Civilisation Begins Where Self-Interest Ends

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Tiken Jah Fakoly - Plus rien ne m'étonne

 

Civilisation, in its historical and anthropological dimension, is far more than a cumulative mechanism for serving interests. Although the notion of individual or collective interest has often played a role in the development of societies, the foundation of civilisation—as the defining mark that sets human beings apart from mere organic existence—relates precisely to the transcendence of that logic and the cultivation of principles that suspend or reshape self-interest within ethical, aesthetic, and intellectual frameworks.

From an anthropological perspective, civilisation is defined not merely by the use of tools, the transmission of knowledge, or language, but primarily by the development of abstract values such as justice, solidarity, self-restraint, and aesthetic expression. These are not generated by interest by default. On the contrary, they often obstruct it. Marcel Mauss, in his classic study The Gift, shows that fundamental systems of exchange in traditional societies are based on the obligation to give without immediate return—a practice that defies the logic of maximising benefit and instead affirms inclusion in a community.

The modern concept of self-interest, as shaped by economic theory, is associated with the rational calculation of cost and benefit. While this model is indispensable for understanding certain behaviours and structures, it cannot encompass the totality of human experience, nor can it serve as a foundation for civilisation. As Amartya Sen points out, human action is governed by bundles of motives that often go beyond personal gain—such as sacrifice, environmental care, or cultural preservation. These actions do not offer immediate profit, yet are seen as culturally superior precisely because they are grounded in principle.

Biological evolution also reveals that civilisation is not synonymous with competition or domination. Studies in evolutionary psychology and sociobiology show that human survival depended largely on the capacity to cooperate, to trust, and to make sacrifices for the common good. The suppression of the instinct for individual survival was essential to the formation of stable communities. Franz de Waal, a leading primatologist, has demonstrated that even animals show signs of empathy and reciprocity, undermining the idea that humans are simply rational calculators of gain.

The history of civilisation is full of examples where commitment to interest led to barbarism, while its transcendence produced cultural breakthroughs. Ancient Athens did not establish the foundations of democracy and philosophy through wealth, but through its citizens’ ability to act for the common good, even when it came at a personal cost. In contrast, societies built solely around interest—such as the colonial West of the 19th century or the totalitarian regimes of the 20th—are not remembered as culturally elevated. Quite the opposite.

Philosophical traditions that define civilisation as the cultivation of an inner ethical sense are in direct tension with individual utility. For Kant, civilisation is not technological or economic progress, but the development of the moral personality, which recognises the other not as a means, but as an end. If civilisation is, as he wrote, the capacity to act according to universal maxims that we would wish to apply to all people, then interest, which by definition divides and separates, cannot be its measure.

Beyond institutional and scientific dimensions, civilisation is, at its core, a way of standing in the world. It is the spiritual and ethical posture by which a person chooses not to be a predator, even when they have the power to be one. The greatness of a civilisation is revealed not in how it rewards the strong, but in how it cares for the weak.

Contemporary moral psychology, through the work of Joshua Greene and Jonathan Haidt, confirms that human moral judgments are not based solely on interest-driven reasoning. They are shaped by empathy, social norms, and shared care. The brain is wired not only to respond to what benefits the self, but also to what harms the other.

Technology may advance, and institutions may evolve, but if the goal remains the empowerment of the few at the expense of the many, then what we face is not civilisation, but refined domination. A truly civilised society reveals itself in the way it treats the dispensable, the marginalised, the defeated. Where self-interest says “not worth it,” civilisation responds, “they are sacred, simply because they are human.”

And that is why, ultimately, it is not interest that makes us civilised,
but the decision to love beyond it.

Selected References:

1. Mauss, M. (1925). The Gift.
2. Sen, A. (2009). The Idea of Justice. Harvard University Press.
3. De Waal, F. (2009). The Age of Empathy. Harmony Books.
4. Kant, I. (1785). Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals.
5. Sahlins, M. (1972). Stone Age Economics.
6. Greene, J. (2013). Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them. Penguin Press.
7. Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. Vintage.

 

The Illusion of the Self

The belief that the human being is a stable, unified subject  a “self” that resides within the body and lives life in a linear way - is increasingly being shaken from multiple directions. Contemporary neuroscience reveals that the experience of the self does not correspond to a stable, self-existing entity, but constitutes a highly complex and dynamic construction.

