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by mrs. johnson 03/27/2003, 8:08pm PST |
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You know how it is. You hear something behind you, or you think you do, and you turn around. Everything is perfectly still and ordinary. Then you smile knowingly and keep walking. Here’s what you don’t know: the sound you heard wasn’t inside your head or your imagination. It took place directly behind your head. About an inch behind. The thing that made that noise, let’s call it Brogue, can’t do much. It has no substance that can be felt, it can’t be seen or smelled, but the Brogue can make noises. And it can influence your thinking. Every time it makes some noise, you become more paranoid or more spiritual or more psychotic. The Brogue drives you places. And it hides places from you. It ensures you never ask the last question a human being can ask. Forget about the Brogue for a second. It isn’t important to what has happened. Not yet.
I woke up a month ago with a sickening feeling in my stomach. I felt something akin to an emotional nausea. It had no discernable origin and it made me physically ill. For a week, I lay in my house unable to function as a person. I felt dried out and barren, like a desert. As the seventh day of my sickness crawled into my house, I suddenly felt a moment of painlessness and so I gathered my belongings and strode purposefully out of my house. My purpose was unknown to me, but I could feel it oozing at the edge of my conscious thought, vigorously vibrating.
Let me spoil the end for you. By the time you read this, I will be a Brogue. I might be hovering behind your head. Or I might be scaring the hell out of the president of the United States as he sits in the bathroom reading the New York Times.
I kept a journal for the past month. Here is an excerpt from it: “Here we go. This is an attempt to describe my descent into subtlety. I don’t know how much can actually be put into words, but let me try. I am tired. I am experiencing nothing but pressure. Not real pressure, not material pressure, but a slow buildup of some sort of residue inside my mind. All I feel is boredom and anxiety. Happiness is no longer even an option. This isn’t just anger. This isn’t just angst. This is too delicate for that. It’s barely there, but a thousand times barely yields mass. My descent is helped by my inability to truly feel the work I am doing. Writing or music or any creation I attempt feels incomplete. Feels foolish and terrible. I want out. I want out of here, I want out of these people. I want to go someplace that doesn’t crush its servants. Nothing about the future is exciting. Nothing about the future is eloquent. But I’m not unhappy or depressed. It’s too understated for that. It’s barely there. If I could only find the actual problem, then perhaps I could find a solution.â€
I ruminate slowly. I toast lightly. I tiptoe to the edge. I try to gauge and not care. In the medieval depths of my heart, there are few thoughts. In the dying wraith of my mind, there are many. All of them are trying to de-verbalize each other. As one succeeds, the great void destroys its work. The same void that Nietzsche was convinced spied on him as he bathed. The same void that nauseated Sartre. The void of complete and utter purity. With this void, I have been living for some time. With this void, I have shared moments of great anguish and heavenly pleasures.
Forget about the void. Forget about me.
Here’s the thing: in my every attempt at a good life, I have encountered two kinds of hurdles. One: the hurdle that made me want to run. Two: the hurdle that made me want to stay. One disgusted me and the other one attached me to itself. So as I pushed away my proverbial enemies, I pushed away friends. As I pushed away injustice and hypocrisy, I pushed away my family.
Forget my friends. Forget my family. Neither they nor I are the thing.
Here’s the thing: sometime in your life, you will find that all those things you live by are related to you by a fully non transferable link. Everything that you perceive in any way is unique to you. This utter unique experience of the world guarantees your death. Your ability to experience is a side effect of life. Your ability to be is a side effect of existence. Your every thought about these things isn’t mystical or important. These things aren’t mystical or important. There is some feeling you get from considering them too much. It isn’t a sign of approaching enlightenment. It is a sign that you have reached the end of your brain’s ability to understand. It is a sign that you should sleep.
the mrs. |
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