and what will revel what has been concealed unseen out in the open? one will be surprised by what is not a surprise. but this is all quite ordinary. who does not travel along this way? is this not the common path that each experiences alone? it feels like when one is here as if it is very far away. but one finds it very near. this is not a place at the end of a long journey, but a place always present where one has always been. it is oneself who wanders away from being here and now, one takes journeys to some farthest point one may go. and to return. this is human experience and human expectation. who does not wonder what is on the other side? the experience of humans trying to reach and experience something that is no longer bound to one being human or having only human experience. where does that begin or end? what is at the core? what is at it's circumference? what is beyond?
    he lights another cigarette.
    he orders a grilled cheese sandwich with a bowl of soup.
    but what is human and human experience but desiring?

    nell, a priestess of moo the cow goddess, was walking along by the river leading from the city to the hills and far away. her path lead along by where the office towers are now left empty. she wore boots and shorts and a shirt and jacket. she carried a back pack and a walking stick. she walked in the moonlight. her dog, a mutt shepherd named, frankenstein, trotted ahead of her stopping to sniff at something or statue still ears up rotating listening.
    she had come from the hippie gypsy camp where she had stayed a few days attending to the rituals of the milkmaids. she was headed for the camp of the incomplete ones. these were those who were born minus this or that who weren't killed by their own people after being born. they were brought here or found their own way or were collected by the incomplete ones themselves as they visited other camps who allowed them to visit to trade. few whole ones visited their camp but they had herds too and that was nell's concern, that they were cared for in proper fashion and treated well for their own sake and for the sake of those who depended on them. they not being well cared for in the before time was why so many of them died and were sick afterward. but by now they were mostly healthy again as they should be. the mission of the priestesses of moo was to ensure that remained so. she found that the herds of the incomplete ones were the healthiest she came across even though they kept incomplete cows as well. not all incomplete either. some with extra. some of the incomplete ones had extra themselves. this was all from the before time.
    it was decided that the best way to make sure people treated their herds well, especially among the non-literate ones,  was with religion. but that was not how nell thought of it. she felt that religion was the truer way. it transmitted information directly from person to person, from action to action. books were a bastardized imitation of that process that made people forget the truer way of direct communication. movies and television, though she rarely saw them, were further bastardized imitations. but not always. sometimes they could be more direct than books when they showed direct actions of people. the priestesses of moo had even once made a video of some of their rituals. but not everyone had electricity. so the best and most sure way was by religion and the circuits of the priestesses themselves. besides, even movies and television could do damage when they were used not as complimentary to people's experience but as replacement. this is what had happened in the before time and what was part of what had led to the wars of madness during the period of self-destruction.
    now it was the after times. it was the peace and period of healing. there were still wars now, but these compared to the wars of madness are small scale skirmishes - battles really. they are mostly about territory and property disputes and are sometimes more ritualistic than harmful. the men, and sometimes women, got excited about something or another, some wrong done to them by another neighboring group, and they went at each other. some people were killed during these battles but often times not. then they stopped, many times with exactly what they had before it started. the times of stealing and pillaging and rape were for the most part over. if one group started that up again, or if some outside group came through doing it, the other groups would get together and stop it. everyone was very well armed and had serious weapons if needed and knew how to use them. there was always a good reason if these were used. and many people would die. but not the wholesale bloodbaths of killing for the sake of killing and pleasure of killing of the wars of madness, which some called the riots of madness, which was more of what they were like. war implies some sense of order. there was no order during the wars/riots of madness. storms of violence of all sorts by everyone would sweep through cities and towns, even the countryside, like prairie fires. they were like riots. a continual traveling riot but on the scale of wars usually fought by armies. it wasn't this group against that group, though sometimes they would start that way, but thousands and sometimes millions of individual people going berserk against everyone around them they could get before someone got them. it didn't seem to matter who either - families, friends, neighbors, co-workers, strangers - whoever was there and the closest. that was the way it traveled. individual dominos knocking over other dominos falling in waves of violence. someone would start shooting or hacking or hitting and soon everybody was doing it. it could happen anywhere at anytime with anyone. it was fought with guns, knives, baseball bats, cars, bombs, rocks, bricks, pipes - whatever one could get one's hand on when it happened. and when it happened, it happened instantly. one had little if any forewarning. one might hear of it happening across town or in a town near by and then run like hell for whatever one had got in case, or to hide and hope it would pass on by, but usually it happened right in one's face and one had no choice but to fight for one's life against other people fighting for theirs. and often once one started killing other people it was hard to stop killing people. why the fuck not? everybody had just about had it anyway with their lives and how mistreated they were by everyone else, whether that was a justified position or not that was pretty much how everybody felt. it didn't matter one's race, sex, religion, politics, class, disability, anything. everybody thought their lives sucked and everyone else was to blame and everybody and everything was against them so why not start killing them and destroying as much as possible? and away they went. everybody, it seemed, had somebody they wanted to hunt down and kill while they had the chance. but more often it wasn't anyone in particular, unless one of them happened to be nearby when it hit. it was just a chance to kill someone - anyone would do.  and then, almost as quickly as it started it would pass on and one was either alive and standing at the end of it or not, unless one still in a rage went chasing after it, which many did until they were exhausted, which might not be for days. if one was wounded, one survived their wounds or not. police, doctors, paramedics were not immune to the general madness. they could often be found killing right along with everyone else, or being killed. many times the fighting and killing spread to the emergency rooms and police stations themselves. it went everywhere and took everyone along with it. police cars and ambulances were crashed or overturned and burning. hospitals and police stations were trashed and looted and burning, as was everything else - churches, schools, houses, apartment buildings, government buildings, whatever. and this was happening all around the world - in rich developed nations, in poor undeveloped nations, in democracies and dictatorships, at the fucking vatican, it didn't matter. martial law was universally put into effect and armies were called out. but no deal. they went berserk too, on each other as much as on anyone else. plus more than a few nukes were randomly launched as well - maybe at a specific target, maybe not.
    and so the world of before times went.
    but as violent and sudden and widespread as that was, it seemed afterward as if a world fever had broken. the peace that followed was not an enforced return to order. there was little returned order, and little left to enforce it beyond in localized areas and regions. the peace was just as spontaneous. it just happened. after the world riots most everyone didn't want to bother or be bothered by anyone anymore. there was no sudden feeling of love and harmony, there was just no feeling of hatred and discord. no one embraced each other afterward. there was no forgiveness nor need of any. everybody knew that everyone else had participated in the riots. it didn't matter. everyone just went about picking up what was left and went about the business of basically getting along and surviving. there were a few who got together to take advantage of the situation and tried to set themselves up as warlords and petty dictators or marauders. but by this time everybody and their aunt sue was armed to the teeth and that didn't get very far for long. they were taken out almost as soon as they had arisen.
    since the population was drastically reduced very suddenly in a few years, those who remained had access to plenty of resources. there was plenty of open land since whole housing tracts had been burned to the ground that had been built over fertile farmland during the years of population explosion in the before times. there were years when people starved but before too long there was plenty of food for everyone. much of the electrical and water systems were still operating or were easily restored. there were many epidemics that broke out but these soon diminished as people either died or became immune. and at first people weren't traveling much anywhere so the epidemics mostly remained contained and isolated within certain areas. but still lots of people died. as time went on some of the medicines from before times began reappearing. and people did start moving around again. some relocating with people of their own kind, whatever that happened to be. others began establishing trade routes, even across the oceans again.
    communities were diverse. some were of some strict doctrine of one kind or another. others were more loosely based. there seemed to be something for everyone if they could find it. and once they found it they tended to stay. they divided all sorts of ways. and they pretty much governed themselves. while the economy was expanding, politics were not. there were no large states or provinces or nations other than some handshake agreements regarding mutual defense between communities in a certain region or another. they also agreed on other necessary things like currency and weights and measures and things of that nature that helped them all get along and trade with one another. but as far as anyone allowing another group to tell them how to live their lives, that was out.
    and then there ones like kell who moved and traveled from one community to another. she and her fellow sister priestesses of moo. this was in part tongue-in-cheek, but they were serious about the purpose they served as guardians of the cows and teachers to those who relied on them. over time it came to include other farm animals as well, goats, sheep, pigs. they weren't welcome everywhere, but mostly everywhere. in some places they had to tone down the religious cult aspect of it and present themselves more as maybe like veterinarians, though they really weren't. there were very few doctors of any kind anymore. there were few schools to produce them - or, for that matter, few people who needed them. everyone who had survived all until now was pretty healthy and fit. but this, along with everything else, was changing. there were also few schools to produce anything in any of the other before time professions. no one seemed that interested. if someone wanted to learn something, they educated themselves. they didn't go somewhere to be educated. this, of course, was at the higher education level. communities had primary education for their children to give them the basic skills needed to go any further on their own. as well as the cult of moo, there were other traveling cults and communities. there were the traders and there were craftspeople who were the ones responsible for restoring the utilities and repaired machines and such. there were traveling circuses and other performing shows of music and theater. and there were the people who just traveled just to travel as there always have been.
    and then there was the world church of the second coming. these were those who believed that the world riots were the fall of babylon and the beast and the anti-christ and that the peace was the beginning of the thousand year reign of the returned christ. they believed themselves to be the elect who were to minister to the remaining survivors of tribulation. they maintained that jesus himself lived in jerusalam that was being restored to its former glory as promised in the bible. the gold bullion left in the vaults around the world were being sent there to pave the streets. since no one else seemed to care much about gold or other precious metals or jewels or gems anymore, they were allowed to do this. it kept them busy and out of everyone's hair for the most part.