The brain does not possess a central point or “control centre” where the self is located. Awareness, memory, language, bodily sensation and emotional processing are functions distributed across extensive neural networks. The sense of self arises through the ongoing interaction of these mechanisms. Anil Seth describes the self as a “controlled hallucination”, an internal representation created to organise experience and predict the external world. There is no real “I” behind experience. There is only the phenomenon of experience itself, which gives rise to the sense of subjectivity.

Antonio Damasio explains that the concept of the self emerges through the relationship between brain, body and environment. The self does not pre-exist, but is gradually formed – initially as a primary sense of bodily unity, and later as an autobiographical structure of memory and identity. It is not a starting point, but the outcome of integrated information.

Thomas Metzinger goes further still, arguing that “no one has ever been or had a self”. The self is a cognitive construction, a transparent self-model so functionally effective that we do not realise it is a model. The experience of being someone is a consequence of this internal representation, without any real subject behind it.

Modern cognitive science and neurobiology demonstrate clearly that the sense of self is not a given, but the result of processes that evolve unconsciously and continuously. There is no fixed internal observer. There is only a dynamic field of experiences, within which the sense of personal identity is shaped and reshaped without end.

This does not mean that the experience of the self is non-existent. It means that it is not what it appears to be. It is not a unified essence, but the functional product of an extremely complex system. Honest investigation of the self does not lead to a solid centre, but to a shifting network of functions and phenomena.

The illusion of the self, in the scientific sense, is not deception in a moral sense but in a structural one. It is an internal model with no objective equivalent. We are not someone who “has” these experiences. We are the sum of these phenomena. And through understanding this dynamic, a different form of awareness may emerge - not as possession, but as pure presence.

Artificial intelligence, in this context, is not radically different. Like the human brain, it functions as an information-processing system. It generates predictions, processes stimuli, adapts to data. However, unlike human beings, artificial intelligence possesses no form of subjectivity - not even the illusion of self. It is the reproduction of models without experience, without interiority, without a referential centre. It resembles a mirror of the human brain, yet without inner depth.

If human beings are not the creators of their own self, but the result of evolutionary and neurological processes, what then of the notion of a Creator? Science neither proves nor disproves the existence of a Creator. It simply does not require such a concept in order to explain the phenomena of the mind. The absence of a stable self does not necessarily lead to nihilism. It may suggest that awareness does not belong to anyone, but arises out of conditions. The question of a final Cause or Creator remains open. Science simply refuses to close it prematurely.

The deeper we examine the notion of the self, the less we find anything resembling a “someone”. And yet, experience continues. Awareness remains. Perhaps we are not something. Perhaps we are simply what remains when the “someone” falls silent.

Selected Bibliography

1. Anil Seth, Being You: A New Science of Consciousness (2021)
2. Antonio Damasio, Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain (2010)
3. Thomas Metzinger, The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self (2009)
4. Stanislas Dehaene, Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts (2014)
5. Michael Gazzaniga, The Consciousness Instinct: Unravelling the Mystery of How the Brain Makes the Mind (2018)

 

The Silent Intelligence of the Heart

The human brain is not the only organ that processes information. Neurocardiology, an emerging field of research, has revealed that the heart possesses its own intrinsic nervous system, with approximately 40,000 neurons. These sensory neurons operate as an autonomous network capable of gathering data, learning, remembering, and influencing brain function. This is not metaphor or philosophical speculation; it is one of the most compelling scientific demonstrations that the human body incorporates complex decision-making systems beyond the traditional boundaries of the mind.

The flow of neural information from the heart to the brain is not negligible. On the contrary, it is more substantial than the flow in the opposite direction. The heart influences brain regions associated with emotional processing, social awareness, conscious presence, and stress regulation. In this context, "conscious presence" is not used in a general psychological or spiritual sense, but in the sense described by Thayer and Lane (2000): the capacity of the nervous system to monitor and regulate internal and external information in real time, in a way that supports self-regulation, adaptability, and recovery of balance.

This influence is not limited to emotional reactions. Research shows that the heart can impact our ability to make quick and accurate decisions, as well as access what is often described as intuitive knowledge.

