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HELPLESSNES is the Second Problem of humanity. From helplessness derives our desire for a creator, or the supernatural. From helplessness comes our despair and suicide. Man needs a hero complex and it is entirely to overcome his helpless. The helplessness complex differs from the death complex, though they are related.

Marcel wondered what the use of it all was, as though there weren’t enough to think about already. Food poisoning had become a constant reminder of his choices, though he was more apt to curse the people than to take on much responsibility for his own decisions. Many such a type cross paths in the himalayas, each taking his own path but ensuring they had the latest Lonely Planet to show them the way as they double-check and triple-check that the signs pointing right were indeed the signs they were after.

But people are really after a sign that they don’t know they are after. It has no look or sense or sign, but the reminder of its existene is enough to give hope that a sign will point us in a better direction. The himalayan mountains turn cold fast, especially at this time of the year, and before Marcel had started to think whether he should push on to the next guesthouse or return to the previous one the thought of looking at room prices and bargaining slightly dimmed his heart. Life couldn’t be carefree but for a scrooge money is more a necessary daily injection than the warm rays the grasshopper basques before its own winter comes.

Sure enough the safe decision was to turn to what was known. We delve to see new things but complete unknowing made Marcel uneasy at times. In future he’d look back and smile but for now his stomache was in his control, as other body parts would be at different times in different days. The creature that he was, he turned to his room to sleep but with the necessary pangs to keep the absurdity moving.

“How many ants and creatures have I stepped on this day alone? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands? The tens of thousands?” The thought of how many were sacrificed for this one single creature’s existence within a single lifetime struck him. Marcel wished it was later in the night so that he could retire to his comfort of isolation, but the guests sharing his dorm wouldn’t agree and sleeping with the light on was a hardship he couldn’t trick his mind into. “Only a few more hours to go and I’ll be asleep.”

Each morning brings with it new hope. Saara told herself this once but was too long ago to remember. The immediate need to get out of the flat to a pointless job was far too strong to be thinking. I mean, to be thinking. She worked as a bartender for several months before she got fired for her daydreaming, ironically feeling drained mentally by having too little to think about. She grabbed the keys and speedwalked to the bus stop.

Lunch was here. Momo and tsampa. Not special, not bad. Society has wonderful culture surrounding food- advertisements, photos, phrases, ways to organise our working lives aroudn the pursuit of food. So little attention is paid to how the food eventually turns out. It’s something not to think about. Marcel didn’t know what to make of it; does society, this abstract collection of individual ideas, deliberately ignore the true reality of food? Is it just focusing on the positive because the negative brings too much detail in a world with so many details we dont even have time to learn just the postive ones? Being alone in the himalayas is one of the lonelinest feelings imaginable. Marcel has forgotten his meal. His best meals were ones waiting for the food to arrive and coming to some realisation about something.

An afternoon with nothing to do. Suffering’s nature hits the mind like a boxer’s punch when this thought arises in Marcel’s mind. In his office days the thought seemed like jannah, as something he’d have nearly given anything for. Now there was nothing. The Buddha’s teachings were helpful but never as helpful as they could be, as viccikicca consciousness (doubt) could never escape Marcel’s mind.

Marcel has an image that comes to mind that he can’t quite understand the meaning of. Its meaning may be like life itself, illusory and plastic. He sees the an empty Tibetan landscape. A bright blue sky, which is dark blue rather than light. The mountain is more like a tall hill, plateaued like Cape Town’s Table Mountain. The contrast between the rocks is strong but it is all a pale beige form. An eagle at times swirls around the air. Marcel looks and “katsu!”, feels a sense of enlightenment. No thought, no ideas, no nothing, just the feeling. The zen-like quality of the image applies to this heartland of the vajrayana and Marcel feels at ease when the thought enters. At times he thought it may be a past-life experience, not that he believes in an afterdeath, but if there were this may be his own personal proof. Marcel feels warmth at the idea of such things, but viccikicca locks him in and if it doesn’t let go he might never progress. These mountains don’t match what he expected; there’s not enough desolation. Less isolation. No nothingness. Nevertheless it surpasses being at a McDonald’s drive through.

