"My thread of thought is severed in despite,

I sicken, long revolted at all learning;

Then let us quench the pain of passions burning

In the soft depths of sensual delight."

-Goethe

Love is art; art is understanding; understanding is unity; unity is simplification. Love is simplification.

The road chosen by brave burning bandits towards the fires of intellectualism which always inevitably bring about an untimely decline into the depths of an illusive yet unmistakable darkness. Intellectualism as a longing for a grasp upon The systematic totality and a true dialactical conclusiveness which can clarify everything and put an end to our perpetual desert hunts which yield no goods.... Such foolish pursuits will leave you lonely in some dusty old attic, far away from everything regardless of where you are actually standing. In an attic always, in your brain scrolling over philosophies new and old, quotes from geniuses-extracting themes ro categorize and systematize the many ways philosophers and writers consent to leading less fulfilling lives. Into the deep abyss, grey in the face and bearded, how you momentarilly let go of the melancholy dream that simple men sub consciously hold fast to; that youthful hopeful dream of bliss via the arms of another who will make you Whole. Love as simplification; a framing; a placing of a border so to understand that which one is looking at. We can only possess the wholes which we determine with our own hasty need to grasp and to control and to understand. Fools you thought, were all of them, so quick to bait at the plastic bait hanging at the end of a line; only to be captured by some unworthy fisherman and be filled with hopes of being thrown back in.

Digression....

Either/Or is the theme for now that I wish to articulate-specifically for now, the conception with reference to a life choice I have often attempted to explicate which offers at its core only two options. Analagously understandable as being stuck on a rock at the fork of a stream; drfiting down each stream only to always acknowledge an itching nostalgia to turn around, to paddle against the current; always followed by a ceaseless hesitance to commit to any one life upon learning the ins and outs of what lies on either side; thus, perpetually stuck on a rock without the capacity to synthesize.

Every book you read seemingly recycles the same tired theme regarding knowledge and how it will lead to madness and loneliness; this of course is one of the streams. In following this path one keeps in their pocket an ultimately ungrantable wish to return to the simplicity that has been strayed away from due to their initial longing for more and more education-a mistake to assume that words and theories would bring about an illumination to clarify the meaning of our existence......

you were very close to the edge of a waterfall at the end of this stream; close to losing yourself in the depths of angry waters; to the anxiety and trembling hands that accompany the actions of a man who lives within his own inward icy land. Yet before you consented to closing your eyes and saying yes to a falling unto a sickness; a sickness that can only attack the soul of someone who devotes their days to searching for understanding. The kind of Understanding that can only come by acquiring that objective answer, or that system of conceptions which will unify the many pieces he has collected along the way, to paint a coherent picture of the All. Longing for conclusiveness in a Universe which keeps her secrets hidden so well will break any man's heart eventually, even if he can rarely ever feel it anymore. And the relation between breaking and sickness is as causal as any.

But before you consented to a falling unto madness, someone in the crowd took notice of your movements and spoke; her soft voice brought tears to your eyes; for the resonating sound of her voice represented a reason for staying upon a surface you had spent so long drowning in doubts; like a hand reaching down to pull you up from the ground that you only wish to kick away, for the worrisome feeling that your legs had been laying for too long to work any longer you said, "Oh its no use! That kind of life belongs entombed in the lampless clost I call my memories!"; the disappointing sight of a man attempting to stand and try to be human again upon quivering limbs would be oh so comic you thought. You were all too sure that your fall had already begun.

The days of youthful thoughtlessness lost, there would be no more sensual fun-but she ran to you as you let your head fall back to lay yourself open to that unintelligible abyss that had always been all to happy to leave you alone in your quest for answers. And, she wrapped her arms so tightly around your torso and swore she wouldn't let go until you remembered how to feel what living meant. "On the surface lies the answers" she swore to you. "Reawaken your mind to the truth of perception and allow the surface to flow inside through your eyes and fill your soul with delight."

In a strange way, as time passed, you noticed it working; while the sharpness of your thoughts was dulling the ease with which you passed through days was growing. But of course, you came to question what questions your mind was no longer asking, and whether or not simplicity was ever an answer at all; or simply a lack of asking questions so to remove a requirement for answers.

But the questions all over again came to dawn upon you like some storm called rushing in on the sound of thunder on day when forecasts promised sunny skies; your eyes and ears welcomed the sights and sounds that reminded your soul of a past, but unforgotten life. A life spent in solitude in pursuit of something. You remember what it was like to identify with the intellectually inclined/the spiritually condemned.

On days of deep thought your eyes look miles deep into nothing and the context within which girls used to think of you as an answer when in your confused starry eyed state was certainly not

in the context of city streets and swirling tongues and drunkeness-it was lecture halls and libraries.....but has anything really changed? You've kissed more girls in the last week than you can count on one hand and why but yo place your lips on something and close your eyes and if it feels like nice; none of it feels like much though; only when you think of her; the one who seems to have sad thoughts surrounding you; a handsome vestige; immortalized by his willingness to turn hus back of the one that saved him; and his commitment to go without asking whose been lying in her bed; he lets the questions pile up in his head in quietude instead.

For you've always equated true love with gloom. Happiness comes easy to simple people; true sadness implies a degree of thought and depth more profound than one night loves and flirtacious lip curls that seemingly work on any kind of girl so long as you're drunk enough to see value in such ambitions-to allow yourself to loosen up in pursuit of what will only eat a hole in you every time you think of her and what the sight of your hands on someone else's hips would do to her. Tell me I am free; and I'll tell you a million reasons why I could never be