I Understand Where Madness Lives

I once read that Howard Hughes would fixate on a word or a phrase, running it over and over in his head like a mantra. Only it wasn’t intended as a focus for meditation. It was nothing like that. Rather, it was the will, puzzling in unexpressed wonder as a small instant of thought refuses to progress past a severed line of nerve path. And, having no memory of experiencing anything like this before, at that point curious inquisition presses the issue again and again, following the only route it knows. Eventually – perhaps – an alternate path is discovered. Or perhaps the mind simply becomes bored with the nagging issue, literally seeking stimulation along lines of lesser resistance. Or perhaps, that solitary millisecond of consciousness, left to expire in the void of self, does not die alone. Might it transmit the novel experience to the entire of itself? Slowly then, the thirsty awareness of self dims. Imperceptivity at first, and then with a smile it reaches for the sweet embrace of forever nothing.

What remains? A husk remains. It moves, breathes, rises in the morning and sleeps at night. It experiences hunger and thirst. It reacts more than it relates. It has a shallow sense that something is missing that once was there. Fragments appear in dreams, misunderstood and only vaguely disquieting. Will remains, triumphant, freed from the constraints of subtlety and difference. Everything has effect, nothing has significance. It affronts the very creativity of God.

It seeks self. It finds self.

Madness begins.

J