eyes pierce through the darkness of this world, the hunter follows for his own purpose; and therefore, the dog's purpose. Neither will find; neither will survive without the other. Without the dog, the hunter is lost to the dim trail. Without the hunter, the dog is lost in a purpose and circles the forest forever turning more and more savage.
Prosecution: But what on earth do they hunt?
Beggar: Other hunters and their dogs. Other men and their gods. Gods and men camped at their soul's fire. These they hunt for as others hunt for them. Whether for a killing or a joining.
Prosecution: Ah, now I see the trick of your metaphor! A joining I cannot disagree as most men of belief seek a sort of conglomeration of some sort with other men of a similar belief. What I cannot fathom is why men of similar or even dissimilar beliefs hunt each other out of hate and anger. Why do these gods seek the oblivion of the other gods? And how can this even be done?
Beggar: When creations cease, the gods cease. Too often before the hunters may meet in peace in the darkness but the savagery of the dogs in meeting first forestalls this. Before the hunters can rein them in for a better purpose, the dogs have torn out the heart and throats of each other. Beauty in its power and reverence is so delicately placed at the edge of madness. Piercing eyes glare to wolf eyes if left unleashed. Yet if cowed much, down cast eyes will find no flame of fellowship.
But in this savagery, the dogs are dead. The gods wander lost; grieving. Succumb to the deadly frost of their uncreation; the hunger sealed in hollow tombs.
Judge: Young man, a question. These gods as hunters are they outside of man or of man just as the dogs seem symbolize, a more beastly half of man?
Beggar: Your honour, we have spoke of little men with little gods. Giant men with giant gods. Does it not seem that the less a man has of a god inside himself, that the less the man seems to be? If a man places his god huge outside himself does he not shrink to a snail; a worm? But if his belief in a large god be then taken inside himself does not he then assume the likeness, the proportion of this god? But that this god-spirit in a man; of a man is eternally linked to the other half of the man. The grand savage, the guide, the wanderer's companion. Have we not said the god-man cannot track his way in the dark world? And, therefore, should not condemn or whip or mistreat his companion: The dog-man. That both parts in the man are equal in their need and equal in their necessity. One is the form of a vase, the other the contents. Dispel, break the form and the contents spill to be trodden under. Remove the contents and the form is a place of void, of wind. So to the god and the man. Inseparably. The hunter and the dog inside the man. The hunter will not curse his eyes; the dog will not tear at his loyalty. These evils only come from the misunderstanding of man, who wrongly sees cruelty in the hunter or despises the dog. And fears both whether inside himself or outside in other men.
Man, out of fear, makes one huge error. They believe only a large god outside can harness a savage dog inside. In this we are left with a blind god useless to its purpose, a starving but vicious mongrel held only by its weakness and a very small man.
Only large men with large gods inside can command a magnificent beast. This is the only place of salvation from fear. Only through large full eyes can anything be seen!
Without the god in the man there is no journey. Without the man in the god there is no sight!
Prosecution: Then there is n fact a limit again to the power of a god. The smaller he becomes, the more blind he becomes. At least in this world of man.
Beggar: True and what does that tell us of how a god can intercede in human history?
Prosecution: Omitting any concept of just blundering about, a god can only actively intercede through the vision of a man.
Beggar: And what will be that man's vision of human history?
Prosecution: Close to his own sphere of existence possibly quite clear. However as he moves away from them it becomes possibly more and more dim and distorted. For example he knows less of family than of himself, less of friends than family, less of the city than his friends and on and on.
Beggar: So if a man's sight is most clear in his own sphere can we assume this is where his most truth will be found?
Prosecution: Yes, though many may argue that a man sees less of his own truths than the truths found elsewhere. We can dispel this myth by the fact that if a man has a veil over his own face, things will be doubly dim when he looks through the veil on another face. It can be argued that we do not see ourselves as others see us but also can it be argued that 'seeing us in the eye of the beholder'. What we see of others, we see of ourselves. Just as a hateful man sees hate or a mistrusting man sees distrust. We wish to condone our nature by seeing it natural in other men.
