Something that people will oft-neglect, but reveals a surprising insight into the ideas of philosophers--indeed, even to the real life value of their philosophies--is how the philosophers relate to other people, and when magnifying this fact, there is nothing more personal and intimate than how the philosopher dealt with the gloriously irrational, the unpredictable, the temperamental: the woman. The other half, the only half, the stormy, feminine intelligence taken out of man, which in his cold rationality would have made him warm, the -shah appended to the lonely Ish...

Bertrand Russell, the logician, with his mathematical mind, who created for himself a personal ethics based on what he merely feels is right, he married four times and was notorious for many more affairs (including with the wife of T. S. Eliot). Yes, and one day he mounted his bicycle and he suddenly thought: "I don't love my wife anymore", and click, that's that, and divorce, replace, divorce, replace, quite like propositional variables in logic, wouldn't you agree? And it's quite interesting that in later years, he traded his role as mathematician for the moralist, and in his fame sought to teach the world the difference between right and wrong...

Jean Paul Sartre, the existentialist of nothingness, and his famous partnership with the intellectual Simone de Beauvoir, both of them celebrities who tried to rise above all restrictions and conventions, to create the new, rebellious philosophy for the next generation. And so in their romance Sartre outlined to Simone the succession of female affairs he envisioned for himself, and insisted that she too, assert her existence in promiscuity. And the ugly, wall-eyed philosopher slept around like an animal, while she wrote The Second Sex, and became the voice of the feminist who railed against the eternal feminine, and yet at the same time, in private, confessed the piercings of jealousy that would never go away..

Friedrich Nietzsche, the overman, the celebrated nihilist, the voice of the prophet who would go even beyond the beyond, the pre-incarnation of Anti-Christ. And yet his heart was like a schoolboy with a crush, helpless against the charms of the prodigious Lou Andreas-Salome, and several times he proposed to her and several times she turned him down. She instead chose to love Rene Maria Rilke, whom she called Rainer, who became the poet we all know. And the dejected Nietzsche, who scorned the animal passions, who scorned any kind of dependency, yet nevertheless heeded to his own need one cold night, into a Cologne brothel, where he contracted his syphilis and slid into derangement...

Soren Kierkegaard, who loved Regine Olsen but confessed in his journals that he did not have enough faith, because if he did he would have married her and spent his whole life with her. But because he was afraid of the contradiction between his gloom and her gaiety, and the thought of snuffing out her flame, he broke the engagement. From then on he sought the second best thing he could do, to immortalize her, to build his own philosophy around her, to find the philosophy that could account for sacrifice, and love, and the inner world of the lonely individual who stands naked before God: finding the only absolute commitment that can supersede the sacredness of earthly matrimony...

Johann Georg Hamann, whom both Goethe and Hegel admired, now a forgotten philosopher, but the one who loved the best. Who went one ahead of the civil institution of marriage by exemplifying the union of faith. For in the eyes of the world it was an open marriage with Anna Regina Schumacher, but in terms of loyalty, of living, of heart and flesh, he was more faithful than so many who have married. Like in times long past when there was no paper, no institution, but simple commitment before God. And he had four children with her, and he declined the work that would take him far from her, his "hamadryad", his "Weib". Needless to say, he never had another...

When you look at philosophies you can choose to ignore this aspect, you can convince yourself that the idea is separate from the life, and let's not commit the mistake of ad hominem, but let's just focus on the text. Which is just another way of forcing ignorance and blindness on oneself. For life is more than words on paper and neutered thoughts, but virile thoughts that lead to action, and to skin that will touch, and lips that will kiss. It is a grave error, equal to denying the existence of the feminine which puts the masculine to the test, here in the real world where life is lived. From time immemorial the very thing that philosophers have pursued has been depicted as a woman. In the Proverbs wisdom is a lady, established since the beginning of the world, and he who treasures her finds life. But how can you trust any philosopher to tell you wisdom when he cannot even deal well with the woman he can hold with his own two hands?

(Lyrics by Live, Slightly Modified)

Our Love is, like water

            pinned down and abused for being strange

Our Love is, no other

            than You alone, for You all day

Our Love is, like angels

            pinned down and abused, yeah, yeah

 

All over You all over me: the sun the fields the sky

I've often tried to hold the sea, the sun, the fields, the tide

Lay me down, lay me now, oh...