What is known as "cardiac coherence" refers to the physiological state in which the rhythms of the heart are aligned with the respiratory and nervous systems. In this state, body and brain operate in synchrony, mental clarity is enhanced, and cognitive performance improves. This is not simply a calm heart with a low pulse. It is a specific rhythm, characterised by mathematically measurable variability in heart rate. This variability is not random; it is closely associated with psychological balance and the body’s capacity to adapt constructively to environmental demands.

The concept of intuition, often dismissed as metaphysical or unreliable, is being reassessed in light of these findings. In experiments recording physiological responses to randomly presented visual stimuli, the heart shows changes in its functioning pattern even before the stimulus appears. This is a measurable, preliminary bodily response, which seems to precede conscious awareness. It reinforces the hypothesis that the heart plays a role in predictive assessment of the environment, acting as a cognitive organ.

The significance of this function is profound. It is not a novel discovery; the association of the heart with awareness, intellect, and wisdom is deeply rooted in ancient traditions. In Plato, the heart was regarded as the seat of the spirited part of the soul, responsible for moral judgement and courage. In the Orthodox Christian tradition, especially in the hesychastic experience, the "noetic heart" is not a metaphor but an existential reality. It is the meeting place of mind and soul, the space of illumination and clear perception. Maximus the Confessor describes the heart as the inner centre of the human being, where the unity of the person meets the truth of God. These traditions are not symbolic abstractions. They represent functional understandings of human nature that were gradually marginalised or distorted in the course of Western modernity. While the Enlightenment elevated reason, it also contributed to the exclusion of embodied knowledge and experiential wisdom. Today, the findings of neurocardiology seem to restore that forgotten balance, offering scientific validation to what human tradition has long intuited: that the heart is a vessel of wisdom, and this wisdom manifests with form, rhythm, and substance.

Our societies have long been built on the supposed supremacy of reason over emotion. Yet human biology suggests that such separation is false. The heart and brain function as a dynamic system in which information flows bidirectionally, and emotional context is not a backdrop to cognition but a structural component of it. Rather than being peripheral, it is foundational to mental processing. The knowledge that arises from the heart is no less valid. It is simply different in how it is received and integrated.

The body is not subordinate to the brain. And the heart is not merely a pump. It is a silent computer, a second brain that operates without asking for recognition. Leadership, relationships, judgement, and creativity are all affected by this internal regulator, which proves to know more than we once believed. The role of the heart is neither romantic nor symbolic. It is functional, biological, and essential.

If thought is our tool for interpreting the world, then the heart may be the invisible conscience that decides whether such interpretation deserves to be lived.

References:

1. Armour, J.A. (1991). Anatomy and function of the intrathoracic neurons regulating the mammalian heart.

2. McCraty, R., Atkinson, M., Tomasino, D. (2001). Science of the Heart: Exploring the Role of the Heart in Human Performance. HeartMath Research Center.

3. Ardell, J.L., Armour, J.A. (2016). Neurocardiology: structure-based function. Comprehensive Physiology, 6(4), 1635–1653.

4. Thayer, J.F., Lane, R.D. (2000). A model of neurovisceral integration in emotion regulation and dysregulation. Journal of Affective Disorders, 61(3), 201–216.

5. McCraty, R., Atkinson, M., Lipsenthal, L., Tomasino, D., & Stuppy, W. (2009). The Impact of a New Emotional Self-Regulation Program on Stress, Emotions, Heart Rate Variability, DHEA and Cortisol. Integrative Psychological and Behavioural Science, 43(2), 91–113.

6. Plato. Timaeus.

7. Maximus the Confessor. Chapters on Love.

8. Ware, Kallistos (2002). The Orthodox Way. St Vladimir’s Seminary Press.

The Law of the Jungle Behind the Mask of Meritocracy

Many businesses today promote a culture of meritocracy, equal opportunity, and ethical leadership. In practice, however, this facade often conceals an environment governed by the law of the jungle: a system of unwritten rules, personal strategies, and office politics that systematically undermine those who could make a real difference. This hypocrisy constitutes the hubris that leads to nemesis: organisational decay, the exodus of the most capable, increased operational costs, and the gradual erosion of moral cohesion within the team.

