the world awash in thought and thought into creation, out of creation. the ongoing drama of it. drama for its own sake. drama evoked by and evoking the emotions. our animal nature that keeps us from reaching the sky, reaching out into the air, touching the intangible and imaginary. drama from love to violence - and sometimes both at once. drama from the pale to the explosive. sit back and watch the show we all perform. watch it always passing through its convolutions and convulsions. never settling on anything before it is swept and sweeps itself away. there are the smug and the erratic, those in the spotlight and those in the shadows. there is all and everyone. who can name them all? some get along while others fight. some make themselves rich while others are robbed. some give it all away. this is as it is and as it has been. it is as it will be despite what we might employ to control it. this is its spirit. this is what makes it living. only death can stop it. only total death can stop it all. but then wouldn't the rocks rise up and speak? we might reduce it to nothing but nothing opens all possibilities. nothing is what gave it birth to begin with from one infinitesimal happenstance random spark that could not be prevented because there was only nothing to prevent it. and nothing is exactly that - nothing.
    but this is. to think of its beginning is to think of nothing. this seems to be an absurdity. we must always have an object to think about. nothing has no object nor is no object. yet since there is just nothing an object is possible given all the space and time that is nothing entirely without bounds or limits. nothing presents no obstacle to infinity being able to express itself as something. in the full expression of infinity there must exist at least one possibility of there being an object. once the possibility of an object exists then the object exists. the existence of the object begins the existence of creation.
    or something like that.
    this is what he is thinking today. imagining creation from nothing. there probably is no connection between his imagining creation and creation itself. he leaves it to the others to puzzle it all out and arrive at their own theories and myths about it. he remembers that first thought. it is the genesis and foundation of all thought. one can hear it if one listens. at least he can hear it. he can see it. he can feel it. he can touch it. smell it and taste it. this is what he imagines.
    his imagination has always been more real to him than what he experiences. what he experiences is contained within his imagination. this hasn't helped him too much in the world. he has managed to hold on and survive - just survive - mostly by chance and luck. the world is a movie. it's entertainment. it amuses him with its drama which he gets caught up in from time to time as one often does watching a movie. one believes that what one is experiencing is real - especially when it causes pain. one behaves as if it is real. that is what makes it real.
    and it is real. what other reality is there except the reality of what comes from nothing? nothing may be more real but it isn't experienced. nothing is a drag. it just sits there. it doesn't even do that. so when this possibility of experience comes around, we take it. we take it for what it is and accept it for what it is not. what else is there to do? nothing.
    but what is isn't much of anything either. since it is not really anything but is just the possibility of something. it never reaches full existence. it is always split between existence and non-existence, between what is and what is not. it exists only in possibility and possibility is always split between what is possible and what is not
    he loses himself in his own thoughts. he doesn't know what his thoughts really are or if these are his own thoughts. they come into his mind as they will. he doesn't know what he would be thinking of if it were just his own thoughts unshaped by the world around him that he is experiencing and absorbing. he is a creation of these thoughts. without them he would think of and be nothing. or so he is thinking at the moment. and these thoughts tell him to write down what he is thinking.
    he doesn't know if this is unusual or not. maybe this is how others experience themselves - whether they realize they do or not. he tries to imagine experiencing himself otherwise but doesn't know what that would be. he doesn't think he is unusual. why should he be? why would he be different from the others aside from the usual common differences arising from each of our own individual experiences and genetic information that created us? that is not what he is thinking about. that type of being different is universal. it is all the same difference. it is being different from even that that he is thinking about. different enough to be perhaps not human. but he sees no evidence that this might be so. but people sometimes treat him that way.
    so what does that all mean? what does it amount to? nothing. he just sits in the cafe and continues to write. it all involutes in on itself. there is no reference to anything external since what is external could very well be imaginary.
    and he again arrives at the point when he thinks that he should write about something else - something externally real and recognizable to the others. and he draws a blank. there are more than enough people who write about those sorts of things. there is a backlog of it. miles and miles of files. pretty files of whatever and whatnot.
    he thinks about getting to the heart and soul of it - if there is a heart and soul to it. couldn't there be? shouldn't there be? no matter how different we are there should be some sort of recognizable common ground. something that runs through and is a connecting thread to all experience. a heartbeat does that. everyone experiences a heartbeat. and a breath. there, those are two things common to all. but that isn't exactly what he means. he doesn't really know what he means.
 