===

She must be one of the most handsomest ladies I've ever met. Since last year I've been noticing her behind the counter, pacing behind the food plates. You can tell by the way she moves around and talks to the other women that she owns the business, but in another way she's even more diligent and hardworking than even her own helpers. She's quite tall and even broad shouldered, in a rather matronly way, but there's that contradictory, young, pleasant glow in her face. That's what I keep on noticing. It's like she keeps on smiling even when she's no longer smiling. And it makes you wonder, how can she keep on smiling like that, spending the whole day behind the counter, in a fastfood stall, waiting for her customers?

He eyebrows are high and sleek, but not in a superior way, but with a gentle, natural curvature. And her eyes also have that sparkle almost like a five year old child's...

One time I had the privilege of watching her husband and her little girl come to her while she worked. Her husband had a lot of gray hair, had narrow eyes and was a few inches shorter than his wife, but when they talked it was like they were still dating. And their short, quick kiss seemed to show the pure, innocent meaning of "sweethearts", not without a little passionate wink in the eye of course. Her little girl, around seven years old but already tall and slender limbed, was absolutely gorgeous, with a face hardly describable, and brown skin that was at the same time very fair.

One Sunday when we had to attend the earlier Church service, I caught sight of her at the back row, on the way down the stairs. I said I expected it all along, and yet at the same time I felt suspicion--suspicion of us, myself, a lot of the other churchgoers I also knew... Because it dawned on me that in some ways she was to good for Church, that she was too natural, too free flowing, for many of people who strive hard, pursuing religion like it was an unsavory career obligation. Yes, that much was true. But it dawned on me that in another sense you cannot possibly expect to find her anywhere else, because she's too good for church but inseparable from God, that is, her life wonderfully fits together with Him, is inextricably linked with Him, with a peace that exudes from such a distance that it tickles me silly, even without knowing her but just seeing...

Sometimes in the past as a family we'd buy in their restaurant stall, maybe once every couple of months. But the past two Sundays we've sort of become regulars thanks to my dad who met her while they ushered in Church. Now she recognizes my parents and most of the family by face. She's very much disposed to give us bonus servings, to our great delight! Not that their original servings aren't bargains already, and their cooking honestly above par: beef curries, beef stews, sinigang na salmon, nilagang baka, chicken giniling, lengua, sizzling plates.. from what I can remember of this morning's menu, hehe.

Me and my mother both agree, in the SM foodcourt sometimes you eat your food really depressed, what with a single grumpy old employee who spoils your whole day for you, with an irritating, careless remark or gesture. But when we buy from this lady's restaurant the food is always appetizing and delicious. Even if the place is as noisy and crowded as any fastfood, yet because of her there's also a homey, family feel to our lunch. It's funny though, I've never figured out what the name of their restaurant is. I glanced at the place a while ago and I'm not sure if they really call it "Sizzling Plates", because if so then that would be very, very unoriginal and uninspired, hehe. But likely it's not really about the restaurant, and not even so much about the food, as it is about a very beautiful woman... I'd really like to learn her name, hmm, maybe next Sunday!!

Finally! I'm definitely not a physicist or mathematician, so I've really been waiting for any documentary that can explain string theory for me in understandable terms. I think the following documentary, "Elegant Universes", did a wonderful job, especially with ingenious, simple metaphors and not without a dose of humor. Not only that, it sort of let me in on the historical development of physics, from Newton, to Einstein, to Witten, or in another way, from classical physics, to general relativity, to quantum mechanics, to string and superstring theory. After watching things like this I almost wished I was a physicist instead of a philosophy major, ah, but whatever I do mathematical symbolism always freaks me out. Hehe. Hope someone will find the show equally inspiring and enlightening. It has three episodes in the series, and though each episode might feel a little redundant in some parts, I think finishing them all was very rewarding.

http://www.youtube.com/user/1d10cy

If String Theory is right, then God really knows how to play music. Incalculable symphony of an almost infinite number of vibrating strings, like violins, each with its unique, peculiar note and harmonic, all playing at the same time, in billions of universes, creating all the elements we know, which makes Bach's humanly spectacular counterpoint in Art of Fugue look like the greatest insult to divine majesty.

I notice you can never grasp it for what it is. It always needs metaphor and models that can only give you a feel of understanding (not to mention a lot of fancy computer graphics), but in truth knowledge of the direct, empirical kind is utterly impossible. It needs the fusion of reason and faith in the elegance of mathematics, and I daresay, in some higher power that grants you the capacity, the very existence, to even think these things.

