The Instant Grief Machine

The Instant Grief Machine TM rolls into action the moment any unusual tragedy occurs.

Digesting normal human emotional experience with the quickness of grease going through a goose.

Speeches are produced with the rapidity of a herd of monkeys hammering at a thousand typewriters, counsellors appear like a fairy-ring of mushrooms after a hard rainstorm, and the once-meaningfully-spontaneous expressions of sorrow- like flowers and notes left at the site of the tragedy- spew forth with such speed, and in such volume, that they become bloated parodies of the original impulse.

Grief requires the same thing that a rose does.

Time to open naturally.

Pulling the petals apart kills the beauty.

As rushed mourning mocks the sadness.

The Instant Grief Machine TM marches on.

And on.

And on.

The Veils Must Be Obliterated

As the poet put it:

"I am going to set fire to Paradise and pour water on Hell so that both veils may vanish and seekers will know that the real goal is Beyond."

Every human definition of Creation leaves our fingerprints on the face of every God. And we see only our own reflection, no matter how hard we polish our Idols with reverence and devotion and intensity.

Worshipping our own constructs, whether called Divine or Ineffable, is the highest form of intellectual deferral.

Painting the Heavens to match our wishes.

Instead of humbly searching within, to first determine what we can know- before we start erecting its unexamined products as the Supreme Knowledge.

We are veils within veils, id within ego, hope within instinct, desire within the unknown.

Our animal nature primally demands an answer to move.

Whether the answer is right or wrong is immaterial, because movement is
vital to survival.

Moving to avoid a predator, or to catch prey.

The decision- the answer- leads to its "proof"- of the existence-value of the choice- or: we are destroyed by its failure to fit reality tightly enough.

Those who have found the survival value in "belief" are thus reinforced.

Even if their belief is "wrong" (as the Aztec belief that the Sun required human hearts to be torn out in order to 'feed' it was "wrong"), as long as it doesn't impede life, it remains "useful".

If only to calm the terrors of existence by a false sense of security, and to give order to what might otherwise be panicky chaos.

But, as we progress, these comforting illusions can be "seen through".

And, even if we are left balanced on the Abyss, as the philosopher said:

"Man would rather have the Void for a purpose than be void of purpose."

It is time to recognize our strength to bear up to the Infinite Mystery, and stop draping our gauzy dreams over its Beckoning.

Time to retire our Gods to temporary pillows for children.

Not eternal Procrustes' beds for those who have put childhood behind them.

Time to rise from these beds and rend these veils.

Or suffocate and atrophy within them.