What truly matters?
Episode 2. You matter.
Greetings,
Looks like dawn is still quite far. Luckily, we’ve got the fire to keep us warm.
I’ll try and keep these pieces on a weekly basis. I’m always looking for feedback however, if you think they’re too long (or too short!). You can let me know directly through the Substack app that also allows you to interact with the newsletter more and also check out previous episodes in the Archive.
The creative people among you may also be interested in using this whole newslettery thing for yourselves.
For those of you who are new: welcome to the campfire. Here we sit together, watch the flames, stare in its light. It’s a long night.
Now let’s begin.
On the last episode I shared I tried to make the point that the exploration of the Unconscious is my quest. No, actually, not just mine. It is the quest. It is your quest too. In fact, at no other point in history (that we know of) such a quest was even possible. We have made possible an age where this quest can occur. You have the knowledge of millennia, alongside its endless interpretations, at your fingertips. All mythology, All theology, All psychology, All philosophy, All metaphysics, All tradition, wisdom and folklore is one click away.
What power lies in your hands.
But if only knowledge was the bread to feed you.
You may have noticed that something appears to be missing.
What’s Missing?
Meaning, purpose, peace, direction, certainty, truth are merely some answers. Strange things start to happen to a mind that lacks these things. It begins to hallucinate very, very odd things. It begins to question itself and others, and to worship idols of metal, brass and plastic. It begins to get lost in labyrinths of Words and abstractions of such magnitude that they are mistaken for Reality itself.
But even all this would be okay if it was okay. But it’s not okay. ‘Reason’, while useful, also sticks the world and life into a predictable and desperately safe treadmill, constantly spinning and going absolutely nowhere.
So where can we look for solutions?
I don’t know.
But I suspect it’s in the same place where everything else can be found: the Unconscious. It’s a shivering dark ocean of chaos. Unknowable and infinite. But you have the light of awareness at your side.
And together, we can point it somewhere, like a beacon in search for some answers.
It is my intention to truly find them. To really grasp them. One way I’ve managed to do this is through my art. Among you there are those who have found the same way. Even those who can’t express their art (or think they are incapable of) can still use the same beacon by appreciating and looking deeply into whatever art comes to them. It’s not just fancy paintings, but music, writing. Stories in general, in movies, books, videogames and tv shows.
You Matter
To make Art physical means to transmute whatever it is that the beacon of awareness shines its light upon. It means to fish something out of the ocean of darkness. To transform it into matter.
To matter.
Hey, and who knows? Maybe that’s the what the whole world is. What matter is. And what you are.
My efforts have taken me to creating my book. Meliade is my first grand attempt at this, and the love I have for that story is impossible to describe. It’s a dark story that deals directly with the concept of ‘light’ and ‘dark’. Through the medium of sci-fi, these abstractions have come to life, in so many ways.
And the process makes me happy. Provides meaning. In some way, this is already progress on the quest described above.
Artist Spotlight
Russian musician Mirabella Karyanova (Ishome)’s music has been my constant companion while working on the next book. Her music is really something else. It’s how I imagine the Unconscious sounds like, in some way. On some level.
Her music is a sort of hypnotic-trance-darkwave mix of genres. There’s a poetry and grace to her notes. And there’s a darkness to it too. One that, I think, I know well since I also come from her side of the world. While Romania isn’t Russia (anymore, at least, lol), my childhood there was still impregnated with a similar kind of… ah, it’s hard to describe.
It’s a darkness - a very Orthodox-Christianity-type-of-darkness. It seems to originate in people’s relationship with that faith, intermingled with the suffering and hardship of centuries past and present. It’s just what that side of the world has (though, by no means, the only things it has).
Ishome’s album Confession (2013) is the best representative of this. It feels like winter in Russia. But it also feels like sweating the darkness off at some nightclub. And I think that combination is really awesome.
My favourite tracks are Ken Tavr, Earth, It Exists and Exit. These have been constant companions through my writings and have no doubt deeply influenced my next book (which is coming soon).
More to come.
Blessings,
If you’d like to support my adventures in the invisible realms by helping me stay alive in the visible ones, you can: