I am reading a delightful book at the moment. Dhalgren. If you can find it, read it. It is ... different. Sometimes I have to go back and wonder if I missed a page or two, sometimes I have to reread a few pages because I have no idea what happened there, and it fits like a glove with the frame of mind I am in currently.
When we say that we want to do something different, something else, something new, we mean nothing of the sort. We just want exactly the same, with one or two constants that changed. Nothing more, otherwise it will be too much to take, and we will feel unable to handle it.
I panic when things change too much or too suddenly, when I lose my handle on the situation, when I no longer feel in control of my destiny. As proven countless times, if it is applicable in my case, it is applicable to everybody else as well. Just not always and/or to the same degree. People like stability, we like some things to stay constant, that is why we break time up in years and days and minutes and seconds and it is defined and something that stays the same, even though your perception of it may differ all the time.
Something new, to me, is something that will be part of my normal life within a month. Something that I will be able to fit around and make my own, even if it is only in my own mind, within one month. At the moment it is quite a wide field, because I am living in my own mind.
Have you ever spent time in your own mind? Just sat and waited till you got so still that you could watch words form and look at the immense disorganization in the background that provide that specific output? Have you ever silently slipped behind those sentences, tried to figure out how it works, what convoluted paths are followed by each thought/idea? How it decides what to carry with, what to dump, what to combine, how to present this mishmash in a way that makes sense?
Reading adds a lot of available ingredients to this presentation, and while there is a lot of praise for the use of non-fiction, it is fiction that broaden the mind the most. I think it is a way to get feedback from another person's imagination, input that change your outlook, your thought-processes, and it dares you to ignore limitations. It opens up your world to options you never even knew existed, and by this, makes the stuff you are comfortable with more open-ended.
Moving out of your comfort-zone is only done in your head. Your body is quite happy in any normal work environment, but moving your mind into a new environment can be quite horrific. You have to interact with new personalities, fit into new structures, add new data and incorporate it with the old data in one new format and style that is appropriate and accepted in the new environment.
Science-fiction and fantasy. I have thought a lot about my love for these genres, and I think I must mention one of the reasons why it stays a favorite of mine. You can change the way people interact by changing the setting. How will people greet each other when they cannot share the same environment, because they physically adapted to different environments? How will we interact with others when you can accessorize your body and have software do most of your thinking? What will our laws look like when we have digital copies of ourselves doing all our technological interfacing, with just the output reaching our physical bodies?
Aliens. Have we been changed as a species to distrust aliens? Are there aliens among us, monitoring the acceptance of aliens as intelligent life-forms, working hard to change the mindset of a whole species, or are they slowly replacing people, are all the conspiracy theories true?
Something new. Is there still something new to be discovered? Are we just starting to refine current ideas and combining them in different ways, or will we still discover or find the faster-than-light-drive, the transporter-beam, the aliens, the secret of life, if Elvis is still alive, ways to use re-usable energy on a personal level. Or will it only be something old, in new clothing?
Truth is, I am not sure what I would prefer. The one sounds great, but the other one is something I can cope with without too much trouble. If only I could time-travel to an end, but as long as we have to do it the hard way, I do not know if it will be heads or tails.
Tuesday, 15 April 2014
Monday, 7 April 2014
Living between the lines
I have been hiding in plain sight for quite a while now. Passing people in that weird space where everybody is going somewhere else, making no impact on anybody's radar. It is a time, not a space, and nobody looks for you in time, they always expect you to be somewhere in space.
Living between the lines makes you aware of all the other people living on the edge of sentences, moving slowly from word to word, showing only the sides of themselves to others. People remember faces, remember voices, remember personalities, they do not remember sides. Walking sideways to reality is opening yourself to the others using the hidden passages in the walls, the crawlspaces beneath the floor, the employees' only entrances.
Realizing that I am living between the lines of my life, that I am not actively aware of what is going on in my life was quite a shock. It is as if I have grown in different directions, and none of the versions is me anymore; I am more and less than the sum of me's. I am looking at myself, and there are parts missing and unknown parts quite integrated that convinces me that I am looking at a distorting mirror, otherwise I am in deep trouble.
Communicating with people is about the same as well. I am talking to, and hearing other people through a filter, losing some critical information along the way. It is almost as if my words are trying to edge in sideways as well, and words coming my way have to turn a corner, bouncing back from some rough surface, losing some frequencies and getting a lot of echoes along the way. If I do not focus very carefully, there is hardly any meaning, just irregular noises, leaving my turning around, trying to get a better fix on the sound.
Not knowing how I got here, there is no clear path going back. How do I start, where do I start, and most importantly, where to do I go? Do I really want to go back to the life I had? Do I want to leave everything I acquired in this new life I live in? Will I be able to combine the two, keeping the best of both, or will this make me lose both, putting me on yet another angle to mainstream life?
I am standing here, and will have to make a decision soon. But then, I thought I would have to make a decision a long time ago, but I turned sideways, dropped into the rut and became somebody else's problem. Or did I ?
Alternate universe-skipping. Moving from one universe to the other, bypassing hundreds or millions a day, simply because I do not pay enough attention, do not care enough about any of them to stay there. Only remembering oddities when I think back, wondering if it happened the way I remember it or not. Maybe this is why memory is such a dependable commodity for some, and such an unreliable crutch for others. Maybe our memories are always correct, but they differ from events in this current universe. This would explain short-term memory-lapse as well. Sanity trying to list memory taken across several universes into one continuous space-time event, begging for the chance to keep you from turning into a complete gibbering idiot, knowing that nothing is the way it seems.
I am inside, looking inwards, ignoring inconsistencies on the outside, taking my imagination as the only steady constant, and working from here. Making sure that I am shaping my world, making sure that, when I am ready to face the outside, I will be using my reference framework, and not one that was suggested by somebody else.
