“There is only this pastless, nameless thing I am become, striving with its entire being against the inertia of its days. . . .”
-Roger Zelazny
Zelazny’s writing is gripping, intense, and full of struggle, like the music of Beethoven. I love it. In this phrase he gives us two sides of a koan : an identity boundless and unconditioned and an inertia of experience that must be struggled with.
The “pastless, nameless thing” is in fact not a thing - how could it be ? It has no limits and cannot properly be called a “thing” at all.
The one who is struggling with the past is the identity of the past. The Ontological identity IS, in all of its magnificence, without struggle. This doesn’t mean we don’t experience struggle; it just means the struggle is not who we are. We leave behind the one who is struggling, and the struggle, with the understanding and insight into our innate BEINGNESS.