A Casual Piece

"Beware of false infinities"------Simone Weil

Today has been a difficult day for fasting. Time passes quickly though as the sparks fly in a conversation with Saleem and Mongol. "We've been reduced to the level of savages" he says, "only thinking of food, as if we should live by bread alone".
"But we've always been savages my dear Q." Our taste for blood goes unslaked and we outdo ourselves in thinking of ways to extend the 'unnatural gowth of the natural' as if these were part of some mysterious and rigid law that we fulfil, not knowing why.

In the darkening shadows a few lights go on. We look up at the windows , imagining the life that goes on without us. Nowhere else in nature is there such curiosity. At six we stop at the Wright's Bar-why does one have to go to an Italian to get a decent cup of English tea?. We gulp down large swigs of milky tea.

Infinity in a cup of tea. Even the ever-talkative Saleem is strangely quiet, subdued even. It is one of those perfect moments when all seems right in the world, everything is in its proper place. Kairos.

In the monochrome early-morning light even the council flats have an alluring beauty, as if these lunar buildings, a perfect mathematical equation, were carved out of marble, moonstone. One is reminded of how light can transform our own ugliness. For the Japanese, on the other hand, there could be no such crystalline, time-resistant structures: wabi , deliberate imperfection, meant that they had to grow with nature.

I pass a few snails that are huddled around a small puddle-what for them must be a veritable lake. The spirals of their shells all flow in the same direction-bar one. This is the handedness of the univesre, the slight imbalance, the imperfection in perfection, theanarchy in the heart of the black sun that sustains all worlds. If things had been arranged slightly differently, then we would be like this, and not like that; the faintest of breezes caused by a falling peach blossom is enough to disturb the equilibrium and take us to a parallel universe. Is this, then, the best of all possible worlds?

Nearby a slug has been crushed. Another joins him (no snails , I note). Perhaps to witness the spectacle of the nirvana-soul, or maybe just to comfort him in his last moments. There is an awareness of suffering at every level of being in the universe; compassion is the highest form of understanding. I had once seen the same thing happen with a crow as it was brought some food in an empty field. This blackest of crows, whose very blackness permeated every pore of its being, whose skin glistened with it, had he perchance flown too close to the sun?

Near Russell square a six year old Chinese boy-far too old, large-is being pushed in a pram by his mother who is bent over in ..in what? Bellow teaches us to be attentive but what is it? A tiredness with life, grief? And then I see the child moan, flaying his arms and legs in all directions like a shooting star. There is something terrible, frightening , in this desperate attempt to reach out, to communicate. His younger sister, in a pink school uniform, extends her arms and places the plams of her hands over his head and presses down as the mother blows a prayer over his head. In this gentle silence is there any need for more words?

After the tea we, like Knulp, have no desire for anything and there is no idle chatter. Just thankfulness and stillness and a total lack of concern for the world that is hurriedly passing us by. This feeling lasts for a few minutes then, out of idleness, we casually turn for a second cup. It is poisonous, bitter to the dregs...and we start to argue again.

Only a saint truly knows "how to bless", knows that infinity is but a moment that becomes hell if we try to create it or if we grasp it too tightly with our hands. The desire to add to perfection or to reduce imperfections, to make everything right, without grace and humility, corrupts our souls.