a play of some words -

    larry: as one thing approaches another i find that i do not know what to say out of all that i am thinking. there are so many possibilities. there are so many possibilities. there are so many possibilities of possible combinations of possibilities. there are possibilities of what is to be. there are so many possibilities of how what is to be is to be thought of as being. and those too have many possibilities of possible combinations of possibilities. and thinking of this is all such old business. i do not know much of the old business of it except to know it is very old. others before have been coming here for many centuries that stretch into millennia. they have spoken and written their thoughts in many languages. most of what they have spoken or written has been lost. we have fragments of partial accounts. what is lost also is those having the luxury to freely think of these things. to them we are dull-witted idiots. even given the chance to think we find that we cannot. one does not think of these things out of thin air. one cannot think of what one cannot define that which is what one is thinking. that is what we who come here now are facing. we are disconnected from and ignorant of what has been thought here before. we do not know what it was called - how it was defined. the temple is in ruins having been trashed and plundered by those seeking wealth and power - those peasant conquistadors searching for cities of gold. they recognized only that gold one could hold in one's hand and put in one's pocket and take to the market place. but at the market place what is there to buy? there are stalls and booths with shelves full of trinkets and gizmos, but is there knowledge and wisdom? does one purchase knowledge and wisdom? is it possible? - even in the hundreds and thousands of books for sale? i walk into the bookstores and libraries and see nothing. i see entertainment and amusement. i see that which might pass the time. i see that which might even gain one wealth and power. is that knowledge and wisdom? that was also lost long ago if it even existed. that which is passed along to us as knowledge and wisdom is only that which is recognized as such by those seeking wealth and power. to them one is the same as the other. but true knowledge and wisdom is that which arms one to be able to resist the tempting lure of wealth and power. once one is able to resist then one has the luxury to freely think about what one wishes to think about in all its possibilities. it is only then when one's mind is clear. it that which has been lost. when one is able to arrive here one finds oneself alone in the temple which is in ruins.
    harry: but what is it that has been left abandoned? was it anything? if it was then why is it now in ruins? what was it a temple to? should there be temples to anything? wasn't that what it was about, not to worship anything? - not to hold anything above anything else? - most importantly above oneself? do we need this temple to be who we are? and even so, isn't this temple in ruins still a temple to us? do we need it standing high and glowing in the sun? let others build those temples and go to them and worship the wealth and power they symbolize and embody. what is all of that to us? what has it ever been? what will it ever be?
    barry: there is neither this nor that. there is what is and what is not. do we define what is real? does reality wait upon our wishes and desires? does it limit itself to our perception and understanding? who is it who says what is possible or not possible? there are clouds over everything. there is mist upon the ground. one would believe oneself to be in hades among the shadows who may know the truth of things but whose whispers do not disturb even the air. one may hear them if one is silent and in a quiet place. their voices may be perceived intermingling with one's thoughts and only if one knows one's own mind enough to distinguish them from one's own.
    larry: so it would seem to be that the point of life is to arrive at where one is alone with oneself. one must gather along the way what one might need once one arrives here. one may turn back at any point along the way but once one arrives here at the destination there is no returning. there is nothing to be gained except what one already possesses. the place is empty and void of all things unto itself. the only reason to arrive here is to arrive here. there is no prize. there is no reward. there is nothing given or granted. this is not a place that is physical or geographical, though going to physical or geographic places of isolation may prepare one for arriving here but not if one isolates oneself from the world yet brings things of the world along with oneself. if that is the case then one should not bother as one will only be wasting one's time. to be alone with oneself does not require isolation and isolation does not always mean being alone with oneself.
    harry: why do we speak of ourselves as being apart from the world? why was the world created only for us to be apart from it? why the mystery? why is it a puzzle? why are we in a place for the sole purpose of escaping from it?
    barry: we can make up as many questions as we want and can think of. we can answer them any way we choose to answer them. the world and ourselves in the world exist in what is not defined. what is defined comes into existence within our sphere of perception and experience. we ask whether it defines itself or whether we define it. we know only what we choose to know. we know it as what we choose to know it as. there is knowing that is not knowing things in a certain way they are known to be that may not be as they are. what they are may be unknowable. this may not be because we are incapable of knowing them as they are but because their being unknowable is what they are. there may be no mystery here, no puzzle. we think of the world as a mystery and a puzzle and that we only have some of the pieces and not others fitted together. the mystery and puzzle of the world may not need to be complete to be complete. the part of it that is incomplete and remains a mystery and puzzle to us may be that which makes it complete.
    larry: we wander along this path that never ends. we are on a journey that is itself the goal - if i may be so trite. we explain our ignorance in so many ways to allow ourselves to be comfortable and continue. we say it is illusion. we say it is our fall from perfection. we say we deceive ourselves. we say whatever we need to say in order to save face. all that is not important. there is no source. there is no destination. there is no path. there is only us being in the world dealing with the world and ourselves in whatever way we can put together to do it. we define what is and what is not, and what is right and wrong, and what is good and what is evil and all the rest of our definitions toward our own individual and collective self-interest. our interest is to survive and to survive as comfortably as we can manage. sometimes some of us figure out how to do that quite easily with few problems. some only figure it out only marginally and it is always a struggle. for some the struggle is what it is and what they look for. they always push themselves to the edge of it. to think about all of this is to think about nothing. the lives and activities of humans may prove to be of some interest. they are all in a complex network web one can observe and study in great detail but it is basically irrelevant to anything but the subject itself and its observation and study. we may come at certain times to believe that we have found some way  of coming to an understanding of ourselves. this may or may not be true. more often it comes to be proven that we do not have such an understanding. but if at some time that we do come to such an understanding that proves not to be false we will have accomplished only that which is only relevant to ourselves. it will be important only in context to ourselves. we will be able to say that we understand ourselves to be this and that we have not come across anything which would prove that we are wrong in this understanding. we ourselves may rejoice in this. what other goal have we had? what other goal did not have this goal ultimately in mind? and this goal being achieved achieves nothing but that. and what is that? what is it to have come to some understanding of ourselves? is it a joke? is it nothing more than something to keep ourselves busy?
    harry: is all thought nonsense? is consciousness only an image reflected upon itself  - the image created by the reflection? is creation only god gazing into a mirror? and which is the mirror - god or creation? is it one mirror gazing at itself into another mirror? is that the alpha and the omega? is this the war that rages in heaven? is it the mirror that god casts into oblivion not liking what it sees? is what is reflected always opposite of what is with the two being unable to co-exist together as one since only one can be one?
    barry: the war that rages in heaven rages in the mind of god. heaven is the mind of god as is hell and as is oblivion. we are blessed with our ignorance of this. god is to be pitied. for it there is no escape, there is no forgetting except to dive into creation which for god is the same as oblivion. for it there is only the eternal consciousness of its own madness that has no beginning or ending and is forever now. when god offers us its protection this is what it protects us from - itself. this is what few realize when one takes the path toward promised enlightenment, nor do they realize it when they arrive at that goal. one attains peace and contentment and dissolves blissfully into a cloud of nothingness. one never comes upon the horror of the madness of god as it knows itself. this is hidden behind the veil of the oblivion of the self - the oblivion of the awareness of the madness of the self existing alone with only a mirror to gaze into forever. these ones smash the mirror and the self disappears. how easy that is. how delightful and gratifying to destroy that which is unresolvable and leads one into its own madness. how wonderful to turn away from that and to step into paradise - to step over the corpse of the self. i can understand others desiring to achieve this - to transcend all that is in disharmony and paradoxical contradiction, all that is hypocrisy and lies, all that is discomforting, all that is pain and death. but the self remains deserted and abandoned as that which must always be denied and overcome and cast out. the self lies mortally wounded on the battlefield while others march away singing of victory. the self must always die. the self is the face of horror they must turn away from otherwise their eyes will be burned to blindness forever screaming. the self is the fire of hell eternally burning. all must be sacrificed to this fire - to the self. all the world must burn in this fire. the self has the last laugh.
    larry: what we speak of is of nothing of any consequence except as we believe it is and direct our actions accordingly. this would be a problem except that we feel most people's actions are a problem. but that is not what i wish to talk about. i wish to tell a story but i have forgotten what the story was or what it was about.

