness, is that not what we are left with? Things are.

We may not have any understanding of the “how” of the things that are (by full knowledge of their working in expression), or even the how many of the things that are, but wouldn’t it be fair to say we fully believe in being? Are-ing. Things are is-ing. Existence…is.

How we participate, what we do about (at least) all the things that to us are made known as in existence (believing wholly in it, existence itself) and in our relationship(s) to them, from thoughts (even consciousness itself) to people, to the color(s) we prefer for our house or the shoes for our feet…everything we do or consider is based upon the most basic assumption of us…that things are. And our doing about them, and such as what we do about them is what constitutes what we call our life.

I know here I am toying with the absurd, or at least reductio ad absurdum. For the man who would think to himself in such terms as “I am neither philosopher, nor engaged in philosophy (literally “lover of wisdom”) but simple and practical in all” cannot deny that his exercise in to what he attributes being and existence no less includes those judgments of what is/are not (in being and existence), and neither can be. In that sense the truth about existence, or the reality of matters which may sound like an intellectual or philosophical pursuit, is really engaged in most commonly. And whether he admits it or not, such matter as truth and what is true in any or every sense (at least to him) is always at work in him. Let him hear his wife was seen at lunch the other day with another man and suddenly truth and matters of it become more than a dalliance of the philosophically minded.

What is true in existence and about it/them (those things) does not make us philosophers, we already are. At least in the practical sense…but whether we are truly “lovers of wisdom” in some fuller sense remains to be seen. From what might be called the coldest, hardest, most stern discipline of the utterly mathematical mind…this matter of truth, as in the rightness or wrongness of the most convoluted equation, holds sway. Oh, the numbers can exist on the whiteboard in whatever array of presentation (that is fact)…but the fact that they be there…does not make them true to any rightness. As much as perhaps we are practical philosophers we are no less practical mathematicians working in the reality/realities we “know” trying to make sure we have things add up…rightly. Even truly…to us.

But it’s kinda late for each of us, isn’t it? All the factors “in there” (of our consciousness), and so many of which were placed before we even had any sense of having a bouncer at the door (our judgment) of what is worthy to enter or be turned back has too long been formed. This “1” I carry to the next column…is that mine or my father’s 1, my mother’s predilections or displeasures…and/or understandings? Whose way of looking at things…summing up things…is really only my own? That I might even “know” as mine? Add in all the “commonly accepted” matters in community or history, things of which we have neither time nor inclination to test for ourselves to verify (or are unable) and we discover how much we move in a trust of knowing, even if it not be ourselves. How many people do you imagine would be using cell phones if it were limited to only those who fully understand their workings? TV? Automobile?

Ha! Yet we use our consciousness/reason/mindfull(?)ness to appraise a thing we call (a or the) reality as to what is, might be, or cannot be true in it, or about it. This is fact…but is there, even in the slightest thing in its regard…true about it and its use? Like the whiteboard we can string our numbers and equations to whatever sequence we do so… and place the = sign just before our answer as to what is reality. Do you doubt we do this? Feel/sense an even total and irresistible need to make answer for what we believe…real?

And why.

Do you know because your father(s) claimed to? Or do you resist his/their knowing due to some form of a motivating to resist? Either way…the ones who have gone before remain the governing factor of reception or rejection.

Or maybe, you just don’t like…me.

To hold an unfair advantage is to both hold and be held in, and by, unfairness. To be its prisoner. And yet we speak of justice as something; even a something real, and a something achievable. And not only so; for even if, or when, we may concede to its supremacy as something that is sublimely in all fullness beyond our full grasp, it remains as to us a most worthy impelling, a noble pursuit of all un-impeachability. It is impervious to insult, being noble.

