Barrier

[This below did begin genuinely naively, as in not having any clue what if anything might present itself in the act of writing, but just to say it does end up looking into something pretty deep and heavy. The very end of it I just wrote straight rather than within the tone or voice of the piece, which artistically isn’t justifiable but it allowed me to at least for now finish it!]

This will lead wherever it leads. That’s obvious but then again what if it doesn’t lead anywhere? That’s impossible. If it’s in motion it can’t stay where it began. But what if it simply leads to a dead-end? Well even a dead-end is somewhere, but then again is there really any such thing as a dead-end? Of course there is - go down a road, you come to a dead-end, you can’t go any further. But energetically are there dead-ends? As long as energy is being used in going in a certain direction, well then it’s always going onwards. Energy doesn’t know full stops. So with all this, there might come a point in time when it becomes clear some pathway you’re on isn’t leading somewhere you really want to be going. There were signs along the way but you ignored them, but eventually you come to some kind of point, a barrier, and you can’t do any more ignoring, this is a dead-end in some very serious sense, conscience, whatever, has kicked in, some instinct for survival, for your soul maybe, and beyond here you really, really don’t want to go. It’s a bit mad to be honest you came this far in the first place, but now there’s no denying it, it’s definitely time to get the hell out of there, to back off.

But there’s maybe others who don’t recognise it’s a dead-end, or if they do recognise it, they don’t seem to care. Why don’t they care? Why instead of the getting the hell out of there do they instead jump over the barrier, push it aside, walk around it, whatever and keep on going? Well what exactly kind of dead-end is it? Why is it screaming out, Abandon hope all ye who hop over this barrier? Well we could maybe put it like this: the very thing that led you to stop, what reared up in you and produced all this is conscience, you saw clearly, whatever it is you saw, that you can’t hold onto this conscience and still keep on going down this road. It’s one or the other. You can’t have both. Whatever the things unfolding and seen along this path have gotten too heavy, and you can be sure they’re going to keep on getting heavier. So if anyone is going to keep on going, consciously beyond this point, it’s this conscience that they leap over and leave behind. But why would anyone choose that? What could be left of you after that? 

Okay, so they lose conscience, but maybe for some all that amounts to is a restraint that if they ever had it they’re all too happy to let go of. They jump over this barrier, and . . . are liberated! Away with restraint! Freedom! Maybe they even shout out a few things like that from joy or maybe just to encourage each other, that is if they’re not feeling quite so sure about all this jumping over and keeping going. And look at the kind of people who they’re now with . . . The cream of the crop.

So what was it that barrier, that conscience was restraining them from? Why did it have to be stepped over, abandoned? What wouldn’t it allow? Well, I think we’re talking of some kind of sensuality, some extreme kind. And it’s a sensuality that gives a high precisely from the sense of one’s conscience, one’s innocence being overcome, and here’s where things begin to get very dark - where someone else’s innocence is overcome, and who are the most innocent? . . .  And that’s probably what you saw - that was the dead-end.

 And in the sense of a drug-addiction, in terms of the sensuality of this, the intensity of the high, as one’s own conscience, as one descends, becomes ever coarser, the more powerful the violations of innocence required to give that same hit - for this sensuality is more in the mind than the body. The high is from the sense of transgression, and the less and less conscience there is, the more dreadful the acts required to produce a sense of transgression. 

Okay, this is where this whole thing led to. It’s heavy but there it is.