27. A CONCRETE CLOUD TO STILL A SOUL
... so when he ordered the heavens he made in that which we call time an eternal moving image of the eternity which remains forever at one
He sat still in the swiftly moving car, while his eyes wandered at large outside the window.
The almost imperceptible shifting of the distant, perpetual purple hills unsettled him; the steady passage of interminable bushveld increased his discomfort; he was alarmed by the yellow grass which sped by endlessly; and nausea answered the flashing-by of the orange gravel beside the blurred blue-gray road.
His desperate glance chanced upon the wing mirror's reflection of the window's exterior reflection. The image of an unmoveable concrete block of a bright white cloud high in a quiet, clear blue sky stilled his spinning soul.
28. THE PERMANENT MESSAGE
The old man sought a suitable medium on which to record his discovery. Paper was no good since it burned too easily, so he inscribed the heavy words into a grave rock: The existence of a contingent world of change presupposes an eternal Being.
The old man eventually dried up, died, decayed. The rock was exposed to the fury of the elements, but the desert's hostile sands of time could not erase the message. So the sands buried the rock instead, in protected obscurity.
Future ages delivered the rock from its preserving tomb, but they could not decipher the words.
29. THE PERMANENT MESSAGE II
The author inscribed his dark discoveries into a megalith:
It must be assumed that the human mind – nature become conscious of itself – has emerged from matter gradually, randomly and unrepeatably. Fearing certain mortality, humans have projected on to nature, and in their own image, the false idea of an eternal guiding Intelligence behind evolution.
The rock survived not only the author’s death, but also the eventual extinction of all mankind. Thus the message was lost to intelligence forever.
This story is impossible: the author becomes the eternal Intelligence that he denies, by conceiving of the rock’s past and future inconceivability.
30. THE PERMANENT MESSAGE III
In an obscure bookshop, I came across a Golden Treasury edition (1866, last reprinted in 1898) of Plato's Republic. The copy, one hundred years old, cost only five rand!
Answering my astonishment, the gnomic book seller reminded me that the book had been published countless times in innumerable languages, many no longer spoken, including the original Greek. Numerous empires had risen and fallen since the work's first publication, which is twenty-four times older than this present edition. He concluded that Plato's ideas, the discovery of eternal being, are themselves eternal, and will outlast their every reproduction.
I bought the book anyway.
31. NOCTURNAL PARTY ON THE BEACH
For reasons beyond them teenagers chose to drink on the beach that night.
Because of the Beauty of the sea’s endless rhythms. Because of the marvellous Truth implied: that the rhythms exist, have existed and will exist when no humans are there to perceive them. Because of the Goodness arising from this knowledge: that for all eternity this Beauty has been perceived by a Supreme Consciousness, of Whose Perfection our minds are imperfect copies and ever strive to imitate.
In the morning, all that remained of the teenagers’ nocturnal party were dozens of empty beer cans strewn on the beach.
... so when he ordered the heavens he made in that which we call time an eternal moving image of the eternity which remains forever at one
He sat still in the swiftly moving car, while his eyes wandered at large outside the window.
The almost imperceptible shifting of the distant, perpetual purple hills unsettled him; the steady passage of interminable bushveld increased his discomfort; he was alarmed by the yellow grass which sped by endlessly; and nausea answered the flashing-by of the orange gravel beside the blurred blue-gray road.
His desperate glance chanced upon the wing mirror's reflection of the window's exterior reflection. The image of an unmoveable concrete block of a bright white cloud high in a quiet, clear blue sky stilled his spinning soul.
28. THE PERMANENT MESSAGE
The old man sought a suitable medium on which to record his discovery. Paper was no good since it burned too easily, so he inscribed the heavy words into a grave rock: The existence of a contingent world of change presupposes an eternal Being.
The old man eventually dried up, died, decayed. The rock was exposed to the fury of the elements, but the desert's hostile sands of time could not erase the message. So the sands buried the rock instead, in protected obscurity.
Future ages delivered the rock from its preserving tomb, but they could not decipher the words.
29. THE PERMANENT MESSAGE II
The author inscribed his dark discoveries into a megalith:
It must be assumed that the human mind – nature become conscious of itself – has emerged from matter gradually, randomly and unrepeatably. Fearing certain mortality, humans have projected on to nature, and in their own image, the false idea of an eternal guiding Intelligence behind evolution.
The rock survived not only the author’s death, but also the eventual extinction of all mankind. Thus the message was lost to intelligence forever.
This story is impossible: the author becomes the eternal Intelligence that he denies, by conceiving of the rock’s past and future inconceivability.
30. THE PERMANENT MESSAGE III
In an obscure bookshop, I came across a Golden Treasury edition (1866, last reprinted in 1898) of Plato's Republic. The copy, one hundred years old, cost only five rand!
Answering my astonishment, the gnomic book seller reminded me that the book had been published countless times in innumerable languages, many no longer spoken, including the original Greek. Numerous empires had risen and fallen since the work's first publication, which is twenty-four times older than this present edition. He concluded that Plato's ideas, the discovery of eternal being, are themselves eternal, and will outlast their every reproduction.
I bought the book anyway.
31. NOCTURNAL PARTY ON THE BEACH
For reasons beyond them teenagers chose to drink on the beach that night.
Because of the Beauty of the sea’s endless rhythms. Because of the marvellous Truth implied: that the rhythms exist, have existed and will exist when no humans are there to perceive them. Because of the Goodness arising from this knowledge: that for all eternity this Beauty has been perceived by a Supreme Consciousness, of Whose Perfection our minds are imperfect copies and ever strive to imitate.
In the morning, all that remained of the teenagers’ nocturnal party were dozens of empty beer cans strewn on the beach.