    and so that story goes.
    so any story goes.
    so this story goes.
    he wakes up in the morning. he goes into the bathroom. he pisses and coughs up some blood. he flushes the toilet. nothing happens. there's a note from the management that the water's been turned off. he calls downstairs to the cafe in the building to see if they're open. they aren't. their water is turned off too. the basement of the building is flooded with backed up sewer water. they've been rooting out the pipe and found oodles of tampons.
    a little while later now. the water is back on. the cafe is open. order has temporarily been restored. his eyes are puffy and itchy. he coughed up more blood. he hasn't had a shower yet.
    he lights another cigarette.
    there are these pieces or those pieces of what is and what is happening.
    he looks down at his hand writing. it sometimes seems as if it is someone else's hand. he watches as words he thinks are marked out in lines of letters. he steps back from that and watches himself watching his hand writing. the light reflecting off the surfaces of objects before him. the tones. the colors.  the light source (sun through a skylight over his head with a number of electric lights as well). the nerve receptors stimulated and releasing electrochemicals signals. these forming images in his mind that he chooses words to describe. words that also describe what is not image but actions or ideas. all this in a single split moment. the moment stretching and stretching - continuing. the moment continuing through the ticking beeping measured units of time. thread pulled through an eye of a needle.
    is this where that heaven is?
    the rich must be always very aware of time as it is measured.
    time is money.
    who invented and installed all the clocks, posted the calendars?
    the poor?
    the powerless?
    what is this time and place of time stumbled upon in wayward wandering in and out of the mind?
    we have been here before.
    each time it is new.
    what does this certain madness uncover?
    does he wish to describe it?
    if one discovers treasure, does one loudly announce it?
    or, does one keep it hidden and spend it a little at a time unnoticeably as one needs it?
    there are these barkers at the fair who shout, it is here!?
    there are these ones who stand on stages before microphones and cameras shouting, it is here!
    come and get it while you can!
    time is running out!
    how can time run out except for those with money to buy or things to sell?
    but he runs out.
    the moment continues.
    he decays.
    one is worn away by the eternal continuance of the moment of time.
    there is time before one began remembering.
    there is time after one begins forgetting.
    is this a matter of concern?
    he doesn't know. part of himself feels sadness and regret at how much there is he does not know and will never know.  another part realizes that what he does know and will yet come to know is enough. it will have to be enough. it's all he'll get. it's enough for now. there are other views and experiences and details of this and that which are and will always be beyond him. but how different are they? doesn't he have the basic gist? how much more is there to really know about everything besides more details? it comes into existence. it goes out of existence. it comes together. it comes apart. it is this. it is that. it has experience as being what it is. what it is has this or that experience.
    he has this experience. he writes down what he can of this experience however much what he writes is nothing like what it is. he doesn't know what it is. he hasn't met or heard of anyone who knows what it is. even the dada-anada and all that the dada-ananda is doesn't know what it is - or isn't telling. the dada-ananda but only laughs and babbles nonsense about whatever else. just like some monkey on acid. the dada-ananda is a monkey on acid. a monkey on acid on your back.
    he just wonders about it. he remembers wondering about it as a child. he imagines he'll be wondering about it as he dies, saying - what? what was that? just as when he was born he said, what? what is this?
    along the way there are other thoughts and feelings. there is clarity. there is confusion. there is happiness, enjoyment, sadness, sorrow, fear, dread, anger, rage. there is love and hatred. but all through all that noise there is wonder.
    along the way there are all manner of events. there is health and prosperity. there is sickness and poverty. or, health and poverty and sickness and prosperity. and there is wonder in all that as well.
    and so what does all that come to? some ecclesiastical resignation and realization that all of life is just so much marshmallow fluff that one can gather up an army and charge screaming headlong into guns blasting and it changes nothing? after one has cannon balled into the pool and washed some amount of water over the edge making a loud ker-slash, it all eventually settles and stills calm again and returns to as if nothing had happened, but it was still fun and exciting at the time. this is why he never got into meditation but did acid. same difference. you say tomato, i say potato. peace and tranquillity is highly over-rated. this is why he doubtfully followed the wandering staggering path of the dada-ananda.
    but peace and tranquility does have its place in the scheme of things. it's good place to hide.
    is it just the point of coming to the discovery that there is no point? that maybe the life of a serf is no less or more than the life of a king. that the life of a shepherd is no more or less than the life of a warrior. nor that the life of a janitor and the life of a corporate ceo are different. that the monotony of hades and the glories of valhalla are ultimately indistinguishable.
    and one had to live through it to find that out. to come to an answer by the experience of living to a question that would not have come up if one wasn't living.  does that which does not exist ask the meaning of existence? only that which exists asks that. and existence and life itself is the answer that existence and life asks. otherwise there is no answer and one might well have not existed or lived and one should not have even bothered. that is the easy answer. that doesn't require one to think at all. just give up and say, fuck it.
    is it any wonder that we do such crazy stupid things in our lives and throughout history? we have come to exist and there is no reason for our existence other than this drive to exist and continue existing and at any cost to ourselves and others. if we weren't so driven, would we exist at all? we would all lay down and die, like some of us choose to do anyway.
    so we exist. anything can do that. and anything does do that. one doesn't need much of a brain, or even have a brain, to do that. a rock exists. but we are not a rock. we are living. but what more does that take? it still doesn't take much of a brain, or even a brain at all. in fact, having much of a brain can actually become detrimental to living. what better to be a virus (which there is debate as to whether or not a virus is a living thing or just a bunch of reacting chemicals) that doesn't think but just survives and reproduces itself forever.
    so we exist and live, like that virus thing. we have made it that far. so, having done that and continuing to do that, what else is there to do but whatever crazy stupid thing we might think up to do that pops into our head? there is no reason to do these things nor is there any reason not to do them in and of themselves. of course, over time, we as a whole have come up with rules about what we should do or not do according to how some of these things are hazardous to our continued living or the continued living of others. but these are just rules and are easily broken and are broken by many who don't give a fuck about themselves and/or others. so why would we exist to act in ways that are hazardous to our existence?
    does existence answer that question?
    no, it does not.
    does anything existing answer that question?
    no, it does not.
    even if there is a god who stirred this all up to begin with does not answer that question. it only says don't do this and don't do that otherwise you'll be sorry - if not now, then later. god's only answer to all the crazy stupid things we do with our given free will is punishment. that is not an answer. that and to blame it all on the adversary and its influence. that may be so, but what then explains the adversary's actions and rebellion? maybe it has a good reason. we'll never know. it goes straight into the bottomless pit, no questions asked. gone.
    so what does anything that exists or existence itself have to say about anything?
    we have looked and found nothing.
    or, did we lose ourselves somewhere along the way of this and that?
    will someone find an error in our way of thinking?
    probably.
    should we be punished?
    probably.
    should we be questioned?
    definitely not.

    so we fly away toward where/whenever we dance some variation of the weird tango with ourselves and the chosen elect elite corps of those who we designate to be such for our own mysterious secret reasons we keep to ourselves while we swirl and twirl among spiraling twinkling stars turning this way and that way up and down and around the golden jeweled helix stairway matrix that evolves endless convolutions into and out of itself manifested as ourselves as who we are flying away where/whenever we are ourselves.
    ker-splash!
    does that answer your question?
    the waves and the waves and the waves going out and coming in.
    the rising and falling.
    all that exists in our minds that we reach out and touch.
    we slip out of costume and lie breathless naked and unafraid in the meadow in the moon.
    what more is there to be?
    what were all the crazy stupid things we did today?
    they are forgotten.
    but perhaps not by the villagers who roam the forests with their torches guided on by the priests of every robe.
    we are swinging in a hammock woven from the threads of time through the moments of our lives suspended between the two solid deep rooted trees of birth and death.
    what more is there to gain?
    are we more or less than anyone else?
    the others may say yes or no.
    but this is not to say that an arm is the same as a leg, or the heart is the same as a liver. none of us is equal to or replaceable with any other. each has one's function to the body as a whole. but any can come to be any of those parts. when one comes to be part of an arm, one is an arm. when one comes to be part of a heart, one is a heart. the cells of these parts of the body come to function as what part they are. until then, they can be anything. until they choose.
    but do we need to say this?
    some get it, some don't.
    some are with us, some are not.
    we sometimes look down from the mountain playing zarathustra and ask, why are they afraid or unable to climb up to us?
    we sometimes look up from the valley playing the common person and ask, why are they afraid or unable to climb down to us?
    this is who we are. who is not among us?
    who separates themselves from us and calls us, them?
    we are them - and goddamn proud of it.
    are we to be ashamed of being who the others would be ashamed of being?
    should we take that on to ourselves?
    should we be ashamed to be poor?
    should we be ashamed to be rich?
    should we be ashamed to be proud?
    should we be ashamed to be ashamed?
    should we be ashamed to be different?
    should we be ashamed to be the same?
    should we be ashamed to be us?
    should we be ashamed to be them?
    should we be ashamed to hate and be hated?
    should we be ashamed to love and be loved?
    should we be ashamed to be an arm or a leg?
    should we be ashamed to be a heart or a liver?
    should we ne ashamed to be ourselves?
    should we be ashamed to be god?
        yes/no/maybe.
    he lights another cigarette.

