Dusk

Dusk. I paused to listen to the silence. The day was dying, the night being born -- but with great peace. Here were imponderable processes and forces of the cosmos, harmonious and soundless. Harmony, that was it! That was what came out of the silence -- a gentle rhythm, the strain of a perfect chord, the music of the spheres, perhaps.

It was enough to catch that rhythm, momentarily to be myself a part of it. In that instant I could feel no doubt of man's oneness with the universe. The conviction came that that rhythm was too orderly, too harmonious, too perfect to be a product of blind chance -- that, therefore, there must be purpose in the whole and that man was part of that whole and not an accidental off-shoot. It was a feeling that transcended reason; that went to the heart of man's despair and found it groundless. The universe was a cosmos, not a chaos; man was as rightfully a part of that cosmos as were the day and night.

During the past several years I have been more alone than at any time in my life, with no family friends, or coworkers. I have taken away something that I had not fully possessed before: appreciation of the sheer beauty and miracle of being alive, and a humble set of values. Civilization, which I glimpse as from afar, has not altered my ideas. I live more simply now, and with more peace.