Katabasis and The Dialethica
Imagine a spiral parking ramp, if you’re familiar with those abominations, a floor at every spiral, and the hospital in the center of the spiral, dimensions defying measurement, where each floor represents a category of sins, (or of disease/wound type) with pride being the lowest, most petty, and with oath breakers, violence, and tyranny at the top. Cars enter from infinity in 3D space to entrances at all floors. (and they take a ticket to open the gate) I arrived at pride, because I drove straight here. I came in through the bottom. But it’s not hell, it’s life. The river stix bounds the “hospital.” The hospital is where you meet the fire of cleansing and redemption The river washes clean your memories, as soon as you wade in to the knees. You float towards the center, the ER receives you. We’re clean, they declare, and vaporize your essence into a tiny package, then use a holy knife to slice you in half, and send each half to a random mortal. Hopefully this time you master the journey more masterfully. Realize what’s what— what’s real. Pride is silly, once you realize it. Oh look at this smart thing I realized (please like my status) Everybody listen to me, I’m smart and funny (great, people like me) Let’s write a book so we can prove we knew things first Let’s get degrees from namebrand colleges Let’s prove we’re more cool than everyone else, and hotter, And fly to the sun, and burn like wax, then fall into a bipolar depression. Pride is insidious, and fundamental to individualism. What a stupid way to fight through hell. For attention, not even pay. The good news is (no, not “Jesus”)— the good news (that Jesus maybe knew), is that anyone can give up the game (or the sin) at any time, and float in the river stix toward god, the hospital, for a new life. Or you can hang out in hell as long as you want to. I’m interested in leaving pride. The river might take me all the way upstairs to oath breakers, I fear, but either way, I’m alive, with sensory evidence of that. The Dialethica means while we’re in hell, anything is still possible. We can wake up. We can stop the evil magic. When there is new life in hell/where we are now, in a way, together (could be a pomegranate tree, or simply a sprout of a little weed to smoke), which occurs when despite all forces against life, we grow— You bring it to bargain for miracles.