On Reading and Death

The Greek word for repentance is metanoia: to change the eyes of your soul. To repent means to change your perceiving instrument.

There's a legend that a man came to Mt. Athos, the most famous island in Eastern Christianity. He wanted to be a monk, so they put him under the tutelage of an elder. The elder grabbed a copy of Les Miserables and handed it to the man. Surprised, the man balked, but the elder insisted: "Before you become divine you must be fully human first!"

The man got to reading.

Damnit folks I can't seem to read enough. 

With my social media presence limited I've found the thirst for data has not stopped. And I don't mean noise, I mean actual information. I've been finding myself listening to as many YouTube essays as I can, while reading books as fast and thoroughly as I can get through them. Part of it is that I suspect that someday I won't be able to read as much, so get it in now! But I don't think that's the primary reason. I feel like someone who had been in starvation conditions for years and had forgotten what it what was like to be full. I wouldn't even call social media junk food, more like eating shoe leather. It's not training for what is to come.

My stack of books I need to read, which sits on an upstairs table, is now in the double digits, notwithstanding my yearly rereads of Wolfe, Tolkien, and Lewis. Each page reveals just how little I've been exposed to, increases the thirst to  experience more. The gulf gets larger and larger. I wouldn't be able to stand it if I wasn't having so much fun! Even the books that make me uncomfortable, like The Proud Tower, I find expands my ability to understand people and empathize. And God, oh God, I cannot empathize with people enough.

Now, granted, there was a lot of people writing interesting things online. We'll get back to that via YouTube. But most social media and blogs are not worth the time I have to spend on them. It's not that I think the content garbage; the quality control of the past is a lot higher than the internet. There's also the key problem that what's being written today is inside of our current box of consciousness. It's hard to get any real thought going on if the box you operate in isn't being consistently challenged, if not outright broken. And social media is the box, if there ever was one.

Time. It's a persistent opponent. My challenger. The implacable one that is only defeated by a good death. And make no mistake, that's the only thing that works: using time to prep so you can meet Sister Death head on. To be blunt, I find myself more ready for that encounter after reading something that stretches me.  Because Death doesn't care about whether I can make people laugh, or how happy I was in life. She doesn't care about life at all. One must be ready to lose to Death and see what you have after that.

The thing is I feel so far behind already. Death won't take everything, but it'll be easy to think she will. I've wasted so much time. The world is so large, there's so much to challenge inside of myself, and only so much time before I'll look up and see Death. She won't be an old crone, or someone with a sickle, but the littlest of sisters, barely seeable, even at the end. It will take so much not to demonize her, to let her do what she is there for. I know she is beautiful beyond compare. I've seen her before. And I know why she's there.

To make me be able to see what's coming next. 

One cannot prepare for that change of perspective too much.

I was writing this post on my phone, outside at night. When I got done I found myself looking into the light-polluted sky. A single star shone through our bright defilement. I found myself trembling, looking at this lone prophet. "I'm not ready, not yet," I found myself begging. "Please, not yet".

The silence of the world held an answer. I only just barely made out. 

But it forced tears to my eyes.