trenches parallax leapfrog
Ashim Shanker
Top 10 Best Quotes
“The ones to fear are those who cannot realize it: the ones who just see the structure and bind themselves to it because they are otherwise afraid. They look at the structure, and they just see no other way. They cannot seek anything beyond it or do not want to. Yet, they will also vehemently deny that they are unable to venture beyond the structure and castigate others they perceive to have that inability so as to make themselves feel superior. They will even delude themselves into assuming that they are free of structural influence and will violently oppose any who say otherwise. They will say that the structures are a pragmatic necessity for social cohesion, but that they, even as willing participants in it, remain capable of acknowledging external terms and associations. They just choose not to—that’s the line they go with. They choose the structure for a lack of any better alternative and will not go without one. Perhaps they are naïve, in that sense, and it is easy for them to believe that those who seek to negate their structures are either unscrupulous, foolish, or ego-driven.”
“There is a lonesome field of tall grasses within which one might pass a warm dusk eve and watch the stars and fireflies bring new illumination against the periwinkle sky and amidst the faint symphony of crickets and marsh frogs. A breeze whisks over and nearly flattens the fibrous stalks, and there is a sense of renewing peace that fills the form on this eve that one might wish to carry forward into all moments thereafter—a resplendent sense of contentment. All is finally and lastingly to one’s satisfaction. And yet, right now, this notion of satisfaction seems illusory and unattainable. At these depths, it seems too like a childish game.”
“What if each breath were a specialized container encapsulating a Moment? It is reasonable to imagine that we should thusly give each breath and each contained Moment the gravity it deserves so as not to diminish the value of either or neglect the scarcity of both. It feels different when one considers each to be precious. In that respect, I have only been careless and imprudent thus far.”
“There’s an overlapping echo of waves dancing in my brain, and I can hear amidst it also the skittering exodus of a thousand crustaceans over the shifting sands of Riptide. Are they exploring? Scavenging? Migrating possibly. I cannot see them in this darkness, yet hold in mind briefly the image of their silhouettes against the shimmering sea reflecting the crimson evening sky, and through this immersion it becomes difficult to know what is real...”
“There are underwater cables that seem to emerge and interweave the various objects drifting and rotating in space. I can imagine their intersections and junction points and synapses ~ the remote hosts out in the fringes. The control stations on terrain that re-route incoming impulses. A flood of light information is passing between domains, all of it insulated within these submerged cables unseen to those on the surface. There is something unsettling about this. Even the sharks seem to steer clear of the cables as though in instinctual protest to the coded impulses passing throughout and beyond, evading the frequencies that comprehensively register and reflexively influence all conceptualization, inclination, and movement.”
“There are ribbons that ensnare, it seems, though I cannot feel these restraints: a tangle of shared understandings, expectations, values, and obligations that demarcate sentient boundaries and frame the articulation of essence. Yet, there is also something rather arbitrary and inadequate about these ribbons and their juxtaposition.”
“The sounds of my breaths slowly begin to fade away, and I can hear again the waves in the darkness. The waves again! Reverberating through a hollow tube. Focus inward, and ignore the sound! Ignore the cause. Think not upon the cause of that cause or upon that cause’s cause’s cause. There is more than we will ever be able to explain. More than I will ever know and observe, and thus our systems are riddled with gaps.”
“The shame of it, of not being adequate in this conception of possession. The value of the entity rests on its resourcefulness in procuring and manipulating material, and so in this respect, the prominence of this deficit serves to expose our deep-seated and irredeemable flaws.”
“The rocks are craggy/unmanageable without sufficiently lacerating my Self ~ scarcely solid ground, but more accurately a foothold. Yet in smoothness, the rocks are even less effective against the sweep of the tides than the sands of the shore. I sit here, not terribly concerned about the bruises and scrapes the jagged rocks lend in the moment, but concerned nevertheless by the waves that sweep back so effortlessly over the catchstones and eternally beyond reach—evading capture, leaving only a dissipating froth upon the black ridges to signal, at the very least, that 'it' happened: for whatever 'it' is worth. There is a distinctive tenor to this declaration of presence, this collapsing flow—Something that reminds me of...?—the reverberations of which remain beyond the span of cognition. Reverberations: there exists a memory of a memory of a dream I had once, but never an authentic rendering of the essential Moment. Still I can hear it in dreams of memories of memories of dreams. In dreams: a faint voice. A persona, a belief system distinctly its own, yet for now, the roar of the tides are a whisper ears strain to grasp. Seemingly a clue to a memory locked within. Or it’s all imagination: perhaps the sound of the ocean causes me to assume I’m remembering something. Gives the memory a sentience of its own and a vessel allowing it to surge in and ebb out. Yes, I’ve heard such things mentioned before: the stimulus that reverse engineers the very memory it is presumed to trigger. Still, it bothers me: this evasive, timeless notion.”
“The feeling filters in for an instant, then rushes out, leaving lasting watermarks of nostalgia. Neurotransmitters will only impart tired old platitudes of common structure: trite anecdotes with predictable elements. No doubt the perception of this Moment will recede back in with the waves and leave me once again looking to symbols for recollection. But then, perhaps it is wrong of me to think of it this way. It is, yes.”
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Book Keywords:
reality, illusion-of-memory, causality, diving, dreams, development-of-self, remote-host, memory, tangle, deus-absconditus, feeling-and-thought, breathing-awareness, conceptualization, perception-of-reality, superiority, simulation, nature-vs-nurture, self-deception, mindfulness-of-breath, underwater-cable, sentient, imagination, illusion, connectedness, human-arrogance, beauty-and-distraction, breathing, sharks, neurotransmitters, ensnare, self, social-cohesion, shifting-sands, materialism, authenticity, symbolism, impulses, moments, categorization, ribbons, environment, codes, opportunism, essence, ontology, breath, insecurity, sky, information-technology, perception, gratitude, riptide, social-structure, echoes, underwater, meditation, intuition, awareness, individualism
