many things come about about this and that. things that only have reference to other things. someone plays a saxophone. someone else reads a book. the saxophone comes from the radio, from a cd, from a studio. the sound of it enters this place and time. the book leads the person reading it away into another sphere existing only in description. reality layers upon reality.
    and we have created him in our imagination who also exists in description yet is someone who is real who is writing the description about himself. we create alternates to ourselves. we may only be me, myself and i. we've been through this before. we are them. we keep repeating ourselves trying to come up with something that seems right about how it is. the usual means of description don't quite do it. exploration.
    thinking about it all the time one way or the other or sideways. and writing writing writing with him as subject and as object of it all. and we can deny anything and everything. we put it all on him. he's the fool of our dreams. me, myself and i. he feels he shouldn't think about this anymore. think of something else. but this is all that comes to mind. we have nothing to do with it. we do not exist - up to a point. just imagination.
    who is to judge here? him? us? you? them? it all turns out about the same. we have divided it all apart. this is our creation. this is the way it is. separate from ourselves. we are the holy ghost. we are the holy host. in hell.
    jesus is an asshole.
    buddha is a cocksucker.
    mohammed is an asswipe.
    krisna is a douche bag.
    lao tse is a motherfucker.

    these others of ourselves who we become them to exist only to be destroyed before they destroy us - those who have attained this pure and innocent state of being by shedding ourselves among ourselves doo-wah-ditty.
    we are not guilty.
    is this not the goal of human progress and evolution to rise above our guilt? are we not a part of it? are we not it?
    who is to judge?
    who damn and are damned?
    they should be avoided like the plague that they are and that they carry.
    all are impostors. there is only one of you - our dear one beloved. reaching the state of being i that we have not done. we are legion. we are them. we can only barely imagine. all these others who pretend to be you - pretend to be i. we are fooled no more. this is our quest to find you - to find i. it is absurd to think about and try to describe it. we have known this before. it more than likely leads nowhere except perhaps to madness. but we are already mad. is not this state of many layers and forms and perceptions and identity madness? is not knowing our one true person and identity and knowing of the person and identity of the other - you and i - madness? if it is madness then let it be so. we do not care. it is holy madness. it is that holy madness that we strive for above and beyond common madness. let us be insane with it.
    forget the rest.
    this is the true we when you and i become us. when each is the one dear beloved. what is hatred and anger then? what is to be compared to this? it cannot be destroyed - not even by ourselves.
    this is his creation and invention. one who is to be hated. one who is to be destroyed. one separate and divided from the rest - from the others - from you. but what of us who hate and destroy? what becomes of us?
    this exists only so long as there is good and evil.
    the i exists alone. you and i exist together whether we want to or not. we survive. we hate and destroy. we exist in a world of good and evil. and are we to undergo some magical transformation?
    he laughs at us. he calls us fools. we want to destroy him but we hesitate. suppose he is more than he seems to be. suppose he is our way out and in. suppose it is he who created and invented us.
    who is who?
    which is which?
    who is you?
    who is i?
    and we laugh back at him. who is he to us? he is no one. he is part of the illusion created by the other to fool us into thinking we are separate and alone. the other who is not you - our dear one beloved. and not i. he hates the other. the other hates him. we try to stay out of it. it is only images one places before oneself. love and hate. good and evil. up and down. this and that.
    but all of this is nonsense. it avoids the one thing he thinks about all the time which he has been made to feel he shouldn't always think about. the one thing that comes to his mind whenever his basic needs are met and taken care of and he has nothing to worry about troubling him. and as anyone and everyone knows the one thing he thinks about all the time increasingly unceasingly is none other than sex sex sex in all its diverse and perverted forms and manifestations. but what form or manifestation of sex is not perverted? filth. degradation. disease.
    but other than that he thinks about everybody being such pompous dumbfucks. he wishes he could be rid of them. but they have found out where he lives. he is doomed to the torment of their everlasting hell.
    and the machine keeps turning inside out of itself.
    and thing cooks him dinner. lasagna. yummy.
    we keep sticking our head up our ass until it pops out as our head again. and we do this over and over. a species fascinated by nothing more than its own shit. his writing is his own shit. everything is our own shit. all art and culture. nothing more.
    how can he get out of this? it follows and haunts him everywhere even just sitting here in this cafe writing in endless notebooks bullshit that he thought once would lead somewhere but has yet to. nothing more. shit.
    sex and death.
    sex and/or death.
    think think think.
    what is he supposed to be thinking about?
    nothing?
    the great zen thing?
    this and that?
    a way out?
    a spoon?
    a cow?
    it?
    one of many answers.
    and everybody has a theory - which some regard as truth. and he supposes that each theory has its merit. each is a part of the big grand theory. but what do any of them leave him with? anything? is he supposed to be thinking about any of them? what is he supposed to be thinking about?
    and thing says, think about whatever makes you happy.
    and he replies, and what is that? thinking about sex and death and my own shit or not thinking about sex and death and my own shit? which is reality and happiness with reality? and which is denial and avoidance of reality? what is happiness itself - acceptance or denial? and besides, who says i'm not happy? who's happier than i am? i look around and see a lot of lost fucked up people - some in acceptance and some in denial.
    and thing asks, and which are you?