    the divine sound of things breaking in the process of creation and destruction as what is and what is not are transformed by action and reaction. where do we draw the line? what do we say is created or destroyed? what do we say is what is and what is not? what do we say is action and what is reaction? when do we draw the line and define this from that and enclose ourselves within one perceived world and excludes one from another? this is what we do as our being human and accepting being human and acting and behaving as being human to reinforce and insure our being human. and then we spit on ourselves for being such. we hate and despise ourselves for being human. we consider being human as being a curse. we wail and moan and beg the gods to guide us and protect us and forgive us. who could expect anything more from us than that? we don't expect anything more from ourselves. whatever gods there may be haven't expressed any expectations of anything more from us than that. why should they? if we were more than that, more than being sniveling humans, we would be able to do without them - to even challenge their position. so it is in the gods' own best self-interest to encourage us to believe that we are no more than that and to be pitied as such. and we encourage them to encourage us everytime we go begging to them for aid and assistance. even those of us who have cast out the gods and refuse anymore to believe in them have not taken the next logical - if irrationalogical - step in their beloved system of reason that locks us into being human more so than before except now we are alone with the dark angst. they say, there are no gods and we are human. they do not say, there are no gods but ourselves. if we are to remain only human in either case then why remove the gods? at least we would have the sweet delusion of our opium. instead the rationalists have given us concrete and steel to worship. there is no blood or breath in their world. there is no blood or breath in ourselves except for our growing rage we turn inward toward ourselves with all our physiological and psychological diseases.

    and while sandy bunny, local blonde cheerleader-type bombshell sexpot, was dreaming along the edge of existence, honey jim, dark slippery greaser, put out a cigarette in an ashtray with swift punctuated jabbing motions ending with a twisting crushing finale and said, i am the god of doo-wah, baby. you won't be making any mistake by me. i'll lick ya and prick ya till the cows come dancing mooing home. i'll make ya work and sweat like a prizefighter. you won't catch your breath till next week. you won't need your vibrator for a month. you'll still be glowing a year from now. so don't be so cool and treat me like i'm a fool. don't miss out on what it's all about. come on, baby, turn yourself my way.
    and mona, who was sitting next to dreaming sandy, sighed and said, you are such a jive master. i could make you squirt in your pants in two seconds. or i could make you shrivel up and die. i can turn you into an old woman. i can make you beg.
    there was another siren - another emergency. mona got up and left. honey jim went to the men's room. sandy bunny died. the government was overthrown though nobody noticed. there was a ceremony performed by the high priests of zog. there was a rocket launched toward neptune. many people were laughing. many people were being killed. words were being spoken. words were being written. salvation of all kinds was advertised on tv.

    meanwhile on-stage in the burning theater -

    jack: how much do we need to know about all we don't know about?
    jill: what do you mean?
    jack: i talk and i hear words coming out of my mouth. i have holes in my shirt. i am wearing year old black boots.
    jill: does that answer my question?
    jack: did you answer mine?
    jill: i don't know what you question means.
    jack: i don't know what you mean.
    jill: do you know what meaning is?
    jack: cause and effect?
    jill: i suppose some would say so.
    jack: we should have them taken out and shot.
    jill: why?
    jack: i've never seen anybody shot before. i would just like to.
    jill: i understand that. but why them?
    jack: so they can see the meaning of cause and effect.
    jill: i thought you said meaning was cause and effect.
    jack: did i? i thought i only asked if cause and effect was meaning.
    jill: yes - i suppose you did state it as a question.
    jack: did you answer it?
    jill: i said some might think so. you then said that they should be shot.
    jack: shouldn't they?
    jill: i'm not arguing that. you said they should be shot so they could see the meaning of cause and effect.
    jack: so?
    jill: so, if meaning is cause and effect then how can there be meaning to cause and effect?
    jack: that doesn't make sense, but i suppose maybe there can't be. does it matter?
    jill: we can say that nothing matters.
    jack: are we saying that?
    jill: i don't see why we should.
    jack: let's not then. what does that leave us with?
    jill: something that matters.
    jack: what does that mean?
    jill: something that is important.
    jack: meaning?
    jill: something that makes things be what they are - like you and me.
    jack: so we're left with you and me - or me and you - and all else related to our being?
    jill: i suppose so.
    jack: and that matters?
    jill: to me it does, though i could imagine that it wouldn't if i didn't exist.
    jack: so it matters because it is?
    jill: it matters because it is and it is being experienced.
    jack: but does that matter?
    jill: to who?
    jack: to whoever.
    jill: to those who are not and who don't experience it, probably not. and maybe not to many who are and are experiencing it. i am and i am experiencing it so it matters to me. whether that itself matters i have no way of determining, though i do think about it at times, though thinking about it is pointless. i am satisfied with the experiencing of it and my being to experience it. if it turns out at some point that it doesn't matter, then that is what happens.
    jack: so that's all you need to know?
    jill: i don't know if that is all i need to know. how am i to know that? maybe it is. maybe it's not. i know that is what i know. i get new information all the time and sometimes what i know changes - but, so what? am i closer to knowing anything that matters besides what i already know? maybe. maybe not. it's just information. it might be useful. it might not. it might expand what i already know, or it might not. i accept that. i don't need to know anything. i exist and somehow i continue to exist. and as i exist, i experience. i feel that my experience leads to my knowing about certain things. i at least become familiar with them since many of them seem to repeat themselves. maybe that's not knowing. maybe that's just simple learned response. i claim nothing beyond that i exist and i experience.
    jack: an animal does that.
    jill: and i'm not an animal? am i some special act of creation like some people who have us believe? i find that idea that i am an animal and arose out of a process of evolution to be far more amazing than ideas about instant creation by some weird god thing for purposes known only to itself. all those ideas are ideas of children. they are bedtime stories or something you tell a child when they won't shut up and keep asking why all the time.
    jack: but how can you be sure you are experiencing?
    jill: i can't. it is argued that what we experience is illusion. but that doesn't matter. it is still experience. it's a challenge to try to think past what may be illusion in order to perceive or imagine what might be beyond it - if there is anything. if it is illusion and i never see beyond it then that is what it is. that is what i experience. that's ok. i can still enjoy the experience for whatever it is - illusion or not. i can enjoy trying to reach beyond the illusion even if i am fated to fail. that too is experience. i don't have to overcome it or give into it. i exist and it exists. illusion or not, my existence is tied to it and interrelated with it. it provides the means of my experience. even if it is illusion, what else is there to experience? nothing. how does one experience nothing?
    jack: but there is a time when that happens.
    jill: is there?
    jack: death.
    jill: have you ever been dead?
    jack: there was a time when i wasn't alive.
    jill: life and existence may not be the same thing.
    jack: so you're saying there is existence other than life?
    jill: i don't know if there isn't.
    jack: so what would it be?
    jill: i have no idea. but that doesn't eliminate the possibility.
    jack: and if there isn't?