    so that's that. it's a hat. wear it or not. dance be-bop-dada-doo. rockets to mars and all that jazz. it's just space and time and whatever else. space and time - those are common to everyone's experience. when he's asleep he doesn't think about this shit. he would like to sleep all the time. like his cat. but people don't sleep all the time - mostly. they stay awake doing all sorts of things to keep themselves busy and awake. so it comes and goes. so he comes and goes. the big fat universe turning around inside out of itself, or something. coming and going. and with him sitting in the subjective relative middle of it all. watching it with minimal comprehension beyond instinct and socially learned behavior response. just like everyone else.
    and everything sort has turned into this brown glop. everything mixed down to its lowest common denominator of mundane meaninglessness. maybe he's depressed. that's what the doctors say. but he feels like that getting all excited about any of this and humping its leg in oblivious happy delight like the others do is even more depressing. he just wades through it trying to keep his head above it. he's managed to do this with a minimal amount of involvement. anytime he did get involved it seemed to create nothing but trouble and problems both for himself and those he was involved in it with. so he dropped out of it. now both they and he seem happier - or less stressed at least. at least for him. fuck them. he doubts that they have any less trouble and problems than before. he doubts it was just him. but maybe it was. maybe it still is. he doesn't bother with that anymore. he's only involved with those who come sit at his table in the cafe. if they have trouble or problems with him they don't have to come around. and many have chosen not to do so. others have not. it doesn't really matter. he just basically sits here writing through it all.
    he thinks about what he used to write about before was trying to figure out and describe some scheme to it all. he still feels like there is one but it is very subtle and so far beneath the surface appearance of things, though it is directly connected to them at the same time, as to not make much difference whether there is one or not. if there is it is only perceived by imagination and imagination can perceive anything - as many schemes as it wants to. and there is no reason to think that there is only one or that however many there are can be described as one thing - even the world. how does one describe the world? how does one know how one describes the world is anything like how the world is? or even if the world is anything other than the description? the description of imagination. such speculation only leads one in circles which may be the true description. the world in and out of balance in flowing equilibrium that might as well be all out chaos for all we know.
    we see pattern which many argue isn't there. they claim that the pattern is there because our brains are designed to perceive pattern. he supposes this may be true but where does that design for seeing patterns originate from? the theory is it originated out of evolutionary adaptation. but what was it adapting itself to if not an existing pattern? there is no reason for creation to have pattern or design or order. creation could be a noise of existing stuff without pattern, design or order. it may be that in total perception that that is all it is as a whole. but we perceive it otherwise. if it can be perceived otherwise then it must in some sense be otherwise.
    but this amounts to dada. perhaps in some circles this constitutes something to debate but for most of us dumb fucks it is just intellectual masturbation. one does not think of order or chaos watching a football game or reading a love story. it has no political, economic or social function. it only creates further argument, it doesn't resolve any.
    he steps into it. he steps out of it. it is not one thing or the other. it is both and neither. la-dee-da. hoopla.
    he keeps himself busy writing, that is all.
    it all exists in circles around itself looping and spiraling and zig-zagging every which way. lines can be drawn around and between anything and anything else. anything can be pointed out as being either this or that or the other thing. anything can be connected to anything else. anything can be added up or subtracted or multiplied or divided. anything can appear to make sense or not. the only limits are the limits of our perception and that which creates our perception. and for there to be perception - and therefore consciousness - there must be that which is to be perceived as being able to be distinguished to be perceived. or some such whatever.
    and this is where he's at. this is what surrounds him as he sits in the cafe writing. whether it is his imagination or not is moot. he exists within his imagination. he perceives through his imagination. he thinks through his imagination. he imagines through his imagination.
    there is no truth or reality here - not objective truth or reality, or shared truth or reality. there is nothing to be proven or disproven as empirically correct and fitting into all else that is or supposed to be so. there is nothing metaphysical or mystical here. there is just him and what he perceives and what he thinks about what he perceives and how he describes it. it may be his own perception alone having little or nothing in common with anyone else's.
    so what?

