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...