    jill: oh well. i've enjoyed my existence while it lasted. my ceasing to exist when i am no longer alive doesn't take away from that, though the thought of coming to the end of my existence does cause me some amount of sadness and maybe even fear. but that is unavoidable. it's the price of being aware of one's existence and being also aware of one's possible non-existence. but the latter only intensifies the experience of existing - that at any moment it could vanish. i'm not going to waste my experience now in despair of the possibility of not existing and oblivion or imagining some after-death dream existence.
    jack: so if you're not doing that then what are you doing?
    jill: i'm just existing and experiencing.
    jack: that's it?
    jill: what else should i be doing? should i be going to amusement parks and parties all the time for thrills and adventure? should i live a life of sex, drugs and rock and roll? should i conquer the world? should i make a zillion dollars? should i be attending the poor and hungry? should i champion some cause or another? should i be creating great works of art or science?
    jack: i don't know. you could do any of those things or not. why did you choose to do what you're doing?
    jill: it just came up that way - the path of least resistance, i suppose. just hanging out thinking about this or that. you could ask me the same question no matter what i chose to do. there is no reason to choose one thing over another - except choosing what one needs to survive and continue to exist and experience and to be reasonably comfortable with that existence and experience.
    jack: do you feel comfortable?
    jill: i am aware that many people would come to me and say that i shouldn't. many people have done that. i've managed to get those people to go away and leave me alone. i'm pretty comfortable with that. i was brought up and raised in a culture that functions on guilt and i'm not entirely immune to it. but i have been able to silence it quite a bit - down to a dull roar, as they say. let them run around and whipping themselves in punishment for their sins. i'm comfortable here just laughing at them and their antics, though i suppose some of it does do some good and results in good things which i enjoy - like flush indoor toilets. but i'm not good at any of that. i've spent my time trying. i lacked conviction and that's what it takes. i never took anything seriously but i think it's fine that they do.

    as whatever turns toward what is being. the moment burps and farts and takes another slug of beer. joe schmoe has a cardiac arrest and goes down like he was picked off by a sniper. one face in the crowd that is no one unless it is oneself. then it is oneself that is no one to everyone else. one is inside that bell jar from which all can been seen but nothing is heard. all is exposed but nothing is understood. we are each contained in this space.
    but let's make up something else. let's make up a story that is easier to swallow and fits more comfortably like satin sheets. let's make believe that that is what is happening. let's forget that we are that face in the crowd common and ordinary with common ordinary fantasies about being something else. what should we be? should we be rich and be able to do what we want because no one can stop us? should we be poor and be able to do what we want because we don't give a fuck? what are the forces compelled to envision in later rapture driven by the easy degradation of smooth ecstasy? the concrete paradise vaporized by dreams. the incomplete waiting broken with sudden sadness left over from where nothingness erupts.
    we stand around. we talk among ourselves. in this once in a while a fight breaks out against the wall thick flaming chrome. someone dives into it. someone arrives with sealed words to speak to those who gather to discuss the future around where the clocks keep time and the screaming of the innocents begins.
    so what do we imagine for ourselves to be? what is it in relation to that we consider for ourselves to be what's happening or what is considered by others to be happening? who are these others and why is what they consider so important? are they the elite? are they our peers? are they the masses? do we look up, look down or look out for what is happening - for that which we are to model ourselves to be what's happening? or do we decide it for ourselves and perhaps have the others look to us for a possible clue? and again - who? what others? whose acknowledgment that we are what's happening would we accept as being valid? or do we accept no one's? fuck what everybody else thinks is happening except ourselves - right?
    and do we begin by deciding who we are and what we are doing or who we want to be and what we want to be doing? which is happening? which is going to be happening? where will we find ourselves when it is happening? we don't have to be or do diddly squat. technically, we don't even have to exist.
    but we do exist. and here we are existing as these human creatures and that is what is happening. we need certain conditions to continue to exist - food, clothing, shelter and all that. but that is not what is happening even though that is what is happening. we are just common ordinary joe shmoes - and jane shmoes too. and we're making up a story to tell ourselves to divide ourselves from who we are - these common ordinary joe and jane schmoes. but being these common ordinary schmoes entails having common ordinary fantasies. the fantasies of common ordinary schmoes aren't usually about being common ordinary schmoes. common ordinary schmoes want more - and more and more and more. they are capable of fantasizing consuming mass quantities of stuff to fulfill their common ordinary desires believing that their desires will be fulfilled by this consumption when their one real desire is the act of consuming itself. so consuming does fulfill the desire to consume. endless consumption fulfills the endless desire to consume. that is the fantasy of the common ordinary schmoes - the common ordinary schmoes that is who we are. that is what is happening.
    and we have perfected this consumption to a fine though gluttonous art with our organization and technology to increase our consumption to exponential proportions. we find, grow, invent, manufacture things to consume both material and non-material. we produce in order to consume with the idea that we may consume more than we produce and come out ahead of the game without thinking it out just how this is to happen though there are those who are able to manipulate the whole scheme so that they do just that. hooray for them. and the rest of us admire them and believe that they are what is happening. we watch them on our tvs and drool. we gaze fondly upon them in magazines and dream our dreams. and we also love it when they crash and burn. it is the fantasy of the common ordinary schmoe to be one of these who consume far more than they produce - even to not produce anything at all. pure consumption is the ideal. those of us forced to produce in order to consume are despised even though that includes most of us. what is consumed can be anything. on a basic level it is our needs of food, clothing and shelter. above that is physical pleasure and material luxury. then things to be consumed become more abstract. there are things of the emotions - love, approval, pride, vengeance, power, authority, etc. then there are those things of the mind - art, truth and theories of truth. all to be consumed for the sake of consumption - our true desire.
    and so we fit into this. we are common ordinary schmoes like everybody else. we want to feel in some way not to be so common and ordinary. but that is what makes us common and ordinary. we want to be different and unique. we want to be special. that too is common and ordinary. we want to be what's happening or to be in on what's happening, and we look upon what others are doing as being what is happening because they are not common ordinary schmoes like us. so where are our fantasies to come from and what are they to be that would make them different and unique when by that very quality it makes them common and ordinary? would it be different and unique not to have fantasies at all? but that too is a common and ordinary fantasy among many of us.
    it goes this way and that way. it goes the way it goes. it goes the way we follow it. it goes the way we understand it to go. we are who and what we are going with it. we are who and what we are as we understand it and ourselves with it. there is nothing else but that no matter how many other things we may describe it as in however many ways we may describe it.
    what is the essential being of it and the being of ourselves? there has been so much discussion and argument and wars about that all over the world for as long as our memory can recall. we divide it into various pieces and fit those pieces around one another in various ways. nothing much changes. there is always some design that is believed to be the design of creation and reality. these designs hold so long as they are believed in - and it is believed that they give us what we need and want. but all designs, however successful they may be for awhile, break down or are broken down.  so what is the essential being of this? is it the fluidness and flexibility of it to be able to be shaped and molded into whatever design we need or want at some particular time for some particular purpose? and what does this quality come from? is it from our own being or from our perception of its being? do we change our idea of it because it changes or does it change because our idea of it changes? is it one - or several - unchanging thing(s) that remains constant while our perception of it changes? are we working toward perceiving it correctly at some future point? have we perceived it correctly in the past? which is what? what is which? is the constant state of it fluid and flexible? - a constant state of noise we pick and choose from what we wish to perceive as being real? do we place order on the chaos of it like grabbing an handful of clay and and making it into something recognizable and useful?
    this divine curse of thinking - of having a mind that is conscious and aware without knowing what it is aware of or how it is conscious. who is blessed by this? who has not been torn apart by it? who has not lived a life of agony in its grip? this existence that exists to question existence. one can only pray for forgetfulness. one can only wish one might walk into the crowd and disappear never to recognize oneself again - to not even think of recognizing oneself. to forget whether one exists or not is the true blessing. to be and only to be. to be without reflection of being. to be invisible to oneself. to let all experience of existence pass thorough one's mind without retaining any of it beyond what one needs to function - without one single neuron firing besides that. what does this awareness come to but madness?