Like the pursuit of knowledge, or what we would call truth, a man may wrap himself securely to himself if convinced his ultimate motives are so based. He seeks to be impervious at heart, to hold something of himself unassailable; uncompromised and uncompromisable by any and all circumstance as simply a thing he knows of bedrock establishing. He secures himself to himself as knowing in such a way. Man must have something upon and from which his being is established to himself; for sifting of all, or trying to stand and proceed from the shaking of all, no man makes progress from. Where he steps is no less shaky than from where he left. So, he must convince himself he at least…knows something. Something if, or when, all else shows itself of less than full substance he can retreat to for re-establishment when all other “ergos” that have perhaps shown some fault by his excursions upon them in trust, are shown less firm.

I think, therefore I am. “Cogito ergo sum” said a man. His thinking established himself to himself as having being. We can leave off for now all the significance and possible implications of his mention of “I am” to any other reference(s) that easily come to mind. It is enough to see that at least to him (if he is being honest) his being is reliant, to him a dependent thing, only informed as real by his thinking. And let’s give him some benefit of the doubt that he is not making an exclusionary statement but only speaking of himself and for himself in the how “being” is established to him. He has to know himself as thinking to satisfy and secure his knowledge of estate. Yet, can a man “think wrong”? Even…all wrong? And therefore, not only be wrong about his own being, but wrong in the sense of its establishment and true nature…of what “being” is?

What will he do when he meets the rock? Must he also ascribe an ability for it to think…in order for it “to be” to him? Is…the rock? Does the rock “have being” no less than he to himself, that he only establishes to himself by thinking? You obviously see the quandary, but perhaps more…how this trail of thinking as sufficient for establishing runs into further question(s). Does the rock have being only in consequence to the man’s thoughts of it? His thinking is required for anything “else”…even everything else, to be and acknowledged as having being? His agreement to it? Yep, there’s something presumptive about, or in regards to, a thing having consciousness…for what it establishes itself by, as having being, now finds that consciousness must allow (or does it?) for the all in which he neither sees it, nor finds it. Even of such presumption it can “insert itself” into places where it says…there is none.

It cannot differentiate, yet believes it does…and can…from consciousness to, and consciousness in. For when any man’s consciousness informs him of his being he cannot but allow for a dependence upon, and there even if, or though firmly resisted in his own reason he cannot but find himself no less in proposition that consciousness is necessary for any and all being. If he concedes to his own reason/consciousness as having being in the universe, he will either make the false presumption his own reason is for the universe, or he will (though he cannot will himself nor reason to it) there is reason to the universe. There is reason…why he even believes himself…to have reason.

A writer of some note undertook to describe such a man in some logical/reasonable extension of this presumption in the extreme. But that is what reason does, doesn’t it? At least in some masquerade as reason…an attempt to reduce to extreme and most fundamental principle that upon which other is founded? Like the why of why, though opposite charges attract (we so often think only in oppositions, and not complementary to a unity) electrons do not collapse upon a nucleus of protons, or why protons are not pulled out of their place. Force and forces holding all in seeming contradiction to reason. Reason itself having some foundation as, and in, opposition to…utter unknowing…or what would be addressed as nonsense; non sense.

Anyway, this writer obviously understands the presumption of man by his seeing of it, his almost too perfect description of it by its plain reduction to this sentence uttered by that character:

“Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent.”

Yes, this is an extreme statement, yet not at all made less true by its extremity. We each, in some way, hold this unfair advantage to ourselves over creation, over all the things that be…that to us, if are not known, are as good as non-existent. And if, by circumstance matters that enter our consciousness of knowing do so, they are not allowed to reside apart from our consenting to their being.

Yes, it is a very strange operation whereby we consent to the being of things, yet we do. And individually we no less extend this in all (self) unfairness of advantage of our own being, unable to accord the being of anything else as something a bit less than our own, and to which we, at best, consent to their being.

Equity and justice in such a case is all and only in measure attributable to our own largess, another thing we merely consent to, as deigning to acknowledge or render.

“I see men as trees walking.” A man said before a second touch.

But who can do anything about the self? From that perspective whence all judgment issues?

What will it do when it meets the rock?

Forgive them Father, they know not what they do.

