Writing

It is the ultramateriality of body that first responds to the call of existence. Meaning, before the organization of the formal and geometrical, is present as the elemental. In life as in art, the micro-texturing of substance must itself already embody the calling of vitality, lest meaning be merely narrative. A narrative, emptied of lyric empathy cannot embody the energism of ultramateriality. Its calling is hollow contour, not dense organic compulsion.

Life’s vibrancy is not sucked away by the black hole of death, rather it is drained through the radiant white hole of intoxication. To live, life must shine. It is the shine of intoxication which prescribes life’s destiny, unfolding its possibilities. If life shined not, being would be deaf to the joys and sorrows of existence, silent to the empathy which defines our humanity. If life shined not, living would be blind even unto itself, unable to see the essence of its inner being. If life shined not, interiority would be isolated from the elementality which sustains its presence, cut off from those melodious interactions with exteriority which gives substance to existence. If interiority were silent, art would be mere surfaces, devoid of depth. The surfacing of interiority is the essence of art. Its surfacing not only sustains art, it is also a sign of existence’s embrace of the soul. In that embrace, life is able to confront its fears, confess its vulnerabilities, and acknowledge its limitations. Only then can the spirit be liberated from the encirclement of mortality. Death’s presence must entice life to burn the flames of unquenchable torment for those flames must penetrate the deepest caverns of our soul in order to awaken the spirit unto itself. This flame, which is destined to consume itself, must illuminate falleness, in order to light the way toward our redemption.

Because life is the surplus which overflows materiality, Ultramateriality must ground itself in the taste for Otherness if pleasures and pains are to condense themselves into the deeper joys and sorrows of existence. Death first appears to be an absolute exteriority, wholly other; but looking inwards, Life finds Death to be its inseparable counterpart. In the ultramaterial space of Life, Death’s presence folds inwards, outwards, in; intermingling exteriority with interiority; awakening life’s thirst for the intoxicating difference of elimentality. By this thirst, Life nurtures its attachment to Otherness, rousing its empathic nature within. This stirring of empathy gives tangibility to Life’s embrace of elimentality, the tangibility which consummates the union of Ultramateriality and Being. It is by this embrace that the surplus of Ultramateriality overflows into existence. Without that surplus, Life is but a stagnant narrative. Death opens the vortex through which vibrancy overflows.

For matter, existence is. But for living substance, mere existence is insufficient. Life must reach beyond, must compel itself to be. This is the condition of its being, for Life’s essence is constituted in the reach for possibilities. As Life reaches, Death’s encirclement collapses possibilities; consequently it is tempting to believe that the central task of Life should be the throwing of its encirclement. Such a belief, however, fails to comprehended that the circles Death inscribes are born from Life’s churning.

Original sin, as portrayed in the Garden of Eden, is the deepest of myths. Its reach extends into the present, because its origin is not temporal. It is the trans-temporal presence which confirms our humanity, making possible civilization and decency. For only when we know what we are can we come to know what we could be, and only when we know what we could be can we know who we are. Because it calls humanity to the presence of moral choice, it opens the way to our potential, thereby confirming our humanity.