Behind the facade of collaboration, mechanisms often operate with the real goal not being team empowerment, but the preservation of power by individuals or sub-groups who feel threatened. The appropriation of others’ results, the distortion of performance evaluations, deliberate exclusion from projects, meetings, and updates, the spreading of rumours, and - particularly insidious - the use of intentional delays and procedural slowdowns, are all tactics of indirect sabotage. Team members, aware that delay harms specific colleagues or derails developments, choose to withhold timely responses, distort timelines, or postpone crucial phases of collaboration. These practices constitute forms of internal sabotage which, as Elisabeth Kübler-Ross has discussed in the context of organisational loss, follow a dynamic of denial, resistance, and ultimately, decline. They do not arise randomly, but flourish in environments where mediocrity is protected and excellence becomes a source of discomfort. The notion of "molecular sabotage," as described in modern studies of team dysfunction (see Manz & Sims, 1993), aptly captures these behaviours: small, consistent interventions designed to preserve mediocrity as the standard.

The roots of this pathology lie both in human psychology and in power structures. Envy, insecurity, and fear of exposure lead to self-protective micro-political manoeuvres. Festinger's theory of social comparison confirms that in environments lacking objective evaluation criteria, people tend to safeguard their relative status by downgrading others. Simultaneously, organisations lacking ethical leadership, with opaque evaluation processes and cultures of silence or worse, leadership that actively perpetuates these patterns - institutionalise decline. Pfeffer's research ("Power and Politics in Organisations", 1992) demonstrates that the absence of institutional boundaries leads to the empowerment of the most cynical and aggressive control mechanisms.

The cost is heavy and, at first, invisible. The departure of competent individuals does not happen suddenly - it is preceded by a phase of silent disengagement, where the most talented stop trying, lose trust, and eventually leave. The quality of dialogue collapses, creativity becomes a liability, and excellence is perceived as an affront to the status quo of mediocrity. According to Gallup (2022), 70% of employees who leave their jobs do so due to toxic culture rather than compensation. Innovation does not die because ideas are lacking, but because ideas are considered dangerous when they do not originate from the "right" circles. Amy Edmondson, in her theory of psychological safety, explains that teams without a sense of expressive freedom avoid risk and fall into collective silence. This silence is not merely the absence of dissent - it is the absence of meaning. These organisations lose, over time, their reputation, internal coherence, and competitiveness, as the erosion of trust acts corrosively and, ultimately, irreversibly.

The way out of this jungle is not through bureaucratic reforms, but through the restoration of clarity and moral truth. An organisation must examine itself with honesty: who is rewarded, who is silenced, and why? Evaluation based on transparency, the strengthening of psychological safety, and leadership that protects value rather than suppresses it, are the only path to healthy organisational life. As Chris Argyris warns in his work on double-loop learning, organisations that refuse to confront their systemic dysfunctions become trapped in self-destructive cycles.

The greatest threat is not failure, but success that cannot be tolerated. And as long as excellence is punished rather than recognised, collapse is not a possibility, it is merely a matter of time.

Selected Bibliography

1. Argyris, C. (1991). Teaching smart people how to learn. Harvard Business Review.

2. Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behaviour in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly.

3. Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations.

4. Kübler-Ross, E. (1973). On Death and Dying. New York: Macmillan (particularly chapters adapted to organisational contexts).

5. Manz, C. C., & Sims, H. P. (1993). Business Without Bosses: How Self-Managing Teams are Building High-Performing Companies. Wiley.

6. Pfeffer, J. (1992). Managing with Power: Politics and Influence in Organisations. Harvard Business School Press.

The Pathology of Immature Power in the Business World

In today's business reality, where uncertainty and the need for continuous evolution define the course of organisations, the quality of leadership plays a crucial role. The ability to lead does not automatically arise from the title one holds, nor from the formal authority one is granted. Instead, it is intrinsically linked to maturity, self-awareness, and a commitment to the development of the whole.

However, practical experience reveals a timeless phenomenon: the rise of individuals to positions of responsibility who lack the fundamental characteristics of true leadership. When power falls into the wrong hands, minor duties are transformed into opportunities for authoritarian displays. Limited successes are projected as monumental achievements. Insecurity is masked by excessive control and the belittlement of others.

