The Secret of Gravity

“We are the hollow men

We are the stuffed men

Leaning together

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless

As wind in dry glass

Or rats’ feet over broken glass

In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,

Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed

With direct eyes, to death’s other kingdom

Remember us—if at all—not as lost

Violent souls, but only

As the hollow men

The stuffed men.”

TS Eliot encapsulates my greatest fear.

I do not want to be empty, I do not want to be a scarecrow, leaning pitifully on other beings made of straw, reciting empty rhymes and heartless prayers and reassurances that life is long, life is safe, life is easy. I do not want to be blind, I do not want to be passionless, I do not want to be meaningless. I would rather be violent than hollow, I would rather be desperately lost than content being nowhere, I would rather be insane and mad and completely and utterly crazy than numb. I do not want to be numb.

He wants us to enter into the academic conversation, but I’m more interested in entering into the conversation of the universe—the ramblings of stardust bouncing around somewhere out there, the whispers and gestures and giggles of metaphors growing next to wildflowers, the murmuring of voices mixing languages together like instruments in an orchestra (Italian would be a woodwind, I think, and German a percussion, and I want to find the language that would be the saxophone and learn to speak it).

He wants us to take someone’s words seriously based on being peer-reviewed, but I want to take someone’s words seriously based on their humanity, on their distinctly two-legged opposable-thumbs insight and mystery and imagination, on the fact that their words passed through the same mouth that has laughed and whispered like only humans can do, that their fingers that pounded on their keyboards are the same fingers that caressed a piano and waved hello and interlaced with a lover’s like only humans think to try. I want to know people’s souls, people’s meaning, not just their bibliographies and credentials.

I need to grow up, or I need to get into creative writing classes.

I never want to grow up.

Today I walked past a game of ultimate frisbee on my way to my dorm, but I didn’t notice it until the disc hit the sidewalk a couple of feet in front of me and rolled away from the players. I looked around and noticed the game and heard one frustrated-looking guy emit this almost tribal cry of anguish and throw his arms in the air violently as if to curse the heavens. He shouted “The wind! The stupid wind!” and I reflected momentarily to notice that there was no wind, and I smiled and chuckled a little to myself but tried to refrain. I didn’t want him to think I was making fun of him, and I didn’t want him to feel stupid. After just half a second, though, I realized that he probably didn’t notice me at all.

I’ve never been athletic at all, but as I stood there in my state of invisible-onlooker-ness I envied his cries of wordless rage and his funny little dance. He was so lost in his game, like I was lost in my walk, only our two lostnesses were completely different. I was consumed with thought—thoughts about my day, my friends, my work, and myself, most likely—and he was consumed in something other. He had forgotten about himself because his head was filled with something else, with the pound of his heart and the sweat running down his head and the inexplicable overwhelming desire to win the game. And I was so jealous. I want to get lost in something other like that.

Because, really, I think that’s what worship is. I think it’s as simple as forgetting about yourself in the presence of something greater. What that something is, well, I guess that says a lot about a person. That’s something I struggle with, the forgetting-about-myself part. 

Maybe that’s why the world is such an amazing place, filled with things we don’t have enough words for like the Grand Canyon and the ocean and the stars at night and the beauty of other people. Any little great thing we find is a help and a hope that we won’t forget how to worship. That we can still maybe get lost in something.