Cleansing the Mind at the Turn of Innocence
Our Disneyland fairytales are coming to an end. The expectation of banquets of bliss is being replaced with uncertainty and fear. The time of unrealistic expectations is being met with utter reality. How useless all our desires seem in the face of death!
For centuries, philosophers and monks would meditate on their death so that they would live their lives in virtue. With their end in mind, they could see what areas of their life were not serving their last condition. But for us, our lives seemed to be edging on the brink of immortality. The level of prosperity was unbounded, and our problems were so fickle. Making more money than our neighbors and marrying the prettiest girl now seem so petty compared to the void of the unknown.
As a young man, it has been difficult to accept that the carefree life of youth is being met with what can be felt as the end of innocence. The bubbling energy of the dreamer is facing the deluge. Despite this, it has also been a positive thing. It has made me face the sins and decadence that have been the inheritance of my generation. The endless stream of gratification seems useless now. There is no better time to become a man and slay the dragon then now. The battle of the current age is a perfect rite of passage.
The current season will either break or transform the youth. This soulless generation may either find complete emptiness or a reason to take a journey within. Many will continue to distract themselves from the darkness, but it will gnaw at the heart nonetheless. I will lament it if I become worse instead of better in the face of a global disaster. The virus will kill many, but the mind will kill many more.
It is now a new journey then. It is time to replace earthly expectations with the beauty of ideals. The young man’s game for lust and women won’t bring him anywhere now; it is time to replace this with the quest for internal beauty and the exposition of the soul. The quest for money has shown to be vain, it is time for the development of true skill and creativity that serves the further advancement of mankind, even if this means rejecting the comfort of more conventional jobs with their conventional salaries and satisfaction. The religion of vanity and the self, with the ego-inducing flatteries and conventions, has been declared a heresy; its replacement may not be certain but it most certainly must be one that has true charity at its center. This is how I hope to transform what had formerly brought me pain into something that will bring me peace.
The common worry of the principal game of man would always be a burden to me. In a way, the complete destruction of reality has let the deeper aspects of my being have a voice. Slowly, this voice is dying, the one telling me I can’t die alone, I need to have a good job, and I need to be well-liked. Instead, I am seeing that to reach the height of cultivation will make me the most fulfilled, to be like the soldiers who would dress pristinely at their outposts in the dead of night. To be the lonely pianist at the 500th turn of the chilling arpeggio, the philosopher in the depths of inner contemplation, the gentleman having a gala with just himself and a glass of wine. This ideal is so difficult because, like many, I’m so used to the fleshpots of this generation. My palate is too sensitive, my body too weak, my desires so preconditioned by society. It is time to shut out the noise that is not bringing me closer to an exalted way of life. This means keeping the phone off, avoiding the worthless perusing of the internet, and connecting more with blessed nature. I hope that in the current reality I may cure the infection I have contracted from my sickened contemporaries.
