REFER TO GREY: Contemplations by Robert Greigos © 2007-2024

I am watching a movie. It’s night. An emaciated bearded man is standing outside in the cold. He is shivering. A warmly bundled woman approaches. She smiles, leans closer, and puts her hands to his chest. In his confused, deeply chilled state, he is unable to react. Finally he utters, “No one has touched me in three months.” Her face transforms. Reproach? She steps back. “I’m sorry,” she says. I pause the film. I need to think about that, those words, that interaction, that interplay of isolation, expressed care, self-preservation, rebuffed tenderness, and the significance of touch, cold, and darkness.

Undoubtedly, memories are at play. Those are the ghosts: pain, dashed expectations, lost dreams, cold realizations, doubt, diminished strength, suddenly useless arms, a flattening of emotion, a weakening of aspiration, of interest, the abandonment of self to the embrace of cold, of emptiness.

Can such disappointing, challenging 7-10 separations be vanquished, surmounted? Can two very different distant objects be nudged, coaxed together, tentatively, inspiringly, warmly completing the disparate dreams of both? Isn’t that the undeniable reality of life itself in this universe? Once there was one, one full complete meaning. But then it burst apart, into meandering incomplete pieces of meaning. Yes, and every now and then, with gravity intervening, those disparate pieces have found ways to re-embrace, to coalesce into something more substantial, something surging with new found energy and purpose. And so it is with the human reality of love and caring, of a revitalized sense of meaning. But then, apparent fault is discovered. “It’s not perfect,” we may think, not all-encompassing, this newly found sense of meaning. Surely there is more. Or, is that all there is, this imperfect thing, this thing with fault? Perhaps there are adjustments that can be made? Any at all? But if none, must divide, must split be the unavoidable final result?

Fault, you say? Fault compared to what?

Exactly. Fault is illuminated by “principles” and “ideals”. So, are “principles” and “ideals” the final barrier, the ultimate distance maker, the reason why 7-10 splits appear and are becoming ever more impossible to vanquish, why cold opaque unending emptiness seems on the verge of swallowing so many of us?

“Principle” and “ideals”, I say. Those are what need reexamining. Perhaps they are false, ill-conceived, flawed in their nature, themselves amenable to adjustment.

No, no, no, you say. Even if the universe once was whole and complete in its meaning, it burst apart. If not as a result of irreconcilable principles and ideals, then why?

Hmm. . . Let me think. Boredom? Or, is that too anthropomorphic? Followed by anxiety? And maybe fear? And finally anger? And then rage? Yes, if there is some kind of intelligence bound up in and seething throughout the workings of this world we inhabit, I think boredom could be the root cause, the base rationale for the big split, for the bursting forth and blossoming of the entire universe as we see it, the underlying reason for all the now disparate incomplete pieces floating throughout the universe. And also, with the intervention of a kind memory, the ghost of something once nearly, almost achieved, the reason why we each ache for, hope for, a greater sense of completeness through touch and closeness and the sharing of things, ideas, and experiences. Ah, but then like before, boredom sets in, boredom that inspires recognition of fault. We find fault and once again we want more, more than sameness, more than boredom. And that ever increasing desire for more finally bursts forth through anxiety and anger, and we are left with division, with a resolute, apparently irreconcilable split.

. . . But eventually, with cold and emptiness looming round us, many of us begin to feel an inevitable nudge, a coaxing, reorienting us, inspiring us toward a search for ever more profound and fulfilling meaning. We experience once again a willingness to cross, to try to lessen the distance of that 7-10 split, despite all the ghosts we fear, despite all the rigidly held “principles” and “ideals” we hold. Perhaps they are not the final barrier, those “principles”, those “ideals”. Perhaps it is their potential falseness we need refigure, redefine, readjust to in order to move closer to that ever more profound, more fulfilling meaning we want, we desire, that is surely out there.

No, hallucination validated by emotion is not the entirety of the actual encompassing reality we exist within. There is more to this world, to our universe. Unexamined “principles” and “ideals” illuminating fault should not deter us, should not confine us to boredom or condemn us to unrelenting cold and emptiness. We have invented those unyielding “principles” and “ideals”. And, like everything else we do, though they may prove useful for the moment, in the long run, we could probably do better, for ourselves, for all of us, no matter sexual orientation, color, or creed. Including, better for all the plants and animals surrounding us that support our very existence. Surely, we could do better.

May your inhibiting ghosts be periodically shoved aside, your “principles”, “values”, and “ideals” not be immune to honest reexamination. And may the dark chilling looming cold and emptiness of split from others nudge you ever more strongly toward useful, healing insight, and a more fulfilling, more complete understanding and appreciation of meaning within your own life, and within this life we all share.