Use Your Imagination

You're imagining things.

And that means you.

And that means now.

You may not think of yourself as a particularly imaginative person, but there, you've done it again. You've imagined something. You just imagined yourself as unimaginative. That counts as using your imagination, bro. Accept it.

But don't accept everything. Don't, for example, accept your inherent tendency to imagine negative things, unless of course you want a negative existence. Possible I suppose. Don't ignore the fact that you often imagine the worst about everyone, including yourself. Is it any wonder, really, that you're tense, anxious, depressed, bored, fed up, frustrated, and "a' that and a' that" (as Bobbie Burns would have it)? See, your mind is powerful; your way of framing events is key to the way you respond to them. Use your imagination intelligently, old pal. If you want to hate everything, imagine a despicable cosmos. If you want to love everything, imagine that just beneath the surface of despicability (a real word!), there must exist a lovable reality.

Getting spiritual now, what I really wanted to say this morning is that faith and imagination go hand in hand, as any atheist will tell you; and she (blink, refocus, it's just a random pronoun) would be right.

To believe, you must imagine. Or at any rate it helps. So try that today. Try believing in something you can imagine, which is not the same as believeing in something that does not exist. Try employing your imaginative faculties to bolster your belief. Is this a coherent article? I am a little on the sleep-deprived side, but in closing, here is hopefully an illuminating example of what I am going to imagine today:

There is a guy sitting across from me at a computer, thumbing through a book of some kind, looking glum and preoccupied. I happen to believe that he is an extraordinary, one-of-akind, irreplaceable individual with an eternal soul. I know. That's giving him a lot more credit than he appears to merit, bumming around over there. But this is what I believe about him. So now it's time to imagine. In my mind's eye right now I am seeing this guy as a tiny configuration of cells, invisible to mainstream humanity; a product of destiny, a masterpiece of providence, growing and changing and becoming an embryo, an infant, a child. I see his story unfold, a journey of ups and downs, light and darkness, joy and pain. I see him rising to manhood and coming into this room to sit across from me and squint at the computer screen and I hear his breathing and... something has happened to me.

If you had asked me a few minutes ago whether I believed this guy had a destiny, I would have said yes, because that's what I believe. But now... I know he does. I feel it. I believe it, in a tangible way. And I love the guy, even though he's a slob. It kind of just hurt me to call him a slob right there. Because he is an extraordinary, one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable individual with an eternal soul, and I notice. And I care.

If I repeat this exercise throughout the day, not only will I have a much more difficult time resenting other people's very existence ( which happens a lot if I don't self-monitor), but I will also have a harder time being bored and frustrated. After all, I will be surrounded by extraordinary individuals. Life will be epic. All because I used my imagination. It's up to you what you do with this exercise, but I feel I should warn you in advance that it will change things. For better or for worse.

Weren't Sure If You Were Aware of This...

I don't know, it just seemed important to me that we get the word out.

Kind of Nice, For a Change!

This morning I was lounging in the lounge when fate decreed that I should glance across the room and see an area with a staircase, a window, a view of bushes and buildings, and and above all a fluroescent light and suddenly it came to me like a waft of waffles on an updraft from downstairs at breakfast time: I liked what I was seeing. No, really. I did.

Postponing "Hi"

                                        In theory, approaching a friend on the sidewalk should be a good experience. In reality, though, few sightings elicit such unbearable awkwardness. The further away you are when you recognize each other, the tougher the dilemma: Do you smile like idiots for a mile and a half, wearing out your lips as well as your ability to maintain genuine excitement long enough to still be civil when you finally cross paths; or do you stare blankly past one another for a mile and a half, thereby running the risk of coming off as cold, indifferent, or unobservant?

Answer: the moment you can make out the features of your pal, avert either uncomfortable scenario by suddenly receiving an imaginary text message. This will give you permission to put off the inevitable moment of eye contact and the mandatory grinning to follow. Depending on the distance to be crossed, alter the time it takes to fumble your phone out of your pocket, read the message, make a face. If you need more precious seconds, you can even begin to type up a detailed reply... and once you perceive via your peripheral vision that your favorite person in the world* is now a good smile-length few paces away from your position, look up, act surprised, squeal, "Hey, what's up?" And then keep walking.

