Bios

Image by Matthew Henry

Autobiographies are surface chronologies.  The true autobiography is an invisible trail wherein events occurring in outer time and space are perceived as epiphanies that form the walker.

Epiphanies are the unity between the perceiver and the perceived, when the perceiver becomes what is perceived – when one is the consciousness of the immediate experience occurring, often producing an affinity unrelated to one’s prior life that cannot be explained, only confessed.

We confess ourselves through action in moments of crisis when we walk through the valley of death, death not necessarily being physical but of what we once believed was true about ourselves; in such moments, we are called upon to enact ourselves, and we do so in total ignorance, having no idea of who that self is or what it will or will not do – it is terrifying, yet can be an exhilarating moment of transcendence.

Certainly, we have seen such sublime examples of the human being in 9/11, the caring for a child, the dropping of a dime into a paper cup, a gentle palm upon a trembling cheek, and, most definitely, in the combat solider.