A “walking meditation”: To adopt the practices of the Far East but not as an American would, but as an African would. “To adopt the practices of the Far East as an African would adopt them, should be the goal,” I reiterate, “for my American motives are somehow uncentered.” Africa a filtration device, a cultural purifier, it is conceived, through which cultures get rid of just enough of themselves to see other cultures. Africa, the purifying lens. Africa, the technology of minds.
A sort of plan takes hold: first become African, then become Afro-Asian, then become Asian American, then become oneself. “I believe in myself and the spirit that’s in me,” said Tolstoy. A sort of idea, which is unrelated, then comes forth: that History is a line upon a sphere. The line is trying to get to the center of the sphere (which may also be the center of the earth, which may also be the center of ourselves, or of Time) but cannot ever penetrate it, even a little. And yet, in the effort to penetrate it, as the felt-tip marker of ourselves, so to speak, of humanity, is pressed down on this sphere, this balloon, the balloon-sphere slips — slips beneath the ever frustrated force of the marker of history to reach its end and meaning — and thus is caused its various squiggles, regressive, progressive and looping.
“Just as my steps,” I think, “exist beneath these thoughts, so does the core of history exist beneath its globular surface. My thoughts will never reach my feet.” (Thinking, though, that maybe my breath at least *can* reach my feet, as in a way it does without me trying — so I try and focus on my breathing. “Maybe if I know I have lungs I will know I also have feet. Maybe I will make my feet and my mind reach each other through knowing them both. And maybe *that* will be the end of history.”
.i`` * ^ / . . . . . ` `~ 