personal note #99

A friend of mine, Marek Mateusz Narożniak, writes a blog which I follow quite closely. He frequently shares bits of wisdom, short or long, that I read with great interest. Recently, he posted this note and I felt strongly compelled to translate it into English - I thought it should be shared with more people than it would be otherwise if left in its original Polish language.

I am somewhat uncertain as to whether I can add anything meaningful with a comment. After all, the matter discussed by this note already eludes any possible words.

The original note in its original language can be found at this location.

First, he decided to limit the power of his will, surrender to his ego, forsake his divinity and perfection for futility and illusion, and all that remained were tears, despair, everything else is silence. Constantly lost, still far away from his true self. Addicted to naming and terming. Isolated and lonely.

Who cares whether God exists, what does it matter how your country is called, whether you eat rice or bread, whether you have normal or slanted eyes, how your skin color is called and whether it is similar to others or not. Who cares about politics, a bunch of liars and fools, totally and helplessly attached to their brief identities. What's the difference if someone else is the president? The prime minister?

You have no idea how much of a speck of dust you are, a blink of an eye in the face of what the universe is. All you care about are elements of your microscopic world, completely unnoticeable from the perspective of all that is due to its insignificance.

You are afraid that you'll disappear, that you will stop being. You are a slave, but you do not serve any secret brotherhoods, any secret (or overt) monarchs, you don't serve your parents, your boss at work, you don't serve your teachers or friends.
Your ego is your master. You give in to it entirely. You can oppose anyone, you can free yourself of anything, but you are only truly afraid of losing your identity. This is the only step you will never find the courage to take, the only step you are too weak, too small to take.

You are so asleep and unaware. You can have beautiful cars, a perfect life partner, you can visit the most beautiful places on this tiny planet, you can own anything, others can serve you, you can never have to do anything by yourself again, but even all those things put together cannot be compared to one second of feeling your own heartbeat, to one true, alive breath, the one you will never feel, because you're a slave to a master that you cannot see, that exists within you without your knowledge, that has convinced you that you are him.

Being truly alive and free, being one with the universe, that is something no word can describe. That is a feeling that drives the painter to tear apart his canvas and burst into tears, unable to paint it, aware that he cannot share it with anyone, since other slaves cannot perceive it.

Noone can give you this, you cannot earn this through hard work, no blessing can help - the wisdom I speak of cannot be written in any book, cannot be even shared through words. The truth is so slippery that no word can grasp it. This whole false civilzation is based upon words. Law is everywhere, you have so many dictionaries, body-builders can train their muscles with them, dictionaries are useful only for that.

I am powerless as well, I can talk endlessly, I can't convey anything to you, you won't understand a thing anyway, slave. You won't understand anything until you disappear, until you vanish into nothingness, you won't see anything nor feel anything. You are a living corpse, your biochemistry reeks, you disgusting abnormality of evolutuion, grow up to that which exists, look up to the stars instead of looking into your worthless books which are about to turn to dust.