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Down the rabbit hole.

By Stephen Sheehan




Down the rabbit hole


Down a rabbit hole a snare awaits. The approaching darkness becomes the future, as the light dwindles. The sky is transformed into soil. The floor has always been soft cold mud. The world that you leave behind has served a purpose to lead you here. To lead you down the rabbit hole.

But what is a snare?

An intriguing contrivance, a metaphorical noose that breathes to entangle one in difficulties or to impede. The snare is deceptively attractive. An alternative to the world from which we know. An answer to a sentence we knew was once said, but difficult to pronounce or comprehend. With every inch we go, we want to return. But, as bleakness dawns, you utter the words - Well I’ve come this far; I might as well carry on-. The fallacy of the gambler in pursuit of glory. To be carried through the casino halls as a hero. The one that beat the machine. A triumph over corruption, over greed, over everything that is wrong within the world.

But wait, is that not the snare? Is the snare the concept that there are things wrong within the world. Is the human mind not its own worst enemy. Has the rabbit hole been dug by the hands which crawl down into it in search for an exit in which they entered through. The age of information has placed fancy dress rabbit ears upon our crowns, thrust shovels and spades into our hands, and set us free within fields born of fresh grass. Dig! Dig! Dig until you can dig no more! We are hiding the secrets in the soil! You whispered those words to yourself.

The human mind has gone from foraging food to foraging information. Obesity is not only confined to the physicality of the body. The way one becomes obese and ill if too much food is consumed, one’s mind will soon become obese and ill too. Conceptual obesity. We will become too conceptually obese to climb out of the rabbit hole and back to the surface.
Our eyes will be delicate to sunlight and fade away. We will no longer view the world in which we left. What is the realm in which are we from? Flutters bubble in the heart as you feel the grass but no longer know what grass is. You ask, what is grass? A definition of grass is given by a voice that speaks in your ear. The fear is swallowed by the comfort of information.

So, what is a rabbit hole?

Talked of as a chasm where one becomes lost within, it is a realm of normality through routine. It is no longer a rabbit hole. It is nothing separate from the fibres that exist. It is nothing unless it is exposed as something. Ask yourself, what is existence? While a definition can be expressed, it is singular to the word and not to the experience. The information about what is grass does not explain the experience of grass gracing upon your surface or the smell of grass engulfing your senses.

The rabbit hole and the snare, as previously mentioned must be attractive. Attractive physically and conceptually. An escape from fear is attractive if you are in fear. A road is split into two. One road is dark, windy and wet with glowing red eyes in the distance. The other road, light, sunny and warm with smiling faces in the distance. The second road is inviting. A survival instinct that has pathed humanity to this point. The fallacy of the gambler is believing that trap in which they have wandered into, will not be a trap based on past events. The idea that the sun will rise is based on your continuous experience of the sun rising.

To know everything. To see everything. But to feel nothing, is the age of information that creates a disconnection between the body and the mind. What will a memory be, other than a request without a feeling, as the memory was created for a memory. What will knowledge be, other than an action of request to be told what it is we seek. What will a feeling be, other than a request for the definition of happiness.

We are already in a rabbit hole because we were told that it is safe down here.

In the darkness we search for the meaning that we left at the entrance.

Stephen Sheehan


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