“Tashi Dele!” with hands together but a clumsiness in their togetherness. Two men walk past and uncharacteristically do not return a smile. A person travels halfway across the world to put up with unhappy locals in an undeveloped nation- how tough things are for the western traveller who doesn’t work and seeks experience. Not merely as odd as the traveller who seeks a cafe selling bannana pancakes in this area, or the travel guide who even suggests such a thing. Snobbery is part of all of us, because we’re all right about things where others are wrong; if we were wrong then we wouldn’t be thinking what we think.

Saara boards the bus but no seats are available. She stands. Looks. Thinks. Closes her eyes. Thinks.

Nothingness, but with coldness. The perspiration within Maurice’s undergarments does not met the harsh winds of the plateaus. No, not yet. Not a calm nothingness in the meditation hall of week ago. The stupidity of halls! But a cold nothingness of the type Maurice feels at the thought of suicide. But not now; there are steps to climb and a landmark to see. The view does not really matter, just as the office we walk to does not really matter provided it distracts us enough throughout the day. We are the company we fear; the television is more of a friend than ourselves. Cold reason destroys all for Maurice with crispness rather than consuming him with the heat as the truly foolish do; it has thrown him to the boundaries of intellectualism rather than the jail cell.

Miguel is here. Or was it Michel? I never paid much attention to names. Be it my poor memory or general lack of interest in people, it’s always held me back. It’s fortunate how far you can go without people realising your basic weaknesses, given they’re so basic. “Hey” generally gets me by fine, except with Ameera whose name whilst I forgot I would not stop thinking about for the next few days. Anyway, Miguel, or whatever his name is, is quite a bore. He doesn’t know who Voltaire is, nor Camus nor even Aristotle. Though perhaps it doesn’t matter as Maurice is essentially the same if not worse- he has less Facebook friends than that guy after all, so that should speak for itself.

At times, perhaps too often, it’s forgotten what happened during the day. The day doesn’t pass by too fast nor too slow: each day is the same, 24 hours (know-it-allism says this isn’t entirely correct; what a waste of mental energy). Time remains the same, our perception of it does not. This makes time elastic, subjective, something ‘ours’ although it’s outside our control. The time for Maurice now is what he senses it to be, and it is late.

Sunrise. Missed it. Again.

Sunrise.

By today warmth has returned to Maurice’s mind. He doesn’t know whether to pity or admire the common man’s description of “heart” as for their emotions. Without men gods could not exist or the gods would not have said heart throughout their scriptures. When one sees that there is no heart, that it is all mind, delusion ebbs. A realization like the non-existence of the soul. All is mind and mind is all.

The simple truth cannot be accepted by the masses; the masses instead need to simplify complex fantasies: of god, of a soul, of immortality, of eternity, of justice. Looking at a blank wall will not do for them; a colourful canvas of complications that do not make sense is more endearing to the common man, partly for its colours but truly because of it’s lack of non-colour. The strong accept the blank, truly if it kills them. Far from the ludicrously dying for standing up for one’s beliefs. The wise know that the common man needs to die for a reason, any old reason, no matter how nonsensical, so long as it gives him his purpose. But the strong dies because of his realization of the lack of reason. Schopenhauer chose to bet on red rather than black, but there really is no reason to say red is better than black. The common person will naturally give a reason why regardless. How they hate blankness.

