|
|
|
So you've stumbled on this page. Whether it was a random click of the mouse, or an inexplicable curiousity that brought you here, it doesn't quite matter. The fact is, you are reading some words that are directed to you. Did you expect to find stories about my private affairs - confessions, perhaps, or even articulations of hidden yearnings to myself? Unfortunately, this is no more and no less than a casual talk with you. Yes, sit down comfortably now. Go get a drink if you want. I will mix some dark rum with orange juice, a cheap favorite of mine.
Now, the thing is, I am very interested in learning more about you. Oh, you tell me you are very boring and that I wouldn't be interested? But I am interested even if you do think you are boring. Here you are in a virtual reality poring over this bumpy prose. There must be something different about you to have come so far. On the one hand, you are escaping your immediate reality, killing your time in this flimsily drawn shadow of the world. Does it please you that it is so much easier to gain virtual wealth, friendship and love than the real variety? On the other hand you are drawn to my words. Words that take you back into yourself. How often do you think about what you really want? How often do you sit down and consider the true happiness for yourself?
Yes, let us fantasize now. Dream up some situation that will make you truly happy and expand on it. Fill it with delicious detail and try to step into it. You are there now, in your happiness. Can you imagine it lasting forever? Can you imagine never being bored with it? Surely, that woman or that man who loves you in your dream will fill your days with gladness. Your lover will not be too clingy and will change his or her looks and personalities just enough so that you will always feel slightly embarassed by your own desire for your lover's flesh and mind. Is that love? Certainly your wealth will burst out from an endless reservoir of your own genius. There will be no guilt over your spectacular success and everyone will both envy and love you. They say humans look down on people who have less and hate people who have more. This maxim will certainly be nulled in your dream world. But will it be nulled in yourself? Ah, and if this were to last forever, this painless drifting of your fancies! Does it make you smile? Or perhaps the musty taint of boredom has already encroached upon your lands. You want to see things change. You want people to die. You want to see yourself survive them and enter new, ever changing worlds. Isn't this like playing a video game?
But return to yourself before you become too bored with your happiness. That way lies black, unsettling thoughts. I know for I have been there. Take a drink from your cup and close your eyes for just a little bit. Yes, I want you to tell me who you are.
Perhaps you are a young person who feels misunderstood. Your friends all have romantic partners but you are alone. Wouldn't it be great to have a lover in your life? You would want some strong, thin and sensitive person who can somehow penetrate your silence and read the secret symbols of your hidden personality. Yes, and this person will love you totally but will not take advantage of you because he/she will be in awe of your special nature. Yes, you are special after all. Why else is it that only you feel misunderstood while your friends spend all their hours laughing and flirting?
Perhaps you do have a person in your life. A wonderful individual with a great, bright smile that reassures you of honesty and good intent. Yes, the world will be all right as long as you are standing in the glow of that smile, as long as you are taking pleasure in your lover's company and body. Oh no, am I being too crude? Yes, this person who only has thoughts for you is also career minded. He or she will not make you starve or run away after carelessly breaking your heart. What's this, are we returning to fantasy land?
But maybe you are a master of the world. You are perfecting some ingenius craft with your hands. Yes, you know how to take apart and put back together computers and cars and guns and dish washers. The people are amazed by your understanding of these intricate aritifacts. If we were suddenly time warped back to the stone age, you would get society back to 20th century standards in a few years. You know exactly how electricity works. There's no magic in static force fields, only simple equations. Is that how you see yourself? Perhaps that's going overboard again.
But alas, you think no one can truly understand you. You are nothing like these people I describe above. Only you can know yourself after all.
But I bet that's not true. I'm sure you don't know who you are. No, this is not some light hearted conjecture. I am absolutely 100% certain you have no idea who you are and that you never will. Were you the same person yesterday? Last month? Last year? Are you the same person when you are talking to your friends and when you are working through an annoying long division problem? Oh yes, you say you must be but you are not so sure if your 5 year old self is still looking out from your more experienced eyes. But, but something must be constant behind our memories and experiences, you say. Strip your mother of her memories and physical body. What is she now? Is she dead? What is death? Did she lose her soul?
But please, don't get too worked up now. I think it's time to go. Take out the trash. It's stinking up the room.
 germanicus2 · Wed Apr 08, 2009 @ 10:52pm · 3 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|
