I do consider myself a ritualistic person. I desire to recite words that burn the lips. Replicating actions with a disciplined fervor appeals to my obsessive side. I see myself being nostalgic for an era that codified ritual and communion with the forces that undulate our reality. When I look at the night sky, I see an obsidian expanse with specks of light interspersed to break the infinitude. To feel continuity with this is to experience the apex of life. In that obsidian expanse, thousands of stars die every minute. They die as they live, burning brightly until they explode. In the beauty of all of this, there’s mourning for the life that was lost. But in death, there’s joy and liberation when we truly accept that life and death are one in the same.

Ritual condenses the past, present, future and life and death into one point – we only get a fragment of the never ending cycle that spans to infinity. Sure, we have our daily routines that help us get through the day, but routines operate on autopilot, while rituals operate on a clear intentionality and here lies my malaise with modern life. Everything feels flat, without pulse, without blood pumping through the veins. Everything is designed towards sloth and complacency. These criticisms are nothing new but the disdain I feel towards key aspects of modernity intensify as I age. Modernity liquidates any sense of timelessness and continuity. I do love the comforts and privileges that modern technology affords us but there comes a point one must question is change and progress always good? Progress to what and to what end and means? In some ways we live in both the best of times and the worst of times – this is the most advanced human civilization has been but at what cost? At what cost ecologically, economically, and humanistically?

One aspect of modernity that fascinates me is how it numbs us to death. Everything is reduced to its base materiality that even death is atomized and something we don’t deal with until old age. If everything is virtual, what’s there to worry about? Except everything we do is an obsessive prevention of the signs of decay. We exercise, use anti-aging creams, and do plastic surgery to ossify ourselves within a moment where death is beyond catching up with us. Nothing wrong with these things, but at least in North America we have an ethic of hygiene where decay and subversive foreign influences are kept at bay while ironically enough we fester in our own mindless decadence. “Death revenges us against life” said the poet Octavio Paz, it challenges the pretension of life. This is why I admire Mexico’s Day of the Dead – it puts mortality into high relief but in a celebratory and at times mocking way. Life is mourning but death is also a celebration.

To be numb to death is to be numb to life. When I witness that obsidian expanse, I see myself at awe and in terror of the universe. A universe where extreme violence is a metaphysical reality, it’s just the order of things. This is a war universe, as William S. Burroughs would say. At least the one that we inhabit seems to be filled with war and games. It’s also a universe that harbors many numinous mysteries where we’re always discovering its underlying nature and physics. The scientist shares many features with the poet – the universe is a constant unfolding and the scientist can only really ride the waves of this unfolding just as the poet rides the waves of his inspiration. Flowers grow where the blood has been shed, from the womb of earth to the infinite expanse of space, life begins as it simultaneously ends. I don’t want to be numb to this simple fact.

Our eyes never meet when you look at me. Neither here nor there, like the discarded toy of a child that lies idly on the floor where it was unceremoniously thrown by its owner. No. Not quite. A discarded toy knows its value has been lost once it has been thrown in the trash. A forgotten toy lies in limbo, not knowing when it’ll be be played with or thrown in trash. But even those considerations imparts too much importance onto it. The child doesn’t realize it’s there and the only touch the toy receives are the giant footsteps of the child. So here I look at you, through you, look up to you, like a stalker who’s victim doesn’t know he exists. Your gaze is just a scrape, just a mere touch to remind me that you’re present but my existence is incidental. But even as you look past me, your gaze still carries the weight of those giant footsteps.