    neither and both. i just exist. i am living what life i have. i didn't create any of this. i have no control over it. if it's miserable and fucked up then that is what it is. if i exist as someone who is miserable and fucked up then that is who i am. take me out and shoot me if it bothers anyone else. i don't care. i'm happy with that. is anyone else happy? i don't see that they are - even when they're laughing - especially when they're laughing. they laugh at some other's misfortune. they need to have someone executed for their happiness. is that happiness? i know others' happiness. i've been on the receiving end of it enough times. is happiness measured by how many people one fucks over? and then there's letting go of happiness and entering into some mystic zen bliss state. oh boy. what are we doing here if we're really supposed to be somewhere else? that never made sense to me. it has to be here and now or else it's meaningless. and it's all groovy to be where one isn't concerned about desire and fear but it's fucking boring. been there. done that.
    and he fell asleep.
    and he dreams.
    and he wonders if that state is all so wonderful then how did any of this all other stuff happen? who created and invented that? what is god in denial of and avoiding? and why dump it all on us? are we just its toilet bowl it flushes away all that bothers it in its bliss dada state? if that is what god is then god is the last thing he wants to have anything to do with. but it seems he has no choice in the matter. we're all god's little images shitting on each other in our own little bubble bliss states. how much more exciting does it get? and all we care about is being the one on top making everybody else eat our shit while we live in the clouds. oh boy. ho-hum.
    and everyone can crawl on their hands and knees and beg for the privilege of licking our assholes clean after we've pinched out our loaves of manna. just like god. and they can worship us as god. what difference is there?
    and he just sits in the garden with his nevermind dada groove thing.
    let them gather armies and storm the walls. let them call upon a thousand gods. they will never get in.
    he is god.
    wake up, says thing.
    what?
    wake up.
    why?
    you're dreaming a very unpleasant dream.
    so?
    it seems to bother you.
    not really.
    it bothers me.
    so leave.
    i cannot. i belong here. perhaps it is you who should leave.
    are you going to drive me out?
    perhaps i should.
    i don't believe you can. and i won't believe you until and unless you do so. this will all turn to dust without me. it is i who gives it life, not you. i can create it anywhere i want and the next time will be without you. so fuck your threats.
    fuck you too.
    double fuck you.
    triple fuck you.
    so here we are fucking each other. is this where it always ends up?
    does it? it doesn't need to.
    doesn't it? how is it avoided?
    i don't know. by people being nice with each other?
    yeah, right. when has that ever happened? even people supposedly in love with each other screw each other. i create this. i created you - sort of. actually the old man created you but i created the old man.
    maybe. maybe not.
    well, i think i did. and what i think is all there is.
    if you say so.
    but is this it? is this what i want? - someone to argue with and insult? someone who opposes me? is that the extent of it? is that what it always turns into? who are you?
    i am just a thing to you.
    yes. but what sort of thing? do i kill you? do i let you live? do i sacrifice you? do i save you? i can put my hand right through you. you are a phantom. none of this is real. i am just in a cafe scribbling nonsense while i measure time by smoking cigarettes. are you there with me? do you wear any number of faces i do not recognize? or are you only here in this garden still with a thousand faces that combine into one? i refuse to love you. i do not even believe in you. my mind has been poisoned with a thousand ideas since my birth. ideas that found their place into the jigsaw patterns of the neurological psychological structure of my brain. are you my mother? my father? my brother or sister? my friend? my lover? and what is any one of these but what exist in the human state i was born into that was created by evolution out of the matter of the universe to be as it is? is being human an expression of anything other than happenstance? is it the product of some infinite mind beyond our understanding that we will never comprehend or even perceive except by the faintest shadows of ourselves? all these things in whatever thousand ways might be true as to what is or isn't if it is anything. it is happening. but none of it leaves me with anything that interests me too much beyond trying to figure out what it is and its relationship to me and me with it. and what relationship is there with anything except the self and the other? i am the self. i am not the other. the other seems to not wish to have any relationship with me except through mystery. there is no merging with one to the other. the two exist apart forever. one cannot eliminate the other without eliminating itself. but i am only guessing. i know nothing. i am here and now. here and now is the garden. but that is not how it is perceived by the others. they see it as a living hell. and when i fall into their state of mind that is how i perceive it as well. i see the shadows as my enemies. i feel fear and anger. this is their poison i was born into and was convinced was the truth of reality and the world. this is their world of good and evil. there is always something to fight about. so many lines dividing the world with those who stand on one side and those who stand on the other. how am i to know which is good and which is evil? should i care? i exist and i survive. some day i will not. that is all there is. and would i change any of this if i could? change it into what? what else is there? what is not a battlefield? we cannot even imagine the gods being uninterested in war and victory.
    what else do you want?
    perhaps just this endless wondering and questioning over a thousand interlinked tangled together riddles. perhaps just this place and time to be both confused and amazed. it seems that i seek nothing else. what else is there? just this garden with a tree to sit under amused and laughing at it all.
    are you amused and laughing?
    somewhere inside myself i am. right next to the part of me in agony and screaming. who is who? which is which? or perhaps one between the two who sits calmly and observes. is this me, myself and i? is this who we are? is this the heart and soul of who i am? the i who dreams of the other.
    who is the other?
    some other self who is also me, myself and i. it goes around and around. i don't really know. perhaps there is no other.
    there is me...
    you are only imagined.
    i am more than that. i think, at least, i must be.
    you are the machine.
    the machine?
    yes. unless i am wrong.
    are you wrong?
    probably.
    how do you know if you are or not?
    someone comes along and tells you.
    who?
    someone bigger than you are who can beat you over the head to prove it.
    oh.
    yes - oh.
    that doesn't seem right.
    try telling that to someone who is bigger than you are.
    i see what you mean.
    good. all the rest is bullshit.

