Read The Return (Enigma of Modern Science & Philosophy) Page 11
I had been writing feverishly for days. The effort had taken a lot of my vigor away and I was feeling depleted. The weather had changed from the dull gray persistent rain and an early morning sun shone warmly on my face as I stretched my body towards it. I was standing in front of the cottage facing the mountains. The air was clear as only the Atlantic air can be after long spells of rain. The low light of the rising sun cast yellow hues on the shadowy greens of the mountain peat. All was calm, silent except for the gentle heave of the tide and the sound of a pigeon cooing in the far off trees. I stretched once more and felt a rising elation enter my being. It was great to be alive. I felt so lucky to be here in this beautiful place, basking in the early morning glow of mother sun. The veneration I felt was almost pious in its intensity and words almost like prayer flashed before me. I was giving silent thanks to whoever, that greater being, had contrived to allow me experience this special moment of elation. The elation subsided leaving me feeling calm and peaceful. There were no contortions in my mental state. My desires had dimmed and my fears had receded. I was in that state of equilibrium that is rarely felt in life. If I could have ceased life at that very moment I would readily have opted for it. I would be leaving with no sense of regret or loss. It would be a happy death.
In a way that was what I was really working towards. I was reconciling my life to its eventual demise. I wanted the occasion to be serene and free of pain, physical or emotional. Even though I had barely passed mid-life and was entering an older age I knew that I had to start the preparations now. Maybe that is why I had returned to the island where for a brief time long ago I had lived a life that was near to the life I wanted to live forever. Then for a few weeks I had lived in a tent on the edge of a cliff overlooking the majesty of the ocean. On that retreat from life I had forged the future channels of my efforts in life. I had had all the time in the world to sit back and review my existence and try and place it meaningfully in the overall existence of humanity and of the world.
Definite answers were not apparent but I had found many questions that needed attention. I had spent the last decades trying to tease out the questions, amassing as much knowledge as possible in subject areas that were often quite foreign to me. To enter the world of modern scientific thinking I had to come to grips with that level of mathematical and physical knowledge that underpinned the revolution of thought. There was no point in trying to look in from a position of ignorance or to accept a second hand explanation. I had to understand the theory myself from the very basics right to the pinnacle of insight. This gargantuan task consumed my years. I struggled with the seeming impossibility of the complexity of thought and its mathematical representations. I tried to enter the minds of the great figures of science to see reality through their privileged eyes.
At the same time it was imperative not to get drawn too much into the scientific paradigm. The goal was not to become a scientist but to understand the scientific world. My main interest was philosophical. Here too I had to put in massive effort to survey a historical swathe of humanity’s thinking up to the modern era. Again the size of the task was equally daunting. The sometimes turgid volumes of words seemed to be a device only to subvert comprehension and extend patience to its limit.
But slowly I found I was getting an entry into the cloistered worlds that had been heretofore forbidden to me. My self-imposed and regulated apprenticeship allowed me to dabble at a basic level in both spheres. This was the playground that was to be the creative sand-pit of my thoughts. Here I could muscle up to the great ideas of humanity and joust with them and push and tug at them. I wanted to shake them up and stir them about. I wanted to look at them with new eyes, eyes that are not clouded by the shroud of a single paradigm as powerful as that of the scientist or the philosopher. I wanted in a sense to view them naively as would a child but as a child endowed with the wisdom of complete knowledge.
For quite some time I had felt that I had arrived at a point near that level of naive wisdom that might allow some creative questioning and answering. I needed the space and the time to generate the mental acrobatics necessary. The thought occurred one day that I should return to the island.
This journey fed into the foundations of the well-being I was now enjoying in the morning air. I had made a successful return and the first glimmerings of creativity had been achieved. I suddenly felt a great surge of energy. There was no time to waste.