Deeper into the abyss

Regarding Mr. John Littlejohn’s admirably expressed letter (“Darkness and despair”) in which he takes to task Messrs. Paul Greenberg and Russ Roberts for troubling deaf heaven with bootless cries, I couldn’t help but notice that he likewise offered no solutions, woefully inadequate or not, to a situation that it seems to me he would describe in similar terms. It isn’t entirely clear to me if he feels the angst voiced by Greenberg and Roberts is or is not justified. His final question—Is sinking deeper into this abyss inevitable?—suggests to me that he pictures us already in it. If that is the case, then I think the answer must be “yes.” The abyss he invokes has, by definition, no bottom. If you think you’ve “bottomed out,” just look down. If you are falling, there is nothing to stop you.

Nothing, that is, except divesting yourself of the density which makes you susceptible to gravity. There is no purpose served by staring into the abyss. It sucks the light out of your eyes. If you perceive yourself as “in” the abyss, do not deceive yourself into thinking there is a possibility of climbing out. This abyss has no walls, there is nothing to “climb.”

Bearing in mind that all direction is relative to one’s present position, that there is no absolute east or up or left but only contextual proximity to or separation from some singularity or another, it’s still true that if you can fall you can rise. That resurrection is accomplished by making yourself perpendicular. In one of his novels (my poor memory thinks it was in the “Perelandra Trilogy”: Till We Have Faces?), C.S. Lewis suggested that the gates of hell are locked on the inside. Rise up and walk, away from the madness. STANLEY G. JOHNSON Little Rock