The mist was clearing as the sky filled with small cumulus clouds casting shadows upon the timeworn hills. A lazy breeze caressed the trees, swaying their limbs in hypnotic rhythms. It was strange how the weather always seemed to change whenever he went climbing.
He came to the forest edge and plunged in. There were no clear-cut paths to the top, so he made his own way up in a winding fashion, jumping from jagged rock to rotting stump in a halting but persistent ascension. His heartbeat was strong, pumping rivers of blood to the pistons of his legs and the transformer of his brain. Wide vistas of the valley below appeared thru windows in the overhead canopy.
He often felt like a stranger in this land, not divorced from it so much as a highly charged concentration of its energies standing at the end of a long chain of expansive complexity that began in an explosion of chaos and fire, was stepped down by the formation of individual stars, and then planted into the primordial muck of an atmospherically friendly planet, from there to advance thru the consuming, defecating, reproducing, kill-or-be-killed biology of beasts to the creation of a self-conscious, self-motive being. And yet, conventional evolutionary hypotheses didn’t completely fit with the observable results. There was something about human intelligence - the awareness that allowed him to stand outside of his own thought processes and observe them, critiquing and willing them into certain forms - that seemed non-natural. When compared to the automatism of the rest of existence, human intelligence appeared an alien presence.
His mind drew him to questions of power, and the ways in which it motivated everything. Even the dream of repose in an afterworld was a creation that gave certain types of people a feeling of power and security when confronting the challenges of daily life. Freedom and power were the same, for one without the other was meaningless. Even love and the advocacy of love was a manifestation of power, for love could radically transcend the traps of fear and all that it spawned - hate, envy, jealousy, and the lust for control. Yet only if its source was self-love could it work. Without this there was no love at all, only dependency and manipulation, a mask to conceal unconscious impulses that aimed for something beyond their reach.
He thought about his father, who worked around men and women who lived for nothing but the acquisition and exercise of power over other people. Excluding the purely erotic dimension, this was the worst kind of power there was because it sprang from the inner worm of fear and delusion. The paradox of such a politically motivated life was that those who gained the most power became the ultimate slaves to it, for they were totally dependant upon the willingness of the people to be governed by them. Yet life went on oblivious to who was ‘in charge’. To make their selves seem necessary, politicians had to spin many illusions. Politics was built upon lies, sometimes subtle, sometimes sublime, but usually crude and effective. Those who lived for political power soon lost any vestige of personal authenticity, for if they had any to begin with it was eventually driven out by the need to weigh every word and action upon the scales of victory and defeat in the upcoming elections.
To Werbinox, this loss of freedom was the exact opposite of the kind of power he envisioned. There was no room for dependency upon the perceptions and support of others. Great strength stood alone, and was based on the ability to direct and create one’s self anew. Dreams existed to be manifest into psychic and physical reality.
He was now halfway up the hill. Sweat glistened on his skin. It felt clean and alive. His favorite form of exercise was hiking and rock climbing, which he thought of as adventures. The air around his head gave off tremendous heat, spinning in a vortex up into the sky.
The power inside of him welled up from dark springs and received a new impetus from the outside position within his mind. He had always thought that conflict generated heat, creating sparks similar to electrical synapses in the brain. From the heat of clashes between the instincts and the self-observing intellect - between mind, memory, and emotion; between entities and organizations of entities – came an immense and inexhaustible impulse towards growth and self-overcoming. He observed life and recognized patterns involving the endless organization and re-organization of elements into more complex structures and alliances. This increased complexity produced the paradox of greater strength in some directions, and more weakness in others. A complex life form was able to effect its environment in precise ways, and therefore constituted a more advanced, more dangerous entity. Yet compared to simpler life forms, which replicate and perpetuate their selves with relative ease - being more durable because of their simplicity - complex entities are incredibly sensitive, and easily damaged. Outnumbered by the simple, the complex forms were outcasts amongst the herd nature of biological beings.
Sweat rolled down his forehead into his eyes. The clear blue above seemed to deepen in hue, as if growing darker. He wondered if this were a trick of his eyes, caused by the blood pumping thru them. The trees and rocks had a shadowy appearance, similar to a mid-day eclipse. He glanced at the sun, but everything looked normal. Clouds built upon the horizon. The flood of his thought continued.
Endless reorganization could be observed on all levels of existence from the sub-atomic, molecular, biological, psychological, sociological, and the astronomical scale. Molecules banded together to form substances such as rock, gas, water, fire, and cells that banded together to form blood and muscle and skin. The same atomic building blocks were in everything, yet organized differently to produce different results, different realities. Biological entities banded together for safety and power, and formed flocks, herds, tribes, and societies. In the human mind existed a layering from the most basic to the most abstract; from the primitive levels that provided the impetus for the formation of tribes and societies to the more complex levels that produced a rejection of them as artifices that once served an unconscious purpose, yet could now be integrated into consciousness and overcome. The idea of the transcendent and evolving individual as a culture unto his or her self was a relatively new development.