    what a monstrosity this all becomes.
    what a huge bulking clumsy thing that gets in the way of everything else - including itself.
    what stupidity this all becomes.
    what lack of any thought it entails that cannot think of anything else - including itself.
    what words are written still that mean nothing?
    yet is that to say that there are words written that mean something?
    what words are those?
    why aren't these those words?
    who is there who makes that judgment?
    who stands behind the podium to award the prize?
    and who gave them permission?
    who has the authority to give permission?
    who but ourselves?
    and who are we?
    we have already said - we are them.

    to be the one who waits without knowing what one is waiting for that may or may not be to come. and this is continual through all else one might be doing otherwise. whether one is walking down the street, whether one is masturbating over some porn, whether one is going to church, whether one is ordering a pizza, whether one starring in a movie, whether one is reading a book, whether one is picking one's nose, whether one is walking up the street, whether one is smoking a cigarette, whether one is dancing in a club, whether one is dealing blackjack, whether one is reading these words - one is waiting.
    one is foolishly waiting.
    one is wasting one's life away waiting.
    what is there to wait for but the end of life?
    what might happen in one's life that would be worth waiting for?
    does one wait for the word?
    does one wait for the signal?
    the word and signal for what?
    what does one do then?
    does one waits for the answer to that question?

    life is only a series of common ordinary everyday events with a few odd ones thrown in at varying intervals. the common is as wonderful as anything else might be - the common including those few moments of excitement we all have now and again. the spectacular can become as trivial as anything else if that is all there is that is common.
    so one is waiting just because one is waiting. one waits. that is what one does. one waits without expectation. one waits without interest. one waits without regret. one waits without waiting. one can know that there is nothing to wait for - nothing that isn't already present. nothing but the end of waiting.
    but one waits just the same.
    one waits for the day to begin.
    one waits for the day to end.
    one waits for something to arrive.
    one waits for something to depart.
    one waits for something to happen
    one waits for something to stop happening.
    one waits for something to not happen.
    and so on.
    one waits for this sentence to end.
    one waits for the next one to begin.
    and, here it is.
    now what does one wait for?

    and one does this or that in the meantime.
    while one is waiting.
    while something within one waits.
    while something else within one does what one does in the meantime.
    the meantime is between beginning and ending - between what is and what is not.
    the meantime to be filled with with whatever is available on hand to fill it with - thoughts, words, actions.
    the meantime that is the yawning bottomless pit that everything is thrown into to keep it from swallowing oneself.
    everything must be diverted and distracted from oneself.
    one must avoid and ignore it.
    one is busy waiting.
    the meantime is one's life.
    one's life is what one does in the meantime.

    meanwhile, in the meantime while one is waiting, one does not look down and see that there is nothing that one is standing on - that one is standing on nothing. one waits suspended in space and time that is defined and filled by what one does in the meantime. one does not think that there is little that one does in the meantime that gives substance to what one might be standing on for more than a moment while one is doing it.
    nothing but one's faith and belief.
    but how much faith and belief can one have?
    how much can be done in the meantime to give one purchase on something relatively solid?
    one waits to find out.
    meanwhile, one keeps writing - waiting.

    along the way along by the river nell's path happens to cross the path of a gang of some young ruffians. they see her coming and wait for her. she walks up to them lifting her assault rifle toward them and says, hello. they kept their rifles pointed down as she approached. frankenstein growls but stays beside her. but they were ready for this. one of them had remained hidden from view. as one of the group squats down and holds out his hand to the dog for him to sniff and also to distract him, the one hidden sneaks up and hits nell over the head. down she goes with a quick burst of from her rifle that kills one of the group and wounds another. one of the group shoots frankenstein. they seize her and tie her spread eagle to stakes they hammer in the ground and ripping off her clothes they take turns fucking her for the rest of the night. then, as dawn comes, they walk away and leave her. when they are gone she struggles to free herself. she cannot. she remains there all day thirsty, bruised and with a pounding headache. she falls asleep off and on. during the next night, a pack of dogs finds her. they warily approach her ready to scamper away if she gets up. she cannot get up. they soon realize this. they then kill her and eat her.

    he wonders why he wrote that, why not a happy ending? but it was happy for the ruffians and the dogs. he thinks that maybe he should write about how the gang themselves are captured and raped when they venture too close to a lesbian commune. they are sodomized with rough pointed sticks until they bleed to death. they are then left in the woods and eaten by the same pack of dogs who have been following them because they have been leaving a trail of victims the dogs have been feasting on.
    is that better?
    maybe not.
    but it is written now and shall not be erased.
    isn't that how god does it?
    and all writers are god.
    this is how it is in the after times.
    whatever.
    it is just something he writes while waiting along with everyone else waiting.
    does god wait too?
    but he knows he is waiting for nothing.
    he knows that he's already got it.
    everything else is a surprise.
    his life is a surprise.
    each moment is a surprise that it exists and he exists to experience it - whatever that experience might be.
    could he ask for anything more?
    a new brain, perhaps...

    to weave what is woven. to dream what is dreamt. to become awake with a haze of gray not-anythingness. to try to speak to another who understands how the words are being used differently than what they are usually meant.
    and jesus drives up in one of those cars advertised gliding smoothly along open roads winding through a beautiful rolling landscape that must be very near to heaven. jesus steps out dressed in a perfectly tailored tux looking like bruce wayne or james bond. he strolls down the street. what might he be doing here in this part of town that reeks of greasy food and garbage and the wasted and the crippled linger with nowhere else to go except to get out of their small hotel rooms away from the confinement and the roaches and the stifling air that makes even being out on this street seem like being in a  summer meadow?
    jesus walks by them. he walks by the the bars and the missions. he walks by the storefronts, the galleries, the restaurants, the bank machines, the police station, the drug dealers, the panhandlers, the drunks sleeping or pissing next to dumpsters, the street corner evangelist, the whores, the business men and women, the couples screaming at and hitting each other, the teenie bopper punks, the poets, the guitar players, the students, the doctors, the lawyers, the indian chiefs, the road repair crews, the people waiting at the bus stop, the witches, the psychics, the anarchists, the republicans, the democrats, the libertarians, the socialists, the buddhists. he walks by everybody. he walks to the park and watches the pigeons bobbing their heads and pecking at the ground and once in awhile fluttering off.
    then there's a blank.
    pure clear film with the burning white light one cannot look at directly shining through it onto the screen.
    when the images return, jesus is gone.
    and someone steals his car.

    the madness and the sadness continues as it was as it is. who ever really gets away from it? even going insane doesn't help. one might cover it over with this and that one might find and put together to cover it over with. but it always exists within one's heart and mind.
    it is the sea.
    a fork in the eye seen from an edge of delightful innocence enveloping the gloom the dungeon shadows plato speaks of  cast as the forms are impressed into the clay of the mind. the beggars perform their inflexible routine along the streets. it is upon the solid foundation of their reality that the mighty towers are built. if it were not for those who have not how would those who have know what they have - or that they even have it?
    whose reality is this?
    it is a reality of denial or a reality of gain?
    then the manta ray bat creatures float about with their stinging tails whipping and stinging those chained to the dark slimy dripping walls in plato's cave. this is not punishment but the simple cause and effect of the workings of the machine. it is no more punishment than to think the pistons of an engine are being punished by the explosions of gasoline vapor ignited by spark plugs driving them down only to be pushed up again by the other pistons being driven down.
    it is just the way it is.
    that there are human emotions and pain and pleasure involved is inconsequential.
    the machine does not care.
    there is no judgment.
    there is only need.
    just as the pistons drive a car or truck or tractor or whatever, so the police arresting someone drives society.
    so that somebody robbing a store drives society.
    so what we all do drives society.
    there is the need.
    there is that which fuels the need - that which ignites the need and provides the power to make everything else turn.
    human fuel for human need to drive the machine.
    the ignition of a judge's gavel, the needle in a junkie's arm, the ring of a cash register.
    let the fat lady sing.

