At the Bottom of the Well
Listening for the Future.—Committing ourselves to some action is like dropping a pebble down a well, only the bottom of the well is the distant future, as dark and as hidden from us as the unknown past. In some realms we cannot rely on vision, our most prominent sense, intimately tied to human reasoning; we must have recourse to another sense, listening rather than looking for the splash of the pebble. When, at long last, having held our breath during the long, silent fall into darkness, we faintly hear the splash, imagining in our mind’s eye the spray as the pebble strikes the surface and then sinks, attempting to judge from the subtle sound the nature of the waters where it now rests, their depth and obscurity. We can imagine, as Maeterlinck wrote, “...we have plunged to the uttermost depths, and yet when we come back to the upper surface the drops of water on our pale finger-tips no longer resemble the sea from which they came. We imagine we have discovered a hoard of wondrous treasure, but when we emerge again into the light of day we see we have brought only false stones and chips of glass, while the treasure shimmers on unchanged in the darkness beneath.” Just so the future, which shimmers on unchanged in the darkness beneath, luring us at the same time it eludes us.