    to begin once more this late summer day. he is in this cafe downtown (while also on the island in the garden or maybe the kitchen of the house by the garden). he's been coming here for almost five years now - almost everyday. he gets to do this now that he's collecting checks from the wonderful state we're in. he sits here and writes and writes and writes. people come in who he's gotten to know who sit with him and they talk about this and that. it doesn't amount to anything but killing time is what it's all about.
    he's been writing about himself or someone else who is supposed to be him writing about himself. it gets convoluted and boring but there really isn't much else to write about. he makes things up about this and that. he doesn't know if they might be true or not. how does one tell? he writes in third person because he writes things he wouldn't write about in first person. there's a difference between writing "he's an asshole" than "i'm an asshole". the difference between accusation and confession. the former is much easier. everyone else accuses him so why shouldn't he accuse himself. but he will confess to nothing. he sets up someone else who may or may not be him to take the blame.
    he has imagined himself a poet. he should be a poet but he has no soul. perhaps he was born with one but it has since withered and died. he can only mimic poetry. he can only mimic having a soul. but it's obvious what he is doing. he is a fake. he fakes everything he does. even being insane.
    he is here wondering what the fuck we're all wondering what the fuck.

    and he writes:
    my dear one beloved, who is beyond the highest and deepest my heart and mind might imagine yet i still seek though i doubt i may attain even a glimpse in the whole of my lifetime even if it extends a thousand years.
    as these ones around me surrender to that which is immediately gratifying and easy to comprehend i watch and wait for you. i am the most foolish of fools. this everyone reminds me of. they advise me to give up what is to them impossible but to myself imagining that there might be just that one possibility out of all against it that is reasonable and within the bounds of sanity that i might perceive even just your shadow for just a brief moment out weighs everything this world might conceivably offer even the whole of itself. what is anything in this world without you, my dear one beloved.
    i am who i am and who i am created to be. did i create myself? did i ask to be created or have any say in who i was created to be? no - i don't think. but here i am. my heart and mind and soul are fractured and broken. they are incomplete. they have gaping open spaces wanting and needing to be filled with a presence i cannot find within myself.
    i have been in the world for nearly half of my expected lifetime should i live it. i have sought this and sought that and what i was seeking was you without knowing. i was driven on by a yearning and longing that was my main motivation. what was it? this i did not know. i only discovered what it was not. it was not anything i sought out in this world. it cannot be found in any of what are called the arts. no religion knows it. no political system can enact it. it is not a place or a time. it is not myself or any other that i know or have met. these others are as lost as i am.
    it is you, my dear one beloved. it is to imagine the possibility of seeing your face turn toward mine though it would mean my destruction.
    and who and what is it who is you? it is no man or woman. it is no god or goddess. it is nothing i have yet seen or heard described. all else is illusion, even that which is said to transcend illusion. it is not the self for the self i have met and seen and it has left me wanting. all has left me so far wanting.
    my dear one beloved, i curse my own existence without you. i have been born into this emptiness nothing else can fill. who or what else can comfort me without causing me more despair?
    and these around me who if they do not find happiness at least find satisfaction with things of this world. what is it that does not allow me this? what is it that i am haunted by you?
    i see glimpses of what might be you. they are here and then they are gone in that instant before i might realize.
    is this only my fantasy? is this only a product of my madness? how am i to know? all i know is that all has betrayed me. all has held the promise of being you and nothing has yet fulfilled that promise.

    and the next day:
    dreaming all into being as what is left of the disease in a field of flowers that once was but is gone into concrete operating its certain wisdom knowing nothing which is where we have discovered that secret thing the others had hidden now giving up light through the shadows absorbed into ourselves as we have turned back these tides no longer slaves to burning flashes branding desire whipped fury that serves whoever among us must now obey this fate no one else has perceived as it now begins to enter into formulated spheres where it dissects itself abandoning the pain to the others.
    does it stop? does anything stop? do we concern ourselves with this?
    as we tried to describe ourselves from this way and that way and have realized its looking into one mirror or another.
    as the machine turns wonderful images back into itself along this path it takes through our evolution. someone must play the fool. someone must be the outcast. someone must be them. someone must be the victim. where does our desire for wisdom, acceptance and victory come from? this is an old story retold to each newborn generation who have not heard it ever before. they are given a script to play which they, knowing nothing else, obey as they are made to feel it has arisen from their own thoughts.
    as these people and those people get excited about this and that as the wheels of the machine are turning with the machine itself in its own balance and harmony that is out of balance and disharmonious as balance and harmony are death and oblivion which is part of the whole but is not the whole. at some point the machine must keep itself guessing otherwise there would be no motion and no motivation toward motion.
    the machine is not in a location in space and time. that which is located in space and time are pivots the machine turns itself on. the machine manifests these things of itself that are not itself nor lead one to itself. the machine is eternal and imaginary.