    and we sit in our lawn chairs somewhere around where things may be happening or not.
    what is and what is not happening?
    haven't we asked this question a few 18 thousand dozen times before already and have come up with that almost anything could be said to be happening or not?
    and, along with that, it seems to us that we also determined that we wouldn't know whether something was something that was happening or not.
    maybe because we're not happening.
    or so it would seem - maybe.
    we hang out here or there. we are among the millions and billions of those who are just generally losers and people who don't have a life to speak of. we aren't that creative or innovative - not such that we could earn a living at it. we don't ever risk much of anything - except our very soul in hell. we are more or less content with our mediocrity and the security that comes with it. and we'll complain about almost any subject whatsoever, whether we know anything about it or not.
    and wherever it was at this other point which is the not here or there which casually strolls by. these are the words that arise out of our experience - maybe. words are the struggle between the mind and the world.
    and listening to the radio tell us about all the wonderful things we ought to buy.
    does the radio know we don't have any money?
    does the radio care?
    we accept the world as given - like we have a choice. we accept it as it is presented by the others. we accept it's confinement and restrictions. we'll run and fetch sticks for it. we'll sit up and beg for treats from it. we have no pride or even identity except as it relates to the world.
    then we dream of other worlds, other dimensions of space and time - other heres and nows. we invent saviors and mystical paths we are to follow to find the way out.
    then some of us remain and do very little. we aren't anyone. we don't do anything that would attract the others' attention. they look right through us looking for the next thing that will gratify them for a moment awhile.
    pull it up.
    pull it down.
    pull it around.
    is there anyway in?
    is there anyway out?
    do we know where we are?
    are we aware of where we are?
    are we going forward or backward?
    are we going sideways?
    is it implied?
    is it inferred?
    is it a shoe?
    can we eat it?
    can we smoke it?
    can we hit it with a stick?
    can we roll it up a hill?
    can we piss on it?
    pander declivity corpulent.
    macrostructure subversive.
    and from here and now we can see all which is this and that.
    from what other place and time are we going to see anything else?
    it takes a shift of vision not a shift in location.
    and with that, here and now becomes transformed.
    or maybe not.
    how are we to know?
    have we undergone this shift of vision?
    do we see what others do not?
    do we even see what others do see?
    are we not blind?
    are we unable to distinguish what others distinguish?
    are we not confused between what is this and what is that?
    are we not lost in a fog of ambiguity?
    is there this which is true and that which is false as we are told that there is by the others?
    is there this which causes happiness and that which causes sadness for us as we are told by the others?
    are we not quite able to find our way without it needing to be told to us by the others that we should go this way and not that way, that we should see this and not that, that we should think this and not that, that we should feel this and not that?
    what dangers of the world would we fall into?
    what dangers of ourselves would we fall into?
    what pleasures would we not enjoy without the guidance of the others?
    are they not our superiors and our masters and our teachers?
    what could we ever know and not know?
    how would we know what knowing is?
    the others have such esteemed knowledge and authority in the affairs and matters of the world concerning what is and what is not and concerning what should be and what should not be. just read what they write in their books. just watch them on tv and listen to them on the radio. buy their latest cd. buy their magazines. go to their meetings. one will know this. what can we say to all that?
    one will realize how small and insignificant one's own highest concepts and ideals are. one will know that anything one might speak about or write about has already been thoroughly discussed at length from every possible view and perspective and that nothing more is to be discovered from it except by them - certainly not by someone such as oneself.
    at best one might be allowed a glimpse of the light radiating from their brilliant glory at a distance for some brief time they might choose to put it on display before the unenlightened masses. for a fee. buy your tickets early for a good seat. these times will be publicly announced so one might come and be among the worshipping crowd. sometimes this will be in a great hall or coliseum - or it may be in some small out of the way place like a club or maybe even a house. but wherever it might be, or whatever size crowd one might be in, it must not be forgotten that this event is put on by the few for the benefit of the many and that one is always part of the many. one is always in debt to the others. the others are to be praised. the others are to be loved and cherished. the others are to be obeyed. otherwise the others will turn away. the others will no longer show one favor. the others' patience with one's ignorance and even stupidity will come to an end.
    and these are the words he imagines himself speaking from the pulpit of the artchurch.
    but that is not to be.
    the dada-ananda does not allow it - except as it might be imagined.

    is this anything of this world?
    is this anything of any other?
    is it anything as part of some as yet unmanifested magical wonderland?
    it exists everywhere in the imagination. the imagination of it is as much manifestation as it will ever possess, which is to be imagined by that which is manifest. as such, it promises nothing. there is nothing it can promise except that which might be imagined. and, as there is nothing it can or does promise, there can be no faith. and where there is no faith, there is doubt. it is through this doubt that the possibility of what might be imagined finds and gains ground. yet this is in reverse proportion  to its manifestation. manifestation destroys doubt and creates and sustains faith. doubt also destroys manifestation. the two mutually annihilate one another in proportion to the ratio that each exists to the other.
    but, is this true?
    is this even possible whether true or not?
    doubt and faith will give one different answers to these questions.
    go watch tv.
    it could be said that doubt asks the questions and faith answers them.
    it could be said.
    with doubt there is always a question.
    as long as there is a question there remains possibility.
    with faith there is always an answer.
    as long as there is an answer there cannot remain possibility.
    this is the madness that comes to one through doubt.
    this is the madness of the limitlessness perceived through the questions of doubt.
    one stands on the head of a pin gazing through the eye of a needle poised at the infinite expanse of one's doubt and questioning - and imagination.
    it is said that faith moves mountains.
    with doubt, there is no place where there are not mountains as there is no place where there are mountains.
    but that is not an answer, is it?
    we doubt it.
    it can be said that it is faith that fills space and time and it is doubt that creates space and time to be filled.
    it can be said.

    what is given?
    what is taken away?
    he sits in the cafe fighting off a cold on a dark rainy afternoon.
    he stirs his coffee with a 3 pronged fork.
    he wonders if he should go home.
    he needs to buy books for the philosophy class he's taking on his way.

    what becomes of what is and what is not?
    this might seem to be a stupid or absurd question, but what question is not that question?
    and what thought is not that question?
    what thought does not come into mind from the interaction of something being and something not being as one neuron fires and inhibits another from firing?
    otherwise we would think everything in one big explosion.
    is that what happened to god?
    is all of this and ourselves the result?
    our minds are a sea of a constant flux of what is being and what is not being.
    and we are swimming in that sea.
    we rise and fall over the analog waves of our flashing binary thoughts.
    it the particle wave substance and motion of light itself.
    the light of creation - of consciousness and being.
    the light that is not light nor darkness but that which passes between in all shades of gray.
    the light is a gray light.
    it reaches heights of brilliance and dives into depths of obscurity.
    it hovers in the monotone mundane.
    what is to be sought?
    what is to be avoided?
    what is to be eternally saved or damned?
    we plunge knives through our hearts and scream with ecstasy.
    we give our hearts to another and we whimper in agony.
    how is feasting set apart from fasting as measured by hedonistic delight of pure pleasure?
    does one not torture the masochist by withholding torture, as the old joke goes?
    one who seeks the warmth of the sun passes by the one seeking the coolness of shade.
    is there not a wealth to be found in poverty as there is a poverty found in wealth?
    how can there be experience without contrast?
    is pleasure the absence of pain or is pain the absence of pleasure?
    what is one without the other?
    which should be sought?
    which should be avoided?
    what doctrine do we follow?
    what rules do we obey?
    what freedom do we follow?
    what rules should we break?
    toward what do we set and aim our will?
    what is our goal?
    do we flip a coin?
    do we act for the act of acting itself?
    and if we do choose and decide upon one course of action - what is that?
    do we only act within our nature, within the limited options of our nature both personal and as a species?
    if they could, would birds swim instead of fly?
    would fish fly instead of swim?
    who and what decides for them?
    what is the will of one who decides one has no will?
    can one decide this either way without will?
    can one gain will if one has none?
    what is the driving force?
    the fish looks up into the air and sees a bird and envies that it can fly.
    the bird looks down into the water and sees a fish and envies that it can swim.
    each views the other as being liberated relative to the limitations of its own nature.
    but is there liberation?
    is there limitation?
    how are these to be defined beyond subjective perception?
    how can flying and swimming be both liberation and limitation?
    how can liberation and limitation be both flying and swimming?
    what meaning do these words have?
    what meaning do these concepts have?
    to the one wandering, being stationary may be enviable.
    to the one who is stationary, wandering may be enviable
    in the whole, everything flows as it is and should be.
    what should be is what is.
    there is no should be that is not.
    if there is, change it.
    that is as it should be.
    change is as it should be.
    the darkness is in equilibrium contrast with the light.
    where there is light, there should be light.
    where there is darkness, there should be darkness.
    unless that changes.
    but when it changes it still does not change.
    everything is still where and when it should be - if not even more so.
    the same is true with the infinite and the finite.
    the same is true with life and death.
    there are those who see the light, the infinite and life.
    there are those who see the darkness, the finite and death.
    are any of these constant in the universe?
    do any of these go together the way we want them to?
    can we wish and make it so?
    can we will and make it so?
    can we imagine?
    would we want to choose?
    if one was offered a treasure would one only choose to take half of it?
    we are offered the treasure of all of heaven and hell.
    yet we choose and accept only half.
    and both feel themselves fulfilled.
    would one only wish the liberation of flying or swimming?
    wouldn't one wish the liberation of both?

