Alper - Icarus of Brooklyn: A Spiritual Quest Gone Wrong

ICARUS OF BROOKLYN

Matthew Alper

Copyright Matthew Alper 2012

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America . No part of this book may be reproduced without the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.Printed and bound in the United States of AmericaLibrary of Congress

A publication of Rogue Press; 826 President Street , Brooklyn , NY 11215

For any questions or to purchase books: RoguePress@aol.com

To write the author:

www.icarusofbrooklyn.com

Cover Concept & Design: Matthew Alper

Illustration: Margeaux Lucas : www.margeauxlucas.com

ISBN-13: 978-0-9660367-2-5

Icarus is a treasure, an epic talebeautifully writtenof the expansion and conquest of one's own mind told with humor and humility that is impossible to put down. As Alper skillfully guides the reader through this universal, yet deeply personal quest for ultimate meaning, he meets his biggest fearssimultaneously forcing us to meet ours . Icarus is an inspiring and highly entertaining story, not just a book really but an experience with astonishing transformative power. Any teenager, adult, atheist or spiritual seeker who opens this book will not be the same person at closing itguaranteed.

Julia Perch, MD, Princeton University Medical Center

Bold, Innovative, Triumphant! Siddhartha meets One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. A must read for anyone whos questioned the meaning of existence.

A. Sadwin, MD, Chief of Neuropsychiatry, U. Penn

A philosophical rollercoaster ride that will make you think, laugh out loud and cry all in one sitting. In a word, Brilliant!

S. Harney, Ph.D., Baruch University

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART ONE

CHILDHOOD

Man finds himself in the world, or has been thrown into it, and as he stands facing the world he is confronted by it as by a problem which demands to be solved.

Nicholas Berdyaev

To question all things; never to turn away from any difficulty; to accept no doctrine either from ourselves or from other people without a rigid scrutiny by negative criticism; letting no fallacy or incoherence, or confusion of thought step by unperceived; above all, to insist upon having the meaning of a word clearly and precisely understood before using it, and the meaning of a proposition before assenting to it; these are the lessons we learn from ancient dialecticians.

John Stuart Mill

O NE

CONSCIOUSNESS

I don't remember the exact age sometime, I imagine, between two and four bu t only that it was at night, while alone in bed, that self-conscious awareness emerged in me. I was lying on my back, my head comfortably ensconced in my pillow, my eyes closed, when I became aware of an unfamiliar sensation, as if floating through a dark ethereal landscape, one which, interestingly, seemed to exist somewhere behind my closed eyelids, somewhere inside my own head.

How was it that I could experience nothingness ? What mysterious chamber had I stumbled upon? I became anxious. Perhaps Id best open my eyes before I go somewhere from which there i s no return . Usually, when encountering something new , I was escorted by my mo ther or father . But there was no escort here. I was clearly on my own. Though I was hesitant to go any deeper into this strange void alone, my curiosity overwhelmed my fears and compelled me onwards.

As I continued my journey inwards, deeper into the pitch darkness , a speck of white light appeared. Then more lights of differ ing shapes and colors materialized , dancing about, randomly morphing from one geometric pattern to the next . It was exhilarating to have my ow n personal fireworks display going on between my ears. Apparently, there existed a world within me that was just as dynamic, if not more so, than the one outside.

Enjoying the curious fanfare as it whisked across my internal screen, my mind alighted to a bold new question: where was this light show coming from? Though the images seemed to be generating spontaneously, as if of their own volition, I was fairly confident that whatever these impressions were, they were coming from somewhere inside m y head. As if having intuited Descartes Cogito ergo sum [I think, therefore I am], it dawned on me that the mere fact that an inquiry into the nature of this new inner reality was taking place meant there had to be an enquirer, some active agent directing the investigation. Thats when it hit me. I was simultaneously the investigator and that which was being investigated. I had become aware of being aware. I t was here that the spark of self-conscious awareness ignited in me , and a new inner dialogue was born. I , meet me . Me , meet I. So I, what do you think of me? Me, any thoughts on I? All in all , I believe both were equally pleased with the other for having finally bridged the gap that had thus far kept them apart . The entire experience only served to make me all the more curious as to what it exactly meant t o be .

Exalted by my own mental metamorphosis, I quickly sat up in bed and gazed down upon my hands in awe and wonder. I opened them. Then I closed them. Then I opened them. It was all me. I was concurrently the operator and the machine. My eyes welled with tears. The world around me, which , just moments ago had little to no meaning or context, was suddenly the world according to me. I, Matthew, was born.

Perhaps out there, in the world of others , of grown-ups , I was just a small and insignificant nobody. In here, however inside my own head I was the indisputable king. Cognitive autonomy! Here was a place to which no one had access but me. I felt the pride of a pauper who unexpectedly inherits a throne, a kingdom I could call my own.

Little did I realize , however , that heavy is the head that wears the crown.

TWO

DEATH

From these first glimmerings of self-awareness, I yearned to comprehend the nature of all that was within and without me. Every night as I would lay down to rest, I was bombarded by a kaleidoscopic maelstrom of reflections and sense-impressions. But as curious as I was to learn more about the world, solving the riddles of the universe could wait. After all, what was the rush? Nothing in life was going to change all that much . No one was going anywhere. I had all the time in the world to figure stuff out.

For the time being, life was a beautiful celebration with me as its radiant star. Thats what happens when youre the firstborn son to loving parents who come from four equally loving Grandpa rents immigrant Jews who, from such disparate reaches of the globe as Poland, Argentina, Russia and Israel, all converged in Brooklyn, New York to eventually have me .

And yet, amid this loving environment, this virtual Garden of Eden, I sensed that something was not quite right with the world. Although I couldnt put my finger on it, I had an uneasy feeling that Paradise was somehow tainted by some menacing glitch.

It started with little clues dropped here and there . F urtive glances from my parents during the airing of some tragic news broadcast; hushed whispers while driving past a cemetery; words spelled out as an ambulance sped by ; all pointed to ward some thing dark and foreboding I could sense my parents were trying to conceal from me. As much as I tried to eavesdrop on any thing I perceived to be a clandestine conversation , I still couldnt figure out their secret...and then came Bloopy.

Every so often, my father, craving a Nathans hot dog, would gather the family for a spontaneous nighttime drive to Brooklyn s own eccentric wonderland, Coney Island .