If the entire Solar System was an atom--and previously we have emphasized how small the atom is, so hard to imagine its better not to even try--strings then would be as big as a tree, usually, and yet, with Edward Witten's (the heir apparent to Einstein) M-Theory (which he says, "stands for magic, mystery, or matrix, according to taste"), the string can stretch into the whole universe, a string expanding into membrane.

If String Theory is right, then we are indeed caught up, stuck up, in only a "membrane" of everything that is true, and even in this membrane there are dimensions that exist but we do not have access to, that is, unless we were as small as strings themselves.

I have almost that tingling feeling that science will soon confront spirituality face to face, not in a vague way, but in direct contact. That the intuitions of religion, of spiritual realms and unseen beings interpenetraing our world, and the mysteries of science, with its multiverses, its greater, inaccessible dimensions, will combine into one great revelation: not just that there is a God, but who this very God is. I think that I actually have good reasons to be excited about physics! And I can't wait to see what new developments will come after they switch on the Large Hadron Collider this 2008!

Reading a while ago, I was struck by how a certain tendency of the Israelites is also often manifest in my own life. How in the face of the newest hardship or trial, a certain paranoia sets in, a certain self-centered anxiety that insists, maybe this is where God will leave you until you hit rock bottom, maybe this time he will turn his back on you for good. It’s a subtle and slow-growing worry that ferments in the back-walls of your mind. And yet, with all the clear powers of your reason you see that there’s absolutely no precedent! Just taking the minimal effort to remember and you recall that everything, every single event in your life he has turned for your own good, and in ways that are beyond your imagination, and certainly beyond what you deserve. And if you only had a checklist it would be a list of gifts and gifts, and miracles piled high upon miracles.

In the case of Israelites it was time for them to enter the promised land, it was the challenge they’ve been waiting for, the fulfillment of an ancient covenant to their forefathers since generations past. The spies have checked out the land and they’ve brought back their report. Indeed, the land is more beautiful and bountiful than we first imagined, and to think that God would graciously promise such an inheritance to such an undeserving people! But at the same time most of the spies are doubtful and worried. They’ve seen the people who reside there, and they do not think we can pull this conquest off, and soon the whole congregation is infected and eaten up by their doubt. In a brash conclusion that has absolutely no precedent in their actual past, but which is predictable of their own stubborn psychology they complain: “Because the Lord hates us, He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into this land of giants to destroy us.”

They say this, imagine, even after the God who cannot lie already made a covenant with their forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And to think God himself passed in between the bodies of several animals cut in half, performing the same ritual as men did in those days, which said, if I do not fulfill my promise or bring it to pass then let me be like one of these animals cut in half. And later on, God performed his great plagues on Egypt, each of those plagues designed to put a specific Egyptian deity to shame in utter humiliation, a demonstration for the benefit of his chosen people, so that they would see and stand in awe, and learn to trust him. And in the desert, he came down, first at Sinai, where the top of the mountain burned like many volcanoes, and the entire sky glowed with flaming fire, to let himself be known to his people—never anywhere has it been heard that God would even deign! But not only that, but he said he himself would dwell with them in a Tabernacle, to be in the midst of them, as they camped from one place to the next, in the journey through the wilderness, something even more unheard of. He gave them his righteous standards, he gave them angelic manna to eat, he gave them the right directions through a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night.

And me, meanwhile, I tend to look down on this generation and say, how is it even possible that they were so stubborn? Is this real or is it a caricature? But at the same time not realizing that I too, each time I see the giants coming straight toward me, how my heart can suddenly waver! And the betrayer in my heart whispers: maybe God has led you this far so he can make an end of you here, like the director of a tragic play, who knows that he wants the main character killed, but only after he has raised his hopes to the heighest of heights! To the raptures of love and passion, so that he can dash him to pieces with an even greater force, and the end will be even more dramatic. And me, I am not always so strong, and the spies’ report sometimes insinuates in my heart, saying, this is the time to start doubting.

