To look inside my self. To gain knowledge of…
The person I am? Was? Will be?
Why? To what end?
I live on instinct. Action – reaction. You speak, I respond.
I pursue my essential biological goals.
I have to eat, drink, sleep, procreate.
These objectives demand my full commitment.
Introspection is an indulgence, an irrelevance. Isn’t it?
“So?” you ask. What distinguishes me from an animal?
They all share my biological imperatives. True.
Creativity? Innovation? Abstract thinking?
What does any of that really mean?
An infinite number of monkeys, each with a typewriter, given enough time…
Art? Music?
Some paintings by animals have sold for large sums of money.
The communicative music of dolphins, and their kin, is ineffably beautiful. I’ve heard.
Relationships?
The complexity of human relationships is notorious. Yes, I think that’s the right adjective.
Not necessarily a positive. Treachery, betrayal, deception, falsehood are rare outside our species.
Perhaps I should seek to know my heart.
The fount, the mainspring, of all human emotions.
You mean that muscular pump, galvanised by electrical impulses?
Let’s get real.
Poets and writers through the ages have ridiculously sentimentalised this blood-containing bladder.
Many animals have them, too. Or something similar. Why should only the human heart transcend its
biological function?
Because we would like to think it does?
Religion?
Many humans worship a God, or gods, or some divine equivalent. Animals probably do not.
Should introspection serve to explore, to refine, to clarify these notions?
Many committed believers would reject that justification. Faith is what is required.
Not knowledge, but belief. These are “mysteries” beyond human understanding.
So what’s left? Who or what remains to fly the flag for the introspective quest for self-knowledge?
Let’s stand back. View the topic from the summit rather than from within the stagnant morass.
All that goes before is ruminative, speculative, questioning. Introspective? Surely.
Worthwhile? Mmm.
A few persistent, diligent FanStory stalwarts may have courageously battled through to this point.
Have they been rewarded, edified, delighted by my endoscopic Free Versification?
I doubt it. Even otherwise, can that vindicate this self-indulgent, self-absorbed carousel of
sophistry?
You should make your own mind up.
For me? Block out the whirring noises from the internal motors. Live life inside out not outside in.
Do, not think. Walk, talk, love, fight. Cry, laugh, shout, whimper. Win, lose. Live, die.
Never ask “why?”
