Complete Prologue

I have journeyed beyond. I cannot go back, because I no longer speak the language of the past, of my past. No suitable translation could be found. All of the naive bantering about perfection and proof and persuasion melted into a garble of meaningless babble. From tower to tower I have traveled, from that of Babel to ivory. Past the ever- and over-reaching grasp of civilization, past the northern tundra, north into the snow, through the ice, where the earth is unhinged from its sun, through the confusion, into the clarity of Hyperborea I sojourned.

As I came over and between the last crag I saw through an opening a flash of light and of green. To fit through I unpacked the last isms from bag and passed at last into the realm of Hyperborea. The air became no longer cold, but brisk and invigorating like the land itself, at once more wild and tranquil than any southerly scenescape. On criss-crossing hills which nourished the most severe peaks grew thin grasses, thick trees, and various forms of foliage in between. Strewn about were great rocks as of granite and the occasional flowers which might be described as sharp, but few would accuse them of being bright. I saw no sign of human disturbance except a stone tower, but movement like that of animals, though few birds spotted the cloudless sky.

Walking in this land I sensed no left and right, but every direction and none. Refreshing my senses on the delights of Hyberborea, good and evil seemed as but two-dimensional play things to be discarded. When I got to the ancient structure I found it abandoned, apparently an old watchtower to monitor the entrance to Hyperborea. The furnishings were sparse and worn, but ageless as the solitary chamber itself which crowned the cylinder’s spiraling stairs. Above the entrance, etched in the stone it read “The one who here abodes shall be named Victor Eremita” and so I am.

Chinese Water Torture

This morning I awoke to the cold silence of my tower being interrupted by the steady, rhythmic gulping of new leak in the stone ceiling. I had had it again – that recurring nightmare of the eternal sameness. Every house, building, street, turn, car, sound, sentence, animal and human was identical. Everywhere hung in that drab font in an indeterminate color – like the whole spectrum turned inside out and mixed – banners which advertised in one word the whole of it: equality. I tried to flee into the hills, but they too were gone. I ran for hours it seemed, but never came to end of that flat, two story city. Then down the street, which was not a main street, there were no main streets, came singing a parade and a band of all drummers. From the nether world haze I cannot exactly remember what they said, if it was anything specific at all, but many times I heard the word freedom and something about the end of hierarchies. As the sound of their beating drew nearer, I panicked. They came from all sides, as they always do and I could not escape. Ever nearer, swallowing up my incongruity, boom, boom, boom, boom … and then I woke up to my leaky Hyperborean suite.

After plugging the hole and mopping up the water and got out my dictionary and looked up equality. There were several definitions. 1) The lowest common denominator; 2) An abstraction; 3) A lie. From what I remember about the world and its people, one of their most distinct attributes was diversity. It is this difference that marks humanity and leads to its highest accomplishments and lowest shame. The contradiction of my dream and my memory bothered me, so until now I have refrained from my daily routine of hunting, gathering, cooking, eating and writing. I have been reading Fred’s Phenomenology and meditating on equality and diversity.

It has dawned: There are an infinite number of possible hierarchies. Because the unique qualities of every person, because of the universality of difference, there is no equality and, in a vacuum, there are no hierarchies, only atomized individuals. However, in the orbit of reality, we are all connected and there is no value-less vacuum. It is value that constructs in an instant, from the fragments of humanity, the vertical order, the master and the slave, power itself. In Hyperborea, we all have power, we all sit atop some ivory tower, because here there are limitless valuations. In that sense you may say that we are equal. What is the concern with systems that reinforce hierarchies and power? Should not the concern be with values? It is values, not people, that are constructed hierarchically within the cultural discourse. Which values are permitted a seat at the table and which are not. Can they at least play duck, duck, goose? Where limits on values end, so due hierarchies – and a genuine equality is born.

What is Hyperborea?

It may be grammatically more correct to ask where is Hyperborea(?), but for me it is an idea or state of mind. I would like to actually go, but they don't have wireless there - yet.

Hyperborea is many things. It is not an either/or question - a zero sum game; it is and it is and it is.