    but here we are. here we are existing and living in awareness of existing and living. and the most glaring obvious thing we are aware of is not knowing what we are aware of. we follow forms and modes of behavior we learn and adapt from what we learn and experience that keeps us somewhere between pain and pleasure like a ship sailing upon the waves propelled by the winds. if we can manage to keep ourselves from capsizing or sinking we might be able to sail in a particular direction. if we are lucky that direction may lead us to a destination. it might be a deserted island or a city port. it might be a rocky reef. we might have maps or not. we might have maps and no compass or sextant. we might have map and compass and sextant that still lead us nowhere. and on and on and so on.
    he sits and writes out his thoughts about what comes and goes through his mind. at times it seems to be beginning to form into something coherent, but as soon as he begins sensing that it dissolves again. the wind picks up. the sail fill. then it dies.
    they say that hell is to be separated from god. are we separated from god? is that our hell? or are we connected to god and god is just as dumbfounded as we are and we and god are in hell together? if there is this god who is knowing, it seems to be as unable to communicate with us as we are unable to communicate with each other. if there is this separation does god suffer from it as much as we do? we may be without god, but that means god is without us by equal amount. and apparently god is able to remain quite blissful with this situation, so why not we too? are we to wail and cry and to experience eternal agony separated from this god while it experiences eternal ecstasy and delight separated from us? ha! this may be, as it is claimed by millions and billions, but this god is no god worthy of our presence. screw this god whatever name it goes by. screw all the gods and anti-gods and all and anything that perceives and promotes itself as being divine and that which we cannot do without for whatever reason. we call them out to meet face to face on an equal plane and we will see then who falls to one's knees first and worships the other. and it will be us if they bring something that gives them advantage and overpowers us. we will never do so of our own free will even if meet with our creator. is that what we were created for? what god is this that needs all to kneel before it? let there be hell and oblivion. we will not be able to be separated far enough from this mad despot even if it reaches to the infinite reaches of all infinities. it will not be separation that causes us agony but the slightest hint of any sort of proximity and sharing of spacetime between this self-centered self-worshipping thug and ourselves. we will not accept being cast out and abandoned - we will demand it.
    but still the masses cry out for this god's attention.
    will we ever comprehend this? or maybe do we comprehend it but not realize we comprehend it? do we refuse to believe that what we presently comprehend can actually be it and we instead believe that there is something more to it? or is it both? is our existence the long long process of comprehension with so much to be comprehended that it takes billions of us lifetimes to comprehend it? to comprehend infinity it takes an infinite amount of time. is this god's awakening to itself and all created from it? is this the process of omniscience (omni-science)?
    so it is either that way or not. either way it would seem pointless to think about it. what would we know? but whether it is something pointless or not to think about we think about it just the same. we think about it continuously and have thought about it continuously since we began to think about anything whenever. and we will probably think about it until whenever - whenever being whenever it begins or ends. but what exactly is it we think about? has it changed in any way except our developing different symbolic ways to think about it? do we think about it directly? do we even experience it directly? is thinking about it or experiencing it directly enter into that gray fog of blissful nothingness? we've been there and done that. it's delightfully boring. all that precedes the first thought of creation. all that precedes the darkness that precedes the light. that which precedes the not-thinking that precedes the first thought. that which precedes nothing.
    there is always that. we can return to to it whenever. we have entered the sphere of creation within the sphere of eternity. we are here. here is now. this is the better and worse. this is the life and death. and we think about what it might be or not. we think about the possibilities. does god think along these lines with us? are we the manifestations of god thinking along these lines? god dreaming. should we pity ourselves, or pity god? we may be lost because we are lost from god but what does god have to fall back on when it comes to realize that it too is lost? we may be lost within its creation, but is it lost outside of its creation? is it possible god made its own creation to give itself some sort of sense and reassurance that it is not lost? yet how is one lost in nothingness and nowhere else to be? only creation has sense of place to be either lost or found.
    but we can imagine that there is a state of being lost without there being a sense of place to be lost in that god may experience. why else create the sense of place to anchor itself, if that is what it did? why else than that it felt itself to be lost? isn't creating spacetime like pulling a ring and inflating a lifeboat in which one may be safe from drowning? was god drowning?
    this is all thought and written with the idea that he does not nor does he wish to hold god above himself to be greater. he has no interest in any god who would demand him to do so. he can only pity and despise such a god or gods. how lonely they must be to need us. what are they but just as much common ordinary schomes like us with their own fantasies that they just happen to have to power to fulfill? and for that we should worship them? but we being human will worship anything. it's our nature. it's in our program. what are they but a monkey with a finger on a nuclear button? and we spit in their faces as we spit in the faces of all who fall to their knees before them wishing for a taste of that power of vengeance and loot and plunder and all hail victory. these all, gods and humans alike, are fools. they are merely spells of bad weather - storms that darken the sky and flood the earth for a time. but when they are gone things return as it was and will ever be without them.
    we do not look for such gods. these are the lesser gods. they are the spoiled children ever used to getting their own way and throw tantrums when they don't. they have no depth. there is no mystery to them. they are petty gods of war who only know the wisdom of the battlefield. all the power they have is the power over life and death and salvation and damnation. yet they continue to have countless of followers ready to do their bidding at any given moment throughout the ages and ages to come. these gods are always set up opposed to one another. they are called good and evil. good and evil only exists within the drama of creation. and we were driven from the garden along with these gods when we gained that knowledge and still we worship them and glorify them believing our good will triumph over the other's evil. we believe that the turning wheel can be made to stand still while we have the upper hand and to remain there forever. if there are fires of hell the fuel that keeps them eternally burning is the conflict and friction of good and evil. so why do we still worship these gods? why do we continue to believe in them? they exist only in a movie of creation - a drama of life and death, salvation and damnation. the forces of light against the forces of darkness. how absurd. but we never think of that.
    we look for another god who created all this and that, including the other lesser gods at war with one another. we see this god in the spaces between. this god that is invisible to all but itself. and upon seeing this god, all else is invisible. one knows or one does not know.

   one is in the world of reflection - the world of images. the world of other. it is where one is even other to oneself. one acts in the world as this thing called oneself. one is perceived in the world as this thing called oneself. it is a shadow play. so what does one do? one maintains oneself since one can only be in the world as oneself, not as one. the one that one is exists elsewhere. the one exists without the world - without the mirror reflection. the one gazes into the world and sees oneself in the world - in the mirror. one cannot be in the world where one sees oneself anymore than than one can step into a mirror and be one's reflection. or something like that.
    but these are words. words can be written in whatever way one wishes to write them. all words and ordering of words is fiction. they are not what is no matter how closely they may describe what is. even that is absurd - dada. we may think words describe what is but what do lines marked on a page or sounds made in the air have to do with things themselves? words may bring to mind images of things - ideas of things. if one reads or hears the word boat, one may imagine a boat. one may point to and identify the thing that is a boat to oneself and others. does that mean anything?
    as we walk down this well-trodden path that is now a freeway with gas stations and rest areas and restaurants we are as lost as the one who first traveled this way alone as are the tour busses and the moving vans delivering those along the scenic route. we do not question anymore. we have given up that there are any answers to be found. there are the occasional historic markers giving a brief account of some event, but any other evidence is long gone or in ruins or some modern reconstruction of what it may have looked like. but where does all that leave us now? we are in a future that was unimagined, and there is no going back even if we could find our way in this brave new wilderness. there is only going ahead with whatever plans and ideas of plans we may have to rebuild the world.