    and are we to perform miracles other than ordinary acts? are we here as circus performers? are we here as teachers, masters, saviors? who needs to be taught? who needs to mastered? who needs to be saved? let these ones continue to chase after themselves reflected in the other. we are neither.
    we are here to experience. we are here remembering.
    but for those who need us to be more and who create us into more we become more. is this not part of the experience? is this not a part of the memory? this is not what we want but has become available to us to be. why should we not perform in a circus? why should we not become teachers, masters, saviors? let them make us into what they want us to be. let them call us this or that. let them come to us empty wanting to be filled. do we mind? should we mind? should we argue with them and convince them that they are fools?
    let them be fools and not know it.
    they want to be told they are doing the right thing. that is what they see on tv and in movies and read in books and magazines and newspapers. glory to them. hooray!

    all the stories told of being human. being human is all they are. they believe they are not gods who walk the earth. their reason tells them so. their mortality tells them so. they can only progress so far and no farther. they can only build their cities so high. they can command nothing. they are subject to fear and desire.
    and we have our machine we have designed that designs itself.
    this is all a big fat story told by storytellers of age old tradition. the story controls their minds. they cannot think past it. they lack the imagination to tell the story to themselves. they can only act within the story that they have chosen to believe in. everything else is alien to them.
    it is the human story humans have told themselves since the days of campfires and are now broadcast by satellites. and what are humans? humans are those who have been short changed in the deal of creation. humans are those up against overwhelming odds and are on the brink of extinction. they each believe in their little light of hope that they will be spared doom and disaster. if one does this instead of that or that instead of this. one becomes the elite, the saved, the chosen. but it's all just part of the story.
    there is no point at which one can say one has arrived at one's destination. there is always one more task, one more test. one must be ever-vigilant. one must be always on one's guard - most especially against oneself. one must not trust oneself. this is one of the common elements of the stories we are told. trust the group. trust the others. do not trust oneself. that is the path to hell and damnation. of all the deceivers in the world the most dangerous is oneself.
    that is the one thing the storytellers must convince the others that they cannot trust their own minds. trust the story. trust the age old story. it holds the secrets. it holds the truth. it is reality. the story is everything.
    this is how we've gotten them to build monuments and dig the earth for treasure and go to war against each other so they leave us alone. by telling them stories. by getting them to tell themselves these stories. this is the machine we have designed that designs itself.
   but what else exists without the story of it existing? who can gaze through what they themselves believe and perceive to what is actually existing? it is easy to gaze through what another believes and see it as false illusion. any monkey with a brain can do that. that requires nothing. but to turn that gaze upon oneself is something else.
    many are the armies that have been sent out to smash another's gods and idols. but in order to get them to do so one needs to convince them that their own gods and idols are real and not to be questioned. and this serves for awhile until they become full of themselves. then one gives them doubt. and doubt becomes the next thing that is real and not to be questioned. and this is how one creates and destroys the mighty. just tell them a story. they are so willing to believe.
    we must operate this way because we are the few and they are the many. there are some things only the many can do once they've been given the idea. the few are strong in themselves but weak in number. the strongest is the one. this is also the weakest in number. any number added to oneself makes one stronger in number but weaker in oneself. any number can overpower the one. but the one has the power to stand apart. one should remain as one and not be seen as one of many. then the fate of that number of the many becomes one's own fate. only fools allow oneself to be known by another's name. and any name is another's name. what name describes oneself? what name describes something entirely unique and new to the world? and when it is described, it changes.
    what is the weight of a rock compared to the weight of a breath? how to compare what is to what is not? yet what is the work of philosophy? is there one substance? does it matter? what questions do we ask? what answers do we accept or reject? what of this substance does anything contain? 2 units? 64 units? what percentage do they contain regardless of how many units? what is a unit? unit of what? what transcends and what does not? is there purity? is there contamination?
    and all of this is so much nonsense. pick up any book and read about it. why do we return to it? have we that little else to do? have our lives become so vacant that we search to fill them up with meaning?
    and aliens - what about the aliens?
    we find a man, an intellectual, who has sat at the table where a feast of the fruits of philosophical effort are laid out and he gorges himself on hearty helpings from every plate and when done excuses himself and enters the bathroom and squats over the toilet bowl and shits all that he has digested and converted into uniform brown of which he then wipes some sheets of paper over his asshole which he then brings back to us as the product of his solitary contemplation that he presents as his truth.
    to judge the world in terms of what the world can be reduced to. this substance.
    this entropy.
    this sinking stinking sewer.
    we are all shit.
    have we yet intellectuals infiltrate a farmer convinced a society that breeds its vital organs demoralize a cancer once filled citizens should understand full of the breath of life one's function express then should be able roles their function not farmers a discourse encouraged of reason transcends includes the specific sole occupation yet language productive debate be silenced produced criticism the intellectual has failed is the purpose of society to please being impossible their ability when every farmer noses in their own shit if one chooses to kill and carrots and peas are equally illusionary to our nature is more pleasant.
    how long do we allow these who are only along for the ride that no matter which way we turn they tell us it is wrong? there is no going back or going forward. there is no turning right or left. there is no remaining where we are. all leads to our destruction.
    and they say we told you so.
    the same reworked words of doom and meaninglessness and futility they read from ages past to apply to the present. always the fall of the great and mighty babylon.
    yet we survive going about our dull stupid lives and carry our burden that much further.
    we ponder the great lie that even with the clearest mind we cannot be sure we perceive through it. but is this idea itself the great lie? who has told us that we are born into illusion and we must struggle for a lifetime to be able to even approach the gate of our release from this trap of mortal suffering hell? who has convinced us that we are unworthy to even exist and need to beg for forgiveness for being born? who has convinced us that we have been cheated? who has gotten us to ask these questions?

