Techno Rave by William Black

My body was brimming with a sanctified light —  
like a fluid overflowing from the basins of my skin.  
The organic vessel which tried to contain me was now turning inward,  
and as a consequence, a collision had occurred between the flesh and the soul.  
The somatic torrents brought my consciousness to its knees; it pleaded helplessly, then  
in brief and sudden minutes washed away into a thousand seas.

There was no longer any distinguishing movement which I could sense with any ounce of 
clarity. The human form ceased to coexist with this new posthuman id. 

There was no description beyond one word, "amalgamation," which could define my 
predicament. An amalgamation of ecstasy and architectural vanity, that is.  
The cornucopia of techno and MDMA was felt with immense proclivity.  
It was this fission of currents which pushed me beyond my human limits —  
becoming what no one else could conquer, namely posthumanity.

However, a suddenness struck me in those moments of bliss;  
a tension was present between the serenity and the momentum of our spectacle’s trance.

It was out of this daze from which I glanced towards my communal associates.  
The herd all stood bowing in reverence, in deception, and in coordination.  
We were all just simple automatons.  
And so it was made clear: the libido always directs the masses towards praise.

Libido in modernity is no different than the libido of antiquity; 
the only freshness was its use of emptiness to scorch the world with electronica & dance. 

Such a dancing ritual, with a pagan nature, allowed the voice of one to free itself.  
For the night was now juxtaposed against the honest purity of the day.  
This was the sight I identified as Dionysus’ only remaining relic.  
The moral truth I found was that of celebration, Eros, and a pleasant indifference towards 
that which was good and evil. 

I had felt Dionysus mix my ego against the vacuum of insanity,  
watching the one overcome the many. 

It was this maximizing effort to reduce every multiplicity to a mere excess which allowed 
my soul to breathe; 
it was a felt pleasantry of reverberations against the moral tables of our day. And thus,  
in the wake of shattering those falsified idols, new truths were birthed in sonic light.  
It was as if the astronomical twilight ached through our dances. 

This was a release that no ascetic could reach;  
only us hedonists could taste it for the briefest of moments. 

And in order to indulge the moment, we drank Rumi’s wine, bringing a new God to our eyes!  
This new god was beyond man, for no man could see what I saw that night.  
I saw a posthumanist vitality that only the drugs could reach —  
partitioning away my ego, I met all I had wished to be. 

Yet,  
after the jungle rave had ended, there was no residue left to salvage. 
I had lost my profundity, and so I was forced to realize,  
when I awoke the following morning, the stupor clouding my mind would disappear.  
I began to understand that only in brief, fleeting seconds does the nihilist savor his time. 

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About William Black
​William Black is a Calgary-based technologist and writer. His essays and poetry investigates the tension and convergence between philosophy, literature, and modern social theory.