Misanthropical Dream #13 (The Impossibility of the Existence of Anything)
mixed media on wood panel
49” x 37” x 2”
2024
Do you see him?
Do you see the story?
Do you see anything?
It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream—making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams… No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence—that which makes its truth, its meaning—its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream—alone…
He paused again as if reflecting, then added: "Of course in this you fellows see more than I could then. You see me, whom you know..." It had become so pitch dark that we listeners could hardly see one another. For a long time already he, sitting apart, had been no more to us than a voice. There was not a word from anybody. The others might have been asleep, but I was awake. I listened, I listened on the watch for the sentence, for the word, that would give me the clue to the faint uneasiness inspired by this narrative that seemed to shape itself without human lips in the heavy night-air of the river.
Joseph Conrad
Heart of Darkness