Ah, story of the Israelites, story also of my life. I was taken out of Egypt, I’m trudging the wilderness, and the Promised Land is still ahead. And how come, how come, that I am capable every now and then of sneaking away from the fullness of time, the fullness of the journey, to hide away inside myself and muse over my own paranoid fears? Because if I only care to remember, if I look behind me, oh what do I see except only silver gifts and golden miracles? And if I look forward in faith, all I can see are sparkling hopes and heavenly joys. And when I look inside me, to the single-present now, I see eternity coiled up like a baby just waiting to be born, though in a sense it already was. And everything, everything around, as my eyes scan the vast horizons, the sea, the mountains, the trees, becomes a testament of the goodness of God to me. And everything around, as my inner eye scans the whole of time, yesterdays, todays, tomorrows, becomes a seal of grace. And if only I could live this life without ever having to close my eyes, oh not even to blink! The story of the Israelites serves as a warning of what I should not, should never, be.

Only Kierkegaard can elevate something like the ‘comical’ to the status of a philosophical category. Bundles of contradictions that we all are, just human beings, but there are some states that can't but evoke laughter from their disproportion. It’s when the professor, perhaps out of boredom, suddenly becomes prone to fantastic flights of intellect, and suddenly gets it into his head to speak about a Spirit of the Age, or the grand unfolding of history, or of massive babblings that span all of humankind since the very beginning until the end. And with him at the center of it all, oh ye enlightened one, the seer of a new generation.

And yet? And yet every month or so he goes to the counter to ask for his paycheck, and goes home to do the laundry, and is not without a few embarrassing situations with his digestion.

And this comical is to be found in the unnaturally poetical as well, as when we have this new coterie of would-be poets all gathered round, blowing smoke rings in the air, exchanging innuendoes and obscure, high-floating words, fancying themselves the new geniuses of language and popular culture, with the poetic daze in the eye to boot. And they complain to one another, “Oh, oh, people don’t appreciate poetry anymore!” And more than that each of them thinks, oh grave crime (though he dares not express it out loud for fear that his inferiors should think him desirous of recognition, when he says he doesn’t care one bit about what others people think and they can all go to the chickencoop!), “no one’s intelligent enough to appreciate my poetry!”

So on goes the circle of awards, the nice pats on the back, the exclusive poetry workshops for those showing great literary ‘promise’, the cultivation of egos like green, leafy vegetables, the high-brow coffee talks and coffee shops, the supercilious look in the eye that is just dying to ask (oh just give me a reason, please give me a reason) the question: “oh, you mean you’ve never read…?” But then in the aftermath of the awards-giving, when the dust clears from the cooing mutual appreciation, everyone forgets everyone else and turns to himself, to scribble his next opus that will surely turn the world inside out like a rubber duck, and all these men like dumbed cattle shall bow!, he thinks, while he forgets to pay the bills, and can’t even keep his new call center job, and not even his dog really cares.  

===

Just a few days ago I stumbled across a great and obscure school of poetry called Spectrism. The pioneering work was called “Spectra” by Emanuel Morgan and Anne Knish, published in 1916. In the book they defined the visual spirituality of this new movement:

An explanation of the term "Spectric" will indicate something of the nature of the technique which it describes. "Spectric" has, in this connection, three separate but closely related meanings. In the first place, it speaks, to the mind, of that process of diffraction by which are disarticulated the several colored and other rays of which light is composed. It indicates our feeling that the theme of a poem is to be regarded as a prism, upon which the colorless white light of infinite existence falls and is broken up into glowing, beautiful, and intelligible hues. In its second sense, the term Spectric relates to the reflex vibrations of physical sight, and suggests the luminous appearance which is seen after exposure of the eye to intense light, and, by analogy, the after-colors of the poet's initial vision. In its third sense, Spectric connotes the overtones, adumbrations, or spectres which for the poet haunt all objects both of the seen and the unseen world,- those shadowy projections, sometimes grotesque, which, hovering around the real, give to the real its full ideal significance and its poetic worth. These spectres are the manifold spell and true essence of objects, - like the magic that would inevitably encircle a mirror from the hand of Helen of Troy.

In my opinion, some of the poems included in the collection would be the closest thing to surrealist painting in poetry, with its surprising, playful and tingling associations, its shameless experimentation. Some of the lines by the daring duo:

Opus 6
By Emanuel Morgan

IF I were only dafter
   I might be making hymns
To the liquor of your laughter
   And the lacquer of your limbs.

But you turn across the table
   A telescope of eyes,
And it lights a Russian sable
   Running circles in the skies....

Till I go running after,
   Obeying all your whims -
For the liquor of your laughter
   And the lacquer of your limbs.

