That Word

by Russell Korn

I went up to the librarian at the main counter of North Quay Library and requested ‘That Book’. Printed in 1957, ‘That Book’, with its fellow troglodytes, had found a dwelling place in the basement area of the library known as “Archives”. ‘That Book’ was ‘The Universal Dictionary of Philosophy’. Now, safely in hand, it was time to read it in the same dogmatic manner that I had read any other book : firstly, the front cover and then the back, followed by the inside covers, the acknowledgements, the foreword, the list of contents and then finally there was - The Definitions. I leisurely scanned and skimmed over the first half of the ‘A’ definitions – after all this was a dictionary. Then breathlessness came over me as my heart almost ceased to beat. I had encountered ‘That Word’. Here it was, a single word, formulated by The Ancients some four millennia prior to my birth, that encapsulated the essence of what would take me paragraphs to describe. This epiphany moment was simultaneously enlightening and humbling.

At age 25 I was caused to understand, that there was no path that I could walk, that had not been walked by every generation that preceded me. Yes, enlightenment could be original to me, but it was and is, for all time, to be shared by all. ‘That Word’ was ‘aporia’, the essence of which being the syllable ‘por’ can be rendered in two significant directions. Firstly, pore, whose inflection doesn’t just mean a duct-like opening in the skin but also The Point of Meditation. For those of the charismatic persuasion, the pore becomes the living womb from which the ‘born again’ experience emerges.

Secondly, for those of the philosophical persuasion, a-‘por’-ia inflects to mean a portal to the Ethereal and connection with all that is ‘Jung’s Collective Unconscious’. Personally, for me, it is both.

That Word ‘aporia’ not only encapsulates the cornerstone of my Faith and the Foundation for my Life, but it is also the source of my essence and all that is about me that is of value.