    it is the story that the creator made creation and at each stage pronounced it good. then the creations who were given the ability to perceive creation walked through the garden of creation and divided it into that which is good and that which is evil. this despite the creator's warning not to do so. but this was their wish - though some say they were tricked by another who told them that this was what the creator had done. but the creator granted them their wish anyway. so they were sent to that part of creation that is perceived to be divided between good and evil.
    the one who is said to have tricked them was the serpent, who is called the adversary. the serpent is also called desire. without division between good and evil desire cannot exist. there can also be no adversary. if all are in agreement that what is is good and as it should be, then there is no division. so, in order to exist, the adversary had to create division. to create division, it had to set one against the other. it had to create good and evil. it has to creat desire.
    without division, creation would not be complete. it would be uncertain, undefined, indistinguishable. there woulde be no one thing that was not the other. there would not be one thing that was set apart from the other. there would not be even creation that was separate from the creator. if the creator is one, then creation needed to be the other if creation was to exist. the existence of creation is the existence of division. only the creator could have made creation. only the adversary could have made creation exist.
    if there is no reaction to action, does action exist? if there is no creation separate from the creator, does the creator exist? how is an artist known to be an artist if there exists nothing other than the artist? the artist is known by art. the creator is known by creation.
    or something like that.

    and it seems that no matter what he writes about he always writes about the same thing.
    for how long has this been going on?
    does this mean he's on to something?
    or is he just obsessively compulsively fixated on it?
    is there anyone who can answer these questions without judgment?
    is there an answer to any question without judgment?
    and what is judgment?
    what is it that causes one to say this and not that or that and not this?
    and will not another say the opposite?
    all in the free market place.
    we stand apart from one another.
    we are divided in every way imaginable - and some unimaginable.
    we are divided by our imagination of our division.
    we are divided by our judgment.
    we are divided by our desire.
    the question is - do we laugh or cry?
    is there some reason why we should not be divided?
    should we be in agreement?

    one walks away toward an emptiness where one fully experiences oneself as there is nothing else to experience.
    the time goes by and eventually disappears.
    the distance of space fades.
    it lies softly on one's face like a veil.
    one breathes it in.
    one's thoughts are the frontier.
    what does one remember now?
    was there anything to remember?
    was there something like life?
    was there something like death?
    was there something like the self between the two?
    there is a name.
    one hears the name as an echo.
    is there someone calling?
    is there a someone?
    whose name is it?
    what does it describe?
    what does it recall back to mind?
    what else can something be that is not in the mind that can be recalled?
    one needs to recall the mind first.
    that is what the name demands one to do.
    is this possible?
    what has one done with the mind?
    is it still here?
    is it still now?
    is it waiting to be recalled?
    where and when did one leave it?

    the name is vibration.
    the mind is the name vibrating.
    which causes the other?
    does the name utter the mind?
    or does the mind utter the name?

    silly billy sits up in a tree searching for the dominant mother.
    silly billy is going to fall.
    doesn't he know he's expendable?
    doesn't he know he is to be sacrificed?

    the days begin to disappear. they fade to black. the static becomes louder. it is harder not to hear the voices as the transmission of reality comes in steadily weaker. soon it will stop coming in altogether. one looks into the mirror and gazes at the beast with a thousand faces. the mirror becomes an opening to a maze. one doesn't know what is a mirror and what is not. the mirror maze is said to lead one back to the garden. this is the last defensible place against empiricism. it is not defensible in that if they found it they could be beaten back and kept from plundering everything, but it is defensible in that they cannot find it to begin with. it is beyond their imagination. in their minds it does not exist so how are they to know it exists in ours?
    so here we are in this place only we can imagine being here and real. others may imagine it. but that is it. they deny as being real what they only imagined. to them if it only can be imagined it cannot be real. to us, it is real only if it can be imagined.
    they fear their imagination. they feel that their imagination tricks them. they do not know that their imagination is a doorway to the primary program - the operating system. they consider imagination to be a part of reality and not reality to be part of their imagination. imagination shows us how easy reality can be conjured up and shaped to one's will. but this is just imagination. it is only a doorway. it is not the mechanism itself. the mind is the mechanism. but not the individual personal mind. and not the universal mind either. it is the imagination between the two.
    to speculate in and out of itself.

    and there is one who just gets by. one who is not in the lead nor follows behind. one who hides oneself among the nondescriptable masses somewhere in the middle. one is just one more in a crowd, though this one usually avoids crowds. and we might look into that crowd or even where the crowd isn't and look directly at this one's face - but whose face is it? whose face among the dozens, the hundreds, the thousands, the millions, the billions? how are we to detect who might be this one? how are we to screen through all those who surround us everyday to fine who this one is?
    this one knows who we are. who we are is obvious. one might spot us anywhere. we distinguish ourselves apart as much as we can. we separate and isolate ourselves from the others into small select groups of those we consider worthy of our company, or in whose company we feel ourselves worthy. our appearance, our manner, our speech all identifies us. we are this and not that. we are that and not this. of one thing we might be certain, this one will not be found among us. maybe. can we be sure? what better place to hide?
    is this one going to be attracted to us for some reason and give us a call? say, hello - here i am? is this one going to choose us because of something about us that sets us apart from the others and expose oneself to scrutiny?
    this one is interested in one's own self-preservation. in that interest it does not serve one to stand out, to limit one's options to a certain formula of identity. it serves one toward this interest in self-preservation to be in contradiction with any and all identity. it is the identity that is the target. it is in this one's interest not to be the identity one may be using. all identities are enemy. there are none that are to be trusted. there are none that are not hated and and not sought to be eliminated by someone. there are those who stand and fall with identity. there are those who transcend identity and continue on one's merry way.
    but this one avoids even that identity. not attracting attention attracts attention, sometimes as much or even more as attracting attention does. and as well, not having identity can identify one even more than having identity. we cannot look for this one among those either.
    this one cannot be found. finding one who is believed to be this one, or who even claims to be this one would automatically eliminate that one from being this one. it couldn't be that easy. unless that one did happen to be this one. how would we know? unless we know it without needing to know it.
    and why are we even looking for this one anyway?
    we have forgotten.
    what's on tv?
    so it spirals down again into the vanishing point. we know so much and ultimately know nothing. what is there to be known besides what we know or know that we should know and are trying to know it? and is there anything more to our quest for knowledge than the compulsion of the over-sized brains of a highly neurotic ape?
    what knowledge does a cow ever need?
    what is it we know that a cow does not?
    and what purpose does it serve except to demonstrate our ignorance?
    this one is just a cow.
    a cow among cows grazing in a meadow.
    there is the point at which things become pointless.
    what things are these?
    how are they measured?
    who measures them?
    if this one exists, this one's existence could be pointless - or determined to be pointless by others.
    what is the point of the existence of one whose existence isn't that distinguishable from another's?
    why should this one exist when any other will do?
    this one's existence does not add up to the whole, nor would this one's non-existence subtract from the whole - except in some indistinguishable pointless way.
    this one barely takes up space or time.
    what is one more or less when we are dealing with billions?
    would this one counted or not counted change anything?

    and nothing is written at all.
    it is writing on water.
    it is words shaping and reshaping themselves in the fluidity of the mind.
    they are melting wax that solidifies when it cools into whatever it was last.
    or maybe not.
    they can be eternal.
    they can transform reality.
    they can be chiseled into stone and withstand the weathering of ages.
    they can be copied and copied again.
    they can become data in the machine.

