Dream a little dream

I'm hunkered in a tight space, tapping on a keyboard, looking at a computer screen just a foot or so in front of me. Everything else around me is dark. I did some ecstasy, drank some vodka, and smoked some dope. I've got more of each if I need them.

There's a dark void made of candy cotton and gel. No light that hits it escapes it, though. It just sucks in the light and reflects nothing. I'm guessing it's gel and cotton candy. It could be toilet bowl cleaner and shards of a mop. I really don't know if there's something or nothing in there. It's impossible to tell.

I make up stories about what might be in theoretical spaces I've never witnessed or experienced. I have an impression of what the Hadron Collider is like, but because I've never even seen images of it I can only imagine.

It's through the elevation of memory and imagination in combination with feelings and conceptual thought that a self-narrative is crafted. Making up stories about who I am and who I might be in relation to others (or simply "other") is what I do. I don't know why I do that, I just do it. I'm sure there's a biological or evolutionary reason that led to this proclivity. But, if that's the case, and I think, in a more complex way than I'm stating, it is, then should I continue following that process? If it's a natural part of who I am then why screw with human nature?

Or is it an intrinsic aspect of human nature? Is it genetic or could it be cultural, traditional? In other words, learned? How could I know if it was one or the other or something else entirely? Would it matter if it was? And this is all assuming the original premise is true.

But the original premise was that I was in a dark space typing while flying, drunk, and stoned. Is that premise true? How would you know? Video evidence? What would that prove? Could be me, could be someone else, could be me from weeks ago. How would you know?

You wouldn't. You don't. You couldn't. You can't. You never will. Tough shit. Just accept that you don't know shit. Try not to shrink into a ball, curled up in a fetal position clutching a pillow, screaming to imaginary faces, "You're not real! You're not real!!!"

Things could be worse. You could know something. That would be even worse. You could know that life is intrinsically meaningful (or not) with certainty. But maybe you're the only one. Maybe no one else in the world understands what you understand. Maybe if the world could just hear your voice then things would change. If the news was good, everyone would spontaneously agree with you and change everything about the way they live. People would jump out of their cars and do cartwheels down the street, school children would scamper from their classes and hop on passing donkeys to fly into the sky to sing about the angelic nature of being and the possibilities inherent within every lollipop.

If the news was bad, people would hit the gas and floor it into oncoming traffic or simply the nearest tree. Perhaps individuals working in tall office buildings would throw chairs or desks through windows and jump to their respective deaths. Or maybe they'd rage and destroy, rape and kill. Maybe they'd react with kindness and generosity instead. Who knows?

If you took some ecstasy followed by a shot of whiskey and a puff off a joint and then you started writing, what do you imagine you'd write? Do you need more details? There's a naked dude on your bed, you don't remember his name, but you know he just fucked you. Doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman. That dude on the bed? Yeah, he just fucked you. And you liked it. Doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman, gay or straight. That guy fucked you and you liked it. He's asleep now and you just did some x, slammed a shot, and smoked a joint.

You've just turned on your laptop, you want to check your email, and you wonder if you can find some heroin if you call around. You're jerking off into a sock while looking at the desktop background of the Statue of Liberty spanking the Lincoln Memorial. You finish up and check your email. There's a note from a friend who wants to know what you're doing right now. You consider your circumstances: you've just figured out whether life has meaning or not, you got fucked by some guy you don't know, you're doing a lot of drugs and thinking of scrounging for even more, and you've just started wondering what the implications of your understanding of human existence might be.

You start typing a response. What are you writing? I mean, really, what would you write in that situation? It's your best friend, the only person you really trust. Might be your wife, your sister, a buddy from high school, your uncle, your boyfriend, anyone at all. Your self-conception has changed. In the blink of an eye. Can you convey any of this coherently. Do you even understand what's happened?

Take a breath. Get up and walk around for a bit. Maybe another puff. No more coke, okay? No more x. Just try to calm down and relax for a minute. The fate of the entire world does not rest on your shoulders. It was just me, the crazy guy writing stories. You were internalizing what I was writing. You were imagining the possibilities (even if you were making judgments, either good or bad, along the way) and starting to construct a way of thinking from that perspective. Not consciously. I doubt it, anyway. But if you were following along you were imagining to some degree, picturing in your mind this or that. Might have been yourself as the person I was describing, might have been a third person imagining of another, might have been something else. I don't know you. I don't pretend to know you. You're more invisible to me than I am to you. Ultimately, we're invisible to each other. We don't know each other. We have stories we tell ourselves about who x, y, or z is, but no one knows. We might even know the same stories as one another, but that just makes our respective beliefs that we know something even stronger. If it's not just me but others too? Well, then it must be true!

Not that you're thinking it through even that much. If you had, you might've eventually just said "Fuck off, man," dropped some other worldly, and fucked that dude on the bed again. Whatever. You handle your shit however you want to handle it.

What if I don't have an identity, though? What if I am doomed to an identity-less existence, never anything in particular? Not conceptually, anyway. I have a body ... that changes over time. That moves through space. Taking "me" with it whenever and wherever it goes. What if I just allow it to determine who I am? How do I go about doing that? Stare at my toes until they tell me what to do? Na. I'm tired, I sleep. I'm hungry, I eat. I'm thirsty, I drink. I'm tight, I stretch. I'm antsy, I walk or hike or run or dance or... I crave beauty, I seek it. I feel sensual, I meet a woman.

Simple, really.