Moments of Purity
"One moment of perfect beauty," explains Kosh to Sheridan in an episode of Babylon 5.
I have experienced times like that. I have had moments when I looked out at the mountains and everything just clicked. For perhaps the span of a few seconds, there was nothing but one distilled concept or emotion. Beauty. Joy. It doesn't happen often and it doesn't last long. I recall perhaps fewer than half a dozen such experiences.
Last night, it was emptiness. I put my reading on hold, closed up my tablet cover, and was prepared to move on to something else. Then, for just a fleeting moment... utter and abject emptiness: echoes of silence, shades of loneliness, certainty in a lack of meaning - so many different little things that coalesced together into one feeling, one concept. In that instant, I "grokked" oblivion.
Then it passed, leaving me somewhat shaken and shading my evening. In retrospect, it was somewhat fascinating. And frightening. On the whole, I think I'd rather experience beauty.
I have experienced times like that. I have had moments when I looked out at the mountains and everything just clicked. For perhaps the span of a few seconds, there was nothing but one distilled concept or emotion. Beauty. Joy. It doesn't happen often and it doesn't last long. I recall perhaps fewer than half a dozen such experiences.
Last night, it was emptiness. I put my reading on hold, closed up my tablet cover, and was prepared to move on to something else. Then, for just a fleeting moment... utter and abject emptiness: echoes of silence, shades of loneliness, certainty in a lack of meaning - so many different little things that coalesced together into one feeling, one concept. In that instant, I "grokked" oblivion.
Then it passed, leaving me somewhat shaken and shading my evening. In retrospect, it was somewhat fascinating. And frightening. On the whole, I think I'd rather experience beauty.
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