*Note: If the approachee should happen to be something less than your favorite person in the world, just keep texting. Even if you don't have a phone with you that day, keep texting.
 

The House

The house was full of youth, and the exuberance thereof. Such exuberance! Never had I seen their match for sheer, splendiferous liveliness. The moment I crossed the threshold I knew something was wrong by the way the dead one leaned her emaciated head around the corner at the end of the hallway. After that I heard the squeals, like someone was butchering a pig. A high note of orgasmic suspense gargled in the air. Pretending not to smell what I most definitely did smell, I sauntered casually down the aisle, running at the top of my lungs.

Someone wasn’t there. She was wearing a saggy white blouse with a block of black nuts in the middle of her soft chest. When I hugged her I felt the unintended knuckles in my collar bone. “Hi,” she smiled balmily. There was Mama D. in the dress. I knew her immediately by the sound of her humongous heart. Everyone sat around her with thoughts in their eyes and tears in their minds. My old friend, who had passed away two or three years ago, stayed dead. Then I saw the man with the blood in his fingernails. I didn’t expect the beard. There was that familiar concave region below the brows, but nothing to fill the sockets aside from a bit of organic matter with a glossy finish and ocular functions. Even when she picked up his hand, there was no one under his forehead responding to her touch. There was nothing at all.

My sisters danced up. The kids are here. “Oh?” I asked. Yes. Down the hall. “Great,” I coughed up a pill. “Let’s go.” I was scared. The dead head was down there. And the pigs. Who were the pigs?

But when I peeked around the corner I saw only a beautiful witch child and her older brother.

“Hello,” said the brother.

He was holding a bird skeleton.

“Oh, hello,” I nambied gamely.

The bird skeleton got up and sashayed across the room. The brother smiled a square smile inside a square head. His questions, although polite, seemed somewhat sincere. I felt sorry for him, because his head was so cubic, his thoughts couldn’t form a proper orbit. I also felt bad about those few times he had called my name back when his head was still round, and his smile still beautiful. It was all I could do not to cry, just thinking about it. His voice was thick and raw. He was still alive in there somewhere; a burning coal deep in the furnace. No one should have to die like this, I realized. Buried alive. No one!

Then came a fatty, hammy screech and the pigs stampeded through the hall, butchering each other. I turned to address the brother, but he was gone. And then I saw a pig with a square smile.

Yellow Corridors

The yellow corridors are cruel. 

Hide me in the dark. 

Happy voices sing to me in the empty church. 

Tall people with open skies for eyes and rays of sun for smiles  
should never go away. 

I don’t want to die in a massacre. 

I want to rest in peace.

Lonely Music

No one understands lonely music. They can't classify it. "Scary music," they say lamely. "Sad music. Dark, depressing, ugly music. Bummer music."

To which I retort: lonely music. It's a thing, an actual thing. And I love it. Freeing music, I argue. Moving music. Emptying, purging, cathartic music. Healing music.

What they don't realize is that in the end, the pursuit of pain killer is more painful than pain. Feel what exists to be felt. Reality hurts, yes, but at least it's real. Don't silence your broken heart, and please don't break the silence. When the song comes, you will hear it.

The World's Biggest Problem: Other People

                                  I think the United Nations could get together and shake hands on this one: the biggest problem facing the world today is Other People.  We all know it, and I think it’s time we all admitted it. Until we do, there will be no insurrections, there will be no preemptive strikes, there will be no crusades or sieges or holocausts or even pillow fights, for gosh sakes. There will be nothing but peace and prosperity and dirty looks. So I say we’d better get to it right now, this admitting business; and as soon as we’re through admitting… well, we’ll be getting somewheres.

Below are listed in a particular order some of the major complaints we all have about Other People.

 

1.

First off, I think we can all agree that Other People are, if nothing else, desperately weird. Come on, don’t pretend you haven’t noticed. Completely random things turn them on. They bounce their heads to all the wrong songs on the radio, the boring ones without a good beat or good singers, and they think all the wrong jokes are funny, and watch all the wrong shows. A lot of easy things are too hard for them, but they can do the impossible stuff like it’s no big deal. Most of the time they don’t even notice when something horrible happens; but then again, other times they yell and scream when nothing bad is going on at all, when everything was going pretty good, actually. It’s creepy. You wonder if they’re kidding. You decide not to ask.

