The Dreamseller: The Calling Read Free Page A

fashion that those who take their own lives, even those who plan their deaths, can’t understand the depth of the pain they cause. He knew that if they could see the despair of their loved ones and the inexplicable consequences of suicide, they would draw back and fight for their lives. He knew that no letter or note could serve as a defense. The man on top of the San Pablo Building had left a message for his only child, trying to explain the unexplainable.
    He had also spoken with his psychiatrists and psychologists about his ideas on suicide. He had been analyzed, interpreted, diagnosed, and had listened to countless theories about his metabolic and cerebral deficiencies. And he had been encouraged toovercome his problems by seeing them from a different perspective. But none of it made sense to that rigid intellectual. None of those interventions or explanations could lift him from his emotional quagmire.
    The man was inaccessible. But for the first time someone, this stranger at the top of a building, challenged his thinking. The stranger was a specialist in piercing impenetrable minds. His words evoked more noise than tranquillity. He knew that without that noise there is no questioning, and without questioning the gamut of possibilities goes undiscovered. The jumper couldn’t stand it any longer, and decided to ask the stranger a question; he had strongly resisted doing so, as he had assumed that he would be entering a minefield. But he stepped into it, regardless.
    “Who are you?”
    The man was hoping for a short, clear answer, but none was forthcoming. Instead, he fielded another burst of questions.
    “Who am I? How can you ask who I am if you don’t know who
you
are? Who are you, who would seek to silence your existence in front of a terrified audience?”
    The man answered sarcastically, “Me? Who am
I
? I’m a man who in a few short moments will cease to exist. Then I won’t know who I am or what I was.”
    “Well, I’m different from you. Because you’ve stopped looking for answers. You’ve become a god, while every day I ask myself ‘Who am I?’” The stranger paused, then asked another question: “Would you like to know the answer I found?”
    Reluctantly, the man nodded.
    “I’ll answer you if you answer me first,” the stranger said. “From what philosophical, religious or scientific fountain did you drink to believe that death is the end of existence? Are we living atoms that disintegrate, never again to regain their structure? Are we merely an organized brain or do we havea mind that coexists with the brain and transcends its limits? Does any person know? Do you? What believer can defend his thought without the element of faith? What neuroscientist can defend his arguments without making use of the phenomenon of speculation? What atheist or agnostic can categorically defend his ideas free of uncertainty?”
    The stranger seemed to press on with this Socratic method, asking endless questions, challenging every answer, trying to stimulate critical thinking. The man grew dizzy from that explosion of inquiries. He considered himself an atheist, but he discovered that his atheism sprang from a fountain of speculation. Like many “normal” people, he pontificated about these phenomena without once debating them removed from passion and ideology.
    The stranger had turned the questions on himself. But before the man on the ledge could answer, he offered his own response:
    “We’re both ignorant. The difference between us is that I recognize my ignorance.”

Shaking the Foundation of Faith
     

     
    W HILE GRAND IDEAS WERE BEING DEBATED AT THE TOP OF the building, a few people below walked away without ever knowing what happened. Some couldn’t stand to wait to know another man’s misfortune. But most remained, eager to see the result.
    From the crowd emerged a man named Bartholomew, who was marinated in whiskey and vodka. He, too, was an ordinary man with hidden scars, despite being