Morphogenesis

“If you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”

         Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

The low, rumbling noise from behind the crackling fire did not illicit any fear in the Being, nor any doubts or worries or even sympathy for what was clearly an excruciatingly painful growl of something suffering to the degree that, even the ominous silence that permeated the ether customarily was now splintered with agony. The Being stoked the small flame in front of it, forever impervious to such distraction. It had but one task and one rule attached to it, which made it so much simpler to follow: stoke the fire, do not let it die and remain detached, do not let it feel.

   Feel what, the Being sometimes wondered. It did not know what feelings were, of course. It had always been so; the Being had sat here, stoking this fire since the beginning. Which beginning, the Being sometimes wondered. Its very own, of course. What else was there? The small fire, the Being and the darkness, where the monsters lived. What were the monsters, the Being sometimes wondered. Why, everything else, of course.

   The Being remembered the first breath of animation that it took next to this fire and it knew that on the day the fire died, existence as it knew it would die too, for as the ages passed and waned, the Being thought and thought of the meaning of all it did. Darkness had no meaning without light, as light had no meaning without dark. If darkness did not exist, light would be everything it knew - and so would it be if light did not exist and darkness was everything. The contrast was always needed to give meaning to each concept. The Being understood the importance of its task and it did not feel, so it could not be deterred by the suffering in the dark. It could not shine a light on it either, because the light it had was not enough. The fire had grown smaller and smaller with each eon and as much as the Being fed it, it still grew ever smaller still.

   This fact did not disturb the Being, not exactly, but it had made it think that when it finally waxed and waned and succumbed to the dark, what would the Being’s purpose be? Could it exist without existence itself? It could not think too hard in that direction, however, as one of the monsters would rear its ugly head from the darkness and into the light of the eternally paltry fire. The Being had no concern for it could not feel concern, or much at all for that matter because it feared that rule of feeling, that rule that kept the fire burning, that rule that kept the monsters all at bay. The Being could not feel so the monsters felt it all.

   But as the agonizing cries ruptured the silence again and again across millennia and even with all its efforts to keep the fire burning the will of the Being was sapped more and more each day. What was the point of sitting here, feeding a dying fire? What was the point of all the wretchedness in that gloom? Why could it not feel if everything else could? Why was it chosen to be the guardian of a doomed existence beside a perpetually dying fire, alone in fissured silence with screams of pain and loss and agony it could not feel for?

   The fire crackled and something stepped into the light. A blackened shape, shrouded in darkness with the shroud ribbed by the light the fire threw at it stepped forward.

   “I am Doubt”, it said, with a shaky voice, as if it doubted that fact.

   The Being had never had a guest at this fire so it did not know how to react. It simply shrugged the presence off, silently stoking the fire, as it always did. Doubt sat down next to it, silence reigning supreme for what felt like… well to the Being it felt like nothing. Or did it? The Being suddenly was not certain if nothing felt like something or something could even be felt since it had never known how to. How would it know if a feeling existed when it had never experienced it? The fire crackled louder.

   “Why are you feeding that fire?” the monster asked.

   “For if it dies, existence dies with it” the Being said, but felt the tendrils of uncertainty creeping in on it, even as it spoke. How did the Being know what uncertainty was? It did not and yet it did, as somehow, when it felt it, the very feeling became recognizable.

   “It will die anyway”, Doubt whispered gravely.

   “Not as long as I can keep it burning. I’ll keep it burning and all the monsters shall stay away.” The Being replied shakily, disbelief now clear in the tone of its voice, even as it tried to reassure itself with its own words.

   “The monsters, Doubt hissed, are not out there in the darkness - they have never been.”

   The Being shrugged, now with an ever growing pit in its stomach. What did that mean? How could the monsters not be out there? It could hear them, their cries, each day, since it had been birthed into existence itself. They had always been there, suffering - the Being knew that and yet, now, it doubted the very reality of its beliefs.

   Suddenly the silence was shorn again when a large shadowy figure, muzzled and gray, fissured and cracked, fuzzy and silent; stepped forth and the Being knew there was no going back. The monsters were here now - had Doubt been true to its word? Had they always been there, just out of sight?

   “I am Anxiety”, it said, breathing it out as if it feared being in the open like this.

   The Being nodded sagely and Anxiety sat down next to Doubt, by the burgeoning fire. It shook slightly as it looked around at Doubt then at the Being, like it had only just seen them there, really acknowledged that they were by the fire with the monster. It seemed to sag and wilt when it finally did as if trying to make itself less noticeable. The Being fed the fire and it spun merrily, shadows dancing across the monsters’ faces.

   “What is the meaning to this? Anxiety spoke slowly as if trying to make sure it was understood. “Why do you do this?” it gestured towards the fire.

   “I do it for the good of all. Existence itself will cease if I do.” The Being said, once again reassuring itself that it was on the right path. Anxiety giggled, but it did not seem merry or cheerful. How did the Being even know this, as it had never seen what cheerful looked like? It knew - like it knew darkness could not exist without this light, it also knew that what it saw on Anxiety’s face was the darkness equivalent where cheerfulness was light.

   “You have been sitting here for eons, mindlessly feeding a dying fire while the others suffer - while we all suffer. What is the meaning to this?” It asked again.