Yes, the words of Jesus Christ while hanging on a cross, a stauroo (Greek), a torture stake. A thing devised to display a man naked, stripped down to all his fundamental inability to move or do and barely allowing breath to speak. Reduced to no more than a thing hung for display of its powerlessness, utter weakness, its being shown in all as subject to the greater force(s) upon it, as exposure and gravity work to undo its life. Stuck like a bug in a display case while yet alive to be seen, noted, observed as warning. The end is not rehabilitation or turning of offender, just display as a total reduction and caution…even threat…to all observers. Man is reducible, divisible from all his prior activity while yet alive to a thing able to do no more than barely squirm against its pinioning. And perhaps consider its own finitude, its utter limitation in such squirming.

Someone wrote somewhere of being a “worm and no man”.

Now, many understand those words in only the context of that particular circumstance, that that plea for mercy and forgiveness for what “knows not” is solely made in reference to the ignorance there, of executing an innocent man, even the man as the Son of God. As though their (our) “knowing not” was of particular highlighting, or a thing only of applicability there, and note. But this is not so. Jesus was not shy nor reluctant to make mention of this “not knowing” as endemic to man’s estate. One need only read the scriptures, those writings about Jesus to see how often he referred to man’s inability to know and his estate in not knowing. Even going so far as to plainly state there is no knowing apart from its being a given thing, and that from above. And this is a very pointed thing to tell any who are already convinced in their self of their knowing. It provokes hostility.

Yet, truth only answers to truth.

No, as much as Jesus is not a religious icon nor even a religious figure, he is not a philosopher engaged in epistemology. He offers no investigations of methods, no dissections of terms, no musings about how a man might know. Man does not…and cannot. Neither can he do anything about this of himself. That door is irrevocably closed to any and all knowing in truth, of truth, unless another open it and give. Man cannot appropriate it, reason by sense or senses to it; truth will always be as elusive to him as his own self eludes him in all fraudulent construct. Because man as liar…is. In a self he cannot escape. Both in all lying to himself, and thence communally sharing…for some agreement, for endorsement, for a feedback from all other liars to some consensus which somehow then is able to mark the threshold of truth. But liars can never agree. Homo sapiens…really? Man as free? Really? To even name himself?

Thinking he knows himself.

Such descent into the heart of the earth, into the void that is man, into all the emptiness of spaces (even allowed discoverable by man) as even now knowing himself no more than the swirling of molecules assembled, agglomerated only in and to pulsing electrical signals, was made. This fancy dirt holds…nothing. Neither can it but of such pulsing it calls life, which is only at best metaphor, with a consciousness itself that is only, and at best, metaphor. And yet it calls this of the real stuff by which all undertaking is undertaken. But who could see such dire estate? And what would, or could even care enough about man…to let him…know? It would take man as no other, able to pronounce such dire assessment (even knowing the consequences) but without trepidation, without concern for a self useless to him for anything, without denying his too, is of such like in forming.

Of myself I can do nothing. He said.

No, not philosopher. Not guru. Not theologian. Not iconic religious figure. A man who would not lie about man, forsaking all and any advantage that is commonly shared amongst them in maintenance of such lie to the hiding of the complete impotence of self.

Of myself I can do nothing.

He told on us when he told on his own self.

And, he is right. Made willing to be merely a self among other selves.

Yet he speaks of how all things are.

I used to believe “my own man”, too.

Then another came to show what a liar he is. And how easy slaughter is to it.

And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.

The some, few, or many that find those words either odious in their reference (to what is commonly called a religious figure, Jesus Christ) or offensive in some implication of their necessity to be forgiven for their not knowing, they nevertheless stand:

“Forgive them Father, they know not what they do”

Here a man is speaking in a conversation we are now made privy to. He is not talking to us, but before us. But now the words are there regardless if one considers them one sided and not a conversation at all, as though the man is “only speaking to thin air” with no hearer addressed for bearing of witness. But now…you hear them. You are now in that place as hearer. You are now witness to those words….even if knowing they are not to you, can you resist the knowing they are “about” you? Do you think you can impeach them as “not conversation”, as not communication from one to another? Or will your witnessing as a witness prove you impeached? Do you…know?