    there is the feeling of strangeness that becomes familiar. there is the feeling of distance that becomes to feel near. there are words that lose their meaning. he writes them down anyway. by this time it has become a compulsion.
    the shadows eat the light. there are buildings of thought that collapse into themselves. memory is folded. there is still the cafe. the people who come here talk among themselves. he still is writing. the machine chews and grinds.
    he looks into the still pond as his face disappears. he is among those who have lost the game. those who have failed are forgotten while victory is celebrated. should he join in that? he looks into their faces and sees nothing.
    he survives. he doesn't know how or why. he should have been dead a thousand times. they let him live though he does nothing. he fills this niche. he holds a place in the machinery that has been designed and built to run the world. all those giving and following orders. he breathes. his heart beats. his mind is filled with impressionistic thoughts - abstract impressionistic thoughts. very little becomes too clear. when it does it is only for the moment. it usually contradicts what had seemed clear moments before. it just continues along its own way.
    he doesn't know if he's opened himself up or closed himself in too far. either way the result is the same. everything he thinks seems pointless. what he watches the others doing seems pointless except it is they whose combined organized effort provides him with everything he has somehow. he would not survive otherwise. but, it is survival for the sake of survival. no point to it other than that.
    he turns this over and over. is there a way out? does he want a way out? the same words and phrases come to mind that he has been writing forever now.
 
    so he finds himself in this suspended state. not really this and not really that or the other thing. he's not really in the world and he's not really not in the world. he is surrounded by gray - not darkness, not light. the gray is as soft as fog. things move in and out of it. things that may have clarity elsewhere but here are diffused and blend into one another losing their distinctive character that distinguishes them apart. here anything can be anything else. here opposites are only reflections in the mirror. it is impossible to tell one from the other. each can only be said to be the other's opposite. neither can be said to be either true or false by itself alone. they do not exist by themselves alone.
    the others live and function in a world where opposites can stand alone without their counterparts. good can be separated from evil. truth can be separated from lies. god can be separated from not-god. etc. they aspire to achieve one and negate the other without realizing that the two - or three or more - always exist together. with one there will always be its opposite. or something like that.
    but this is motive and ambition. this is what moves and shakes the world. for those who have this there will be those who have that and those who have the other thing. they will always be against one another. they will always seek to negate the other. there will always be confrontation and conflict and war. there will always be desire and fear.
    and he can map this out and point to it but in doing so he realizes that it is pointless to do so. others have done it before him and much more better with much more better clarity than he can manage or wants to manage. and all these words remain silent against the deafness of the others. he doesn't imagine that his words can go further than that - if they even go that far.
    thick as a brick.
    there is enough in the world that keeps the others going their own way trying to achieve what they desire and get away from what they fear. always the dynamic of the two. they gain little pieces of it that encourages them to continue their pursuit. they will not turn from this promise of fulfillment no matter how long it fails to materialize. they hold it in their dreams. these dreams keep them going day to day. they run along on the treadmills that power the machine.
    so why doesn't he do that as well? if life is a game, why not play it? or is he playing it? doesn't he have his own role as the others have? this was answered before. he's not in it, he's not out of it. he is both a part and not a part. he exists to them as someone who is set aside. he is as dependent on the world being as it is as they are. yet he does not participate in it - unless sitting in a cafe all day writing in notebooks is participation. maybe it is. he does not add to it nor subtract from it. what is given to him to survive and live on goes right back into the system. he is given money and he spends it. it is not really his. he just transports it from one part of the economy to the other just like everyone else does. the wheels keep turning. the wheels of the machine.
    and while he exists and where and how he exists, he writes. he writes as being other to them. he writes as someone set aside - or setting himself aside. he has only his imagination to create a context to his thoughts - to himself. he tries to explain his existence as this one set aside. there is a paradox and contradiction involved in it. sort of.
    he cannot see anything that is different about himself - except that he sits around doing nothing while they busy themselves at work and play. he is as human as they are. maybe. he lives in the same world. maybe. he does not know of anything he might think about that they do not or cannot think about themselves. yet he is set aside as being different. he supposedly has some sort of mental disorder that has never been satisfactorily explained to him what the fuck it is. it would seem to him that this is because in order for their system to work and operate that a certain x-amount of people need to be set aside. he just happens to be one of these people. he is different because he is treated as being different and always has been since birth not because he actually is. being treated different he has had to learn to act different. it's become expected.
    they set themselves up in mutually exclusive groups of different sorts and positions within those groups. they are opposed to one another because they believe they are opposed to one another. they exist in competition because they believe they must compete. they create their own bounds and limits. they value only that which can be possessed by a few. the fewer people who possess some particular thing the more the others value it. most of these things have no value whatsoever - i.e. they are neither food, clothing nor shelter, etc. - other than that they are rare. yet more time and energy will be expended trying to possess them than anything else that is more common and of more practical use. this is what gives some people power over others by having these objects of desire. as long as others - the many - desire them these people - the few - will retain power.
    or something like that.