   The Being thought of this - would the fire’s death, existence’s death, mean the death of suffering? How did it know what suffering even was? Yet, as it looked at Doubt and Anxiety, it knew. It now could hear more clearly, see more clearly, remember all it had experienced. The never-ending, soul ripping cries it had been hearing. The heartbreaking, mournful screams of pain and sorrow that millennia had engendered the Being always neutral to. The more it thought of it all, the harder it became to extend its shaky hand and feed the fire. The harder it became to breathe, until it gasped and gagged and it finally knew pain - the feeling was like the loss of all control of self. As if the air had become liquid and every breath would hurt its lungs, it struggled more and more, shaking its head and fighting the clawing feeling of its own helplessness. It seemed like an eternity passed before breath came back steadily against its chest, but when it did, the Being understood, with nagging finality, the question that Anxiety was posing.

   “Your purpose is ended, Anxiety continued, and it was never a righteous one to begin with.”

   The Being lowered its head, ashamed and crippled with that very shame now. It had always been useless - the very existence of it all had been useless. There had never been a point, had there? Then why had it sat there for so long, ignoring all of this?

   A heavy thud stroke the silent gathering as yet a third monster stepped into the blooming fire. The light now cast its shadow and it was huge, large enough to engulf all three by the fire - Being and monsters alike. Black and blue it slithered and shifted until it reached them.

   “I am Depression”, it said numbly, like it was not even really there.

   Even the voice of it felt disjointed, disconnected to the enormous shadow of it all. It slowly advanced until it was next to Anxiety and it sat down by the fire, gazing indifferently at it as if reaching it had never really been the point. The Being now felt - truly, really felt, as if it had never felt before. All the things that had lurked in the dark - all the shadows and the monsters and the feelings it had only heard of but never seen or acknowledged hit it like a sledgehammer to the head. Hurt, overwhelmed and drowned into too much of this ocean of feeling after all that nothing, it stopped struggling to break free of it and sunk.

   “That’s it. Let go. The bottom’s there, waiting for you. Stop fighting. Stop reaching for the fire. Let go. It stops hurting if you let go.” Depression murmured slowly and softly and the Being knew there was no choice to it as it had no more will or wish to fight back anyway. It could hear the roar of the fire as it lay down next to it, waiting for it all to end - if existence itself blinked out, the Being was no longer bothered by any of it. It had reached that bottom Depression spoke about and it was silent there and numb and things no longer hurt.

   But suddenly, just as sudden and unexpected as it all had been, sparks from the fire flitted through the Being’s gaze. Sparks? How could there be sparks, the fire could barely been seen anymore? But there were definite sparks as the Being now struggled to open its eyes and really look.

   The darkness was rent by a dazzling flash of light and the last monster stepped into view - this time, it had not come from the darkness though, but had seemed birthed by the fire itself.

   “I am Hope”, it hummed and Doubt, Anxiety and Depression all looked up at it.

   The Being curled tighter - it didn’t matter now, it could not change anything. The Being now knew how to feel and it could never go back. The fire would die because of it and existence would end, all because it had allowed all these monsters to creep into the clearing and sit down at its fire. All its fault, existence was doomed and it was only its fault - so why look up?

   “Doubt was right”; Hope said, shining like a fiery beacon still and clearing more and more of the darkness surrounding them; “the monsters were never in the darkness. Anxiety was also right - some suffer so, while some feel nothing. Depression was right too - it always stops hurting if you let it all go… But they can never see the flip side, can they? The monsters are not in the darkness, they are within us all. They live with us and draw power from the waning fires. Some do hurt and some feel nothing and the unfairness of it strikes like a blow to the face and it always shall but existence was never meant to be fair and the struggle is what makes it real - and the hurt too. This is why you might feel like letting go is better, like not hurting is the ideal but it is not and has never been. Just like the darkness and the light, suffering and happiness have each their own lesson to teach.”

   The Being took this all in now no longer able to fight any feeling, be it good or bad. It got up and looked around. Hope shone on the faces of the monsters too. Embracing them all, the Being now understood. All the feelings it had, all the feelings it now knew, all the pain and sadness and hopelessness and grief, all the joy and happiness and radiance and warmth that were the antithesis of the monsters, it took them all and fed the fire. It already roared like it had been starved forever but when it finally fed on the emotions the Being gave, when it finally received the nourishment it had been kept away from for eons it simply… exploded, loudly, strikingly.

   Every single atom of the Being and the monsters with it was encompassed into the magnificent display - the explosion stretched and grew and inflated and morphed. Across the empty space, light and darkness blended and stars and matter and worlds sprang into being. Beautiful, countless, light and dark, good and bad, sad and happy worlds were born. Complex without count or end it was and the Being looked and shone with unburdened pride. The point of its existence had never been to keep the fire burning, it now knew - it had always been to finally comprehend that the monsters were needed too, for everything to be real and true. It was now part of the whole and the whole was part of it, as it had always been meant to be and it knew happiness - it also knew that had it never known what sadness is, this feeling, this completeness that it now felt, would feel much less. The fact that it had overcome all of its monsters and even so embraced them made the Being feel complete now - it had gazed into the abyss and the abyss had gazed into it, but the monsters there were no longer monsters, but his lifelong companions. And so true life began.