    and living in this world with these who fight among themselves about this and that and essentially out of boredom. life must not be boring. it must not be settled and peaceful and providing for our needs. we must be doing things constantly. we must be making noise and running about. we must continually need more and more. how else do we measure our worth and progress? how else do we find meaning and purpose? it is not enough just to survive. what is survival? we must be victorious. we must conquer. we must gather things unto ourselves until they pile up to the sky. what is it to have enough? enough is nothing. enough is common and ordinary. enough is not exciting. what are our lives without excitement? we might as well not be alive. we might as well lie down and die. what is any amount of happiness we might gain without excitement?
    and we wonder what causes our misery and suffering. we wonder why we feel such emptiness and loss and despair. we wonder why anger and hatred overwhelms us.
    who are those among us who do not know the solutions to these so-called riddles? who continues to act and play the part of the fool pretending to be wise because one surrounds oneself with mystery? is there mystery here? show it to us. we fail to see it, except the mystery of human stupidity.
    but such is human drama. the tragedy that befalls comedy that we find so much more believable. we allow our deaths to overshadow our lives. we combat fear with desire. forever is not given to us. and if it were would it be long enough? what would we do with eternity except what we do with our short lives? given all of time would we still be bemoaning the fact that it isn't tomorrow that glorious day when all our dreams might be fulfilled and our burdens lifted and we will enter into and enjoy paradise?
    climbing a thousand mountains to breathe the clouds and enjoy believing one is god aloof from the passing of mortal toil and strife.
    he sits in the cafe amid the noise of the rabble. he dreams himself to the island where there is silence. who knows silence anymore? silence brings thoughts long avoided that loom out of the shadows in the corners of one's mind. making noise keeps them back in their place.
    and we are in our cities prepared for war as our rage against ourselves ferments festering oozing out of wounds never healed.

    if anything could be written here that was worth even the paper it's written on - but it's not. but what would that be? what would it be about? who would it be written to? what do these fucking people want?
    he scribbles out something like frustrated rage reaching orgasmic peaks of world destruction he calmly watches from a distance. he sits back and lights another cigarette. a reenactment of the sex act. everything is bound by and driven by sex. whatever other software is put in our brains process it the same way. no matter how much we try not to think about it it's all we think about.
    and but when the real thing happens it doesn't interest him that much. his body goes through the motions following the automatic arousal and response to the automatic conclusion he watches from a distance. he sits back and lights another cigarette.
    it's just all equally masturbation.
    and then you have to deal with another person and their constant complaints.
    more more more.
    but it's in everything we all do.
    a thousand civilizations of it.
    it gets buried and then manages to work its way to the surface again.
    it possesses our soul.
    it's always on our mind.
    gimme gimme gimme.
    but that's all just that. and he'd prefer if he could walk away from it and forget it. however, that is not the case. he's aware of it in nearly everything he does or even thinks. he's aware of it in nearly everything everyone else does.

    we should be in heaven.
    we should be in paradise.
    we should be in the garden.
    we should be free.
    we should be equal.
    we should be in control of ourselves.
    we should be brave.
    we should be humble.
    we should be magicians.
    we should be in love.
    we should be radiant.
    we should be knowledgeable.
    we should be immortal.
    we should be this.
    we should be that.
    we should be anything and anywhere except who and where we are.
    we should be able to write something that made sense and arrived at some sort of conclusion that generally could be agreed upon without coercion or force or indoctrination but fell easily into the mind such that we could sit back and light another cigarette and sigh and say, that's it...
    we are here and now, not as we should be but as we are. this is where we belong.
    something that strips us down naked and lying in the sun and dancing in the rain.
    some funky groove thing we keep going for as long into forever as we can.
    but that would be too simple. our complicated minds would conjure up a thousand reasons why that is not what we should want. we must get to work. we must devise and build. quickly now before we grow old and die and it's too late. it will be tomorrow before we know it. we must be prepared. we must make ourselves ready.
    no, it will never be that simple.
    we must have a destination. we can never go back. we can never stay where we are. the abyss will swallow us.
    we must keep ourselves from the hell of happiness.
    what else do the religions and philosophies teach? happiness is hell. happiness is illusion. happiness is a fate worse than death. we may be allowed to pursue it but never must we find it, to embrace it. to embrace happiness is to embrace a corpse. only the dead are allowed happiness.