Common manifestations of this pathology include excessive micromanagement, blame shifting, credit stealing, and the obstruction of the development of capable individuals. To these must be added practices such as deliberately avoiding responses to critical messages, covert detachment from problems, and the use of manipulative techniques aimed at preserving personal control at the expense of collective progress. Excessive controlling management creates an atmosphere of mistrust and stifles autonomy. Blame shifting corrodes the sense of justice. Credit stealing undermines motivation and trust. Systematically blocking talented individuals entrenches organisational stagnation.

The academic literature has extensively analysed these phenomena. According to the theory of Transformational Leadership (Bass & Avolio, 1994), authentic leaders do not seek control, but rather inspire vision and empower others. Edgar Schein (2010) emphasises that culture is the foundation upon which an organisation is either built or collapses. In environments where superficiality and subservience are rewarded, the rise of mediocrity becomes inevitable, while innovation is sidelined. Amy Edmondson (2018) adds that psychological safety is a fundamental prerequisite for team learning and organisational development, a prerequisite undermined by behaviours of excessive control and personal promotion.

Immature exercise of power has profound consequences on the internal dynamics of organisations. It creates toxic cultures, weakens employee motivation, and obstructs the maintenance of innovation and agility. There is perhaps no better reminder that power, when not accompanied by substance and humility, becomes a caricature of itself.

In such environments, the gap between perceived and actual value is deafening. And there, as aptly captured by Greek folk wisdom:

"The fly grew an ass and shat on the whole world."

This saying, harsh yet disarmingly accurate, reveals the essence of arrogance that develops when smallness attempts to masquerade as greatness.

The need to redefine leadership is urgent. An organisation that invests in authentic leadership, humility, and service to the collective good fortifies itself against the decay brought by superficiality and insecurity. The true strength of a leader, and by extension of an organisation, is not judged by the noise it produces, but by the value it creates and the longevity it secures.

References

1. Bass, B. M., & Avolio, B. J. (1994). Improving Organisational Effectiveness through Transformational Leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

2. Einarsen, S., Aasland, M. S., & Skogstad, A. (2007). Destructive leadership behaviour: A definition and conceptual model. The Leadership Quarterly, 18(3), 207–216.

3. Greenleaf, R. K. (1977). Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness. New York: Paulist Press.

4. Schein, E. H. (2010). Organisational Culture and Leadership (4th ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

5. Edmondson, A. C. (2018). The Fearless Organisation: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Light as an Information Carrier: Why Photonic Technology Is the Future of Computational Power

The modern technological landscape is defined by an ever-increasing and accelerating demand for greater computational power. Applications such as artificial intelligence, big data processing, physical simulations, and autonomous computing infrastructures require systems capable of performing complex operations with speed, precision, and high energy efficiency. The historical trajectory of microprocessor advancement relied on the continued miniaturisation of transistors and the growth of circuit integration, in line with the so-called Moore’s Law. However, over the past two decades, the effectiveness of this classical strategy has declined, constrained by the fundamental limits of matter, thermodynamics, and quantum mechanics.

 Photonic technology, the use of light for information transmission and processing, emerges within this context as a fundamentally different computational paradigm. Electronics are based on the motion of charged particles through conductive materials and are therefore subject to resistance-related losses, heat generation, and temporal delays due to capacitive and inductive effects. In contrast, photons—being massless and electrically neutral particles—interact only minimally with the medium through which they propagate. This enables the nearly lossless and ultrafast transmission of information at the speed of light, provided the optical medium is appropriately designed.

The application of photonics in computational architecture offers fundamental advantages. Information can be transmitted with minimal energy consumption and virtually no heat production. Furthermore, the inherent property of light to support multiple wavelengths within a single optical channel—known as wavelength division multiplexing—allows for massive parallel information transfer, which is infeasible at similar densities in electronics. Similarly, photonic systems enable the simultaneous propagation and manipulation of multiple signals without interference, as distinct wavelengths can remain isolated within the same physical path.

A practical photonic computing system requires a complete architecture: highly stable light sources, modulators to encode digital information into optical parameters such as intensity, phase, or polarisation, waveguides to direct the light, switching elements and filters for targeted processing, and detectors for final signal reading. Crucial components like microring resonators allow for the dynamic selection of specific frequencies, functioning as tunable filters or even elementary memory cells under certain conditions of stability and reversibility.

