It is quite striking that, throughout our history, the idea that has boggled the mind of our species most is a notion that we developed, which we call 'End'. We obsess over the ends we encounter as we endeavor through our lives. We mourn the end of love and the end of innocence – as we become enfettered by age and enfeebled by decadence. We find ourselves enthralled by, yet in fear of, the enormous portend of our own inevitable end – unsure of whether our souls will ascend, or we will simply cease to be. Thus, many of us pray, in the hope that some charitable God might grant us transcendence.
It would seem that our fear results from our supposing we know what we mean when we use the word end. Yet, in truth, our suppositions are, more often than not, very misled. We tend to think of endings as single moments, which vary by degree of sadness. Far too few of us recognize endings for what they are, the very moments most endued with joy, most deserving of our encomiums, of our praise and prayers. Perhaps this all stems from what seems to be at the root of all fear – that is, the unknown.
It has always seemed to me curious that I only ever find the word apprehension used to describe fear or anxiety – this being as horrible a divergence of connotation as ever there was. “The boy was filled with apprehension at the prospect of jumping off of the cliff, yet, since everyone else was doing it...”
I find this usage curious because the denotation of apprehension is to understand – to comprehend. Yet, fear comes most often as the result of our not understanding – as is the case when persons of European decent fear persons of Arab decent because of their apprehension of what makes a ‘Terrorist’. Though the former may think they understand that Arab = Muslim = Terrorist, anyone who applies but a modicum of cognitive effort in evaluating this equation will see it is plainly false, incontrovertibly flawed. Perhaps, when we use apprehension to mean fear, we are alluding to the idea that one thinks they understand something when they do not. This seems most certainly the case with regard to endings.
As I said before, we most often equate endings with things that result, to some degree, in sadness: death being an extreme example, which readily comes to mind; the final paragraph of a book, very much enjoyed, being one less commonly considered. This sadness is a matter of false perception, and it is this perception that underlies the negativity we so often equate with ends – the perception of something that was once possessed, now lost. We often ignore, or remain unconscious of, the regularity of instances of joy that occur due to ends. Without end, there would be no music, only noise, as one tone continuously bled into another. Without end there would be no progression, merely constant movement. Without end there would be no gain, only the continual possession of. If we look at linguistic etymology, we may come to understand that this other, far less common way of perceiving the word, and thus the idea, is a far more sensible way of doing so.
In English, we take the prefix en- from Greek, through Latin, and use it to suggest movement. Added to a noun it can mean ‘putting into or on’, as in enrobe. Added to a noun or an adjective it can mean ‘bringing into the condition of’, as in enthrall. Added to a verb it suggests something put ‘in, into, or on,’ as in ensnare. To generalize, we use en- to describe movement from one place, instance, or condition, to another.
The suffix -d, most often occurring in the form -ed, is used to form the past simple and past participle of regular verbs, as in called, wailed, pained. (The addition of the ‘e’ came with the advent of Modern English.) Taken this way we can see that an end is merely a movement that has passed. Another way of saying this is: an end is what allows another beginning to occur. This makes sense when we consider the primary definitions of the word, namely: the part of an area that lies at the boundary and a point that marks the extent of something.
As long as we are talking about points, let us get physically metaphorical for a moment. If you consider a point, what you are considering is a ‘one-dimensional object,’ an object that exists within time, but not within space – that is an object without the spatial dimensions of length, width, or depth. Geometrically, such an object serves two functions. First, it may serve as the ‘atomic’ structure for objects of one, two, and three spatial dimensions – as in the building of a line segment. Second, it may serve as the transition/connection between two other objects of equivalent spatial dimension – as in the joining of two line-segments to form a third unified line segment, or an angle. All of this becomes really mind-boggling when you consider that even a line segment as small as this ( - ) contains an infinite number of points.
Quantum mechanics suggests that a black hole is a ball of matter so massive, and dense, it compresses itself into a point, quite possibly punching a hole through the ‘fabric’ of space-time, very much like a needle through your shirt – we refer to this as a quantum singularity. In more common parlance, if you pass the ‘point of no return’, you have reached the ‘point’ in your journey where it would be more time-consuming to return to the beginning than to see your journey through to its end. On a theoretical bent, if there could be such a thing as a one-dimensional creature with a consciousness, it would never be aware of anything outside of itself, and without a point of reference, it is unlikely it could achieve self-awareness, which would by definition rule out consciousness. (An interesting philosophical conundrum.) A point such as this ( . ) can be considered as a circle of the smallest visible measure. A circle is an object of two spatial dimensions that straddles the point between finiteness and infiniteness, if you consider that due to the indeterminate measure of π(pi), a circle’s area can only ever be approximated. A sphere is the same object, in three spatial dimensions. As William Blake sang in Auguries of Innocence, we truly can “See the world in a grain of sand…”
The word end is formed by a prefix, and a suffix, with nothing, a nothing quite similar to a singularity, to a point, in between. I leave it to you to consider why this is?
My point is this: An ending is the termination of something, but it is, simultaneously, the beginning of something else. Often we are able to understand what that something else is. When you come to the end of this essay, you will be able to understand that its end is simultaneously the beginning of your experience as influenced by it. There will be times when we can only apprehend the ‘something else’, such as what comes after death, what comes after birth, what comes after two people kiss for the very first time? Yet, when we find ourselves full of apprehension, it may be wise to try to accept that there is always something unknowable within an ending. Perhaps then, we will come to realize that an end is but a chance to find out what follows.
And what follows is always an adventure, a gest if you will, and therefore should be celebrated as all things in life should be, including the sadness and the loss – without which there would be no joy and nothing to gain.
-dennis
No comments:
Post a Comment