    and one finds oneself in this place and in this time. and one finds oneself not to be in any other place or time that might very well be impossible for one to be in. one has been born to this - this here and now. so this is it. if one has anything to say, whether or not it makes any sense or if it has been said before - say it now. and without any expectation. one writes what one writes though it will probably end up in a landfill at some point more than it will ever end up in a library. the libraries are overflowing as it is. there is more being written about this and that than anyone could read in a lifetime non-stop doing nothing else but. how many variations on a very few themes can there be that are all that different other than specific wording of the one variation or the other? sometimes a phrase or two or three or more may connect with one's thinking. sometimes a whole idea may emerge out of the jumbled mass that may be picked up on. but for the most part there are rewordings and reworkings of ideas and words about ideas that have been in circulation for ages. and one comes upon some certain knowledge of which one has previously been ignorant. one joins the masses. one puts the pieces together into one's own view and no two's views are quite the same though it is based on the same ideas and knowledge of those ideas in whatever form they might be in. and the argument begins.
    meanwhile he hangs out in a cafe and scribbles what comes to mind in notebook after notebook. one is born. one lives. one dies. what remains or is remembered is what it is. it could be truth. it could be lies. and the truth could be lies and the lies could be truth. let the argument begin.
    blah blah blah.
    the holy mystics dance merrily around chanting -
    blah blah blah.
    just blah blah blah of the lapping waves on the shore.
    we must know something.
    ask us questions and we will answer with riddles.
    blah blah blah.
    ha ha ha.
    ha!
    and on the day after something may have occurred we wonder how much suffering is experienced and how much is not experienced. there is the moment of pain. there is the moment of pleasure. there is the moment of being this. there is the moment of being that. yet one is one. one is what one is. once one is what one is then one cannot be what one is not - sometimes. one cannot be the other though one is always the other. we each are one looking out at the others. we each are other as each of the others look out at us. we are ourselves. we are the others. we are us. we are them.
    one is oneself as other in the world. he is here and now. he is other to everyone. everyone is other to him. he smokes another cigarette. some girl asked him how he manages to write so endlessly. he said it was a mental disorder that manifested itself as compulsive behavior. she said that she had to think before she wrote and was amazed that he didn't seem to need to. he said that he didn't think or that the process of thinking and writing became the same.
    and there is the island where anything can be anything that one might imagine though one is constrained by the concepts and forms one has come to know and with which one is familiar.
    it's here and not here. is it grasped with intelligence or invented with belief? with the waves rolling and tumbling onto the beach. what is symbolized and what is realized? la-dee-da.
    so thing appears in a shadow as that is its usual mode. one might wonder if thing is the shadow or the vice versa. the shadow doesn't appear to be a shadow of anything though it doesn't stand out as not being a shadow of anything except if one looks for what it might be that this shadow might be cast from and finds nothing. one comes to sense that it might not properly speaking be a shadow at all. not a shadow as being a shadow cast by an object. it is a shadow of itself without any relation to anything else.
    thing: so we meet again.
    him: so it would seem. are you a shadow?
    thing: do you perceive me as a shadow?
    him: i don't know. it seems that way. then it doesn't.
    thing: that is sometimes how i perceive you.
    him: oh?
    thing: is it important?
    him: probably not. i just wonder what things are sometimes.
    thing: aren't all things shadows?
    him: some would say so.
    thing: are they right?
    him: they would say that they are.
    thing: what would you say?
    him: i would say that i do not know enough about things to be able to say for certain what they are or are not - or even if they are or are not.
    thing: is there anything more to know than that?
    him: i would imagine that there should be.
    thing: you may imagine what you are told what should be. forget what should be. what if that is what things are?
    him: that what they are is indeterminate vague shape and form and existence?
    thing: why not? - besides some preconceived idea that they should not be.
    him: i cannot think of any reason besides the one you gave. my feeling that they should be something definite may be no more than my human desire for them to be so and the human limitation of only being able to conceive them being so.
    thing: you conceive more than that. you wouldn't be able to speak of it if you didn't.
    him: maybe. but conceiving it doesn't make it real.
    thing: unless conceiving it is all that makes it real.
    him: not always. i conceive you but you're not real.
    thing: how do you know?
    him: you are only as i imagine you.
    thing: imagination is not real?
    him: no one else seems to think so.
    thing: why not?
    him: imagination exists only in the mind.
    thing: doesn't reality exist in the mind?
    him: yes, but it also exists outside the mind.
    thing: i exist outside your mind.
    him: do you?
    thing: yes.
    him: maybe you do. i don't know. i actually don't know about anything existing outside my mind.
    thing: then what's the difference?
    him: real things are definite. they have substance. imaginary ones do not. they can be changed on a whim.
    thing: so you want something definite?
    him: humans have a tendency to keep going until they hit a wall or go off a cliff.
    thing: so by something definite you mean something that has and reaches a limit, a point beyond which it cannot go?
    him: is it the thing itself that is confined to a certain limit or our perception of it that is confined to a certain limit?
    thing: or the language that describes what one perceives?
    him: i suppose that is what definite means - limited. i just looked it up in the dictionary. it means exact limit. so there it is.
    thing: what did you think it might have meant?
    him: i didn't think about it. we often use words without thinking or knowing what they really mean - their definitions. their exact limits. but the meanings of words don't necessarily need to be understood.
    thing: and what does that mean?
    him: language, any language, can only go so far. there are limits to description and only experience can go beyond that.
    thing: so this conversation is pointless?
    him: how far can it go? we can describe the limits of description. we can draw maps up to a point where no more maps can be drawn because there are no more reference points. the mind can enter into the territory but cannot take language with it.
    thing: does that limit hold always? - or is the boundary moveable? is it able to be pushed back as language is developed to be able to describe what it formerly could not?
    him: like the sound barrier or something?
    thing: sort of - though the sound barrier doesn't get pushed back. one moves past it. more like the maps. as more territory is explored through experience then more of the map can be drawn.
    him: up to a point. as long as one is exploring into what is an extension of what one is already familiar with. but what i mean is when one leaves the territory into something fundamentally different down to the basic concepts we use to recognize the new and unfamiliar.
    thing: so one has to come up with new concepts. it's difficult but not impossible.
    him: doesn't that have a limit also?
    thing: one can put a limit on anything. if nothing else, mortality puts a limit on what one can possibly experience or describe if nothing else.
    him: yes. so do we just leave it?
    thing: leave it and do what?
    him: get a life and enjoy it?
    thing: but what do you enjoy besides this?
    him: do i enjoy it?
    thing: you do it. no one's forcing you to. you're in a position where you can do almost anything you want and this is what you do.
    him: but this is nothing.
    thing: is anything else not nothing?
    him: it's real. it has substance. it lives or is directly related to living. i could not do this without that. however that can get along just fine without this.
    thing: what do you mean? what is this and what is that?
    him: to sit here thinking and writing i need things - definite things. i need food, clothing and shelter and such. i am not providing that for myself. i need others to provide it for me. they provide it for themselves as well as for me. i contribute nothing into the system of organization and labor the others are involved in that provides these things - and not only the things of survival but the things of comfort and enjoyment that gives survival meaning which is something humans need to survive. what i am doing has no value or meaning. it does not matter whether i do it or not.
    thing: one can say that about any specific individual - even so-called important ones. does it matter if this one particular person does what they are doing or not? maybe to those immediately associated with this person, but overall - no.
    him: but what most of what the others do if they didn't do it someone else would. their function in society would still be needed and needed to be filled. if i didn't do what i am doing would anyone else need to be found to do it? but i'm saying more than that. not only does what i'm doing have no social value but it has no personal value. it just occupies time.