Patterns provided a key to understanding. The organizational process that formed atoms into elements into living entities continued to work thru them, forming herds and societies. Ideas and emotions were welded together to form religions and philosophies, which were then extended to the next generation as a template for the propagation of pre-determined value. Often brute force was used by one society against another in an attempt to expand its all consuming, all synthesizing domain. Within the mind itself ideas and experiences clashed and incorporated into concepts that themselves evolved and expanded outwards for dominion, like viruses.
The heat intensified. Werbinox tore off his shirt as he climbed. The air throbbed with oppressive humidity. The vortex swirled above his head, cooling the sweat on his face and neck. The trees were still and no breeze blew.
Dynamic forces tended to build upon existing structures and patterns that had already stood a test of time and fitness, launching new experimental anomalies from them. As the mutation advanced its stimulus doubled and tripled, its dangers multiplied, and its potential for achieving the shock of awareness increased as it was drawn towards the ecstasy of higher, more complex states. Friction produced sparks. Like a frenzied lightning storm the sparks became so hot and so frequent that they threatened to outrun the capacity of matter to build a suitable substratum to support and contain their dance of energy. Driven by necessity, the receiver shaped itself to accommodate the power of the signal and created a biological structure in which the tumultuous energies of the universal process became compact in one organ – the human brain.
Creative friction formed a subjective universe within an objective universe biological structure, and raged and expanded its boundaries with storm after storm. The first truly human brain stood at the end of a long process, and at the beginning of another. Did it exist to elevate that which was underneath, or to house and manifest the descent of that which was above? Or to synthesize both in the middle? It was a mystery.
This level of self-awareness, perpetuated in potentia thru countless generations, was merely a base for the ongoing great experiment. In a drive to reach more stimulating heights in the subjective universe, the lightning storm of the mind expanded outwards to form connections that never before existed. To Werbinox the perfect analogy was the computer. The universe itself, like the first room-sized computers, had advanced thru endless trial and error to a smaller, more compact state. The brain was like the computer chip. All of its focused energy somehow became self-aware, learned to perceive itself as a discreet entity, said “I”, and knew itself to be unique. At last the motive force of the Kosmos could look upon itself as from the top of a pyramid, standing upon its own subconscious base of molded and unified forms, looking on the universe it had shaped from atop a tower it built without ever knowing what it was doing, yet did mindlessly as Will.
Of course, one could not leave out sex as the fount of life. All animals were manifestations of the sex drive itself. They all emerged from a male orgasm at the very least. Every person that Werbinox saw had a grimacing face and spurting organ behind them. There was no getting around it. In an attempt to control the wellspring of sexual energy, moralists and priests attempted to gain power over the minds and bodies of people by prohibiting most forms of this awesome power. The effects were much the same as prohibition.
Werbinox shuddered. If anything was ‘evil’ it was organized religion. Hiding behind all of its rigmarole was a hostility to life itself. Life against life – who woulda thunk it! When faced with such a contest one had to take sides. Werbinox chose life - the freedom of the mind and soul. To be forever punished for not believing one way or another was akin to being punished for a thought crime. Any so called “God” who would cast him into the fire for what was in his mind was the dark lord himself! Werbinox believed none of it. It was all rubbish.
A great many minds had passed beyond the religious neurosis. Humankind walked a razor’s edge between animal instinct and superconsiousness, constantly transforming the world into its own torn image. This image danced to two rhythms, expansion and contraction, fire and ice, growth and decay. Both rhythms were creative. Both acted as motive forces in art, psychology, philosophy, religion, and politics. Working in tandem within nature, they often expressed conflict when manifesting in human thought and behavior. Some individuals seemed to be evolution incarnate, advancing civilization as a side effect of their very passionate and personal work. Some embodied the death impulse, infecting the culture with self-destructive tendencies, actions, and values, even as they claimed to be agents of freedom and progress. Growth and decay were both legitimate and necessary sides to existence, but a person had to know where they stood. Far too many never realized they had even made a choice.
The motive principle that an individual represents shows itself most decisively in the way they assert their drive for power, betraying whether they operate from strength and self-confidence, or from weakness and fear. The strong man stands alone, not requiring power over others. The weak man seeks out any advantage, however slight, to feel superior to others, never realizing how small he makes himself in the process. Being a void, finding no value on the inside, he has to endlessly measure himself against others. This puts him in competition mode for a lifetime, driving him to always seek recognition, honors, and fame. He hates solitude, for he does not exist within it. The strong man, conversely, revels in solitude, disdaining the habit of superfluous comparisons. Sufficient unto himself, he displays the necessary egoism of the artist and sovereign as his natural state. He knows not guilt or fear from the exercise of being himself, yet lowers his head in reverence to the labyrinthine mysteries of the greater Self and all of existence.
