Chris Morris of Anna Maria Island, Florida, formerly of Kingston and Woodstock, has won a literary award for this piece.He owned real estate brokerage offices for several decades before retiring to Florida.
Chris Morris
SURREAL PHILOSOPHIES
by
Chris Morris (copyright 1997 All Rights Reserved)
I forget my dreams when I awake, but sometimes I
have a remembrance of content or scene. This was especially so
on the morning I woke up after "dying" and experiencing "the
hereafter". I was so intrigued by the experience, I decided to
write an essay. Combining resolve with pleasure, I donned trunks
and went to the beach with folding chair, pen and notebook.
I had finished my first paragraph when I looked up to
see an imposing, heavyset, mid-age male looking down at me. With
large head, high brow, and regular features combined with deep
red ringlet hair and wavy red beard, his appearance commanded
instant attention.
"My apology," he smiled, "but literary endeavor seems so
singular in a sea, sand
environment, you have piqued my curiousity. May I ask your
subject?"
I returned his smile as I replied, "I'll answer by
reading you my introductory paragraph.
Here goes.
Passing the half-century mark means little as a milestone
experience. My fortieth birthday
was a much more sobering and reflective event. However, one
after-fifty denouement both
surprises and intrigues me: an awareness of a hereafter."
"Words, words, words! Words just lay flat on the
paper. Such a subject shrieks for dialogue, dialogue, dialogue!"
He was fairly shouting as he ordered, "Tell me about
your hereafter, and we will discuss it. The subject is my life.
My name is Plato."
I smiled as I decided to cooperate with or humor
either Plato or his imposing impostor.
"The approach to the question of 'hereafter' impinges
on the existence of God. And
forays into the realm of deist speculation result in a
conviction that any sublime derivative has to
be an inference of the application of logic."
"You seem in love with flowery words," commented
Plato, "but your reasoning and deductions are fair. But why one
God? Why not one for each element, phenomenon, feeling or sense,
so to speak?"
"To me, Plato, more than one god would result in
claims and counterclaims of power and spheres of authority.
Logic dictates that to avoid discord and preserve harmony, there
would have to be one all-powerful God."
"You have yet to prove that the preservation of harmony and
eluding discord are positive
postulates, but let's agree on your assumptions. And speaking of
florid language, let's digress
from our topic long enough for you to amuse me with your ability
with words to describe the
scene around us."
I accepted his suggestion as a challenge, "Meeting your
proposal, Plato, prevents me from
finding descriptive words. How to describe a pelican slowly
gliding, dive bomber dropping into
the sea? And how to sketch a graceful gull plummeting to the
pelican's beak to snatch the fish,
half in and half out of a nasal chasm, and rob the catch at the
precise moment the beak is opened
to toss the prize home? And how to describe the scintillating
sun, the sonorous sea, the sensuous sand? The guileless friendly
smiles exchanged between me and two teen-age stunningly lovely
girls as we pass on the beach? I sigh as I wonder how to paint
these pictures with mere words.
No, words still fail to depict cool breezes blowing in from the
sea, the sand dollar I delightedly retrieve at the ebb of a
wave, daddy proudly showing mother the sand castle built by two
little imps, a contented older couple walking the beach, the
woman lying on a towel reading a novel, the sand ridges and
pools as the tide oozes out, the surreal sunsets. No. I can not
think of words to describe such scenes."
"Bravo!" Plato shouted as he clapped a sound round of
applause, "you stuffed my indirect censure back into my mouth."
"But back to the 'hereafter,"' Plato resumed, "we'll
accept 'one God,' in spite of the fact that most nations, most
civilizations, through recorded time, believed in many gods.
Where next does your logic take you?"
"My next logical deduction is that all presently
organized 'one God' religions are socially and morally
destructive."
Plato whistled.
"And, as such, instead of promulgating the essence of
charity, foster a negative reaction by claiming the only true
inside track to God. The sermon is that if you are not one of
the 'only true religion,' the only group of 'true believers,'
your soul is lost and you are bound for perdition. This fosters
discord, dislike, antagonism of one religious group towards
another. Christians are the ones who are looked upon with favor
by God. By inference, of course, all non-Christians are lost.
Islam proclaims that all 'non-believers' are infidels who don't
exist in God's sight. Israelites are the 'chosen people' of God.
These examples could be expanded ad infinitum, but they all
mean, 'unless you believe as I do, you are damned and I am
saved'. The historical results of such 'philosophies' have been
catastrophic throughout the ages. God would never lay claim to
such inanities."
"But how do you apply logic in your search for
verity," Plato interrupted.
"Well, even science and mathematics presuppose
'evidences' or axioms, so I assume an axiomatic appendage to
logic: I think. And thinking results in my indicating evidence
of such by the words I use to exhibit thought. And as I think of
basic truth, time and space introduce themselves into the
metaphysical abstract as air, water, food and shelter to form
bases for the physical world."
"Ah, now we are lost," Plato observes, "this argument
is becoming too shimmery. Let's get away from these theoretical
depths and back to the beach. What's the first personality
symbol you observe concerning that lovely young lady walking
towards us kicking water with shiny feet?"
"Personality symbol?"
"That smile! That smile is communication! A smile says
a lot, but promises more..never says it all."
