PITYING THE POOR OYSTER

At a certain point he had lost his propensity to believe. It was not any particular decision or conscious awareness; he simply reached a point at which he saw through belief itself to its inherent lack of reality, its emptiness, pointlessness and foundationlessness. He was neither agnostic nor atheist, which to him, were simply more beliefs, more labels for believers, even believers in non-belief. He did not feel “lost” or “rudderless,” but rather perhaps afloat upon a great sea, heaving high and falling low, which was no belief on his part, but rather a sense of the circumstances or situation of being in life itself. He was aware that various philosophers and philosophies had said such similar things, used much the same metaphor for existence, but it was not his belief; it seemed more his observation, his metaphor for existence, to him. He asked himself, “So, is one’s metaphor, one’s explanation for what one observes or senses to be considered as one’s belief?” His response: “Only to the extent that one finds oneself clinging to such a metaphor or observation or sense.” He felt that metaphors or observations or senses were not concrete or otherwise solid, but were changeable and passing, or at least open to such change. Certain things that he considered to be perhaps “truer” than other things were “observable facts within nature itself,” such as regeneration of life in a similar form: leaves on trees, corn, animals, humans. To him this was not “belief” but was real and obvious as well as “provable.” So if a tree is “reborn” each spring with a new layer of bark over its older layer, to his mind it was still the same tree in essence, though now with new bark on the outside and new leaves on the branches. Humans were born as babies. It was logical to him that they should in essence be much like trees that retained the “same basic identity” from life to death/dormancy to life.” He had to admit though that he was using the “progression of nature” to present his own belief in a kind of “conscious immortality,” or at least a certain kind of awareness stretching through numerous changes within a particular species. But, as initially stated, he had lost his propensity to believe, while still keeping at least a few “essential beliefs” in place. But he knew he was in fact still a believer, God forbid. There could be no denying it. With such a context still intact, the world remained his oyster, though he still rightfully pitied the poor oyster and himself feasting on it.