This feeling arises late at night, when a storm is raging outside. You look out the window, pulling off the curtain, and there is a blizzard or a torrential rain, or just a strong wind. And impenetrable darkness.
The heart shrinks, and it seems that you’re all alone in the whole world, that you have been abandoned on a desert island, where besides you, there is not another soul. And maybe because everything around is asleep, and there is no one to cling to in search of warmth and involvement, at this very moment you clearly understand that you’re alone, face to face, with Something. And this Something is much bigger than you, it surrounds you and breathes into your face with inhuman, all-embracing longing. And it’s just daylight, communications with people, involvement with the usual bustle that allows you to forget about Something, to push it to the back of your mind.
And how can you respond to Something, what do you have to oppose it with? Can you warm and comfort it? You yourself are in need of hourly encouragement and consolation. You yourself are crawling through life, constantly calling for help. You don’t have such power and such love as to be able to warm this Something that stares at you with unblinking eyes through the window. And it makes you feel even worse, and all that you want is to forget yourself, to bury your face in the pillow, to fall asleep and to never see dreams.
And maybe, in fact, there is no daily world, or rather, the daily world is just a mirage, and behind it, if you look closely, there is always looming this dumb dialogue between you, always frightened, always hoping, and Eternity, who so terribly reminds you of its true nature on a stormy night. And you are constantly running away from this dialogue into your own world to hide among people, relations, situations, activities. You build a world in your own image and likeness – a world that is comfortable, cozy, and warm, in which there is a burning hearth, where people are drinking wine and are having fun.
But as soon as the daily commotion subsides, Eternity is right there – looking at you again and saying, well, what have you achieved, what has changed? Nothing. I, Eternity, as I always was, and am – infinite, unchanging, I am independent from you. I am on my own, and you are on your own.
A man and Eternity are opposite in nature, but they strangely coexist. Eternity is opposed to the earthly life and earthly death, to something that has a beginning and an end, to something that develops, blossoms, bears fruit and then dies. Eternity and death are two different things. Eternity is worse than death. Maybe that’s why Eternity is so eager to deal with life – this way it can flee its own loneliness.
Photos courtesy of Kay Arne Jensen.