 

2.

Weirder still: despite their seemingly inexhaustible supply of baffling behaviors, Other People… are boring! And I mean boring. Distressingly boring. Even the interesting ones. Especially the interesting ones. The ones with all the interesting stories about interesting things. BORING. You try to listen but the whole time you’re thinking, “That didn’t happen,” and “Get on with it,” and “Where’s a cigarette.” Needless to say, though, folks with uninteresting stories about uninteresting things are no better. And some people are so boring that the mere sight of them is enough to keep you bored for days. They walk into the room and already you’ve had enough, you’re done. It’s all you can do to stay awake.

3.

Of course, neither the weirdness nor the mind-numbing dullness would actually be a problem… if only they could keep it to themselves. Unfortunately, however, Other People suffer from a third, particularly abhorrent infirmity: they are chronically inconvenient. This inconvenience reputedly takes on variant forms depending on your temperament. For example, if you are an extravert, Other People react by developing the introverted strain of inconvenience, which is characterized by deadpan passivity and an overall infuriating unresponsiveness. On the other hand, if you are an introvert, they develop the extraverted strain – i.e., they become invasive, interfering, obnoxious motormouths. Either way, Other People seem to be genetically predisposed to inconvenience you at every opportunity. Exasperating, isn’t it?
 

4.

We can summarize our complaints about Other People in one final, overarching statement: Other People just don’t get it. Get what, you ask? Well… it. The Point. The point of life, the world, the universe? Maybe. At the very least, the point of today, the hour, this minute, right now. And that point is… well ah… blush, squirm… you. Not to seem rude. But hey, you have a life to live, right? You have work to do, important work, and when it’s done you need to be free to do what you want, right? Like listening to the good songs, and laughing at the good jokes, and watching the good shows. I mean, seriously, you’re about the only one with taste around here. There’s something you got that Other People just don’t got. And until they can get past their own messed-up, boring selves in order to at least acknowledge your major awesomeness, well… screw them.

 

So! Now that we’re through admitting, how do we feel? Relieved? Refreshed? Empowered? What shall we do next? Shall we annihilate their loathsome race? Shall we roar over their city and drop a nuclear bomb or, say, a pillow?

Wait a minute. Who is this “we”? Whom am I addressing here? What… no. It isn’t… it is! Gah! Other People!!!!! Away from me, you invasive, interfering, obnoxious motormouths! I’m off to launch a preemptive strike against the United Nations!

Thank You, Planet Earth

I have no idea who you people are. All I know is, as of now, you come from Russia, Germany, India, Morocco, Ukraine, Libya, Indonesia, Guatemala, Brazil, Latvia, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Bangladesh, and the United States of America. I cannot imagine how all of you found me; nor can I even begin to picture each face, each life, each story represented by that list of views which swelled from about a dozen to over six hundred in under six months. Who are you? Who in the world?

Let me speak to you individually. Yes, that means you, right now, whoever you are, reading this today. Thinking of you this afternoon, here in my isolated corner of the universe, I wonder:

What color are your eyes?
What dreams, what fears, what tears or laughter lurk within them?

What do you see when you look out your window?
Houses? Ocean? Desert? Trees? What sort of houses? What sort of ocean? What sort of desert? What sort of trees?

What do you think about just before you fall asleep? Or immediately after awakening? What do you want most in life? What do you hate with a passion? What's that on your nose?

So many things I'll never know about you. And yet, there is one thing that I do know about you that perhaps you don't know. So I thought I'd tell you:

I pray for you every week.

Yes. I pray for your country, your community, your home, your life. That's because I have begun this habit of praying every day for a different continent, specifically naming each country included, and praying for the needs of the individuals within. (On Sundays, I pray for Antarctica.)

Just letting you know. Thank you, Planet Earth!

The Plan

Some day I will stop pretending. Normality will numb me no longer. Some day the weird, the wonderful, the wild, will wander freely from my soul into the watching world. Some day I will hear that usual mental reprimand - "Shh, shh; too loud, too soft, too bright, too dark, too false, too true" - and I will reprimand the reprimand. It cannot silence me forever. Some day I will be free.