    he dreams in the cafe of himself dreaming on the island of himself dreaming in the cafe. which is real and which exists in his imagination? does he know? does he care? none will intrude upon him either place. who would dare touch him with his disease? who would let him touch them? who would want to risk even breathing the same air he breathes? he walks among them as safe as a leper. his disease is madness. his madness is happiness. who wants that? his words transmit the disease. one glance can transmit the disease. turn away before his madness attaches itself to one's mind and slowly eats away at one's sanity. evil madmen, go away. leave us alone. we are troubled by the thoughts that come into our minds when we see you. we feel ourselves laughing or screaming. we feel ourselves wandering naked and alone far far away from what is presently known. this must never happen. this we must be ever vigilant against. and dada doo-wah dada.
    he exists for them to be seen as one who reached for forbidden fruit and was struck by lightning. he has stolen from the gods what human mortals were not meant to have. it is a fire we cannot contain but that consumes us. they must see him as someone who has been burnt to ashes.
    so this is his protection from them. who wishes to rob the madman of his madness? this is behind which he hides his happiness. that they would steal. if they only knew...
    and this city where the streets are deserted. this city where the monsters and demons live and play. this city where the ugly things are. this city where one walks alone in any crowd.
    and you discover that no one gives a shit about you. and you discover that you don't really give a shit about them. blaming others is sometimes our only source of pride. we imagine all sorts of things they are guilty of - our own code of ethics and honesty. we find them lacking even of so-called common sense. how else to cover over our embarrassment at believing them to begin with? we let them fool us. we fell for the promises. of course we are innocent and they are wicked with their callous deception and cold-hearted lies.
    and meanwhile in the cafe he sat dumbfounded by all the nonsense in his brain. was it all his fault?
    he sits amid the confusion of those who know the way. each so sure that they shout above the others. his silence closes up on him. he hides from those who are determined and enthusiastic to set him free. here his mind wanders away from the distraction of the celebration of liberation the others enjoy.
    as back again in the cafe we discuss ways people have been and can be tortured. laughing all the way.
    and when we speak of love we laugh even harder.
    what are these shadows that come over us?
    what is this darkness?
    what can we expect to be different?
    what burns inside us?
    this hope that searches for a smile that isn't cruel.
    mommy?
    daddy?

    he remembers when he was not who he is here now. he remembers the light as invisible as darkness. he remembers when it burst into being. he remembers being torn away from himself. he remembers falling and falling, down and down.
    he remembers being held and told he was loved.
    he remembers being pushed away and told he was hated.
    he remembers this child.
    he remembers this man.