    he sits in the cafe still scribbling the words that have come to him for years - for his lifetime.
    often scribbling the same ones over and over.
    from this way and that way.
    trying to get them right.
    there's not much more to it than that.
    the notebooks are stacked in milk crates in his apartment. the ones that are left after he burned much of the earlier ones one night in his wood stove. he would have burned them all but the stove filled with ashes and he couldn't fit any more in. so the later ones were saved. the ones from just before he back flipped out the window sideways and upside down the rabbit hole into wherever the fuck he is now.
    imagine that.
    and now he types them into his computer.
    not all of it.
    he edits as he goes.
    if one thinks this is the worst, one hasn't seen anything.
    and he puts them on line.
    and maybe that's where you come in.
    who the fuck are you?
    is he writing to you?
    has he been writing to you the whole time?
    no.
    yes.
    for awhile he was writing to a muse - an old girlfriend who he was still in contact with.
    did he expect her to understand?
    does he expect you to understand?
    is there anything to be understood?
    do you expect that he understands it?
    you would be wrong.
    maybe.
    maybe not.
    if he understands it do you think he's going to tell you?
    how does he tell you?
    with words?
    with these words?
    how does he do that?
    but he hopes you do get something out of it.
    that's what it's here for.
    his 2¢.
    but don't ask him what that's supposed to be.
    ask yourself.
    he writes to the doubtful.
    but he would like to know what you think - if he's still alive when you read this.
    if it's still around when he's dead.

    the world goes on around him. he doesn't have much to do with it. it doesn't have much to do with him. it gives him money to live on - barely. he spends it. the economy keeps going. there is not much more to it than that. once in awhile he has to fill out forms. every so often he has to see a doctor to determine whether he is still insane or not and should still be getting the money - or have to get a job or live in the street. it would probably be in the street. or in jail since he wouldn't let these motherfuckers just toss him out like their goddamn garbage and he would let them know it maybe by busting a few heads. that's how he got here to begin with. that's why they give him the money. so he won't go around busting heads. he's been on the street once. he's not going back.
    that's the deal.
    there used to be more. he used to work. he used to support a family. but that was erased by a judge's signature rubber stamped on a piece of paper. who he was up to that time ceased to exist. now, who the fuck knows who he is? he doesn't. he is an unperson. he has been eliminated - or perhaps he eliminated himself. he doesn't know. but people like him are continually being eliminated or eliminating themselves all the time. he can't decide if he cares or not. he cares about the fate of his children and now his grand children. but, as every parent knows, there is little one can do about that. that's up to the gods who he doesn't believe in. not much anyway.
    for more of this read his memoirs.

    to try to figure out why we are here and not there. why not cows? to journey on the possibility of cause and effect into remembering what our thoughts and motivations might have been to choose between this and that or to have allowed that choice to have been made outside of ourselves by other actions and events or by another. is there an ultimate fate here? is there a god here? could it have been another way than this? could we have arrived at different conclusions for ourselves? unless this is ourselves and this is the best of all possibilities we could have come up with considering whatever givens we as being human had to go on. what would have been the worst? and who or what gave us those givens? who or what made us human? who or what made this the only possibility?
    what are these questions?
    are they asked by the philosopher or the idiot?
    is there a difference between the philosopher and the idiot?
    and which are we in our wondering and questioning?
    we stand before the most common things like a tree and ask, what is that?
    how do we know what it is?
    do we inspect it in every detail and observe it over time?
    yes.
    does that give us knowing what it is?
    maybe.
    or do we only assume?
    and around and around we spin while others go about their business in the world - some of them inspecting and observing trees. or cows. or even us. they may have these thoughts as well but do not allow these thoughts to bring them to an abrupt stop and to forget their usual business for longer than awhile in some relaxed state of leisure once in awhile maybe having toked themselves up first or something. though even then they seem not to. their talk in these leisure times is often talk of strategy as to how to proceed next in their period of activity and business and to get ahead and get going.
    these are those who operate and manage the world. that is what they do. it is their nature as it is the nature of water to flow downhill. this is their social, economic, political, artistic and religious business. and we suppose they're good at it. better than we would ever be - or ever were. it is as it is and there is no true explanation for it. there can be no other alternative for them because there is no other alternative for them to inspect and observe. it can only be imagined. and their imagination is all involved in their business. that's as far as it goes. the imagination of the real.
    we can imagine these behaving differently, as we can imagine water flowing uphill. but to imagine that we must imagine against human nature as we would be imagining against the nature of water and gravity. we could imagine that human social nature could be not inclusive and exclusive. we could imagine that the economic was not competitive, or if it was, that everyone was given an even break. or that the political was not always with groups in opposition. we could imagine the artistic being not one genius among many but the genius of the many as one. and we could imagine away the gods of religion that command us from some throne in the sky. just as we can imagine no gravity - perpetual motion and energy - mathematics without numbers - geometry without shapes - love without hate - peace without war. just as we can imagine that we know what we're talking about. we could imagine ourselves in a world where we aren't told we are insane.
    we can imagine the machine.
    we can imagine the imaginary city.
    we can imagine the island in the eye of a storm raging on an otherwise calm sea.
    we can imagine it.
    we can imagine this and that.
    we can imagine everything.
    we can imagine nothing.

    so where does all that place us? we are only a leaf that falls into a stream of water flowing downhill or uphill and is carried along by it until we are snagged by a branch or a rock or caught in a whirlpool or carried out to the ocean. we are carried along by the mob. we, at best, find a means of keeping our head above water and not be drowned. some of us may be able to fashion a boat and even have means to direct it. but even still one can only go one way. it is the mob that is the medium and sets the conditions we have to contend with and respond to whether we are able to overcome or are overcomed.
    yet our own actions are not separate from the actions of the mob. our actions are directed by and directing along with the mob and the actions of all the others in the mob. if our actions are in line with the actions of the mob, then we are successful. if not, we are destroyed.
    and so our words. and the idea of our words. we think our words in isolation but if they survive it is only because they have been picked up by the mob along their way. our words may be found to serve the mob in some way. this will be in their own understanding of them, not our own. if we say, do not kill, and the mob then goes on a killing spree, can we say they misunderstood our words? or was it that we misunderstood the mob?
    the many cannot be in error - even if they are. the many set the course of actions and events. ideas exist in empty space and time apart from the world. only action and the events of action, or non-action, are real. and they are real in and of themselves - not because of any idea that either supports them or contradicts them. only ideas that can be turned into actions of the mob come into existence and reality.
    so we are here where we have been since before we remember. we reflect ideas in our mind about this and that. we are of no consequence. our thoughts, even when written down, evaporate instantly. it is the mob that shapes the world.
    in his mind is what is of this world.
    who would believe that there is anything else?
    what would be the point of there being anything else?
    he couldn't think of any.
    new things occurred as they occurred, but they occurred all within his mind.
    though the wonderful thing about his mind is that it makes things appear outside of his mind.
    this is an illusion, a trick - commonly referred to as delusion.
    it is said that his mind doesn't work right. but of course the others are going to say this. they do not want to be just a part of his mind, or their world to be just a part of his mind, so this is what they tell him. and they claim to exist independently from his mind and from him. and maybe they do. it doesn't really matter. this isn't something he needs to be proven true or false. it is merely something that seems to him to be true. if it isn't - oh well. no big deal.
    it's just his imagination.
    he lights another cigarette.
    there is this and there is that.
    there is one thing and there is the other.
    there is that which is and there is that which isn't.
    he watches people, the others doing what they do with all the noise and activity of their doing what they do.
    it is everything and it is nothing.
    it is all just his imagination.

    and he thinks about what he might want. he is asked that often - what does he want? he doesn't know. what is there to want? what does this world have to offer that might be something one might want? he wants what he needs to survive and live - food, clothing, shelter. but anyone wants that. and he wouldn't want even that if he didn't need it - except his coffee and cigarettes which he actually likes. and pizza sometimes. he would want not to need it. he would love to be able to wander around naked everywhere winter, spring, summer and fall and maybe get energy direct from the sun. he had always wanted to be a tree. to just stand there in all sorts of weather feeding from the ground and sun and thinking century long thoughts.
    those necessary things things are his weakness. the others have power over him and can control him because of it. they can threaten to take away from him what he needs if he doesn't do this or doesn't not do that. so he has kept what he needs down to a bare minimum as much as he is able without causing himself any undue real discomfort. well, almost minimum. he has finagled a few things he doesn't really need out of them. this computer for one thing. plus a few other things he enjoys playing with. he went to school at their expense and learned what he could before they took the money away. but anything less than what he's got would be in the street. he sees no reason to take it that far. he's been there and done that. he didn't like it though he could have survived if he had to. and, even then there is no point where others do not have power and control over one. even among the bums the many rule the few - or those who can control the many rule everybody. it is their nature. it is what they appoint for themselves to be - the rulers. there must be someone who has power and control. even among the so-called anarchists as he found out. we would not be human if that weren't true. we can't help ourselves.
    so where does one take it from here?
    where does one want to take it?
    where should one want to take it?
    is there some utopian goal one should strive for and aspire to bring oneself there and others too?
    how much damage has been done by those operating under that idea in the past, and even still today?
    would he be any different if he had such an idea?
    hadn't those before thought they were different?
    won't they think so tomorrow?
    so it goes on.
    so time goes on.
    we do the same things over and over.
    it gives us some amount of comfort.
    if we repeat what we are doing then we must be doing the right thing.
    it works.
    this is true even for those in opposition to the way things are.
    they repeat their opposition over and over.
    it's like going to a job.
    if they repeatedly carry out acts of opposition they must be doing something right.
    it brings them comfort through familiarity.
    and that is what he does too.
    but is that what we want?