When I feel the dance begin to wind its way through bones and tendons, curling tight and fierce around my limbs, I will not force myself to march straight ahead like a little toy soldier. When I feel the laughter rumbling somewhere in my ribcage, I will not confine it. When I recognize the tears that come unbidden from eternity past to swallow me whole in the black sorrow of the ages, I will refuse to paste the plastic smile across my face.

No. Some day I will exist, and you will see me.

Skin

The sweet little tongue through the teeth
The dagger of innocence
ripped from its sheath

I can't get it out of my head
The image returns
like a body in bed

I wonder how many there are
How often the bandages
cover a scar

Is somebody striking a pose?
I watch as injustice
bleeds out of your nose

Nobody deserves to be skin
We can't disembody
the person within

No matter how dead we may feel
The soul is alive
and the sorrow is real

How To Drink A Chai Latte

 

 

What you do is, you have a cold, rainy day. Then you put on a grey overcoat and trudge along on a gritty city sidewalk with motorcars hissing past you spewing up storm drainage. You shudder and pull up your collar around your reddening face, feeling a sudden kinship with the Londoners. A wicked black sports car bears down on the boulevard, and beyond the tinted windowpanes you can barely spot one of your Arab friends downing a swallow of coffee in a to-go cup.

That's when your whole day changes. Across the street your dim reflection wavers in the cafe window. A quick evaluation of the traffic flow and you're dodging through the asphalt jungle, bound for that jingling door.

And when you step into the smell of cappuccino and espresso, you know what you want. A chai latte. So you get one. Shot of vanilla. Cream on the top. Only one thing left to do now.

The Eternal Golf Course

Am I the only one who sees The Eternal Golf Course?

I'll just be bumming along and then suddenly, there it is in my mind's eye. The Eternal Golf Course.

Now, I've been surfing the net for the past forty-five minutes, and I still haven't found a picture that looks anything like it. So far this shot that they call "Westminster Abbey" comes the closest, but it's still a measly substitute for The Eternal Golf Course. What this picture almost gets right is the mood. The Eternal Golf Course has the most profound atmosphere. It's overcast and misty, but the mist is whiter than what you see here, and a whole heck of a lot thicker, as in you can't see the sky, or much of anything really. And yet, it's not a suffocating mist. It may be thick, but it's gentle and cool. Much less depressing than this picture, although I have nothing against this picture. I actually have this thing for depressing landscapes, and "Westminster" here is quickly becoming a favorite of mine. But it's just not The Eternal Golf Course, you know?

The Eternal Golf Course is incredibly well-groomed. The grass is the healthiest, greenest grass I've ever seen, a much deeper green than the grass in this picture. It's thick and lush and beautiful... a little too thick and lush and beautiful for a golf course, to be honest; I almost decided to call it The Eternal Rich Person's Lawn, but then I wondered whether Eternal Rich People wouldn't prefer a shorter lawn too, so I went back to calling it The Eternal Golf Course, since there really isn't any title that can do this place justice. All I can usually make out in The Eternal Golf Course is a large evergreen tree, something like a white pine except bigger and fuller, in the right foreground, and then a barely discernible backdrop of a thick green wood, which quickly fades into the mist. Some times I think I see a hedge or even some sort of marble gate, which leads me to believe there might be a manor nearby. It is so quiet there, and yet you feel like someone has been around, caring for the place, maybe even an entire staff of someones, which somehow doesn't take away from the exhilarating aloofness of the atmosphere. Everything gives off the feeling of being just huge. This hugeness isn't intimidating, though: it's amazingly soothing. You want to just stand there and soak it up, the power, the presence of The Eternal Golf Course. It's indescribable.

From time to time I try to describe The Eternal Golf Course to my colleagues, but scarcely do I begin putting words to my vision before the vision disintegrates, leaving only words behind... cheap, flimsy words that convey nothing of what I have seen.

The Power of Pain

The world changes when you're in pain. Different things matter. You don't have any mental energy to waste on superficiality. Voices that annoy you when you're lounging on the sofa in your air-conditioned condo have no negative effect on you when your guts are exploding with white hot torment. Faces you would normally consider unattractive are no longer characterized solely by their visual format when your own face is streaming with tears. Distinctions between ugly and beautiful are neutralized in a fiercely deep awareness that appearance is not the crucial issue in life. Substance is what counts. External details fade.