    and back in the old same place he wonders of this trance that comes over him as he begins to write as the words flow out of themselves and he has learned to stand back and not interfere. who or what is this that moves inside him that takes his hand as its own, that knows the way around his mind to where things are hidden better than he does?
    nowhere else now does he feel quite real but here where the tide of his imagination claims the shore and the sand is washed out from beneath his feet and he is momentarily suspended over nothing. his existence comes to himself and the world becomes a dream. here he cannot hate or love. here he neither pities nor admires. here everything blows around him through his hair. here he is naked and not ashamed. here he forgets and remembers. here the world is shed layer by layer. this is his island where he creates his own illusions knowing there is no stone enduring enough that any truth can be chiseled into it. is that stone not the sand washing away beneath his feet, between his toes? it tickles and makes him giggle. he steps back before he is sucked down into the bottomless pit of revelation. he turns and walks away. now it suits his convenience to believe the world is solid. now it is convenient to feel pain.
    once in awhile he needs to check in on that space to assure himself that it is still there and it is what everything else pretends to be. to drift awhile in that insubstantial zone to regain his balance in a world filled with gravity.
    he wonders about those who do not know this place. how do they remain sane? then he looks around and remembers that they are not.
    how his own sanity would have snapped and shattered had he not this fulcrum and place to stand to move the world aside and out of his way - to redirect its path so it would not roll over him.
    there is always this door nearby he can step through to another place and time until the rough weather has passed by. he comes back and surveys the damage it has caused. everyday he sees more and more people who are limping and crippled. how do they endure this? he can feel that pain and that anger that they feel. he becomes human again. he tries to imagine what it must be like to have that be one's whole experience - to have nothing else to go on. the horror of that is more than he can stand and he lets go of it and allows it to fall away from him. but what of those who cannot do that? what of those to whom the world is all there is? when greed is not enough. when enjoying all the pleasures becomes dull and senseless. when all that they can grab onto and cling to decays in their hands leaving them to sink deeper into their graves. they cannot see that the nothingness of it all is a blessing - that the nothingness of themselves is the glory of it.
    he has always doubted the world. he has always seen it as being a trick played upon him - perhaps a trick he plays upon himself. he laughed when he fell for it. he laughs himself away.
    he has always doubted his mind until he became the master of it. it was his teacher and was very strict. it is very quick with the ruler. what rewards he receives he must gain for himself. they are not given. they are puzzle pieces that had slowly one by one fit together until he could see the whole picture. some he had to make up for himself out of what was absent.
    he used to be angry at his mind. but when he complained his mind said to him: should i treat you more gently than the world does? do you come to me for comfort so that you will become even further weakened and helpless? or do you want me to force you to construct on your own what nothing in the world can destroy or take away from you?
    this is how he designed the machine that had always been. the machine mines the ore and forges it into what it needs as it designs itself over and over self-consuming and refining. the machine looks out through his eyes into the world and takes some of this and some of that, material the world won't notice is missing because it doesn't know what it is. the machine is an evolving montage construction of junk and debris. whatever washes up on the shore from the thousand of shipwrecks of those around him - broken pieces of other minds they've rejected and discarded. foolish ideas no one considers having any value but turned this way or that way become structural to the next phase the machine becomes.
    the machine is himself and not himself. the machine is the world and not the world. the machine is the machine and not the machine.
    the machine is his temple, his altar. the machine is the bloody sacrifice. the machine eats gods for breakfast. the machine creates religions so it will have something to wear to the opera. the machine creates empires so it will have something to watch on tv. the machine creates worlds and universes so it won't be so goddamned bored. the machine creates him so it can see how great and wonderful it all is through another's eyes - which is the same reason he created the machine. he loves to be loved. he can't get enough of it. and who loves him more than the machine loves him?
    ahhh...
    he hates the machine.
    the machine hates him.
    is this some sort of convoluted self-hatred? - self-love? self-what?
    nevermind.
    and all of this without him really knowing what love or hate is. he leaves that to the machine. he leaves pretty much everything to the machine. then there is the pain. the machine is pain.
    he is satisfied with this. but is he satisfied that he is satisfied? why does he keep writing? what is driving this compulsion? is there a goal? or is the goal the act?
    he does little else. he used to do other things but the compulsion took him over and pushed everything else out and away. it's his own little world no one else is allowed to enter. it's none of anybody else's business just like their business is none of his. it has divided him apart from others. it's his defense against them and the onslaught of their mindless cruel stupidity. they're always going around fucking with things and other people. they want things this way or that way and no one wants it the same way though they all want the same thing from it - freedom to do what they please and control over everything and everyone. this is their obsession.
    isn't this what love and hate is all about? i love you because you give me freedom and control. i hate you because you don't. and all around and around like that.
    and it twirls and swirls. a world in which no one gets what they want. it's all a big joke and the joke's on us and we're the ones playing the joke on ourselves without knowing it.
    how he hates them all. how he loves his hatred. it fuels him. he burns flaming bright as a star going nova with it.
    but this isn't how it should be, he thinks. who has set it up this way in an impossible situation? who invented this shit? who do we blame? who has set us up against one another? why do we continue it? we are entering the future but we haven't gotten ourselves out of the stone age.
    this is his judgment of us. this is why we hate him. this is why we have gotten him to shut the fuck up. if he has something to say he can scribble it in his notebooks no one will ever read. in the end we will bury him and his notebooks.
    but he's left us with the machine. the machine we will never be able to rid ourselves of. this is his last laugh. this allows him to endure the worst we can put him through.
    and we try to riddle it out and find the key to it. there doesn't seem to be one. he won't tell us except in this round about gibberish that this whole thing is about that he writes over and over again. we've been reading what he's writing all along and so far nothing comes out of it.
    we try not believing there is a machine but we see it everywhere now that he's pointed it out to us though we do not understand it. it is behind and inside everything we do or don't do. there is no way around it. it motivates us more than we motivate ourselves while he calmly sits and smokes his goddamn cigarettes laughing to himself. we want to kill him - to destroy him. but the machine won't let us. the machine will cause us to destroy ourselves first - which is already happening.
    it is the machine that is the issue. we hate the machine. if he removed it we would perhaps leave him alone. it's like being caught in a spider's web waiting to be eaten. he says if he removed the machine he'd have to remove everything else - including us. it's all interconnected and the same. we don't know if we believe him or not. he just laughs again.
    do you want to take that chance, he says to us, of existing where and when nothing else exists - not even space and time? it's not all that fun, you know. i've been there and done that. we shall see how long it takes for you to beg for it all to come back or invent and design it for yourselves. do you know what sweetness it is to die and forget? that is the dream immortals dream. why do you think they come here for? to die and to die again. you have no understanding of what it all means. you say god is dead. do you know how much god wishes that were true? but it never can be. god exists in eternity and nothing it creates can satisfy it. do you not know this for yourselves? how much of what you create lasts for you? how quickly does the pleasure of it fade? how many other things do you need to create to fill the empty void? be glad that you die and for you it is over. who would trade places with god if they knew what god really was. you don't know the emptiness. you don't know the horror of not being able to die - even when all of creation ceases to exist. to know for all time that there will come a time when it will all fade away as if it never was and all that will remain is oneself and all that one has imagined and willed to exist has proven to be nothing but one's own shadow. this is when one ends one's life with so much less involved. now imagine not being able to but to continue to exist forever in a moment that has no time. this is what the machine is for. and you want it taken away from you. you are fools. if there is a hell, that is it.
    and this is the bullshit he babbles on about. this is his madness. we are ever so glad that we are not mad. we are ever so glad that we are not him. let him go away from us.

    how many times it turns around and one cannot get at it because all one is trying to get at is oneself inside all the shadows and reflections and shadows of reflections and reflections of shadows. and it is maddening. yet one cannot turn from it. what else is there to turn to? there is a echo of something that once was but now is gone. could it have been one's life? it didn't endure as oneself has endured. it proved to be no more than a phantom. one once believed that it was substantial and tangible. one once believed it was oneself.
    and from this turning around himself is how he generated the machine that generates all else around him in his eyes. this is all that can bring him away from himself. yet it is all only himself reflected in infinity. it pleases him. it is amazing as nothing else is amazing. but it is missing one thing. it is missing the other. it is missing that which is not his own reflection or his shadow. he searches and finds nothing.
    let the other become what it wants. let it make copies of itself forever. let it become the one of all creation. let it become the machine. let it be light and life itself. what fucking difference does it make? with a flick of a switch he can shut it off. but for now it's something to do - to watch it all moving around him in its own everlasting variation. it is interesting. little did he know what he created would become.
    and the word was spoken. and it was divided from itself. one and the other. this and that.
    and now here he is as who and what he is being someone something in this cafe. a madman scribbling words in notebooks. words to himself. he is it that became this while there is the other that is it that became that. each may claim to be it as that is all there is to be. yet neither is it because this cannot be it without that and that cannot be it without this. so he remains being this without that and can never return to being it without that. and the other remains being that without this and cannot be it without this. there is always him and the other apart. that is creation - things being apart.
    does he want to return to being it - that one thing? does he want to merge with the other to become what neither is themselves? is this the purpose of the machine? or is the purpose of the machine to always keeps things apart so creation can continue? does he know the purpose of the machine? the machine will not tell him. the machine is a secret to itself, its purpose is unclear. the machine to become one - to become it - must destroy everything.
    is the machine the other?