    none of this is it. nothing is so simple as that. nothing so simple as it because it is it. that's it. dig? yet it cannot be written out in words or understood in thought. we can only understand parts of it that we then put in some sort of order. this allows us to act in the world. the world of it. we all understand different parts and act on this understanding in different ways. different contexts of order. these merge or clash as they will. they are the tides and the winds. they are action and reaction. the momentary sum of one over the sum of the other. in another next moment they shift and another takes precedent for another moment.
    as he thinks about it. what he thinks about it is always changing. a pattern evolves then de-evolves. (are we not men? are we not pins?) once it can be named it changes and becomes something else. the exceptions overturn the rule. the exceptions become the rule. then there arise exceptions to that rule. as soon as one thinks there is something, there is nothing. as soon as one thinks there is nothing, there is something else.
    but there is order. there are rules - exceptions or not. we launch and land rockets on other planets.
    so what exactly is it he is confused about? if it is confusion. there are things as they are and always have been and always will be. no confusion there. but maybe it is when he starts thinking about meaning and purpose that he becomes confused. maybe.
 
    there is this and there is that. there is someone in a hat. the hat becomes you, my dear, the ugly man said. she got up off her sanitary pedestal and walked toward the door. she turned at the threshold and said, i am not here for your convenience. the ugly man pursed his cracked lips and made fishy kissing sounds. she turned and left.
    outside was frightful. no one liked going out there. it was the region of despair. it was cold and strange. we wondered at times whether it had always been so or whether this was the impression we had only begun imagining recently. the ugly man laughed. it was an ugly laugh.
    he sits at his table writing. everything goes on around him in reality and in his imagination. those are two funny odd words he writes. how is one to tell the difference between the two when the same faculty of mind perceives them both? reality may be real in whatever objective sense it can be stated to be so but it is still perceived through our imagination. this seems odd to him. but it apparently doesn't seem odd to the others - whoever these others may be. does he perceive them from reality or does he imagine them?
    what will save him from his default solipsism? does he have to imagine something? does he have to invent a solution? does he just need to forget?
    he lights another cigarette.
    i have tried these things, he continues, mumbling to himself as he writes. i have tried to imagine something that will give reality reality. but when the lights go out, the lights go out. there is nothing but me, myself and i. what a drag. what a bore. how silly that is.
    and he hangs out in the cafe, mostly by himself. he drinks coffee. he smokes cigarettes. he scribbles in a notebook. he talks to himself. like someone written by camus or kafka or one of those guys. some existential creepy guy. somewhere on the border of suicide. someone outside looking in and inside looking out.