    and on-stage in the burning theater:
    x: is there anything to say?
    y: haven't we been through this?
    x: yes.
    y: so why go through it again?
    x: we need to talk about something.
    y: do we? why?
    x: what else are we doing?
    y: not much.
    x: then why not talk about something?
    y: just because two people are together doesn't mean they need to talk.
    x: but we are talking.
    y: yes we are. but not because we need to.
    x: then why are we talking?
    y: you're talking. i'm just responding.
    x: so if i didn't say anything, you would say anything?
    y: i might, or might not. right now i don't feel like i have anything to say.
    x: so i should stop bothering you?
    y: no. i don't mind talking. if i did i would say so. i just don't have anything to say on my own that i would initiate talking about. and it doesn't seem to me like you do either.
    x: what do you mean?
    y: well you only just brought up whether we should be talking about something or not. you really haven't brought up a subject or topic other than that.
    x: well we could talk about anything.
    y: we could, but we're not.
    x: so why don't we?
    y: such as?
    x: such as anything.
    y: like what?
    x: like - politics. people talk about politics a lot.
    y: so we should be talking about what other people talk about?
    x: is there some reason not to?
    y: it's pointless and boring.
    x: and this conversation we're having isn't?
    y: no more or less than any other.
    x: so why not talk about politics?
    y: we can if you want to.
    x: but do you want to?
    y: i will.
    x: but do you want to?
    y: sure, why not?
    x: because you think it's pointless and boring.
    y: and you think it's not?
    x: it doesn't need to be.
    y: so how is it not?
    x: when there are certain issues a stake like questions about power, authority, freedom, responsibility. things like that.
    y: and talking about them does what?
    x: well, for a start it lets us work out how these are thought of and defined and what the limits of them should be. hopefully  to arrive at some measure of understanding and general agreement so we can get along with one another without violent conflict all the time.
    y: and suppose we don't agree on that?
    x: why shouldn't we?
    y: there isn't a should or shouldn't involved, but a what is. perhaps you and others may agree that this is a desirable goal but others may not. some may see that conflict is the whole point of politics. they might maintain that to remove conflict from politics is to remove their freedom, or their power - or something. and these people might resist any attempt to end conflict. then that would force those who do not want conflict into conflict.
    x: are you one of those who want conflict?
    y: i am not to the extent of promoting conflict for its own sake, or promoting its use to resolve other things. however, i do not support the ending of conflict for the sake of ending conflict either. the end of conflict should come about in the natural course of things as they happen. conflict is not ended by forcing it to stop. conflict would still exist. as soon as that force is removed, it erupts again.
    x: what do you mean by the natural course of things?
    y: when things reach the point, if ever, when conflict is no longer desired or need by anyone. when it is no more a desired means or end. when it becomes extinct of its own accord, not because it was exterminated. conflict cannot be exterminated because it takes conflict to do that. how can something be exterminated by something that continues it?
    x: well, i think you and i are saying the same thing. i never said anything about forcing the end of conflict. and wouldn't the more we talk openly about things - the issues of disagreement - lead more toward the natural extinction of conflict? besides, i was talking about violent conflict, not conflict itself. i would agree that there may always be conflict of some sort. but there is a difference between the conflict of debate and violent conflict like war.
    y: yes, there is. but when debate fails, violent conflict steps in. and i would say too that we are close in what we are saying. the extinction of conflict, of violent conflict, could come about by our ability to openly debate issues of disagreement. maybe that will happen some day. who knows? but for now, and for all of our history, the success of things being settled by open debate has rested in our ability to use violent conflict as a last resort should that open debate break down. it's the big stick that allows us to walk softly. who is willing to put that down without being forced to? maybe many. but even if it's most, it needs to be all. no single faction can be left, no matter how small, that sees its own interest being served in some way by violent conflict. and what will lead to that? what most often leads to that?  it is some faction feeling that they do not have a voice in the open debate. and that feeling is likely to increase in proportion to how small that faction is, or feels itself to be - all the way down to a faction of one, or many factions of one. this is the question that needs our attention, not as to whether open debate might lead to the end of violent conflict. i don't think many would disagree with that. what many would disagree with is is how true any possible open debate would or could be - especially in terms of being able to be open to their own particular concerns. concerns that they would be willing to resort to violent conflict to keep on the table. how do we deal with that?
    x: i can see that keeping an open debate is nearly impossible. but we cannot allow that to cause us to give up.
    y: no, we shouldn't. but i can see how it will remain a source of conflict - even violent conflict. it's a catch-22 thingie. how do we, those who wish for a truly open debate, keep that debate open against those who would close it off to others who are a small minority without resorting to possible violent conflict? is violent conflict a justifiable means toward the end of creating and maintaining an open debate?
    x; that's the question. it's an age old question. does it have an answer?
    y: and if it does, whatever it might be, are all of us in agreement that that is the answer?
    x: if we're not then it's not the answer. but is there an answer beyond that - beyond all the answers we might disagree on? as different as we all are, collectively and individually, we are all human. is there something that communicates to the common humanness? i feel that there should be.
    y: i feel that there should be too. but one aspect of being human speaks against it. that is that it seems to be pretty widespread, if not universal, that humans and human societies tend to collect into groups of various sizes and around various ideas and concepts of identity which consider those inside that group who share these same ideas as us while considering those outside that group who do not share these ideas as them. this may reach an extreme where those who are considered them may not even be considered to be human or equally human. and they would not be considered to have a right to an equal voice or maybe any voice in an open debate by those who are us. and the inclusion of them as having an equal voice might be resisted, even violently resisted, by those who are us. and most often those feelings are mutual between these two groups. then it comes down to which group has the most power and means to keep the other group out.
    x: yes. and how does one fit an answer into that?
    y: you don't.
    x: i take it that you don't believe in universal love.
    y: i believe that there are those capable of achieving it, but they are few and far between and may quite rightly be called saints - though they are almost universally hated and despised by those who adhere to us and them definitions because they threaten those definitions and those who identify with them. they may stand as examples of how we should be but they do so because we are not. it is our not being saints that we must consider and deal with. it is not enough that there are saints or near saints. it is not enough that an enlightened group is able to rise above our common human failings. this is the failure of all utopian social theories - from plato's guardians to marx's dictators of the proletariat or the church and its clergy. even when we get to elect them ourselves it doesn't seem to work. there is a common idea to all of them that we can be driven like sheep or cattle into paradise by these enlightened ones. there are those who will resist that - again, by violent means if necessary - no matter what form it takes or what face it wears.
    x: even the face of a goat?
    y: even the face of the blessed virgin.
    x: even the face of an alien?
    y: even the face of blinding radiant light with thundering voice.
    x: so much for politics.
    y: so much for the human race.
    x: do you give up on it?
    y: it will survive. it will struggle along. it will struggle primarily against itself more than anything else, except maybe the environment. it comes from nowhere and it goes to nowhere. what it is it brings with it wherever it goes - even into paradise.
    x: and what is it that it is?
    y: what is the essential quality of being human?
    x: i don't know. is that what you meant?
    y: i think i probably did. is there any?
    x: one quality?
    y: i doubt that there is one. there might be though.
    x: would you say there's a bundle of qualities?
    y: can we even say that? is there a bundle of qualities common to all humans?
    x: what does the word human mean then?
    y: is it a common word? is it translatable? in the language of our culture human means everyone in the world irregardless of any other distinction or quality. do others feel the same? or do they reserve the term human for themselves and consider others to be not human?
    x: it is my understanding that many of them do.
    y: as it is mine. though not everyone has had contact with as many people as we have had. we've had contact with nearly everyone unless there's some hidden tribes somewhere we haven't found yet. and though we categorize people all sorts of ways, we still consider them all to be human - though not always equal to ourselves.
    x: so at least our word human does imply some common quality or qualities.
    y: yes, i think so. it is believed that humans are different due to demands of different environments they settled in. these differences are not so much how humans are different but how adaptable being human can be. they have been able to survive in almost every geographic climate on earth. but, with all that being said, what is the underlying quality or qualities of being human? what made us say that someone as radically different in almost every possible way from ourselves is still human? what is it that this person and ourselves have in common?
    x: is it physical qualities? is it having, or normally having, a head with eyes, nose, ears and mouth, a body with arms and legs, being bipedal, having an opposable thumb, being male and female?
    y: it is that, but not just that. what is it that makes someone who may not have some or most of these qualities? what of someone who may be not much more than a head with a torso? - who may only have the bare minimum to be able to still be alive and may need machines to do even that? what about the internal qualities like the mind? the self? the soul? what is the human soul, if i might be allowed that word? and i do not mean some ethereal entity that inhabits our bodies but... i don't know what i mean.
    x: we are treading some pretty thin ice here.
    y: yes, i know. but i don't think we need to get too heavy or deep about this.  i'm referring to the common perception, not some overanalyzed contrived argument arrived at after years of study and contemplation. what is it that makes even an uneducated ordinary person look at another person and say that person is human? though, as i said, this person may make other distinctions about that other person.
    x: so what about something else?
    y: something else?
    x: talking about something else.
    y: like what color we should paint the kitchen or should we wallpaper it instead?
    x: well, maybe not quite that mundane.
    y: mundane? this could be a very spiritual metaphysical discussion and decision. it could change our very lives whether we choose yellow instead of blue, or a stripe instead of a flower print. there are also political, social and economic concerns.
    x: political?
    y: interpersonal politics. how do you and i go about deciding what to decide? how do we mediate that decision without resorting to violent conflict?
    x: oh. so we're back there again.
    y: we don't need to be. the question is, what is mundane?
    x: huh? it is?
    y: what you said - mundane. a discussion of what to do with the kitchen is mundane. but is it? we can have a mundane discussion about it or not. but that's true with anything. we can have a mundane discussion about the the highest and most abstract things. it's the discussion and the people involved in it that are mundane, not the subject.
    x: there is what is said. there is what is acted. there is what is said as action.
    y: how do we explore about what is and is not something or something else?
    x: we create spells.
    y: we speak and act in riddles. we only fool ourselves.
    x: that is the spell.
    y: when do we tire of this business?
    x: when we are dead. and sometimes not even then.
    y: is it always death? is that the only unit of measurement we know?
    x: it is the only unit of measurement that is finite. everything else goes on forever as far as we know and is measureless.
    y: so, is it that we can only measure things when they are dead? or is it that things die when we measure them?
    x: both. neither. measurement is only possible by using discrete finite units. is anything living discrete and finite? if not, can it be measured? to measure something is to say where it begins and ends. what is it that has a beginning and an ending but a corpse?
    y: i suppose.  i don't care.  this is nonsense. everything is nonsense. death is nonsense. death, death and death. everything is about death. everything is created to die, measured or not.
    x: isn't everything created to live? and isn't the death of one thing the creation of another?
    y: sure. but what is living?
    x: living is living. it is experiencing.
    y: and so we experience. experience what?
    x: living.
    y: and living is experience, so it just goes back in on itself.
    x: what else would you have it do?
    y: i don't know.
    x: is this your own death you are concerned about?
    y: is that it? is it that simple? do we put everything into that box and tape it shut and store it away? am i concerned about my own death? i would have to say that i am. is that the sole substance of what i am saying? no. it is not.
    x: so what else is it?
    y: it is ignorance - pointless ignorance.
    x: ignorance?
    y: we experience, but what do we know?
    x: we know enough.
    y: enough for what?
    x: enough to survive.
    y: so we survive. is that it?
    x: isn't that enough?
    y: for a lizard it would be.
    x: survival is a necessary component for anything else - even death. death only has meaning by its own survival. but survival isn't enough - except for, as you said, the lizard. it is what is experienced that gives survival its meaning. experience is meaning.
    y: so what are we experiencing besides just living and surviving?
    x: what do we not experience?
    y: eternity.
    x: do we not?
    y: of course not.  we arrive here now very late and we leave here now too soon. our experience is minimal, to the point of being nothing.
    x: and you would have more?
    y: i would have us all have more.
    x: the world would become quite crowded if that were the case.
    y: yeah.
    x: and what experience would you have us have for eternity? would you have someone whose life is almost constant suffering, pain and torment experience that for eternity?
    y: no.
    x: so once we start down that path where do we end up? how many other ways can this be divided?
    y: we are back to death.
    x: yes.

