The journey is long and the sea furious, and the crews of the ships curious, and the trials never-ending.
When presented with trial and tribulation, life tastes as sweet as fresh water on a battered ship traversing a stormy ocean. The years heave, ho, swell like towering waves, they burst forth in a swirl of attrition to which a person adjusts and responds with anticipation, getting used to it and, in due course, depending on it — so precious and central — dare I say instrumental — is the concept of challenge to the intelligent process.
And heaven, that fleeting state of aspiration, an apparition that comes forth in the dreams of men and women and their budding children at times of contentment and anguish alike, conjuring up the mirage of peace and comfort, solace and redemption — this heaven of ours rises up to lift the world’s spirits and deliver it to new heights, a fresh horizon. It draws the line between rock bottom and excellence — lofty affirmation — separates the hedonists from the survivors no matter one’s gender or age, making sure the latter have enough corpses to step on when the water rises, when the ashes fall, when one needs something to step on.
Not for the faint hearted, the world’s underpinning mechanisms. The journey goes on, and it feeds on those who fall behind. Cruel and testing, the rules are something everyone wants to disguise, gloss over, but the axioms can’t be denied, and neither can intelligent life. Only those able to withstand the tests of time will lay claim to a purposeful, meaningful existence, of which time is the ultimate patron.
The priests and cattlemen, the captains and slave traders and their mindless minions are desperate to keep the status quo, and their dependents on a ball and chain, forever dependent, ignorant, bound to their every command, slaves to mandate and writ from above. Someone has to do authority’s bidding without question, the masses sacrificing themselves in the name of ideals devised by those in charge.
But the word is out — it took a while, but it’s turning into common knowledge. People took notes, how in times of crisis the wolves in command of the ships remove their wooly garments and stretch their limbs and unlock their jaws and join their vocal chords in a symphony of howls and flesh-tearing roars, revealing fangs in the moonlight, in the dead of ocean night, incisors gleaming like assassins’ daggers under the canopy of stars. How these beats howl and make everyone believe the enemy is their friend and neighbor, and force half the crew to destroy the other half, then sail to new lands, recruit more hands for transportation, gather slaves, inspect, choose, favor, seed fear, playing a sick game that chokes the spirit. It’s out in the open now. The word has spread, and everyone is paying attention to the process, casting aside their wishful thinking, their slave mentality, minding their way ahead with a newfound sense of foreboding, with an informed mind. They will defeat the beasts, throw them overboard alongside those who help them, including those who don’t take sides. Anyone who doesn’t help the cause is an enemy, an obstacle that needs to be removed. The weak and obtuse shall be cast overboard with the rest f them, to be eaten up by the swelling waves, the skies rumbling in approval, and the ship’s planks will creak and heave with conviction, eager to continue the journey in the hands of new authority — a vicious circle, after all — and the strong will man the masts and grip the winds by the neck, riding the storm in the dark of night, propelling the world onward to new lands and shores, determined to never be thwarted again. Woe betide those who stand in their way.
It was written on an ancient slab of granite carved out of an ancient mountainside untold eons ago that life belongs to those who dream not of solace but of creation — creation of new worlds and realities that render development possible.
The rest is smoke and mirrors for the world’s fodder and vestiges.
That’s how the world was born — in trial and tribulation, through blood, purge, affirmation, cataclysm, conflagration, undulating apocalypse, unmitigated resolve. That’s how it was raised from rudiment of imagination to a wholly functional, adaptive structure, and that’s how it will grow and adapt, till the end of time.
From the collection of writings EON: THE ANGRY COMING OF AGE