Looking back on that faithful summer night nearly a decade ago, he believed it was the way the setting sun dipped lugubriously beneath the vast skyline of palm trees that did away with the remnants of the melancholy and restlessness that often formed during the sweltering months of frivolity on ‘the island of American exceptionalism’, as he called it.
He floated silently a hundred yards east of the hard clay, ears submerged to the chaos that raged beneath and in an instant, felt with his eyes and heart the tranquility and contentment that had been foretold in his studies of Kant (and subsequently translated by his own system of checks and balances), but never actualized at any time during his then lithe, self-serving existence.
Gently ebbing amidst the cradle of rolling waves, it was as though his mind were as open and fervent as the murky chasm that lay beneath and, if only for the briefest of moments, he no longer required the approval of each and every person he knew but would cease to remember in less time than it took to think of reasons not to like them. Along with this came a sharp prod of deja vu, as though he were looking back on this moment with pensive nostalgia as he passed listlessly through dense crowds in shadowy cities where none of the signs made sense and sense itself was a luxury he couldn’t afford. He sensed that he’d experience intense joy pouring his heart into letters and finally know in his mind that ever illusive sense of connectedness he’d so longed for, and appreciate it just the same - even if it meant returning with nothing but longing, and a hazy blend of emotional dendrites that made about as much sense as sending a letter to someone - for he now knew that longing was but a construct one places on oneself and by no means a required function of one’s reality. And it was there, enveloped and stirred by the sublime rhythm of the summer sea, that this man’s future was no longer limited by fear and the status quo, and the simple act of softly steering oneself toward contentment was suddenly not as drastic a measure as an imperfect man is often lead to believe.
He floated silently a hundred yards east of the hard clay, ears submerged to the chaos that raged beneath and in an instant, felt with his eyes and heart the tranquility and contentment that had been foretold in his studies of Kant (and subsequently translated by his own system of checks and balances), but never actualized at any time during his then lithe, self-serving existence.
Gently ebbing amidst the cradle of rolling waves, it was as though his mind were as open and fervent as the murky chasm that lay beneath and, if only for the briefest of moments, he no longer required the approval of each and every person he knew but would cease to remember in less time than it took to think of reasons not to like them. Along with this came a sharp prod of deja vu, as though he were looking back on this moment with pensive nostalgia as he passed listlessly through dense crowds in shadowy cities where none of the signs made sense and sense itself was a luxury he couldn’t afford. He sensed that he’d experience intense joy pouring his heart into letters and finally know in his mind that ever illusive sense of connectedness he’d so longed for, and appreciate it just the same - even if it meant returning with nothing but longing, and a hazy blend of emotional dendrites that made about as much sense as sending a letter to someone - for he now knew that longing was but a construct one places on oneself and by no means a required function of one’s reality. And it was there, enveloped and stirred by the sublime rhythm of the summer sea, that this man’s future was no longer limited by fear and the status quo, and the simple act of softly steering oneself toward contentment was suddenly not as drastic a measure as an imperfect man is often lead to believe.
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