I know who I am, and where I am, but I have no external references. Not knowing how references may differ between universes, how meaning may change, I try to fit into each moment with caution, checking everything at once, ignoring everything that is not of immediate concern. Living in the moment, for the moment. And I do not feel alive, whatever that means, except if it is something like a weariness dragging you down, begging for a few minutes to just lie down and ignore all of creation, leave it all for a few blissful seconds, and completely relax for once and forever.
Letting go of everything, even, especially myself, having no responsibility to keep going, to keep to an unknown script, to keep plodding forward in four dimensions, to be restricted by time and space and self; but to just be. Maybe that is life, maybe it is death, maybe it is the start, maybe it is the end, maybe it is not the anything, but just one of many. Maybe I am already doing it, and this is my way of interpreting it, but I want something different, and maybe that is all I need at the moment. Something different, something that will be new again, and I may be happy again. Till the next time.
Everything can only be new once, and I am wondering; What will happen when there is nothing new anymore? When everything already happened? Is everything reset and started from scratch again? And the scary part: Are we already knee-deep in the rut of replay? Or does everything only happen once, at the same time, in the same space, and life is just a way of examining all aspects of it?
In the end, I think nothing really matters, nothing is of any importance, except that which I give it. When I am the center of the universe, it is a fact in my existence. When I am only an observer, that is my one and only role in life. When life is exiting, it is till I want it differently. When the end of the world is nigh, the end of all is waiting on my whim. I am the creator of my universe, and everything and anything is done according to my wish. Even me.
And we must never, ever, forget this easy truth. For that way lies madness. And any other way as well, but that is still open for discussion. Maybe... only I know.
Living between the lines makes you aware of all the other people living on the edge of sentences, moving slowly from word to word, showing only the sides of themselves to others. People remember faces, remember voices, remember personalities, they do not remember sides. Walking sideways to reality is opening yourself to the others using the hidden passages in the walls, the crawlspaces beneath the floor, the employees' only entrances.
Realizing that I am living between the lines of my life, that I am not actively aware of what is going on in my life was quite a shock. It is as if I have grown in different directions, and none of the versions is me anymore; I am more and less than the sum of me's. I am looking at myself, and there are parts missing and unknown parts quite integrated that convinces me that I am looking at a distorting mirror, otherwise I am in deep trouble.
Communicating with people is about the same as well. I am talking to, and hearing other people through a filter, losing some critical information along the way. It is almost as if my words are trying to edge in sideways as well, and words coming my way have to turn a corner, bouncing back from some rough surface, losing some frequencies and getting a lot of echoes along the way. If I do not focus very carefully, there is hardly any meaning, just irregular noises, leaving my turning around, trying to get a better fix on the sound.
Not knowing how I got here, there is no clear path going back. How do I start, where do I start, and most importantly, where to do I go? Do I really want to go back to the life I had? Do I want to leave everything I acquired in this new life I live in? Will I be able to combine the two, keeping the best of both, or will this make me lose both, putting me on yet another angle to mainstream life?
I am standing here, and will have to make a decision soon. But then, I thought I would have to make a decision a long time ago, but I turned sideways, dropped into the rut and became somebody else's problem. Or did I ?
Alternate universe-skipping. Moving from one universe to the other, bypassing hundreds or millions a day, simply because I do not pay enough attention, do not care enough about any of them to stay there. Only remembering oddities when I think back, wondering if it happened the way I remember it or not. Maybe this is why memory is such a dependable commodity for some, and such an unreliable crutch for others. Maybe our memories are always correct, but they differ from events in this current universe. This would explain short-term memory-lapse as well. Sanity trying to list memory taken across several universes into one continuous space-time event, begging for the chance to keep you from turning into a complete gibbering idiot, knowing that nothing is the way it seems.
I am inside, looking inwards, ignoring inconsistencies on the outside, taking my imagination as the only steady constant, and working from here. Making sure that I am shaping my world, making sure that, when I am ready to face the outside, I will be using my reference framework, and not one that was suggested by somebody else.
I know who I am, and where I am, but I have no external references. Not knowing how references may differ between universes, how meaning may change, I try to fit into each moment with caution, checking everything at once, ignoring everything that is not of immediate concern. Living in the moment, for the moment. And I do not feel alive, whatever that means, except if it is something like a weariness dragging you down, begging for a few minutes to just lie down and ignore all of creation, leave it all for a few blissful seconds, and completely relax for once and forever.
Letting go of everything, even, especially myself, having no responsibility to keep going, to keep to an unknown script, to keep plodding forward in four dimensions, to be restricted by time and space and self; but to just be. Maybe that is life, maybe it is death, maybe it is the start, maybe it is the end, maybe it is not the anything, but just one of many. Maybe I am already doing it, and this is my way of interpreting it, but I want something different, and maybe that is all I need at the moment. Something different, something that will be new again, and I may be happy again. Till the next time.
Everything can only be new once, and I am wondering; What will happen when there is nothing new anymore? When everything already happened? Is everything reset and started from scratch again? And the scary part: Are we already knee-deep in the rut of replay? Or does everything only happen once, at the same time, in the same space, and life is just a way of examining all aspects of it?
In the end, I think nothing really matters, nothing is of any importance, except that which I give it. When I am the center of the universe, it is a fact in my existence. When I am only an observer, that is my one and only role in life. When life is exiting, it is till I want it differently. When the end of the world is nigh, the end of all is waiting on my whim. I am the creator of my universe, and everything and anything is done according to my wish. Even me.
And we must never, ever, forget this easy truth. For that way lies madness. And any other way as well, but that is still open for discussion. Maybe... only I know.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)