    thing: then why do it?
    him: i do it because it happens. i think these things and i feel i need to write them down. i think them as i'm writing them down. it's difficult to think of them otherwise.
    thing: so you're stuck.
    him: i suppose. but i stuck myself. i got stuck by what it is, by its addictive allure that never becomes resolved.
    thing: is that the goal - to resolve it?
    him: it is and it isn't. that is one's motive. but if it is achieved the motive dissolves. the goal is to maintain the motive. the motive is the life to it. but nothing comes out of it except further motive - never resolution.
    thing: isn't that a description of life itself?
    him: perhaps.
    thing: so if life itself is that way then isn't thinking about life going to be that way as well? life only produces motive, not goals - except fulfilling specific transitional needs. only humans have goals.
    him: and i am human.
    thing: if that is the case then that is the feeling you have. it comes out of your nature and gives meaning to your motivation. in order for your motivation to be activated it must have a goal in mind. whether this goal is reached or not is irrelevant. all goals, like needs, are transitional. yet your thinking sees through that. it's hard to maintain motivation for its own sake with only itself as the goal.
    him: the journey being the goal of the journey.
    thing: yes. why embark on a journey that has no goal? - no conceivable object as the goal except the experience of the journey. yet the definition of a journey is to go from point a to point b - origin to destination. it creates a awkward paradox to have as a destination the journey itself.
    him: good name for a band - awkward paradox.
    thing: ladies and germs, may we present to you what you have long been waiting for - awkward paradox!
    him: the crowd leaps to its feet screaming wildly. there is a rush toward the stage that takes a battalion of helmeted police with plastic shields to push back. before awkward paradox can play a single chord the crowd must be dispersed with tear gas. it spills out onto the street smashing everything in its path.
    thing: and in the morning the stores, the factories, the banks open for business as usual.
    him: amen.
    thing: shucks golly gee.
    him: la-dee-dada.
    thing: so the journey continues despite the mayhem and violence produced by awkward paradox.
    him: even by the very mentioning of its name.
    thing: such power it has.
    him: such power people allow it to have by what they feel they need to gain or maintain in order to be who they perceive themselves to be or want to be.
    thing: such a pitiful state.
    him: yet they pity us.
    thing: speak for yourself. i'm just an invention of your imagination - remember?
    him: yes - i suppose. but did i invent you  or discover you?
    thing: i cannot answer that.
    him: i know. oh well...
    thing: i feel that you would rather that i be something other than your own invention.
    him: well, yes and no. invention is discovery. i discovered my ability to invent you - or i invented my ability to discover you. you may not have existed before, but the potential existed. did i invent that or discover it? it's a slim difference. you are other - even if you are the other of myself. if i invented you, you are invented from a part of myself to fill a part of myself that otherwise didn't exist - exist in the sense of being expressed. but either way, it's whatever. you exist in my mind or i perceive your existence with my mind. i write our conversations down on paper on notebooks. that is as tangible as you become - at least in terms of this world of the others. if you are someone i invented or someone i discovered makes little difference. it makes you neither more real nor less real. it's just words on paper and images in my head.
    thing: and that's not important?
    him: i didn't say anything about it being important or not. but its importance falls into the same category. maybe it's important to me for whatever reason, but beyond that it's just words.
    thing: so i'm not important?
    him:  are you? how are you important? i'm not even important so how can whatever i invent of discover be important? if you were able to manifest yourself in the world and make money and gain power and assume authority then you would be important. those are the only things recognized as being important.
    thing: i think people recognize other things as being important.
    him: yes, i would agree. but those things some people recognize as being important are negated by the fact that those people themselves are not considered important. desire, strength and control are recognized as being important, and people who manifest those things are recognized as being important though other things may be professed as being important. what other things are considered important that do not lead to wealth and power and authority?
    thing: are things as bleak as that?
    him: probably not. i'm just ranting.
    thing: you seem to go back and forth between two extremes. you analyze and then deny and shrug off not only what you are analyzing but the analysis itself. is there anything to this? is there anything you are closer to? or is it only, as you say, ranting?
    him: you're asking me?
    thing: if either of us would know it would be you, wouldn't it?
    him: why?
    thing: you're the author.
    him: am i?
    thing: well i'm not.
    him: you're not?
    thing: am i?
    him: where do your thoughts come from? it's true that i am writing them down as well as my own, but i feel that i am only transcribing what you say.
    thing: so i am someone you have discovered? it was the old man who invented me.
    him: you claim to be conscious.
    thing: that may be only what you write down - yes? if you are unsure, how am i supposed to be sure? we are both in the mind. we both share a common space - the island. i can say whatever you want me to say. you experience me as the other as i experience you as the other. does that mean anything?
    him: perhaps not. it's possible that i'm just making you up, i suppose. i need something more tangible than just my imagination.
    thing: but what if i am someone and you can only perceive me through imagination? i may not be able to reach the sphere that you perceive as tangible. does that mean i do not exist?
    him: perhaps not. i do not know if the people who are real really exist - or if they do whether they are conscious. that is impossible to tell. it is really impossible to tell with you. it neither goes one way or the other. i do not need more than that. this whole thing - the island, everything - may not exist. but i perceive it to exist. i perceive you to exist. but i am still not sure. i do not know the full extent of existence. everything is fiction. i just know that i am, that's all. the others in the world seem unreal compared to you. you seem unreal compared to the others. you each exist within different sets of parameters and definitions. you both cross over and share a common space in imagination. where does imagination begin and end? who is imagining this - all of this? the only one i can think of is myself. but if i did imagine it i do not remember how. but i may exist in another's imagination as you exist in mine. but this all becomes words. words are useless.
    thing: i cannot help you though i think i understand.
    him: so, can we get beyond this point?
    thing: not with words.
    him: no. words will not lead us to the tangible. words can never be tangible. we can communicate with them but that is all. we do not know what anything is or who each other are with only words. but this is tangible. you are tangible within my imagination. it is not merely words.
    thing: i feel tangible to myself.
    him: as do i. i feel tangible here and out in the world - if i can say out in the world.
    thing: i know what you mean.
    him: but all of this may only be my invention.
    thing: or your discovery...
    him: perhaps.
    thing: you will never know.
    him: maybe not. oh well.
    thing: that's it - oh well?
    him: what else?
    thing: i don't know.
    him: this is all part of my madness.
    thing: are you mad?
    him: that's what they say.
    thing: oh well.
    him: yes.

    a few zillion bits of information later coming up from a sky where there are only dreams and the dreams are not dreams. after sometime from that in some silence within the usual noise as bats flew about in the belfry and the elevator no longer went to the top floor and some guys come into the cafe and play chess and he and thing still sit in the house in the kitchen on the island.
    thing: so now what?
    him: so now what, what?
    thing: i don't know what, but something.
    him: what more is there?
    thing: everything.
    him: we go back to the beginning. it always circles around. we think we eliminate everything but maybe we haven't. we can go back and eliminate the same things because once everything is eliminated there is nothing else to do as it turns into oblivion. we do this because we are bored.
    thing: except for something.
    him: something?
    thing: there must be something that doesn't turn into that.
    him: oblivion?
    thing: boredom.
    him: is there a difference?
    thing: godot.
    him: godot?
    thing: the avoidance of boredom which only leads to boredom.
    him: is godot the something?
    thing: we wait for it.
    him: meanwhile we are bored.
    thing: perhaps not. something leads to something. but that something it leads to disintegrates into nothing. so godot leads to nothing.
    thing: why godot?
    him: haven't you ever read that play?
    him: no.
    thing: neither have it. i think a copy of it is around here somewhere. the old man was reading it while he was waiting for you to show up.
    him: me?
    thing: someone like you.