Plato was right. Looking at her, I couldn't help but
smile too. She was skipping rope. Not really, but it was the
whole skipping rope abandon as she passed that made me smile.
She smiled back.
"Communication," Plato repeated.
The passing encounter changed a reflective,
introspective mood to happiness, elation.
"Difficult to keep my mind applied to philosophy with
your roving eye, Plato. Where were we? Ah yes, you stated, 'Now
we are lost.' But are we? We shy away because we enter a
mysterious world of absolute time and space. But wait! Let's
apply logic and learning. One of the first lessons of elementary
science is, 'Nothing is either created or destroyed.' Logically,
if nothing is created, everything has always been.
"If nothing is destroyed, all remains forever. Hence,
science teaches that eternity and infinity are scientific fact.
And corroboration is at hand. If we look up into the sky,
where's the end? There's no end, as we demand, 'What's after the
end?' Even the 'Big Bang' is expanding into something. Even if
matter slows and contracts again, it does not, logically,
contract into nothing. It is akin to cutting a piece of string
in half, and a half in half, the infinity of minuteness dividing
a remaining half forever."
"Ah, forever," Plato interjects, "this introduces
'time'. It takes time for these infinite processes to take
place."
"But if these examples of space take time," I
answered, mentally strutting due to Plato's listening to my
reasoning, "and the examples of space are infinite, then, of
course, time is also infinite. So logic propels us to the
reality of infinity..the truth of eternity."
"Wait! Your arguments are persuasive. But if infinity
and eternity are logical realities, these absolutes are absolute
power. Logic dictates that absolute power is God. In which case,
we, all things living, all things animate and inanimate, are
part of the endless chain of infinity and eternity. We, and
everything else in the universe, are, ergo, God."
Plato stopped to ponder the enormity of his last
conclusion. After a few moments he resumed, "You talk of 'one
God.' Now we have, logically, an infinite number of gods. But
this logical conclusion may mask the fact of 'one God.' The very
infinity of numbers of gods could logically be an accumulated
power of unity; a unity that is infinite and eternal. As neither
infinity nor eternity may be subdivided, we come back full
circle to 'one God'."
"Plato, I'm exhausted. This search for truth has
drained me. Let's digress again."
"Truth! I have had a personal antipathy to this word
ever since my mentor, Socrates, and I visited the Temple of
Apollo at Delphi and spoke with the Oracle. One of our questions
concerned the meaning of 'truth."'
Intrigued, I asked Plato if he would share the Delphic
definition.
"I copied her message word-for-word. I have it here,"
he replied, as he reached into a pocket and took out a wallet
from which he extracted a worn paper fragment from which he read,
"Truth
The face of innocence, the smile of a saint.
A sacrament reassuring the guilelessly anointed.
A brutish tearing at the secrecy of guilt.
Soul-cleansing torture, purposeful hurt, an exercise in cruelty.
Candor spreading alarm and terror in its smiling disclosures.
Honesty hiding under the ugly rug of frightful reality.
The inability of cowards to summon the courage to lie.
Truth is a prelude to the welcome to Hades."
The pause was long after he finished reading. Truth
had never before encompassed such vast proportions to me, nor
had it been painted in such somber strokes. I felt in need of a
break.
"Let's move away from the realm of philosophy for a
while, Plato. How has your love life been while peregrinating
around the globe?"
"I have had intriguing experiences, some pleasurable,
a few disappointing. One contact I made recently right on this
beach resulted in an element of unexpected surprise. You might
find the tale fascinating.
"Her name was Irene", he paused and frowned, "I have
difficulty describing her. Some women are the essence of female
at five, at fifteen, at fifty. When the mind conjures up Irene,
age enters not the stage. Female explodes from the barrel to the
exclusion of the profanity of age.
"She was charming. We dated. We dined. We dawdled. We
danced. Pausing at her door, I brushed my lips to hers, kissing
her lightly before parting. She asked me inside and showed me to
an armchair. As I sat down, I was unprepared for her aboutface
and purposeful stride towards the piano. For a moment, she gazed
down into the cavern of shiny wires, then sat. She fingered
friendly notes.
"Shortly, I was startled upon realizing she had become
unmindful of my presence, as her fingers caressed keys with
love, with emotion, with abandon, with fright, with dominance,
with submission. I had an uncanny fantasy that I was elsewhere,
but privy to a voyeuresque sexual experience between Irene and
her piano. The piano purred under her touch. She merged, welded
and melded, soul and body, as her breathing and breasts became
one with her piano and its music. Notes dripped from her
fingers, teasing, caressing.
"At last, music became louder, tempo increasing as
volume surged. At one intemperative extravagant climax, all
crashed together into a crescendo of sonorous thunder which
ended in musically maniacal explosion.
"There was silence for a moment. Then hushed, slow,
soft, shivering music arose in reflected reminiscences, oozed to
a close. Irene's head dropped slowly to her chest. The piano
fell asleep."
As Plato finished his narration, his head also
drooped in reflection.
"What next?" My suspense was palpable.
After a few moments, Plato looked up and, with no
further allusion to Irene or my question, he said, "Everything
goes into infinity, but there's no logic to any of it. Where's
the logic to love? Where does logic meet hate? What's the logic
in the little bit of God in each of us, called soul?"
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