Saturday 28 July 2012

Ennui, a Proposition, and the Priestess.

I recently posed a question which might be paraphrased thus:

If you stand in the middle of an empty plain having removed all external reference points – people, objects, work, hobbies, mirrors, everything – and ask the question ‘now who am I?’ what you’re left with are the internal attributes: likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, ideals and sensibilities.

But these things, like money, don’t actually exist. They’re just abstract concepts. They only become meaningful when, like money, they’re used as a mechanism for exchange. So, to put it simply, if we eschew our connection with what we understand to be external reality, we’re effectively nothing.

An interesting proposition, therefore: maybe ennui is fundamentally an identity crisis suffered by those who have the inner means to recognise, albeit vaguely, the illusory aspect of external reality.

That’s basically what the priestess has been telling me for two years, and I’m only just now coming to understand it. I suppose it’s why she’s no longer with me. She’s done her job and can move on.

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