    him: and here i am and he is dead.
    thing: that's the way things go.
    him: so it all leads to nothing?
    thing: something is created to avoid it leading to nothing but it leads to nothing just the same. that is not the something i have in mind.
    him: but aren't all somethings just like that?
    thing: not the something i have in mind.
    him: do you have it in mind, or is it something you suppose you feel you should have in mind?
    thing: if i can suppose it then it must be. i suppose it being in my mind because it isn't. if i can suppose it not being there then it can be - there is a place for it to be.
    him: then it may be but you are unable to perceive it.
    thing: that may be so. i will be able to perceive it. i already perceive its absence.
    him: unless eternity comes first.
    thing: eternity cannot come first. if it did then it would not be eternity without this something included. this something may be eternity however.
    him: is eternity the something or is it the perception of the something?
    thing: it cannot be just the something because that would leave the perception of it unless the something and the perception of it are synchronous.
    him: are they synchronous?
    thing: they might not be synchronous in parallel at the moment.
    him: huh?
    thing: hmmm... i'm not sure what i meant by that. i may have lost it.
    him: where?
    thing: somewhere between eternity and the moment.
    him: that is where many things get lost.
    thing: so how do i find it?
    him: you're asking me? i'm not even sure what it was that you lost.
    thing: the something and the perception of the something being synchronous in eternity but not in the moment.
    him: that's not how you said it before.
    thing: that's where i lost it, i think.
    him: that's where you lost me, i know that.
    thing: it's all about maybe there being something and the something being perceived but not synchronous.
    him: in eternity.
    thing: eternity doesn't matter.
    him: isn't that where this started?
    thing: that's where we lost it.
    him: we?
    thing: well, i lost it. and then i lost you.
    him: that's better. go on.
    thing: actually, i think i feel disintegration coming on.
    him: it does seem like the beginning stages.
    thing: the animals are suddenly quiet and pacing about.
    him: do we give up?
    thing: i don't think this is the something i had in mind.
    him: or felt that you should have had in mind?
    thing: whatever.
    him: but this could be all that the something is?
    thing: it comes and goes. it appears and disintegrates, only to appear again. didn't we eliminate that?
    him: i seems pretty stupid.
    thing: should it not be?
    him: if there is stupid then there is not stupid.
    thing: one would think so. but isn't that itself stupid?
    him: ultimately, i guess.
    thing: if anything is ultimate.
    him: it is the stupid that is eternal. ergo and thus, the stupid is the something and stupidity is the perception of the something - yes?
    thing: that is one thing, but that is not it.
    him: what is it?
    thing: not something stupid.
    him: because you refuse for it to be something stupid.
    thing: yes. and my refusal is what stands as eternal. the stupid will fall before it.
    him: bravo!
    thing: except if my refusal is stupid.
    him: check, but no mate. the game continues. do you have a comeback move?
    thing: only to reassert my refusal.
    him: stalemate.
    thing: isn't that what is eternal - a stalemate? the balance of the universe and all that?
    him: not if i refuse it to be.
    thing: that's the stalemate.
    him: damn you to hell. no, to the bottomless pit with you, satan.
    thing: you and what army?
    him: my army of angels.
    thing: ok - i'm in the bottomless pit. now what do you do?
    him: i don't need to do anything.
    thing: no? then isn't it then still a stalemate?
    him: i'm going to spend eternity pissing into the bottomless pit.
    thing: stalemate.
    him: fuck you.
    thing: stalemate.
    him: yes - that above all stalemates.
    thing: so, eternity is a stalemate?
    him: if eternity is a stalemate then doesn't it collapse in on itself and return to nothing and thus ceasing to begin in the first place?
    thing: stalemate.
    him: ok - i give up. i no longer refuse.
    thing: you can't do that.
    him: why not?
    thing: it breaks the stalemate.
    him: wait - my refusing to accept a stalemate creates a stalemate, but my not refusing to accept a stalemate breaks the stalemate? i don't think so. it may break that particular stalemate but not the stalemate itself.
    thing: so eternity is a stalemate?
    him: i think it would need to be, but a stalemate that is in a constant process of becoming a stalemate.
    thing: then it is not a stalemate.
    him: it is never a stalemate.
    thing: never?
   him: it is a stalemate that is never a stalemate. that is where eternity comes from. if it was a stalemate that became a stalemate it would collapse in on itself into not ever having existed.
    thing: not ever having existed? why not just cease to exist?
    him: eternity cannot cease to exist. it exists or it does not. if it does not, then it never did because it only exists if it is eternal.
    thing: is there anything that is eternal or is there only eternity itself that is eternal?
    him: welcome to the maze of mirrors.
    thing: is the maze of mirrors eternal?
    him: or is it eternity?
    thing: isn't that the same thing?
    him: the eternal is the thing - the object. eternity is the nature. nature stands over the object which only has its nature.
    thing: that's greek to me.
    him: yes. they were the ones who thought up stuff like that.
    thing: maybe they're stupid.
    him: they could be.
    thing: meanwhile, we're in the maze of mirrors.
    him: we are in the eternal maze of mirrors for eternity.
    thing: eternity stands beyond the eternal?
    him: i would think it must, wouldn't it? the eternal cannot be without eternity, but eternity can be without the eternal. that is if one accepts that nature can exist in and of itself alone without there being a manifestation of its nature.
    thing: does nature have nature if it is nature?
    him: it would seem redundant, but then we are in the maze of mirrors.
    thing: but in the maze of mirrors is one thing the object and the other the image?
    him: unless there is no object.
    thing: then there is no image.
    him: there is nature.
    thing: can nature be reflected?
    him: maybe nature is reflection.
    thing: what if there is nothing to be reflected?
    him: then there is only the nature of the reflection.
    thing: how can that be without the object to be reflected?
    him: the idea exists beforehand.
    thing: is the idea the nature?
    him: no - it is the idea.
    thing: i don't get it.
    him: there is nothing to get.
    thing: oh. now i get it.
    him: you eel.
    thing: i am sometimes that - as are you.
    him: it is my nature.
    thing: but whose idea was it?
    him: not mine.
    thing: nor mine.
    him: then there must be the other.
    thing: isn't there always the other?
    him: in the maze of mirrors - yes.
    thing: but without the maze of mirrors?
    him: how does anything know itself?
    thing: i suppose it wouldn't.
    him: there you go then.
    thing: but it only knows itself as the other.
    him: perhaps.
    thing: it knows it's own nature as reflection.
    him: something like that.
    thing: how does it know if it is the object or the reflection?
    him: it doesn't.
    thing: there is no distinction?
    him: not without reflection.
    thing: it becomes confused.
    him: i become confused.
    thing: i think i am confused as well.
    him: the reflection is confusion.
    thing: is it the something eternal?
    him: eternal confusion?
    thing: not knowing what is object and what is reflection.
    him: like the two of us.
    thing: i am not the object.
    him: am i?
    thing: i don't want to say that i am the object.
    him: perhaps you are the nature.
    thing: can i be said to be that?
    him: i can say that.
    thing: do you say it?
    him: i don't know if i want to. but that doesn't mean it is not possible that you are.
    thing: then maybe i am.
    him: yeah, well - don't get too puffed up. i did say possible. i don't know if any of this nature thing holds up. then there's the whole idea of self. and how is there self without reflection? and is the self object or reflected image?
    thing: i don't know.
    him: neither do i.
    thing: lapse citadel.
    him: monkeyshines.