 

Opus 80
By Anne Knish

OH my little house of glass!
How carefully I have planted shrubbery
To plume before your transparency.
Light is too amorous of you,
Transfusing through and through
Your panes with an effulgence never new.
Sometimes I am terribly tempted
To throw the stones myself.

 

Opus 17
By Emanuel Morgan

MAN-THUNDER, woman-lightning,
   Rumble, gleam;
Refusal,
   Scream. 

Needles and pins of pain
   All pointed the same way;
Parallel lines of pain
   When the lips are gray

   And know not what they say:
Rain,
Rain.

But after the whirl of fright
   And great shouts and flashes,
   The pounding clashes
   And deep slashes,
   After the scattered ashes

Of the night,
Heaven's height
   Abashes
   With a gleam through unknown lashes
Of delicious points of light.

 

Opus 40
By Anne Knish
 
I HAVE not written, reader,
   That you may read...
They sit in rows in the bare school-room
Reading.
Throwing rocks at windows is better,
And oh the tortoise-shell cat with the can fled on!
I would rather be a can-tier
Than a writer for readers. 

I have written, reader,
For abstruse reasons.
Gold in the mine...
Black water seeping into tunnels
A plank breaks, and the roof falls...
Three men suffocated.
The wife of one now works in a laundry;
The wife of another has married a fat man;
I forget about the third.

 

The movement immediately caught fire, and received praises from a nationwide audience, and some insisted it was the best thing to happen to English since Shakespeare. Even poets like William Carlos Williams expressed their admiration. People sought out the new poetic gurus, mailing in their poems and hoping they were spectral enough to be considered “Spectrist”.

Now, the poems themselves are pretty good, you see. But what I really like about it all was the motivation behind the whole thing. The whole thing was a joke, and one of the most successful jokes in the history of English poetry! You can read more about it here. Two men were just fed up with the imagisms and vortecisms and so many –isms popping up like mushrooms, that they decided to make up a school of their own just to show how even the most ridiculous lines, if only passed off for an innovative new artistic movement, can have its heyday. Now, one, they duped a whole lot of people, but two, they even duped themselves, finally confessing that some of the most original and inspired work they ever wrote was in the joke. And you know what I think it’s precisely this double humor that adds to the enjoyment of their poetry.

===

Do you know what elasticity of soul means? The ability to laugh at yourself, but seriously.

She lays there all curled up in bed, no one else in the room. It’s here in the enveloping of the night, in the silence all full and pregnant, that her fantasy breathes life, whirling around like a colorful whirlpool, siphoning into her soul. With her head resting on the pillow, and her mind stretching and tensing like her limbs except inside the blanket of imagination and possibility, reaching the inside-outside time, into the invisible realm of hope.

You see, she’s just met someone new. And he was very nice at work today, and when he smiled he smiled with a shining promise. And this first impression was so powerful, like the shining ray of sunlight after a cloudy storm. She hasn’t really known him that long. To tell you the truth they’ve really only met in person less than three times. But she’s done her homework, yes she has, checking out his profile over the net, asking around, even secretly keeping a neat little photograph of her new find. And she doesn’t really remember much of anything they spoke of when they were together, except that every now and then he’d insert a nice little flirtatious remark, like a bright and shiny lure, and oh he’d say it with the utmost confidence, like an experienced fisher who sees through the surface of the waters, into the depths where light can hardly reach. And now she wonders, can this person perhaps see into mine?

Because if he could then he would know everything she’s been through, and maybe here’s someone who can finally understand. How her last relationship was a complete mess, and it’s left her stained and broken, and even now she’s still suffering and the scars still hurt. And all her life she’s only wished for some good thing, perhaps a love song suddenly made alive, and someone she can simply adore. And she feels so empty here, in this room, in this bed, and she strains to imagine him there, body, soul, snuggling by her side. And not only that, oh, but let a new thing come over her, wash over her, and let this man open a realm of possibilities.

And lying there, the mental film starts to play, the room’s emptiness is brought to vivid fullness, and the darkness blooms bright, and she imagines life: how maybe tomorrow or the next day she’ll open up to his advances and she’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. And she imagines how this guy will surely treat her right, and that his love will certainly be true. What else can it be if not that? After all, after her last shipwreck the universe can only conspire for something better. And so, in the alone-ness of alone, she imagines the conversations that will transpire between them, the certain witty remarks that will be scented with honesty, and desire, and how her eyes will twinkle as it reflects his. She starts imagining how the next time he passes by the cubicle to say “hello”, she’ll give him more than just a casual smile, but a smile full of her excited being, tingling, tantalized. And how he, in the sensitivity of his soul, will surely pursue this wonderful, unique beginnings of what can only be love.