When you're lying in the ditch naked and beaten half to death, you don't even notice if the guy who kneels by your side and lifts you to safety happens to be your least favorite person in the world. You only know that you are grateful to him, whoever he is. Pain, then, although dimming many of the standard powers of perception, has the ability to open in your soul a clearer set of eyes. For a moment you glimpse a world uncolored by your personal prejudices. Pain proves to you that the world doesn't have to be nice to you; but some times it is anyway, and when that happens the only correct response is gratitude. So in the end, pain does more than hurt. Pain heals.

Things I Worry About

 

I worry about heavy swinging things. There are a lot of heavy swinging things in this world. And that really concerns me because, you know, I have a head. And my head, well, it kind of sticks up out of the rest of my body in a highly conspicuous manner. Almost like it's daring something to hit it. So I can't help wondering - and I wouldn't be surprised if you've wondered this, too - What's the likelihood that my head will be capable of bopping through life without once or twice encountering a heavy swinging thing? Heavy swinging things are notorious for swinging heavily; and some day, one of them might swing heavily into my head. That's one of the things I worry about.

Another thing I worry about is pushy sharp things. Every day people grab ahold of pushy sharp things and tear into cardboard and plywood and drywall and all kinds of other substances that are a lot harder than my stomach. That bothers me, because I've seen what these pushy sharp things can do, and they're all over the place. We see them daily in our own communities. What's the likelihood that all the pushy sharp things are going to stay clear of all the stomachs when they do business in such close quarters? I ask myself this question from time to time, and you'd better ask yourself the same. It never hurts to consider all the possibilities.

Then I start thinking, you know, what if some day I just start saying stuff? You know the sort of stuff I mean. What if my lips just suddenly go crazy and start forming all these weird vowels and consonants and diphthongs and triphthongs and somehow it all comes together to form these really obnoxious sentiments? I could lose all my friends instantly, bingo. Not a pleasant prospect. Of course I wish I could say this will never happen, but one can't be sure. Lips have been known to form the wrong diphthongs before. It can happen again... to you. And your life could be ruined. Just so you know.

If anyone is interested in fretting further, may I present to you a few more worrisome topics for inquiry. For instance, heavy rolling things, things that stain you pink for life, things that if positioned correctly could remove your eyelashes, and the ever-present chance that one morning you'll wake up take your morning shower walk out the door and realize two hours later that you completely forgot to get dressed.

 

The Educator

The bent man huddled at the podium, shuffling his notes. Around his shabby form the room was white and humming with subdued illumination. On the altar stood a picture of his wife, framed in silver, smiling inappropriately. Just behind, an alabaster jar contained her dust. We shifted, waiting.

The widower cleared his throat. "For those of you who knew her in her later years," he began, and the apology followed. Alzheimers. Everyone remembered. But if we only knew her in those unfortunate times, he continued, then we had not known his wife at all. Her intellect, he promised us, had once been her great gift to the world. She had been an educator, a great educator. Across from him a table laden with diplomas and certificates stood stiffly, several square feet of recognition - unrecognized for what it signified. Afterward I tried to read the calligraphic testaments to her academic brilliance, but found myself suddenly illiterate. The tears that reduced me to preschool status reminded me of the woman I had known. Her ashen face, her ashen mind, her ashen words repeated senselessly, questions on a carousel, asking me about my education, my education, my education. I recalled how I had answered each successive time with greater understanding. My wisdom grew in simplicity. She taught me, this great educator, that information, content, meant little; interaction was everything, the process of give and take, over and over, a cycle of infinity.

I left the funeral repeating to myself in mindful mindlessness: I knew you. I knew you.

Love Yourself As Your Neighbor

What if I yanked you out of bed tomorrow morning and dragged you over to the mirror just so I could tell you, You're ugly? What if the next thing I did was bully you through your morning routine, all the while forcibly holding your head down so that you would not notice the glory of the newborn day? What if when you tried to object to this torture, I essentially laughed in your face and told you to shut up?

You would probably refuse to tolerate such treatment... with only one exception. Suppose you yourself were the perpetrator, as well as the victim. Changes everything, doesn't it? Suddenly, all these different species of harassment are acceptable. Suddenly, it's okay to be an abusive jerk.