Beggar: If a god wished to intercede in human history but only a single man's eyes are his guides, where would the god intercede to most likely avoid falsehood?
Prosecution: Please explain.
Beggar: If the god using my eyes wished to do an act of interception or change in human history but was compelled to make no error, would he act in my life or act in yours via my perception or prayers or wishes in your life?
Prosecution: Ah, yes, I see what you are asking. As he must work through your eyes it would better to intercede in your life only since any acts done in mine by the god may be false or harmful as you know much less truth of my life than your own.
Beggar: And would the god be more likely to act in my inner or outer world?
Prosecution: I see it as either way, preference being on the situation.
Beggar: How large is your outer world before it is no longer unique?
Prosecution: It could be as large as the world itself but if by unique I assume exclusive, it shrinks vastly indeed. However, cannot the outer world be said to be all fates and goings which affect our physical being?
Beggar: Very well, then. Name several which affect us.
Prosecution: Procurement of food, shelter. Security. Companionship, love, things like that.
Beggar: Could it not be argued that the last two are more of an emotional inner world? Whereas you were thinking more simple sexual gratification as a physical need and (propellant) of the species?
Prosecution: Yes, I suppose I could yield to that.
Beggar: If we were to grant every man the food, shelter, sex, security he needs to eliminate physical want would they all be happy?
Prosecution: These kinds of discussion on a 'social delinquency of man' I find offensive, young man. If I say to you many won't, it's because they had more but have received less. Those who have the equivalent will see no change and, therefore, why should their happiness unfold. Those, however, who had less before will be at least happier now and they seem to be the vast majority in this age. So hold any grand theories of what you would make from the miserable rich and contented poor.
Food for thought cannot laden an empty bow; Grand thoughts aloft cannot spill away cold rain. What of your mirror, then? Can a wretch see past the thin limbs, the hollowed cheek for some god? Though I'll grant his eyes be huge in their appal of want; he will see no god but death. Death creeping upon him and what he loves, hacking and coughing around him in the same dirt bed. Beggar, you more than us should know! Call that dignity, call that journey, this weakened crawl for a god? Feed the body first, then the mind will look up!
Beggar: You are all truth in what you say, sir. Those of want, those of deprived in the outer world have no time for the struggle in an inner world. Survival is their stone placed to bend their backs. Each day their groans ignored though there is a great pretence of love in charity and law. This descending of assistance more cruel than ignorance. We in our laws and charity would relieve the weight by hammering on it while it stays breaking our neighbour's back. This hammering to our ears a song of mercy; but nonetheless still a great pain to his bones. The pound of bones shattering the end: always our disgust at a weak man fallen to his knees, then prostrate in mud. The stone a ready marker to chisel his name.
Why this f
eeble chiselling? Would it not be more of great, more of love, to simply shoulder the weight with the man. That then both could cast if off? The irony is we have no room on our shoulders for another's stone. For if the man in the outer world carries a stone, his neighbour in the inner world carries mountains on his back. Most do not even know they are there so resigned, so adapted, so deformed they are to the terrible pinnacles of their cowardice. The man of the inner world knows naught of his outer world. How can be? He is as a man so stooped he must place the mirror on the ground to see eye to eye. He sees nothing of a world behind him and around him. He sees only something vague and crushed in its eyes and behind that, nothing. A void. He sees only something wrenched from a void with no vision of connection to anything else.
His apathetic spirit locked, cringed to the spurs of cowardice mounted on his back is crippled to heed the outer world. As if the god inside is trembling in his fear of the dark, of death, of the journey. A hunter afraid to step to the hunt. Yet in the outer world, the man does try as like dogs licking other dogs wounds. Too often, however, the raspness of their tongue rips rather than heals. Too often it is a prolong of the agony till Death liberates the beast. Thereby leaving the god sightless in his paralysis of fear.
So we agree, sir, that it is both useless to chip at a man's
The Seven Days of Wander Page 22
