The Earth That Was (We Who Were) Mountains, forests, deserts, and seas, full of beauty and life. They are stark as reality but good as truth. There is freedom to explore, to go one way or another, to drink from this or that stream, to sleep now or later, to eat from the fruit of this tree or to be satisfied with the berries from that bush. Whether I go or stay, I rest in the comfort that there was no better choice than the one I just made. I trust myself as a creature amidst creation, I trust myself to be aimed correctly, to never fail to be appropriately situated for the appropriate function towards the appropriate result at the appropriate time. Right and wrong may exist, but if so, they exist as a land beyond the mountains at the farthest reach of my eagle’s sight. Success and failure may exist, but if so, they exist as an imperceptible cloud bank miles off the shores of the sea, held at bay by the unshakeable high pressure of the perfection of the land. At any rate, they are not worth considering. What matters is what is at hand, and what is at hand is pure goodness and joy. How beautiful and fine the brush of God, painting not End but Beginning, not Command but Possibility! The Earth That Is (We Who Are) The universe is a plane, infinite in front and below, but infinitesimal in width. It is a sheet of paper on edge, the cuts of which go deeper than any blade. The abstract has become the real, and the real has been flattened, coerced to serve a harsh and cold master. Life is walking the razor, the thin tightrope of Righteousness which is so ephemeral. To either side the void howls with a commanding rage, black maws agape and hungry. The line is safe but not sure. In fact, it is so thin the very molecules of my feet are sundered, falling into either abyss. I am slit, riven, sinking into the two-dimensional compression, and grasp at the gossamer strand. Oh, but it is made of sharply glistening diamonds and I am not! My hands turn to ribbons of flayed skin. How beautiful and cruel the spinneret of God, casting lines of hope that kill! The Earth That Will Be (We Who May Yet Be) The storm has come over the mountains, and has met the storm from over the sea. The land is ravaged, and not many survive. A great volcano was thrust up, and cast ash and unquenchable fire over the ruined beauty. The land is again ravaged, and now even fewer survive. I leave my shelter and weep over the destruction we have wrought. Where now the beauty? Where now the life? I stand on the plains of desolation and the sun pierces the ash in the sky. I am blinded; I have not seen the sun in a very long time. It illuminates the sludge in front of me. Look here! But it is a whisper of green, gently unfolding, a baby in the arms of mother sun. I remember the Hell where we have been, and Hope suddenly coalesces into Truth. My rebirth blasts Righteousness–diamantine no longer–into so many glass shards. With joy, I stretch my hand toward the naked and shy plant, and I sing. It responds with a movement more melodic than any lyric, dancing, unfolding new leaves, shaking brazenly in the sheen of a summer sun, an island of new in a sea of old. In a moment the buds, and before their fragrance has departed: fruit! Round, full, and inviting. I see that it is, without any doubt, good. I call to my brethren, to we who have outlasted both Ignorance and Knowledge, and with crucified wills we know what must be done. Come, Oak and Owl! Come, Pterodactyl and Tiger! How beautiful and loving the inexorable regeneration of God, crushing death itself with its power! Amen.

I sat down against a wall in the center of the town. No one moved about in the heat of the day; for all I knew, the entire town had been wiped out by a sandstorm. I lowered my head and fell instantly asleep.

When I awoke the sun was still high in the sky. I sensed a presence next to me and turned my head. A man was sitting there silent, dressed in white, and with an intricately-knotted turban that topped a wizened face. He looked at me, then wordlessly offered a waterskin. Such gifts are not to be questioned, and so I drank a few gulps, handing the waterskin back and touching my forehead in thanks. He turned and looked at me fully then, and I saw that his right eye, which had been hidden before, was not an eye but a star. He nodded, apparently to himself, and leaned back against the wall, hiding the curious eye.

“You are an idealist,” he said suddenly in a deep, gravelly voice.

He was right. That was why I was half-dead in the desert.

“How can you tell?” I asked. The barest hint of a smile touched the man’s face and his left eye closed. He inhaled deeply. “I can tell,” he said. I let it pass. I didn’t bother to ask why he had initiated a conversation. I had learned that words have a way of multiplying themselves needlessly, and I did not want to start such a cycle. Besides, energy and breath were precious commodities. If the man had a purpose in talking to me, it would become plain in time. If not, the gift of water had bought the man my patience for as long as he wanted it.

I had not long to wait.

“So, idealist: what is idealism?”

It did not surprise me in the least that the nature of the conversation I was engaged in with a strange man in the middle of a desert was philosophical. I had learned that a test of any kind might arrive at any moment. I considered carefully. Though I knew I was an idealist, I didn’t know exactly what it was, or how to explain the force that had driven me here. I struck on an answer born from my own experience.

“Idealism in a sphere is the willingness to sacrifice everything that others consider important for an object of that sphere.”

“Why sacrifice?” He asked, pausing for a moment before the word “sacrifice”, as if to inspire doubt. I thought for another moment.

“Because sacrifice is where what is ideal (belonging to the realm of ideas) is turned into what is real. Thus, since ideas can only affect when made real, anyone who seeks to be a true idealist must sacrifice to make the bind between the two realms. Otherwise, the individual is a false idealist, that is to say, not an idealist at all. We conclude that ideal ism in a sphere, namely the system which defines the exemplar of a true idealist of that sphere, involves not just sacrifice, but indeed the sacrifice of everything.”

I cursed myself for using so many words, but the man smiled more perceptibly than before. He stood up and dusted off his white robes. He looked down at me, and again I saw the star which gleamed in the place of his right eye.

“Well said. Now I will leave you with a question. The object (of the sphere in which you are an idealist) you seek; are you prepared to sacrifice everything for it?”

I was confused as to the point of the question, but not its answer: “Yes. That is why I am an idealist.”

The man smiled again, and his face softened, but looked more melancholy for it.

“Are you prepared to sacrifice idealism itself?”

Idealism itself? I paused, then reeled, then recovered. “That’s impossible,” I said. “That’s self-defeating.”

The man nodded, and a pain grew in his left eye while the star in his right pulsed and throbbed. He looked at me, somehow more deeply, and the star felt sharper in my mind than any gaze.

“I know,” he whispered, like the sound of sand blowing across stone. Then he cupped his hands in the sign of farewell and walked into the roiling glare of the afternoon. After a few steps he glimmered like a mirage, and I saw him no more.

Which was more the paradox: the man, or the message? I sat in stunned silence for a long time, inscribing the exchange on the tablet of my soul, before slowly standing up. I looked uncertainly in different directions, and hesitated for a brief moment. I looked at my hands. Then I stepped into the sun.