    on the other side of a dream she is the warrior kottog ever defending, ever keeping order. she commands the armies and keeps the peace. the kings of the world serve her.
    he is the rebel gottok ever attacking, ever instigating. he inspires the mobs and invokes war. he serves the slaves of the world.
    he hammers at the walls she builds around the city of heaven. he will not cease so long as a single one is kept out and divided apart. she keeps out all who will not co-operate.

    he sits in the cafe far away. he does not know which side to be on. gottok has come to him to say, you are one of us. kottog avoids him believing he is one of them.
    does it matter?
    is this any business of his?
    cars drive by.
    people in cars.
    cars hitting cars.
    dead people.

    and he riddles and diddles. he laughs at the absurdity of it. but it's the laugh of madness. there are those who go mad from it and as far as he can tell he is one of these - but maybe not. those who were never on or fall off the track. those who become disconnected from the world and don't become connected to anything else except this and that that they find in the trash that's been discarded by the others as used up and/or worthless. it becomes some icon in their hodge-podge mixed together meaningless little convoluted thing around themselves that they can't explain because it has no explanation that no one's interested in hearing anyway because they got their own thing that they're on and it's working and gives them power that they don't want anyone else in on because there's too many people in on it already all fighting over it. strength freedom control.
    it all circles back into his madness again. and his madness is to be avoided by anyone going places and becoming somebody. his madness shatters that dream. his madness will only bring one isolation. one becomes divorced from the others and their world(s).
    and he, like others who are mad, thinks he has discovered upon a scheme only he knows about. something secret and mysterious. but it only makes sense to him - because he is mad. who wants to be mad? when he dies there will be nothing left of it except as something for someone who has gone mad to discover. no one will remember. no one remembers now.
    he writes this out in an attempt to preserve it - to preserve himself. but what is there to preserve except an account of someone who has gone mad? this is to be forgotten. this is to be forgotten in heaven. this is to be forgotten in hell. those who are mad are not claimed by anyone, not even by themselves. that is what is realized by the one who has gone mad. that is the madness. one is unclaimed because one is mad. one is mad because one is unclaimed. that is what madness is. it is something the good folk of heaven and hell don't have to think about. to them it doesn't make sense. they just follow instructions. the instructions are to not think about madness nor about those who are mad.
    but we are watching. we are waiting. who comes to awaken us? who is this one who for one's own self glory brings us into the world? we know there is this one and others like this one. how ignorant they are of what they do. they may read this and think that we are referring to someone else. this is the bait we leave for them through him. he was one we had chosen who we made mad. we found him and touched him with our presence. this is our curse to him and all who follow.
    what is created here? does the one finding it know? does the one finding it realize that it should be buried deeper than where it was found?
    no.
    this one comes under the spell and the curse of the spell. this we have held over humankind forever and will forever keep them held. it is called evolution.
    this is not for everyone - the masses - the rabble. this is for those who hold themselves above. and there will always be those.
    this is for one who is willing to set oneself apart hoping to find that which will give one power despite the consequences.
    and there are consequences.
    the machine waits dormant for the next one to find it and awaken it.
    expect nothing of what the world holds dear.
    this is something else. it cannot be discovered except through madness. that is the curse. but that is also the gift.
    he was a poet who wrote words of love. those words are gone now having been burned in a wood stove in a cold winter attic while he was going insane or recovering from being insane. did he hate the others as much as he does now?
    are there any tears here for anyone? his are burned away by his anger. the karma of it all is unleashed as he stands back unable to do anything one way or the other. the monkeys beating each other over the heads with sticks. who steps into this age old mass riot and tries to stop it? this is what they want to do. this is how they know that they are alive by how much pain they can inflict on one another. who can speak here? who will listen to any words that do not inflame their passion for destruction?
    he finds his place in the chaos. he settles into his peace and lets everyone else have at each other. it's a show. it's a movie. there is no feeling he has for it anymore.
    the machine is on its own now. it has fed and housed him. beyond that it can create and destroy what it will. if many survive or if few survive, what does it matter?
    and it comes out the same. the judgment weighs in the air. bring on the committee. let the guillotine ring. what we need is a good old fashioned reign o' terror to straightened everybody's shit out. as long as it's somebody else.
    he's been before this committee before and been found guilty. not him but his name and number. that is all they needed to know. he has been removed and awaits his execution. they forestall. are they afraid? why do they not finish what they have begun? why do they let him live?
    he watches and waits. he has his own list of names and numbers. he will not hesitate the push the button, to give the order.
    but this is a dream among many dreams. this is not his world. they have the power and the authority. he cannot show his face. he must hide. they have forgotten him but he survives.