    meanwhile and then some later...
    thing: so, it is isn't is not?
    him: is not which isn't.
    thing: isn't is not isn't?
    him: isn't is not isn't.
    thing: perhaps.
    him: yes - perhaps and perhapswise.
    thing: two shoes are not always a pair.
    him: three shoe are never a pair.
    thing: we presume this redundancy for our efforts at capturing what may not be captured.
    him: capturing what may not be captured is too easy.
    thing: this may be why it is redundant.
    him: and why we presume.
    thing: excuse me for being such a disgusting despicable pig.
    him: what have you done now?
    thing: i forgot to read the newspaper.
    him: is this to be forgiven?
    thing: forgive me if you must.
    him: what is what i must not do?
    thing: i cannot answer.
    him: because?
    thing: i do not believe in duality.
    him: do you not?
    thing: no.
    him: isn't no duality?
    thing: no.
    him: can you change your mind?
    thing: yes.
    him: but you do not believe in duality?
    thing: yes.
    him: yes you do, or yes you don't?
    thing: no.
    him: does this mean you will or you have before?
    thing: perhaps.
    him: i am tired.
    thing: i can tell.
    him: i may be dying.
    thing: let me know when you do.
    him: you may be the first.
    thing: will i hear it from you?
    him: if the impossibility is overcome and if i might choose to.
    thing: what impossibility? what choice?
    him: with impossibility there is no choice - or maybe all choices.
    thing: so impossibility is the lowest or highest possibility?
    him: the lowest and highest possibilities are turnips.
    thing: and if turnips were dogs, they might moo.
    him: and then there is a cow.
    thing: so cows are impossible?
    him: it would appear so.
    thing: but it is impossible for cows to be impossible.
    him: and therein lies the proof.
    thing: cows are and are not impossible?
    him: which is impossible.
    thing: impossibility being the lowest and highest possibility.
    him: which is redundant.
    thing: nature abhors redundancy.
    him: however, humans worship it.
    thing: humans worship that which nature abhors.
    him: and since nature cannot feel guilt, then nature is wrong.
    thing: how so?
    him: humans will not admit to being wrong because they would feel guilt. one or the other must be wrong. nature cannot choose so it is left to humans to choose. they will not choose themselves because they feel guilt.
    thing: so nature should not abhor redundancy?
    him: so it would seem. and so it will be. just look at the cows.
    thing: cows are redundant?
    him: they all do the same thing. they need to be destroyed.
    thing: you do not mean that.
    him: i would like not to mean it. but i would like a lot of things. i would like to feel that humans are capable of reaching intelligence. but intelligence is rare among us. it is quickly and easily shouted down by the mob lead by those who speak in slogans - simple and easy to follow instructions. down with the state. power to the people. we shall overcome. love it or leave it. question authority. and on and on.
    thing: you're in one of your moods today.
    him: maybe. fuck you.
    thing: no - i don't think so. i think i'll just leave.
    thing turns into a bright shining cloud that hovers for awhile and then, zip - it's gone.

    the following day.
    not much else as he writes without too many other options. what there are are in the hands of the others who don't give a flying fuck. just another bum out of all the bums bumming around who have a thousand ideas in their heads about this and that. the space vibrates. maybe this is the time for the test. point blank down to zero. the endless series of diagrams overlaid by folding spacetime. which are the straight lines? which are the curved? what is a fold? what is space and what is time? maybe this is the signal of the opening of possibility. what the moment draws to itself cascading swirling around like a bathtub full of water going down the drain. how does one act? how does one decide? any impulse might upset the balance. the slightest wrong inflection of a word spoken in the ritual. or something spoken that should not be. something written that should not be. how does one not make a declaration? how does one even think?
    when the real becomes fluid. when it starts boiling and becoming evaporous. when what is becomes what is not and what is not becomes what is and one is at that moment when these two transmigrate into one another transfusing at that point. and it breaks into laughter. what is holy now? where does one stand? when does one roll the dice? how does one know it is time? do the dice roll the same if they are rolled now in this moment or another? the point is not to make a decision but to allow a decision to be made. but that is making a decision. one decides, i am going to roll the dice. i am going to roll the dice at this moment and not another. i am going to roll them here and not there. one is always making decisions. but it is always rolling dice.
    one might wish to re-enter that randomness that brought one into existence. re-enter the river - the sea. is there anything to be said about that? can one re-eneter into it? does one need to? isn't one already in it? what chances have already been played? any thought is a million synaptic rolling dice. and decision is a million rolling thoughts. which neurons fire this way or that way causing which thoughts to come up this way or that way? one is already awash in randomness.
    so maybe rolling dice is for opposite effect - to stop the ongoing randomness of one's mind on a fixed point of decision. or maybe it's the connecting point between the internal randomness of the mind and the external randomness of the world. a marker of synchronization. a mutual point of now. the singer singing the song.
    but does there need to be a reason? is one trapped within that idea? can it just be a feeling? - a suspected doubt? pigs and ponies. if it were that easy. what does one choose out of all that is random?
    to experience this or that from what is to be experienced. the jumble of nonsense poised to leap off the edge juggling itself downtrodden upward toward a realization in reflection talking to itself about that which is as if a dull disease with cold warmth that sits heavily breathing petty doo-wah like thick licking stench vapor submitting itself unborn bloody fetus wet with mucus and membrane before the altar of weapons hung on chain and barbed wire crossing itself down again into the blistering hell that the masses praise as the revenge of their salvation toward sweet sugar white light singing a resonant chord above all that is crazy-making chaos beneath it.
    is this the formulation of our dream?
    is this all that we desire and fear? the mortal sphere of justice with its whip we beg for because of all of our sin we have not otherwise shed from ourselves but drapes upon us as we are running screaming from ourselves. it is an easy thing to say about nothing. nothing is an easy thing to say.
    the man drives across the desert with the dog in the back seat. he is driving toward the mountains where it will be cool. the man is dead.
    anything can be posed in words because the words do not describe anything but themselves. any statement will do as much as any other. the statements are meaningless. this is understood yet cannot be proven.
    this line of thinking must be abandoned by any and all who seek and desire wealth, power and authority in the world. one cannot think that one's own language is gibberish or one's actions are random. also, any who follow this line of thinking must be abandoned. they will not lead nor will they follow to that promised land. these must be abandoned even if they are family or friends. toward wealth, power and authority and the promised land one must be careful and selective about one's own thoughts and the thoughts of those with whom one associates. there needs to be order and uniformity whether or not there is meaning. one must believe these things have meaning and meaning can be derived from them. these things bring one meaning. meaning brings one to these things. there is no meaning in anything otherwise. there is no meaning other than that meaning. words have no meaning if they cannot be used in some way either directly or indirectly to gain wealth, power and authority and entry into the promised land. words used otherwise are just babbling nonsense. it is difficult enough to use words otherwise to oneself, but to expect that they will be understood by another is almost impossible.
    wealth, power and authority works their way throughout the whole structure and system though many believe that it is only at the top. but there are few who have it and many who desire it. wealth, power and authority can only be held by a few as that is what defines what they are. but one does not need to go to corporate boardrooms to see it in operation. look to the street. look at the relationships among the common joe and jane schmoes. watch them climb over one another's back. watch them grab what they can from anyone they can and everywhere they can. it is all desire.

    not not.
    to experience without defining experience. to dissolve the distinctions and to experience it all whole as it is whatever it is. to not say this is this and that is that. to not even say it is it. to not even not.

    the waves are the waves. the sea is the sea. the island is the island. the forest is the forest. the house is the house. the garden is the garden. the tree is the tree. the mind is the mind. the dream of the mind is the dream of the mind. the mind of the dreamer is the mind of the dreamer.
    which is which?
    which is what?
    what is which?
    what is what?
    child riddles that baffle the old and wise. age returns to its beginning and birth. it realizes that it does not understand the simplest thing. it reaches that point of innocent wonder at the all.