    the wound.
    the wound of birth. coming into this world bathed in blood.
    bleeding all over the page.
    he should be silent like the others.
    would he be interested in reading their babbling nonsense?
    would it be any different than his?
    how deep does it go?
    is this the shared space of existence? of consciousness?
    la-dee-da. avoid looking directly into the mirror and not seeing any reflection.
    what is more than i am i?
    but this just arrives at old questions.
    who wrote these questions before him?
    if he wanders the labyrinth of himself and comes across the question scrawled on the wall, who am i?
    who wrote it?
    did he?
    did the other?
    what other?
    has he forgotten he has been here before?
    he looks into the mirror of this world and some evolved ape stares back at him.
    homo sapien sapien.
    just some guy.
    not much different from the others.
    is this god?
    is this some sort of a joke?
    the machine?
    just what the heck has he been thrown into?
    has he always been here?
    will he always be here?
    he is born. he lives. he dies.
    and what's so bad about that?
    it's a miracle - just the common everyday.
    look at me, says the ape in the mirror. i am you. you are me.
    but what about these other things i think? he says back. how do i forget them?
    the ape says nothing and just shrugs.
    he puts his fist through its face and he cracks and shatters it into silver backed shards of glass.
    he realizes that he is in his bathroom talking to himself.
    great, he thinks, i've become the lunatic.

    this is why he writes. he writes to keep himself connected to the world. he knows where he is when he is writing. in some fucking cafe. i write therefore i am, he writes. he is a physical creature using a physical hand to hold a physical pencil to make physical marks on a physical piece of paper. he is in a physical space and time.
    but is it a dream?
    is this some sort of physical world manifested from our collective dream?
 
    and let's go around that one again.
    cool, man, cool. dig.

    the cool breeze of madness coming in through the open window sending a slight chill and shiver up one's spine.
    just a reminder.
    a reminder of what?
    a reminder of what awaits - the absolute cold of nothingness.
    and one thinks, i've gotten out of that before.
    but only with one's imagination creating a fantasy dream of it being other than that.
    a violin cracks open with laughter.

    we want to break down the systems. we want to storm the castle fortress of old - of those who set themselves above us. we claim our own experience. we argue against their holy words with vernacular poetry. we reach into and find our own truth. the truth that is true/false.

    and what when the individual becomes an abstraction? when it is known by a fictional character in a book. a book read by thousands or millions. a character who the readers look to model their own idea of individuality.
    he writes laughing behind his own back.
    he thinks and mumbles to himself, what can be more absurd than this?
    he lights another cigarette.
    a parody of the individual.
    the tortured soul alienated from society.
    the modern angst.
    a society of individuals who all experience the same thing.
    he pays for his individual cup of coffee with money he gets from the state.
    oh boy.
    ho-hum.
    is this really happening?
    is this really happening to him?
    him?
    who is him?
    who the heck is this guy?

    he pauses a moment.
    he looks out the window and watches as an individual pushes a shopping cart filled with whatnot and sundry down the sidewalk on the other side of the street. is this the real individual? who cares? not john and jane q. public. god bless the collective mind. individuals come and go born by the truck load stumbling through their lives and dropping dead into their graves. how many of them would any of us really want to know? to sit down and talk to for any extended amount of time.
    give us someone in uniform. give us someone who doesn't sit around all day bemoaning one's stupid fate. one who is marching forward sure of oneself. a person of decisive action and deed. someone who pays one's taxes so he can maintain his free lunch and laugh at everyone he sees including himself.
    la-dee-da-dada-doo.
 
    hooray!
    hurrah!
    let the individual reign supreme - all 6 or 7 billion of them.
    we are free!
    we are free to die and be forever forgotten as if we were never here at all.
    he walks through the ruins. he kicks through the scattered trash and ashes like leaves in a forest.
    he lights another cigarette.

    to come to the realization of absurdity. to remain uncomprehending in one's fullest comprehension. when new thoughts spill over onto the floor and drain down the sewer to the river flowing polluted with human shit and garbage.
    and we are what?
    where?
    when?
    is this ending?
    beginning?
    continuing?
    some see this age darkening. some see it brightening. most don't look at it one way or the other. what does one do but live?
    unable to imagine it different even if one's wishes were granted. how much power and wealth and immortality is enough? how long does an orgasm of pure pleasure direct into the brain last before it becomes ordinary or even painful?
    and what then?
    will only death and oblivion suffice?
    what is true angst?
    what is true suffering?

