Perpetual becoming (ICA)

This is the experience that the task of creating one's life is endless, without any hope of completion, like being unquenchably thirsty. It is reflected in the ancient Chinese wisdom that the essence of life is the void or emptiness which can never be filled up. Camus points to this reality in "The Myth of Sisyphus". Sisyphus pushes the rock up to the top of the hill, only to have it come tumbling down again. When he turns to go back down the hill he realizes this is the meaning of his life.

A dimension of this experience is a sense of awe, that is fear and fascination. In the process of perpetually inventing who one is, one asks "Can I make it through another round?", "Is there no rest?". There is fear of being overcome by the illusion that one has arrived at the endpoint, knowing that there is always more lying in wait. Yet the sheer fascination is the adventure that life has in store for one if one dares keep on creating one's self, the strong feeling that if one gives up the quest of inventing who one is one will just shrivel up and die.

The decision in this state of creation and re-creation is to stay in the race and not drop out; to plunge to new depths of one's being that one didn't know existed, like Alice discovering in Wonderland that there are endless doors. One keeps on opening them as one discovers the possibilities that life contains. Everything becomes radically relative and a sense of hope takes root.

This state is number 20 in the ICA Other World in the midst of this World.