    with everything brought to a point where we might see it, we stood waiting.
    what is this?
    what is this state?
    what is a state?
    how do we describe it?
    who describes it?
    questions explode in his mind like so many fireworks - a crescendo toward a rising grand finale.
    then there is silence that remains as it had always been beneath the noise that now echoes away.
    is the silence the answer?
    is the silence the state?
    is the silence the description?
    the underlying silence which has been described as being the the foundational state of mind and the universe by some.
    the nirvana.
    and out of it comes the vibrational aum.
    but what about the noise of everything else?
    do we walk away from it to some mountain top within ourselves and pretend it no longer exists because we no longer hear it because we are bothered by it?
    do we sit as sidhartha by the river gazing at the myriad of faces flowing by in the eternal stream?
    and what of those faces?
    are they meaningless?
    each is a face of someone who is living a life amid the noise.
    a face in pleasure and pain, in delight and torment.
    who are we who have stepped away into a sphere of disinterested contentment?
    are we real?
    do we experience reality?
    then there are those who remain in the thick of the noise who battle the currents of the stream, which are at times rapids.
    they describe the state in those terms - the inequality, the injustice, the prejudice, the discrimination, the abuse of power, the selfishness and greed, the wars and rumors of wars, the famine, the pestilence, the disease and all the rest of that sort of thing.
    is that the state?
    is that a more accurate and truer description?
    or can it be both?
    can it be that amid the noise of anguish that there is peace to be found?
    is it a matter of individual perspective?
    is it a matter of individual choice?
    is it a matter of individual chance?
    whatever...

    so still there is the question of what is the substance of things.
    what is the canvas beneath the painting?
    what is the screen behind the movie?
    how do we realize it?
    how do we know it?
    how do we describe it?
    it is said that we construct reality.
    but what is it that we construct it from?
    what do we construct it upon?
    what drives us to do the constructing?
    it seems that reality is constructed a certain way to create a sense of order.
    this usually gives one group power, advantage and control over others who usually claim this comes from higher authority.
    why would we want to do this, even if we are one of this group?
    what is order?
    what is power?
    what is advantage?
    what is control?
    what do these things give us?
    and if one group creates order, aren't they only able to do so if others desire order as well?
    and the same with all else?
    one group creates money - whether it's seashells, gold, paper. electronic bits.
    money is valueless unless it is valued.
    one cannot eat it, wear it or live in it.
    others have to want to have it.
    why would they want to if it only meant that the group who created it gained power, advantage and control?
    one group can only dominate if others are willing to be dominated.
    the economists say that we compete for limited resources.
    this is not that.
    we can easily maintain ourselves within the resources available and to increase those resources as we need them.
    we have the ability and means to control our population to the point where everyone has enough for what they need and even a little more for what they want.
    we all want more than what we need to just survive.
    we need amusement of some kind.
    we are playful beings.
    but we do not do that.
    why?
    what drives us to do it the crazy way that is so injurious to so many?
    is it primal?
    is it the ape within?
    is it the gods we worship?
    though some have tried to teach us the other way but we always put it back the crazy way.
    we have always disobeyed our gods, except the ones who promise us power.
    by this sign you will conquer.
    when do we come to our senses?

    so here we are.
    here we are as we have become who we are.
    the first question is, who are we?
    is there a we who we are?
    the pronoun, we, is both inclusive and exclusive.
    there are those recognize and recognize themselves as being included in being we.
    and there are those recognized and recognize themselves as not included in being we.
    this may be mutual and agreed recognition or not.
    we also exists at different levels or ranges of inclusion and exclusion.
    and different groups of we may have different distinctions of inclusion and exclusion.
    one group of we may include another group as being we but that other group may not include them in with their we.
    this seems to be who we are.
    we are human.
    this is what being human is all about - or so it would seem from our experience.

    but can anyone speak for anyone else?
    can we speak for anyone else?
    anyone else besides ourselves?
    and who are we?
    we are the ones speaking here and now.
    and who we are is dependent upon who others are, or think of themselves as being.
    and how they define and distinguish themselves as being we.
    and how they define and distinguish us as being them - not we.
    we have been kicked out of or did not wish to belong to just about every group in town.
    so where does that leave us?
    is there an us?
    or is this only him wishing there was an us.
    though he is on his own he still has that innate human desire to belong.
    he has learned to live on his own.
    he is not isolated.
    he goes out but only to those places where it's ok to be alone to oneself.
    like a cafe.
    here there is no pressure to belong in order to stay or any pressure to leave if one doesn't.
    he's just another customer.
    that could be a group, we suppose.
    he does have his friends who come hang out with him.
    are they a group?
    they are not a group together outside of being his friends.
    they have nothing to do with each other besides that.
    he mostly meets with each of them alone.
    if more than one of them are with him at the same time they are polite to each other.
    he expects that.
    though each think the other is a little bit weird.
    but they all think that.
    that is common among them.
    he thinks they're all a little bit weird so he understands how they feel.
    this is as close to being in a group as he gets.