Jumping on top of a rock, Werbinox shouted into the space before him:
“Let the gods envy me, for I am the source from which they feed!
Let the wretched haters sink into the whirlpool of their own depredations!
Let them flee from me as from the evil one!”
He jumped down into the tangle of weeds and briars. The vortex roared silently around his head. Not a single leaf stirred. It seemed odd, but he couldn’t be bothered. His thoughts had his full attention.
Nature had taken a short cut and quantum leap toward itself in the mind of man, and discovered with the newly born power of choice that it could swim against the current if it chose to, and cut against the grain if that was its desire. An individual was not a slave to the multitudes, nor to the culture he or she was born into. An individual could possess so many variables from other human beings as to constitute a different specie altogether. This was what the herd called a deviant.
All moralities that Werbinox had examined thus far seemed to overwhelmingly side with what had already been achieved and established. They always sided with the herd by virtue of its mathematical preponderance. He subscribed to a far different morality, a morality that promoted the mutations - all those who were becoming - an evolutionary morality that paved the way for higher, freer, more powerful human beings. If they happened to topple the encrusted edifice that stood in their way, so be it! If they inaugurated a riotous, spring-like chaos of freedom, so much the better!
New pyramids awaited the form giving powers of man. New technologies pressed forward from the harnessed storms of the mind. Even now the building went on. To what goal or purpose nobody knew. Perhaps without purpose, only the dance and play of power itself, rising and falling, cycling back to itself, enlarging the circle a little more each time. Life existed to discharge its energy, consumption being mere supply and preparation. Near misses and spectacular failures were everywhere. Organic and psychological structures were not always sound, the unities not always harmonious, the alliances not always healthy, the ruling drives all too often self-destructive.
‘When will the builders come with sufficient power and vision to correct the faulty plan, to bend the straightened line, and to bless Life and all that Is as joyous and sacred? Who will smash the failed frames of religions and philosophies to free human minds and hearts for their very best strivings? Who will teach men and women to not only live for themselves, but to be as those who are worthy of living for themselves? Who will teach them to transform their selves into the image of their deepest, most necessary and creative desires? Who will be strong enough to siphon of the brute and stupid into constructive channels? Who will teach people that to take charge of their own evolution is the greatest work?’
The roaring in his ears had ceased, and all was quiet. The sensation of the vortex above his head was gone.
The tangled forest closed about him tightly near the summit. What seemed so fragile next to the void of space and gas and rock was also a remorseless flow of brown, green, and red from an inexhaustible well of forms. Fluttering wings of black and yellow butterflies whipped the air into soft waves. Solar rays penetrated the canopy of hardwoods and pines as thru a cathedral ceiling, illuminating the colors of the forest as on a day a thousand years ago, or into the future. Time contracted and became meaningless. Eternity was now as it always had been, was, and would be.
At the summit the entanglement peeled back to expose a rock outcropping. One lone tree grew out of the rock, driving its thick roots thru cracks into the soil beneath. Straining skyward with a seemingly frozen dynamic tension, it looked as if it where trying to pull the mountain even higher.
Werbinox climbed atop the rock and gazed into the valley. Objects that had before so dominated his field of vision as to constitute the entire horizon now dropped away to reveal the wide and rugged expanses beyond.
A wall of air suddenly slammed into his body, threatening to knock him off the rock onto the jagged, weed strewn protrusions beneath. Regaining his balance he saw the storm crossing the near ranges, its ominous curtain of darkness ripped by shreds of light. Thunder rolled in barrels and drums across the valley.
“Yes!” Shouted Werbinox. “Bring it on!”
As if responding to the command of his voice, a bolt of lightning flashed before him, tracers meeting in the exact spot upon which his vision was fixed.
‘This is for me’, he thought, feeling delirious. Lifting his arms (wings) he felt himself divide in two – an absolute stillness and the projection away from it. The storm intensified.
A strand of cloud broke off from the rest and floated towards him, silhouetted against the advancing wall of lightning. Elongating into a predatory shape, it extended a sharp pointed nose, and opened a gaping maw rimmed with teeth. Two holes appeared as eyes, radiating a soulless black. It swam thru the ocean of air with the inexorable rhythm of an attack.
‘This is just a dream!’ He thought, a strange word springing from his lips and passing into the wind.
The shark dove and swallowed him in its belly of mist. Reflections of thoughts danced upon the pixilated canvass. A light bulb popped in front of his eyes and inside his head. The bolt struck the tree behind him, blowing him off the boulder onto the brambles below. Excruciating waves of pain.
The predator was gone, torn in tatters by the wind. Werbinox picked himself up from the ground. The gale was full force upon him. Trees bent in half beneath the hissing torrent of rain. Gripped by elation, he was not worried. Everything would be fine.
As hail showered down from the turbulent heights, Werbinox ran down the hillside laughing. This was not a dream. This was life! Lightning struck all around him.
By the time he reached the bottom the storm was over. He ran home across the wet field.