But it's not okay. Let me make this clear. There is a person walking around in your world with a broken heart, a battered body, and a mind that has been manipulated into empty subservience. You have to help that person. Passing by on the other side of the road is not an option. This is your sacred duty. You must love yourself. I'm not talking about an infatuation that sizzles while you can get something from it and fizzles when the spark is gone. I'm talking about something deep, something all-seeing and all-knowing. Something that exists because you exist. A love that enfolds you like air, simply because you are there. You must love the person that has been entrusted to your keeping, the one whose body, mind and heart are so vulnerable to your will. Love yourself, because until you master this fragile art, the eyes that are yours to blink will not truly see.

Now

I cannot write today. There is no time. The world is whirring past my window in white. In the core of my throat I feel that tightening of the trachea, telling me that my life has gotten too small for me. It's a warning that I recognize immediately. I will not wait.

Accidental Resurrection

My love, unchosen, chooses me
when in my level-headed hate
I leave you to your fate; and then
my uninvited love walks in,

unconscious of my conscious glares,
emphatic sighs, and other clues.
My love takes off its shoes and stays -
some times for hours, some times for days,

disrupting my routine affairs,
re-organizing secret drawers,
unhinging hidden doors, until,
despite myself, against my will,

I feel it. Buried in my ribs,
my heart, thought dead for ages, lives.
And as its beating gives you breath,
I lose my life, my faith in death.

Watching versus Seeing

For months now I've been vaguely noticing the presence of another human being. Not a friend, not a foe, her face appears every now and again on the periphery of my tight concentric vision, disrupting for a moment the illusion of autonomy that shields me from the truth. Her countenance is memorable among the thousands that accost me day to day because of its fierceness. In her eyes there is no giving or receiving. Her jaw is set like steel, and from her throat a synthetic voice arises, run through mechanical filters to keep the life from leaking through.

I watch this angry woman. I watch her and without meaning to, I hate her. We have never spoken. She has never done a thing to harm me personally. And yet her mere presence breathes a toxic fume into the atmosphere; so I lock my face into a gas mask and stare at her through goggled eyes. Once she disappears, I fling my plastic exo-skull to the floor and wheeze in lungfuls of healthy oxygen, rejoicing.

But today I watch her coming and for the first time, I see her. I force myself to see her. My lungs stir, rasping, demanding protection, but I keep inhaling her exhalations, asking myself who this person is, where she has been, what she wants. In the silence I can hear her labored breathing. We cross paths and she yanks her face to the left.

Could Have Been a Tree

I could have been a tree. You do realize that, don't you? This morning, rather than sitting here writing this blog, I could have been out in a field somewhere getting landed in and rained on. Conceded, we're using our first person pronouns pretty loosely here. I myself, insofar as I am human and my humanity more or less defines who I am, could not actually have been a tree and still have been me, in the proper sense of the term. I'm just saying, when we've got a mass of atoms right here, another mass of atoms over there, and tons and tons of atoms in between... well, just, you know, we're all atoms, and it kind of makes you nervous, doesn't it? Who's to say all of us are going to end up becoming the particular configuration of atoms that we call human? I mean, somebody has to be a tree. Somebody has to be a digestive enzyme. Just thank God it wasn't me, or chances are this blog would never have been written, and that would have been a shame.

Storm Drain

Treading the tar at the edge of the curb, I'm surprised by the sound of a melted snowstorm. There by my boots, a cage spreads its rusty grin, revealing a river entombed.

Today the storm drain is alive. If I stare, I can see the rotted guts of autumn stirring lethargically deep in the bed of a babbling brook; lifting, drifting, shifting in the direction of an unexpected spring. The water is insistent: come on, it whispers busily, we've got somewhere to go, and don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about.

I place my bulky bundled feet on strings of warping steel above the chasm. Amazing. Underneath my daily walk, I've found another world. For a while I listen to the river's voiceless voice, half-wishing I spoke the language. Whatever's being said sounds like conspiracy to me, but then again, what would I know?

At last, conceding ignorance, I step back onto solid ground and start to walk away. My boot soles make a soft cold rubber rhythm on the street. Something strange happens. My senses relocate. Suddenly I am experiencing this moment from the perspective of the world inside that drain. I'm hearing footsteps overhead, not underfoot. Bubbling dankly, I listen until the sound is swallowed up in subterranean stillness. Through the crooked bars... the sky breathes. A decade passes.