Accepting the impeach-ability of all of one’s knowing is a work far beyond any operation one man could exercise upon another. Oh, we may receive instruction in part (as we all have) and according to our own arrangements as in “I will sit under this professor (but only) because I acknowledge his expertise, skill, or experience as outstripping my own”. But to engage with one who (as mentioned several pages back) can and would say “You have no idea of what you are doing…do you?” would at least provoke some resistance in either as forthright a response as “Who do you think you are to say that?” or even the more subtle attempts to show one does indeed know what they are doing, as proof of negation. And so they would…do. And continue to do till either they could prove themselves as knowing or proof to them they do not was made plain. And of course, I cannot prove this to you.

Even were one to concede in any part that their own consciousness (which sits supremely and presumes to utter of its objectivity to each of us) is found merely a hodgepodge of balls and strikes pitched to a self by parents or guardians, intellectual aptitude, experiences, friends, enemies, experiments, and wonderings in all limited to what that self has contacted in all circumstance(s); still the mind is trapped in that lie it tells itself…”I can rise above in all reason to survey it, and from there find the sense and reason of it all and hold objectivity“.

There may be nothing funnier to hear than a man (even any man) speaking of objectivity.

Yes, the pretty who girl who seems to find out early how to open doors with just a smile might like to think she can know other…but it is far too late. For even were she to set out to know how “less pretty girls fair”, she has already been set to her place from which such undertaking is even motivated. Our desire to know is actually the plainest proof that we do not. And to find we can do nothing about that, well, who could either bear to say it, or receive it?

And maybe as equally funny to hear is the man who thinks himself enough (or thinks of himself as enough) to utter “I am really just seeking the truth”…as though entitled to it. Even as though what by admission is lacking it in the consequence of seeking it, would know it if seen.

Truth only answers to truth.

Was that man in conversation?

Is he even still, now?

What do you know?

If you have, in any way partaken in any portion of these few words, I am your debtor. And it is a debt I am totally unable to repay. There is a charge against my account as a man of which I am only barely aware, and of which (and of myself) I am in all disability to discharge. In one sense it matters not if I continue, as though incurring more charge, or desist; what is done by thought, word, or deed has already been done and I am in no position other than any other man to make an accounting for myself to any satisfaction. I am as stuck as any in a vanity and frustration made aware to me well before I tapped out anything upon this keyboard. I am a man who cannot…undo.

The “do” of me, once undertaken in all blithe mimicry I did not avoid nor could have of myself, has been presented to me of some adequacy. I can only leave you to judge whether adequacy in this case is accuracy. A self which in the beholding of “other’s doing” prompted a response to either do in accordance or resist of obstinacy. A self of some form of consciousness presumed adequate to judge according to its own knowing. At whatever moment this took place remains hidden to me, but that I am sure it occurred somewhere, and at some time, leaves me little doubt. “I will be like some others, and I will not be as some others”. Here mimicry is no more laudable than resistance. And recalcitrance, obstinacy…even rebellion when accounted, have all the same root. For the mimic and the resistor are all of one in the self same…self. A self considering itself…as adequate to itself. It can do no more than it sees or even imagines. Yet at any and every point it remains convinced “I know what I know”. (To ask here whether you agree would be the mootest of all matters)

But listen here, if you can. If you can. From where I write is to some form of another self, and I can either assume you are in some way no different than this self writing, or altogether not at all “like”. Either our “selves” hold some commonality or they do not. And I am to one either betraying some form of consciousness of self to another, or must appear to some “other” one as a traitor (betrayer) of reason…even of consciousness. A fool and liar dressed as a man. How this is all “out of my hands” is made too plain to me. Gibberish or some appeal to a likeness I once foolishly thought in my control.