And then he’ll ask her out, yes, maybe to that nice fancy restaurant a block away. And he’ll be the perfect gentleman, even pulling her chair before she sits down. And over some fancy bread and a cup of coffee they’ll share each other’s lives, and oh what a revelation it’ll be! How they’ve had so many similar experiences, and how they have so much in common. And he’ll tell her the most interesting jokes and stories, and she’ll laugh like a child. They won’t even notice the time until the restaurant starts to close, everyone’s left and it’s late past midnight. The conversation was too good to end, every fiber of their lives connected like a new fabric, and she’s never had a meeting-point like this, so innocent, and so full of promise. But it's late, and being the gentleman he’ll offer to drive her home, they’ll have moments of profound silence, as she stares out the window at dancing city lights, and as he heaves a sigh. They’ll walk up to her place with a newly discovered shyness, playful now with their touches, and upon reaching the door he’ll give her a glistening kiss, saying this night he’ll go away, but maybe one day soon he’ll come in. And it will be a kiss ladened with respect, and nobility, stretching the possibilities even further, into more than just a casual romance but something that comes closer to forever.

And so she dreams this even before she sleeps, and as she dreams this dream she can hardly sleep. And sometimes the scenes venture even further, into a marriage saturated with loyalty, sometimes into the waking heat of passion, and sometimes into the most serene and intimate union of souls. On him she is building up a new future from the ruins of her former life. She promises to herself that this time it will be different, this time she will work hard for her happiness, that this time she won't be disappointed. She sleeps, she sleeps it over, and she tells herself that she definitely won't be disappointed...

I saw people walking around with bubbles floating round their heads, like space helmets, like spherical haloes. And inside these bubbles are the things which only the person can see, and which I could only catch faint glimmers of from the surface. In fact, it was much harder to tell what their bubbles softly glinted because I confess, I knew I was wearing one myself. Inside each bubble you’ll find personal scenes of life, colorful movements, hopes and dreams spreading out into concrete light, transforming every object of vision in accordance with its own texture. Some people simply call it “the way you see the world”, and in one way they are right, but in another they are wrong. Because it is not always in your control how this world portrays itself to you, but in most cases you have no choice but to live and breathe the air of your own private world, with its familiar scents of ambition, and its comfortable colors of expectancy.

And maybe in one clear, perspicuous moment, when you catch a quick glimpse of these bubbles, like the glimmer of a thread of spider web, you will learn that there is no such thing as an “objective world”, at least as can ever be experienced by any human being, but only God can. But the human world is only the inside-bubble, and the imagination that there is even an outside is a product of the inside. And take this illustration even further, that if you took away your bubble, like an astronaut unscrewing his helmet in deep space, there would suddenly be no air to breathe, and the lack of pressure will cause your very soul to explode. Because what makes this reality bearable is only the air of your aspirations, which is the true oxygen for respiration.

===

This guy was wearing a pretty strong bubble, in fact it reminded me somewhat of a knight’s helmet, and it was more silver than transparent. You could say, it was almost ‘material’. When I tried speaking about sin, salvation and the ethereal, he politely assented but it did not pass through. Because his bubble-world wanted to be solid and concrete, and so did his hopes and dreams. And it meant finding love in the things that the fingertips can touch, and the tastebuds can taste, and the limbs can embrace. And even if I told him with all sincerity that these things would not last, and they are not worth sacrificing the eternal-moral, it did not register a truth in his world: but rather he believed with all his heart that, no, no matter, in this bubble of mine the objects would remain concrete as diamonds. And so happiness is made up of a new loft, a new car, and spending every next paycheck on a shiny little gadget, or a wonderful binge in the fancy restaurant down the street, or sliding under the sheets with his unwed lover. And in his world there was little room for the abstract and invisible, but it must be abstracts made concrete, like a list of accomplishments etched in stone, memorial plaques, printed photographs, and token souvenirs. And I said, well, what about eternity? And he said, well what about it? Eternity is this, happiness is this, and in fact he was right, in his own private way he was right. In his bubble the air was dense, and it condensed, and it solidified. And I tried pricking it with a needle but my needle bent.

But what will happen when it is God’s turn to burst all bubbles?