    as the walls and bridges collapse and one finds oneself where one is among the many of the others who may or may not be the same. one finds oneself writing words that mean nothing and not knowing what one wants them to mean if they were to mean anything.
    what is that anything?
    what is it that we can perceive or experience or become that will be it? can we even imagine? it seems that it would seem to be so easy. is it something denied us? is it something held out as a reward for us? something we must realize that we already have?
    and blah blah blah.
    and pie in the sky.
    pig in the sky.
    my o' my.
    how time does fly.
    was jesus an astronaut?

    so one explores one's darkest depths. that's something that one can do. one can bemoan the innumerable disappointments of one's existence.  but what was one expecting? how does one come to expect anything? one is born into a body with a mind that determines certain perceptions that give rise to certain thoughts and attitudes about things and events in the world and oneself related to them. there is the experience of pain and pleasure in all its manifest forms internal and external. one forms some idea of what should be which is derived from what is. this is the human condition.
    and that's it. that is what we do. that is what we have done for as long as written records exist. and we can assume that we have been doing it for far longer than that. and there doesn't seem to be any notable change in the foreseeable future. we're stuck.
    so we spend as much time as we can imagining something else whether it's based on realistic possibilities of ways we might improve our lives or whether they're full blown fantasies into mystical paradises brought to us by the gods we invent that up until now only they enjoy. we each find what we feel comfortable holding onto to keep ourselves from being sucked down that drain hole of despair which in its own way is just as much an escapist dream as anything else. or not. who's to say what is real or not or what should be used to make such a determination?
    so have we come to anything yet? have we happened upon some revelation of some sort? are we ready to have him publish this as a book and go on tour and on tv?
    he lights another cigarette. is this a joke or what? he laughs at himself asking that question. who is he asking? who is he expecting to answer?
    it is what it is and ain't what it ain't.

    throughout thinking of this and thinking of that and thinking about thinking of this and thinking about thinking about that and thinking about whether this or that can be thought of and how they can or should be thought of... he sneezes.

    there is or is not a clue. there is or is not some piece of something that leads to the rest of it. we can either get there from here or not. but what is there? is it that which lies beyond ourselves that we cannot reach? obviously. duh. it would be that. but what is that? what do we not touch already? what is divided from us? what is that which creates this division? do we ourselves will it? do we decide to be divided from other things? from each other? do we have a reason why we would do such a thing?
    what would it be not to be divided from other things and from each other? what would it be to be one and whole with everything? is that the there we are trying to get to? is that what it is we are searching for a clue for? is there a clue? can we become one and whole with everything? is that even desirable?
    how could this be done - if it is desirable as some think it is? is it done out in the world or in our minds? where is the division? is it out in the world or in our minds? don't we have to know where the division is before we can get through it or eliminate it? isn't that the clue? but what is the clue to the clue if that is the clue? what will tell us where this division is and what it is and how it occurs? and could there be a reason why we kept this knowledge from ourselves?
    what would happen if we somehow got through this division that is either in the world or in our minds and we merge one and whole with everything no longer divided from things in the world or from the world itself and no longer divided from one another? what would we see? what would we think? what would we experience? we would not see red from blue or any color from any other color or any shade from any other shade or any shape from any other shape. we would not think this from thinking that or from thinking the other thing or any thought separate from any other thought. we would not experience pain from pleasure or joy from sorrow or good from evil or any other thing separately from its opposite. we would not be one and the other. we would not be me and you or us and them. we would not be alive or dead. we would not be existing or not existing. there would be no here or there or now or then. there would be no beginning or end and no source or destination. there would be no singular point or infinity. there would be no moment or eternity. there would be no something or nothing.
    and what the fuck is that?
    it is something real and not real.
    it is something that it is probably for our own good we are divided from. that's what he thinks anyway. he wants no part of it. it seems like it would be awfully boring.
    that is the state he imagines his god - it - exists in and went mad in and hallucinated all of creation to get out of.
    but maybe not.

    what keeps us from that? does it divide itself from us or do we divide ourselves from it? how did we come from it to begin with? how did anything come from it? is it all just its imagination? is it all just our imagination? is it us? are we it?
    did we lose ourselves somewhere in all of this? did we make a wrong turn? do we come back to ourselves again as possibly being that which created division in order to create ourselves and the world we imagine ourselves existing in? it's a possibility, isn't it?
    huh?