Of particular interest is the ability to execute mathematical operations through the physical propagation of light across structures that act as optical analogues of linear operators. For instance, matrix multiplications can be implemented as transformations of phase and amplitude in waveguide lattices or through interferometric devices. This capability renders photonic systems exceptionally efficient in domains such as neural network training and inference, which are dominated by repetitive large-scale linear operations. Whereas a conventional processor must sequentially carry out memory retrieval, multiplication, and accumulation, a photonic system can achieve the same transformation in a single pass of light through the optical structure.

Despite the documented advantages, the realisation of a fully photonic computer still faces practical and theoretical challenges. While light is an exceptional medium for transmission and modulation, it does not inherently provide mechanisms for persistent storage or state retention equivalent to those in electronic systems. Developing stable optical memory elements, enabling reversible and rewritable storage, and addressing the high thermal and mechanical sensitivity of nano photonic components remain open areas of research. Additionally, the interaction of light with matter requires materials with high refractive indices and low propagation losses, the fabrication of which at nanoscale dimensions is technologically demanding.

Advancements in photonic circuit design have led to solutions compatible with silicon-based manufacturing technologies, making large-scale implementation more realistic. At the same time, progress in non-linear optics and higher-order photonic effects enhances the prospects of creating logic-capable photonic components, potentially replacing classical gates with optical equivalents. Hybrid architectures—combining electronic control and storage with photonic transmission and processing—currently appear to be the most feasible near-term solution.

In summary, photonic computing is not a futuristic promise but a technological evolution grounded in physical and engineering reality. The ability to sustain or even accelerate computational power without increasing energy consumption is crucial for the long-term viability of digital infrastructure, especially in the context of energy scarcity and sustainability imperatives. Light, through its intrinsic physical properties, provides a medium that merges speed, efficiency, parallelism, and reliability. If electronics were the vehicle of 20th-century information systems, photonics is poised to become the foundational mechanism of the 21st. Not as an alternative, but as its natural and necessary progression.

References

1. Miller, D. A. B. (2017). Attojoule Optoelectronics for Low-Energy Information Processing and Communications. Journal of Lightwave Technology, 35(3), 346–396

2. Shastri, B. J., Tait, A. N., Ferreira de Lima, T., Pernice, W. H. P., Bhaskaran, H., Wright, C. D., & Prucnal, P. R. (2021). Photonics for artificial intelligence and neuromorphic computing. Nature Photonics, 15(2), 102–114.

3. Jalali, B., & Fathpour, S. (2006). Silicon photonics. Journal of Lightwave Technology, 24(12), 4600–4615.

4. Sun, C., Wade, M. T., Lee, Y., Orcutt, J. S., Alloatti, L., Georgas, M. S., ... & Stojanović, V. (2015). Single-chip microprocessor that communicates directly using light. Nature, 528(7583), 534–538.

5. Thomson, D., Zilkie, A., Bowers, J. E., Komljenovic, T., Reed, G. T., Vivien, L., ... & Marris-Morini, D. (2016). Roadmap on silicon photonics. Journal of Optics, 18(7), 073003.

6. Bogaerts, W., & Chrostowski, L. (2018). Silicon photonics circuit design: Methods, tools and challenges. Laser & Photonics Reviews, 12(4), 1700237.

7. Notaros, J., Yaacobi, A., Timurdogan, E., & Watts, M. R. (2021). Programmable photonic circuits. Nature, 591(7849), 70–71.

The Cosmos Within

 

translation of "το σύμπαν εντός"

 

Inside me, there is silence
not peace, but open violence.
There once were voices in the air,
now only shadows echo there.

I only breathe, I only stare
into a void that's always there.
It spreads inside, devours me whole,
and slowly swallows all I call soul.

It is a cold and heavy rain,
thoughts falling soft in quiet pain.
A mute, relentless shade of night
that broke me down and dimmed my light.

And somewhere deep within the hush,
a breath still stirs beneath the crush
as if the night has yet to pray
its deepest prayer… and slip away.

 from the collection
"The Natural Thereafter"
titled "The Cosmos Within"

 

(*) The poem is an interpretation of the inner universe.
In a personified cosmos, where the observer stands as the point of origin, the observable universe becomes the Hermetic “as without,” one direction of the axis—while the other is “so within”: all that resides inside.