My Ecstasy

There are moments in life when souls appear to transcend their natural boundaries, which so often seem consumed by chaos and uncertainty, yet these moments also bring harmony and joy. 

I have experienced one such moment. One evening, I stood upon the hill in Taipei and looked over the vast basin below; the glowing sun was slowly descending behind the summits. As the final moments of light scattered across the clouds, the river beneath wound through the landscape like a shimmering thread of ribbon, sparkling with wonder. The trees swayed under the evening breeze, and the flowers bowed gently beneath the moonlight. It seemed to me that nature itself had become conscious of my joy.

It is odd how the external world could influence the human mind. Yet, upon reflection, I recognized that the landscape had not changed. It was my perception that had been transformed. The same mountains have been standing there since time immemorial; their clouds whispered with a mellow undertone, and the same river has continued its course without regard for my emotions. It dawned on me that my ecstasy originated not from nature itself but from the extraordinary state of my own inner mind. 

And yet, reason could not entirely extinguish the wonder I felt.

The wind rose suddenly, sweeping across the hilltops with such force that I was compelled to close my eyes. The clouds soon gathered above the Linkou plateau, dark and dreary, and the distant thunder and flashes of lightning seemed to awaken something within my chest. I felt insignificant before the immense power of nature, yet strangely I felt so connected to it. I was not merely an individual standing upon a hill, but I was a small but inseparable fragment of something vast and eternal. 

My heart overflowed with happiness so intense that it seemed almost painful. I wished to preserve the moment forever, to imprison its sublime beauty within my soul before the darkness could consume it. Yet, before long, as the storm clouds vanished, so did my ecstasy. The wind fell silent, and the rain faded into the earth the way my ecstasy vanished. The world seemed to mourn the passing of my soul. What remained was strange, tranquil stillness.

Into that stillness, the first stars slowly emerged, faintly glowing at first, then increasingly brilliant, until the heavens seemed scattered all around me, embracing me. I gasped and wondered whether mankind, in our endless pursuit of knowledge and achievement, often overlooks simple beauty right before our eyes.

Ecstasy, I now believe, is not simply happiness intensified, but is the temporary suspension of ordinary thoughts, a state in which emotion becomes powerful enough to alter one’s understanding of the world. Such experiences may be out of the ordinary, but they are not without value. Perhaps that is the true nature of ecstasy. It is not to remain, but to arrive suddenly, and vanish before we learn how to contain it. 

This is Ariel’s first attempt at mimicking the language of the Romantics, inspired by our close reading of Mary Shelley’s masterpiece, Frankenstein. Rather than simply identifying Shelley’s use of the sublime, nature, and heightened emotion, Ariel challenged herself to experiment with these Shelleyan techniques in her own writing. “My Ecstasy” is the result, a wonderful example of how close reading can gradually become creative expression.