The Monk With The Big Nose

The Nose Is the Last Honest Organ

Abstract

This reflective essay explores the ontological fatigue of human motion and will through the lived phenomenology of bodily inertia, as inspired by Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception and Ivan Goncharov’s character Oblomov. The author’s personal experience of limbs refusing volition becomes a metaphor for existential passivity—an active non-action akin to the spiritual stillness represented by the Hindu concept of Alakh Niranjan.

When I woke up this morning, I felt a strange lethargic pang over my legs. I jerked a bit, both legs, before putting that down to the carpeted floor. I washed both my palms over my face and gave the utmost distraction from my own head. I brushed, unwillingly, my hair, or head and thought—

“What's in my head to…