"And as he rode himself alone, it's there he saw the milk-white hind. The hind she broke, the hind she flew, the hind she trampled the brambles through. First she'd melt, then she'd sound, sometimes before, sometimes behind. Oh what is this? How can it be? Such a hind as this I ne'er did see. Such a hind as this was never born, I fear she'll do me deadly harm."
From Famous Flower of Serving Men, Laurence Price, 1656
As hunters and as men we all seek the milk white hind. We grasp for the untouchable, and yearn for unknowable. We seek out that which we cannot have for its sibylline nature. This is not completely our fault. While we would have that which cannot be brought to bear, we are drawn to the spectre of its presence-- a presence that darts from the past, to the present, to the future without even a moment's consideration. This visage emerges from the foggy depths of our subconscious and makes its way, beguilingly, into our realities. In the drunkenness of our nostalgia we make more out of a such a hallucination than what was. Where we might have seen a glimpse of silvery moonlight in our peripheral, our recollection is that of graceful form bounding through night's whispering realm.
Such sightings are bound neither by geography nor time. One may just as easily behold such a vapor in the dancing stalks of grass as on a busy street corner. Try as you may, you can never regain the first vision, though those that follow are no less sweet. So then, we spend our lives enchanted---recalling what was and praying for what is to come. Yet,we are no better than the gambler, who coming off his hot-streak recounts his former glory (or the facade of such). Our vices are not counted as the gambler's though. They are far too dearly bought, and far too private to be broadcast in hopes of redemption. They are, in the Tolkien sense, "our precious". They are rooted too deep and watered too well for any steely axe to chop. These roots delve beyond the soil of our consciousness and into the bedrock of all eternity. They exist in our very biology.
We are but slaves to the omnipotent consideration of "What could have been". Less kindly writers before have referred to such phenomena as the "black dogs" of our subconscious. Dogs they are not. While they may nip at our heels and howl in our dreams, we are too fond of them to kick them like some mischievous cur. Nay, we nurture them with each progressive delusion of possibility. We feed them our best store---golden grains, ruby wines, and shimmering fruit all in hopes that some day they may mature in reality. But we are always grasping at the wind. They melt and they sound at leisure, and our ability is not to summon or bide them, but to embellish them. Embellishing them makes us seem more sane, and less irrational. So we polish these visions. We buff them until they shine like starry orbs and when we finally see our reflection in them, we realize how long they have had hold of us.