Hyperborea has a long tradition is Greek mythology as a land of eternal sunshine and bounty beyond the northern winds. Apollo and others wintered there, but there are mixed reports as to whether it is warm or not.

However, I have picked up the Hyperborean motif from Nietzsche, who used it in his later writings as a substitute for the Overman. My usage is not indentical to Nietzsche's, but it is informed by my interpretation of his Hyperborean. When I picture the Hyperborean, I picture Nietzsche in the latter part of his career - alone, in the mountains, severely critical, yet self confident and almost ascetic (he seems to have envisioned a cold Hyperborea). Whether Nietzsche ever really became the Overman as proclaimed by Zarathustra I think Nietzsche himself continually doubted, but the trick, the theater, is to pretend that you are. If one wears the mask of the Overman long enough, does it become phsyiological? What (who) is the Overman? He is the next stage of man who lives in a world of his own creation - ever recreating himself in an independent, eternal feedback loop. He is the existential man - creating his own values in a valueless world. But the Hyperborean is more:

He is far off. This is largely not the constructive criticism of a social reformer. There is a sense of resignation, aloofness, and even elitism. It is a discourse beyond the Enlightenment project of universal maturity and does not attempt argue within those constructed parameters. Besides I am tired of arguing. Give me the cold of my personal transcendence and a window on the world.

He is beyond good and evil. Though certainly in the discouse of Nietzsche's critique of modern morality, my beyond, my Hyperborea, is not the affirmation of Power, necessarily. For myself Hyperborean ethics are beyond the rigid forms of law and into something both relational and personal.

He is beyond left and right. I heard a good quote recently. "If Jesus came back, he would unite the country (or church). Both the left and the right would agree to kill him." The current political discourse in America (and to a lesser extent abroad), in its amnesiac polarity, is nauseating. The Hyperborean is on no one's side, because no one is on his side - which is neither left, not right, but beyond.

He is a bit angry. The passivity is gnawing at him, urging him towards the violent. From his ivory tower he casts down lighting bolts.

He frolics. In the eternal sunshine of the north pole, away from the horrors and pettiness of the world, the Hyperborean dances with the northern lights and revels in the simplicity of the small things.

The Hyperborean is at times very prideful, but struggles to humbly return to the southern winds. Having past through the ice of murky ambiguity and pessimistic solitude he has arrived in a land of peace and joy and bounty. Somewhere, deep inside the insecurity of no absolutes, if one journeys far enough they will find a beautiful land of story and relationship. How does one pass through pessimism and sorrow into light? Or is this light really an oasis of last illusion to suckle the hopes of one desperately lost? Or is this Hyperborea? Do not the beautiful lights of the aurora borealis descend to remind us. Is this some kind of Heaven?

We must journey beyond.

The Road to Hyperborea

We have so much ground to make up - enough ground to make it nearly impossible and, at the least, not worth the effort. By now I am already in the second book of a trilogy or a tetralogy and you have just now finished fumbling through the preface. I was not born on this mountain; I have not lived my entire life in this cave, but I have only ascended here for a time - I hope. I am not beyond you, only beyond that immanent space where our two souls find traction. Only the story of it is longer than the journey through the wilderness to this ivory tower. I cannot stop, though; I cannot wait - I must go on. However, I feel compelled to leave little clues, piles of rock, and pieces of my story on the Road to Hyperborea ("a labyrinth of thousands of years"). I guess that is why I am here, to stand on the roof of the world and cry out, to be strapped to the Silver Chair and let my body be thrashed by my soul. But you ask, "how can you go forward, go back, and remain in your castle all at the same time?" While the question is not bad, the answer may only be for the Hyperborean, or at least for the sojourner. Have you not felt, youself, the limits of and expections to linear time? In that flood of nostalgia, every detail of a past so distant is transfigured before you in the most real of presents. In that dream or moment of deja vu, a face so familiar, yet never met before. Might it be a harbinger of the future? Time is this play thing of the gods, who generously chain us to it for our own safety and sanity. But occasionally the wind blows back a corner of the curtain and we see it for itself - terrifying, mystifying, beautiful.