Shadows

Preface

v Preface In life, we, as human beings, especially, undergo so many different experiences, and as a result, as the days come and go, set different goals for ourselves that we strive to achieve. As we forge on, there are moments when we think and are convinced we have succeeded in attaining a dream, only for us, sometime down the line, to feel a certain worthlessness that reduces our achievement to very little, a shadow of the real thing, or tragically still, nothing outright. The outcome is a certain emptiness that leaves one wondering what all the ado was about, in the first place, that resulted in naught or at best temporary flights of satisfaction. During these moments, however, the soul takes flight, grappling with dreams, illusions , and that which was once considered real. Life, for me, has been a struggle to put my hands on something, the real thing, the truth, yet I have, unfortunately, found and continue to find achievements, ideas, things, and even people as mostly formless and without much substance, something hard and concrete to hold onto with trust, love, and conviction. Ideas remain malleable and keep shifting with the times and trends; things keep changing from state to state, only to degenerate ultimately into a lesser or completely worthless condition, and people, all too often, are not what they seem to be as guile, betrayal, and slander are typical of relationships, even between those who once loved and trusted. And so I, for one, continue to wander in quest and wonder at all this even though it is finally dawning on me that there is hardly much in this life: nothing real. One is dealing with the shadow of that which is real and only in the world beyond as I have been made to understand. This is true even if only in the sense that hardly much in life is permanent. Accordingly, I have had numerous conversations with my soul at different hours and about different subjects in my vi quest for meaning, truth, and credulity. These conversations with my pondering, disillusioned, and lamenting soul I have sometimes documented; it is some of these that I share with the world in this volume. These conversations with my soul, owing to strange encounters and equally bizarre experiences at times, have revealed this truth to me: we, as human beings, will never find rest on earth as all that there is and that we do amount to encounters and transactions with mere shadows; all is illusory at best. Until we shed the flesh, itself a shadow, only then shall we find the essential quality of earthly matter albeit in a surreal form—the divine essence. This quest, however , must continue because it engages the mind instead of leaving it idle and thus impaired. In this process, above all, many people learn and develop in readiness to receive that which is real and concrete—the truth. Emmanuel Fru Doh Century College, Minnesota February 7th, 2011 ...