Breakthrough - A Short Story
This is going to be one of many short stories which compose a larger work, tentatively called “The Chronicles of He.” This is the first one called “Breakthrough,” and is about His awakening to the World. Through the larger work I hope to explore the universally resonant issues of being.
Commencement And then the thought flashed through his mind, became almost an imprint, a philosophical impetus of the grandest proportions – yes, from now on he would define his own life. This realization would change him; it would change the way he spoke, change the way he acted, would change the very essence, the “is-ness” of his very thought, his being itself, his essence! This is the way, the only way he would allow himself to be governed, or rather, not to be governed. Absolute freedom, absolute responsibility, the consequences of which are incomprehensible; this is, he thought how one begins to understand the infinite. The chains have been broken, but who else would agree, how else would he share? Is he selfish? Is he wrong? Is he arrogant? Is it a phase? No, he reprimanded his doubts with an unparalleled gusto. Doubt itself constitutes the very links he had just shed. He is not going back - he is new, refreshed, reborn. Rebirth is painful, moving backwards impossible – thermodynamics repackaged to a personal scale. Duality, convention, culture, the familiar—they all seemed suddenly so foreign, so abstract, so intangible, surreal. This he thought, this, right now, right here, what I am experiencing is real! Is not experience the very essence of being? To deny this would be to deny myself! Where would he go, who would he talk to, what would he do? He thought himself to be a foreigner not to this place and time, but to this plane of existence, but there were others, no? Find them, he must, that is what he must do. Go out, find them, surely they must exist. Was he not the only one to come to such a profound conclusion? Were there others further along the path? He must seek the mystery, not for the answer, but for what the answer means! Was there even an answer he thought, or the path, is there a path, am I the first?! A new reality tunnel brings forth new questions while old questions and old answers were just frivolities for old paradigm sufferers to ponder. That is what suffering is, stagnation, but complete unawareness of it. They, he thought, can continue rocking in their chairs, they will not move, but would he? A New Frontier Novelty, where is it anymore? Exploration leads to innovation, when exploration ceases, so too does innovation he thought to himself. The frontiers within our physically reachable boundaries have been reached, have been charted, have been explored – the details remain, but those are mundane, those in their rocking chairs can contemplate those – diminishing returns he thought. We need new frontiers! The mind, the mind! He stepped off the graph, the previous asymptote has been obliterated. He looked to his side, took the graph paper he used to stand on, and with epiphany surging through him, set it ablaze. After all, he thought, post-modernism if anything relates to us becoming violent to the fact that we have reached the limit – the limit of our boundaries, of our chemistry, of our biology, of our being – with this, extreme existential anxiety. All societies actions, remedies, malaises were simply outgrowths of this—existential anxiety on the grandest of scales! But … those were the old ways, he thought, and simultaneously, that is the old way now. For now they can coexist, but he knew in his hearts of hearts and in his mind of minds that it would not be like that forever. Can others see what he sees, feel what he feels, understand what he understands, and the implications wherein? (Possible) Resolution Do they not understand these limits are self-imposed? We have the power to create, but without boundaries this time. Second chances are allowed. Reality is an agreed upon consensus. We are beginning to disagree with our current one, what will take its place though he thought? The magic of the world suddenly seeped back in—color.
Religion, self-image, politic, the State, industry, society, these were all our creations – it was time, he thought, to start creating new ones, new creations, for therein lies the infinite.