This Room

Sitting here in my little chair I'm hearing at least four different languages being spoken simultaneously, a writhing cacophony of syllables. Arabic, clicking, crunching, curling, ripples like a river in the sand; Chinese bounces and bends in a mystic dance as ancient as time; Japanese dribbles like rain on a roof, active yet passive, adaptable yet impenetrable; and then, there is English, churning out remnants of its complicated past in spats of warm, flat sound.

To me this is heaven, and if there is any justification for the invention of the automobile, the aeroplane, the racket and roar of modern existence, it is this room. This coming together of planet earth in one unlikley portion of square footage, out in the middle of a field where for centuries there was nothing but sun, and wind, and rain.

Unrepeatable

In reality, every moment is epic. Even this room, its quiet air flickering with miniscule mouse clicks and keyboard clatters, is an epic space in its own right. My scenic hallway overlook provides me with a view of endangered creatures, each one destined to grace the world with its presence only once, each countenance uniquely sculpted, eyes uniquely spaced, full of unrepeatable colors and emotions. If I could fully grasp the significance of what is going on here, of who these people are and how far they have traveled to get to this place, I think I would probably burst from my chair, fly into the hall, and seize the fingertips of every person that passed, greeting these incredible strangers... welcoming them with diplomatic reverence into the hallowed moment that we share.

The Divine Sitcom

 

Some times you just have to wonder, don't you? I mean, you'll be scrambling eggs, stirring them around in the frying pan, you know, adding a little dash of pepper for flavor, turning the heat down to low, and all of a sudden it'll hit you: What in God's name am I doing? Of course you know you're scrambling eggs; that's demonstrable - ask anyone what you're doing and they'll be able to tell you plainly, "You are scrambling eggs." But why? Yeah, yeah, because you're hungry, because most people eat breakfast and you're no exception, but the question is what are you doing in a world where people scramble eggs for breakfast? What is this? A science experiment? A sitcom? A hallucination? Should you be concerned? Should you just go back to bed and hope you wake up tomorrow in a less mind-boggling cosmos? 

No, you should just blink, shake your head a little, perhaps laugh a bit for good measure, and get on with your life.

But somewhere in the middle of some other day or some other night or some other lonely desert it'll creep up on you again, that ticklish whisper of suspicion, that feeling that you are being watched, or laughed at or imagined, and you'll have to wonder who would cook up a universe like ours, where swarms of winged creatures shift southward across the winter sky, and underneath them swarms of two-legged beings bustle around thinking they've got everything under control, and below even that, the earth... the rock... the fire.

These kinds of epiphanies hit me every so often, occasionally even during breakfast. Some times when it happens I feel scared, want to cry almost. It's just the ghastliness, the unlikeliness of it all. Some times I feel like my life is a movie, long and dull and subliminally frightening, and then I realize I want to scream, want to run out onto the set waving my arms and sobbing hysterically, so the guys in the white coats will come and lock me up in a white room somewhere far away and I won't have to be the director of that film anymore, thank God! But that's when I realize I'm not the director; I never was. I'm just an actor. It's not my job to monitor the action or even to understand the story completely. I just have to act. I just have to follow the director's instructions and use my talent to make this scene all it was meant to be, even if all it was meant to be is hilarious.

Miscellanea

You don't have to do much more than put on your socks in the morning to realize that reality is bizzarre. I mean, look at your feet for a second. How absurd can you get? Better put on those socks quick. And don't let's start thinking too closely about the socks, or we'll never get out the door with a straight face.

Thing is, most of us get over it. We become acclimated to the wackiness of life until gradually, alarmingly, all of it begins to seem normal. Even sensible. Just an inevitable part of human development, I guess - losing our grip on the surreality of reality. Unless, of course, you're like me. Which brings us to the present moment.

Like the majority of my fellow human beings, I am a biped, and today two of my two peds are draped in a semi-fold over this funny swivelling platform in front of a glowing slab. I'm thinking of launching a series of ridiculous ramblings to celebrate the fact of my existence; the fact of everything's existence, really. Because when you think about it, the weirdest thing of all is that we're all here.

There must be a reason...