This self from which I compose and have done my doings, has known a thing as regret. It has done according to some impetus toward an imagined end. But at the point of its doing, at that or those moments of impetus toward, it did not know it was all and only dealing in imaginings; it actually embraced to itself the knowing of outcome. “If I do this, this must surely happen” (or such and such will not happen). Only later by failing or failure (whose depths are measurably equated to experience of regret) did it come to be seen as not knowing but only imagining (as self created image). And being surveyed then as either a lesson “learned” (trying to eke some success out of failure, even if painful) the failing was never truly addressed as to its true nature. The failing was assumed to be only in execution, and the depth of regret became the tutor, the taskmaster to ensure that the “knowing better now” remained the knowing better now…to ensure better execution. Taste regret…and remember. See how it tastes? Yuck! Remember. Do better…now. Yes, I was (and often remain) in that circumstance with regret as tutor…until I am disabused.

Yes, I am inclined very much toward acknowledging regret and its consequence of shame in failing as the most potent teacher my self can know. And such knowing is and remains most potent until such disabusing comes (by rebuke) that makes too plain a thing as stated above…I cannot undo.

I am forbidden a fruit I am all inclined to taste and enjoy. That from failure or failing in whatever experience I am allowed to “take away” (eke out a success) by embracing “now (or more saliently “but now”) I know better.“

For the rebuking question, and questioner…has come. Not of my bidding, nor surely not of my will nor desire. For I would in all, and in every circumstance (but for the rebuker) always opt, choose, desire, to think of myself no matter what pile of failures trail me…as one who “knows better…now”.

But ahh, that rebuker!

His question cuts to the heart of it, shreds in his advance past all my imaginings (as vain as they are) shown by supreme ease with which he cuts through them. Where I was stopped he advances. Where I saw end, even end in proposition of “better execution” to avoid shame and failure…he cuts through as sharpened iron swung through vapor. All my thoughts of doing better…because I now “know better” are shown as the rank vanity they are.

His question is supremely simple, yet in it holds all deliverance from regret and shame though it appears as most shamelessly asked, too brazen, too bold, too extreme of rashness for myself to either accept or even conjure. Yet it is…the question…something or someone brings to “my self” in consciousness. It’s light is too cutting. Too precise. This consciousness invading…is other.

No, it has not been my execution, that if perfected would ensure better and shameless outcome than of knowing failure and regret. That is and always has been the limit of my knowing. The “How to do.“

The question above all that either comes or does not, but is nevertheless there, regardless, has all to do with the man who sees now what he did not know “then” and is even moved to consider “If I had only known…” (in admission of his not knowing) is simple…

“Then why (or what is it) that caused you to think you knew (then) when now you know you did not?”

This one asking is far more about the being of man than the mere doing that is the limit of all men.

The question is again, simple, and though mentioned already it always bears reminding to my self, repeating from a place other to the place of my self. Addressing even all my inclination(s) always to embrace “but now I know better”.

Whatever “then” I occupied prior to my knowing of failure and such regret or shame that accompanied in falling short, was not, nor ever due to execution at all. The failing was in the impetus itself by which such doing ensured itself.

And the impetus was a confidence in my knowing.

Therefore the question provokes “If I no less thought myself as knowing then which has shown itself inadequate to perform to success by its consequence of failure and I am now the man in consequence to that failure, whence comes any assurance “I now know better”?

I do not fail, I am the failing one.

Yes, surely I thought I knew then…enough to do…and did. Just like…now. I am that man.

I cannot undo…that then. Anymore than I can of myself escape any thinking I now know better. I cannot undo…what I am.

How could any man escape the bondage of their own consciousness if that consciousness were always in continual lie to him about its knowing? Fraudulently representing itself as judge and arbiter of what is…and can be? Even to such point that the man could think or say “If I had known better…” (as though he could “replace” himself there, in that other moment he now sees of not knowing) and telling the man he can be “better”.

Forgive them Father, they know not what they do.

Seek the consequence of that man’s doing. He knows what He knows. He is unfailing.

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