'We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.'
T.S. Eliot
There are few writers I truly admire. This is not to abrogate to myself any sense of hubris or arrogance. My love of the word is purely personal. My obsession arose out of a need to understand the mystery of my existence. In this, I am not alone and take comfort in this knowledge. Subject to this temporal state, it would seem we are a linearity, a passage of events that appear to follow the diktats of cause and effect.
Yet the niceties of perception are myriad. Interpretations of meaning that complicate rather than simplify are legion. Thousands of years of philosophy, art, religion, yet the dynamics, the nuts and bolts of what it is to be human are as mysterious as they have ever been. The journey of self-discovery appears to defy belief and description.
'The word is not the thing.'
J Krishnamurti
This does not seem to lessen our thirst for original knowledge. We are creatures of communication, of relation and cease to exist in complete isolation. Isolation may be a necessary part of the journey to enlightenment but of what use is it if it can't be shared?
'The instant you speak about a thing, you miss the mark.'
Wumen Huikai
Stories that have enthralled and captivated me are ones where the element of mystery has been the subconscious guiding light. It may be that all of life is intrinsically unknowable and we are simply a journey of unravelling that appears haphazard, dependent on whimsical factors.
'The Mystery of mysteries is the Door of all essence.'
Tao Te Ching
I began to be interested in the search for meaning by accident, perhaps, through the writings of John Steinbeck. I was in my middle teens and no longer remember the outward chain of events that lead to this pursuit. Let me use dramatic license. Once upon a time...
A confused, frustrated young boy whose upbringing is not unlike millions of others, whose familial relationships are destructive, by hap-stance comes upon an image on the silver screen that resonates in a naive, yet deeply poignant manner. The actor is James Dean, the film is 'East of Eden', based on the novel by Steinbeck.
'And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden.'
Genesis 4:16
In a letter to a friend about finishing the book, Steinbeck wrote: 'Much the longest and surely the most difficult work I have ever done. . . I have put all the things I have wanted to write all my life.' In his writing, I found an honesty and truth of character, a perception that was sincere, down to earth. Here was a voice I could understand, empathise with and love. Here was someone who knew me better than I knew myself and yet I instantly recognised as sharing an experience I knew first hand.
Contact.
Not having an intellectual upbringing and of working-class stock, my perception of existence was composed of ordinary, everyday societal hand-me-downs. The daily expositions of Film and Television that are the backbone of millions such as my confused teen self. In Steinbeck, some untutored, hidden part of my character sprang to life. Being born appears to be painful and perhaps every experience from which we grow by shedding ignorance is similarly so.
I did not become a swat overnight. Many avenues of discovery lay before me as I ventured unbounded with testeronic verve headlong into the fray. I signed up for painful lessons in the school of life. Nevertheless, with Steinbeck and others that followed, the seed was sown in my consciousness of something deeply resonant, intimate, that I would return to in times of need.
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