Mere

“Godless mysticism cannot escape the finality of tragedy, or make beauty eternal. It does not dissolve inner conflict into the false quietude of any oceanic calm. All it offers is mere being.

There is no redemption from being human. But no redemption is needed.”

John Gray, The Silence of Animals

I was reading some John Gray today. This conclusion struck me as akin to my conclusion, for the time being. With one exception. Gray says ‘mere being’. Mere as in “that’s all, only that, no more”.

I would adjust that to – All it offers is being. Anyone who finds being insufficient will soon find otherwise when they are in transit to non-being. Being is everything. It is only insufficient if you haven’t noticed how absolutely immense it is. It’s everything. All. There can be nothing more.

Mere is also used in English to mean a lake or body of water. Hence the image above, which I found in my file and which Luisa identified for me as by Pedro Roldan Molina. I love his work!