<<<To Nabokov, skimming the Present without sinking into the Past is a miracle that befits only the most experienced: “Otherwise the inexperienced miracle-worker will find himself no longer walking on water but descending upright among staring fish” (if I may add) under the weight of past associations.>>>
Thus do we think we have thought and felt and experience the One, the Abyss, the Edge, the Love…. yet the graceful lightness of being is elusive and we are weighed down always, especially ‘Now’ (oh, its ‘Power’!) by the depreciating luggage of our conceptual memories and ossified identities.
Meaning is a process of filling in the blanks of the mind… with words… that trigger other words… that trigger more words… As we grow and acquire language, we, in essence, acquire a baggage of associations that weighs us down as we try to skate the thin ice of presence.
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Nabokov, in Transparent Things, writes: “When we concentrate on a material object <…> the very act of attention may lead to our involuntary sinking into the history of that object. Novices must learn to skim over matter if they want to stay at the exact level of the moment.”
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| “A thin veneer of immediate reality is spread over natural and artificial matter, and whoever wishes to remain in the now, with the now, on the now, should please not break its tension film.” |
| Meaning isan artifact of the Past, not theactual fact of the Present. |
| instead of seeing reality as it is, we see a “so-called” reality |
| Languageconstructs perception: first, the word, then, the perceived reality. |
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