"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another." Immanuel Kant- An Answer to the Question: "What is Enlightenment?


A more lucid conclusion to my thoughts has made me realize in myself more fully the contradictions inherent in humanity- somewhat like the active-metaphorical connection between the self and the larger world experienced by Saleem Sinai in Midnight's children. In me is a restless cataract(find the double meaning here) to know, the Faustian climb(if it indeed be a climb) to the hell of knowledge, and the burning reality of its unfullfilledment. Kant writes of understanding and its presence but the lack of resolution to pursue it to its conclusion; a pusillanimity which I much detest in another but find horribly buried in myself, infested with worms that suck out its pith and marrow, leaving behind only the brittle hardness of bone; and nothing else. Herein is the distance between the lost sailor and the elusive horizon, the banalized distance between desire and its fulfillment and this utterly palpable distance between insight and courage.

As I enter the twenty-fifth year of my life, the essence of reality stubbornly persists in me, the seedbed of experience finds its roots, but only passively, perhaps like a leech. But even a leech at least uses some kind of muscle, so maybe a more apt image here would be of a vegetative state, of having all the nutrients that contribute to a balanced diet when cooked; but raw, less than raw in its present state, covered by all the 'nitrogen' needed to sustain itself and even permeated by all that was needed by it. In other words, I find myself paralysed when it comes to action, in spite of all the "wisdom" I've accumulated.

However, I am enjoying the first cup of purely black bitter coffee I've ever had.