The anti-Christ might be a great guy. He’ll be the opposite of God, which when reversing Richard Dawkins’ astute observation of God’s character will make the anti-Christ benevolent, a life-saver,….  Will the anti-Christ teach what God didn’t teach? Seeing god by when holding this part of the elephant, one may hope so. Nevertheless I am not holding the elephant by the anus; nor her tusks as most religious ‘thinkers’ may try when acknowledging some truth of character. I do not know which part of her I am holding; I already see the mixed tusks, the horrible anus and the benevolent vegetarian mouth and trunk. Some may of course have perverted views on any of the parts- the mouth really isn’t so great as an ant may be caught in the leaves; the anus is a pleasure factory that produces more pleasure than any other body part will produce. Fixations, perversions, fetishes, honesties, they do exist but how and when to be analysed may be a question of taste. Knowledgable people at least recognise them with curiosity and reserved judgment.

Sunrise. Missed it. Again. Tsampa and momo for dinner. Not great, not bad. Sunrise, missed it. Again.

Sunrise. Tsampa. Momo. Water. Not great, not bad. Sunset.

Tsampa. Momo. Not great, not bad. Sunrise. Sunset. Missed it. Sunrise. Sunset. Sunrise sunset sunrise sunset.

Marsel nearly collapsed two weeks from leaving his office. It would be eight months ago. He was near the finishing line: his caseload was almost entirely empty, he was given a task he knew how to do, noone would give him challenging work knowing he’d leave before finishing. Yet he felt like imploding just the same. For months he had been in this race. A pointless race, but with paper fuel to keep him in the run. Being an automotron sitting in a windowless room could not be entirely unlike Sisyphus, and being a staunch anti-Marxist from university days when he studied chemical engineering (another long, passionless pursuit, but enough for the race), Karl Marx interested him. Maybe capital wasn’t the whole way; Marsel has no problem with capital, provided someone else works for it and he does not. Marsel writes prolifically when in neurosis as it consumes his entire day- precisely when he is paid to work- until several hours past midnight. Marsel forgets to write when not in melancholy, apathy or depression. Breasts seem just as relevant. Swirling to metamorphosise as a rare unannounced tsunami. Nothing is satisfactory.

Saara is thinking of Karbala. It’s just a city to her. With reluctance, she presses the red ’stop’ button. The bus slows down. Saara pulls herself up to the opening. It’s too early in the morning. There’s too much noise outside. But she must. She will step out alone. No warm welcoming arms or midwives to greet her. No deities’ raincheck either.

Saara knows when her stop is imminent, even with her eyes closed. Today differs. There is a dead pigeon in the gutter. She does not step on it. This is not Algeria, and who really needs such excitement, and this is not Camus’ world.

Marcel once felt a bit cool scanning a document. He could press the buttons without needing to think, and he did it so fast. So special he was. He and the photocopier were one: he’d push in the pages, the copier received succesfully, the copier reproduced. He was so well integrated. After a brief talk about paper and photocopiers by the more learned one, Marcel integrated well with the machine. Marcel is the unwitting postmodernist. It pales in comparison to the eras to that will follow. Police were baffled with which law to charge a Japanese man with: is a latex doll prostitution? The proprietor must pay tax, but by which category exactly? Marsel heard of public restrooms labelled male, female and X.

 

***

Brilliant minds- like Nietzsche- don’t die. Or so we would like to tell ourselves out of our admiration for them. A natural happy thought. But one based on delusion  nevertheless. Such thoughts, initially poetic in their love and beauty, lead to delusions we cling to with the grandness of mythologies and  a power like gravity. This is the danger of delusion, and something we should not shy away from in pointing out its fictitious nature. But this world is not for the truly logical person. As Camus said, who would follow their logical reasoning that life is absurd to a logical conclusion of suicide? No, the word needs delusions, and the masses- philosophers and the intelligentsia included!- should not be kept from the fantasies they hold dear.

Marcel flips through pages on the bus. He flips more, and more.

 A new day. Like any other day.  Nothing. Maybe tomorrow. Alas, by afternoon some thought, unexpected. Remains a day much like any other day. Now a new day, much like the day before.

Grasping! Meaning is there. Like a fly you can hear it now and then, see it now and then. To be blind and deaf is a pleasure at times, as with no fly to think about it ceases to be  a problem.