    we are in the divided world. we are in the divided state of existence. it is possible that nothing could exist without being divided. we are where there are limits to possibilities. but it is possible that there is "somewhere" where there is no limit to possibilities.
    how did we get here? and why does it seem that we can't get out. except for death. is death a return to that undivided state? our return to the mad god? our return to ourselves?
    hmmm....
    what have we got so far in this thought experiment or whatever the fuck it is?
    we have ourselves and the world as we experience ourselves and the world divided with limited possibility. at some point, as the existentialists remind us, we die and theoretically no longer have ourselves or the world. is there much point in thinking of it beyond that? we can of course but it seems that any thinking beyond that either evaporates or turns back in on itself.  yet we continue thinking about it. where reason and logic fail our imagination takes flight. we have a tendency to dismiss our imagination. we call what it arrives at, delusion. if we could have it surgically removed perhaps we would. what does it do for us but mislead us? it creates these wonderful visions that are pleasant to imagine but in the end they collapse and we land flat on our face back in the world as it is and us being as we are in it.
    but would we really choose to have our imaginations removed if it could be done? some of us perhaps. but how much imagination did they have to begin with? and did they ever use it? or some who have too much and it's out of control. what the imagination produces isn't always all that wonderful. it produces delusions of hell as much as delusions of heaven. it created satan along with god.
    but our imagination has also given us so much. someone imagined building fires and planting seeds and indoor plumbing and all the rest of it. or was that all reason and logic? whatever - it still remains that we are stuck with our imagination as much as we are stuck with everything else about ourselves we might not like or understand.

    whatever the world is or not or whatever out of what it came into being, it is here. we are here with it. but it is for such a short time. it comes into our mind or our mind comes into it and then it is gone. we are gone. what matter whether it may have been here for however many billions of years or however many billions of years it could remain here? what is that to us? to us nothing existed before we were born and nothing exists after our death. that is the whole extent of existence. beyond these two points is mere speculation. one may speak of it. one may find evidence that seems to revel it as having been and continuing to be. but this all exists only in our imagination. from our direct experience there is only darkness from which we come and into which we go. darkness of mind.
    it may amuse us or comfort us to imagine and believe that there is a world beyond our experience of it both in space and time. but of what use is that imagining whether it is true or false to us? this imagining impacts us only in so far as others believe in it and act on it and our lives are affected by the lives and actions of these others. that is part of our experience of being in the world.
    we are not alone in the world. we are both constrained and supported by others in a variety of ways unless we live entirely alone out in the woods or something. we must not do some things while allowed or even encouraged to do other things. certain things are either denied us or provided for us. we are expected to act and behave in certain ways depending on which social groups we belong to. even if we do not belong to a social group and are a "loner" this too has certain expectations of behavior on the part of others. we decide to go along with the way things are or we elect to resist. either way our lives and actions are affected by the others. and we are either successful or not. and we also are other to the others. we impact their lives in the same way they impact ours. we have our expectations of them as they do us.
    so what does one do with this? what is to be done? one survives and maybe is able to do more than just survive. things may happen from chance or through planning and hard work. it becomes what it becomes and is what it is. it begins and continues and ends. all else is imaginary. one may be able to attend the opera or something. one may be able to be in an opera or something. one may find something that one enjoys for whatever reason one might enjoy it and be able to enjoy it. what one enjoys may compensate or overcome all else that one does or is forced to do by others that one does not enjoy. or not. one may not find something one enjoys and/or not be able to enjoy it if one does. one's life may be filled only with that which one does not enjoy.
    and that's that in a generalized sort of way. that is the world of all our lives.

    into the labyrinth of it. one turns this way and that way and the other way and it all looks the same. we might be able to dream of something else we imagine might be better but even following our dreams doesn't get us out. at best one learns not to think about it - if one is able to. one finds a distraction that keeps one busy or one is amused by. like his writing.
    one is of many. one is of one. one is surrounded by multiple versions of oneself one is yet another version of. and one is all by oneself. one can dive into the other or dive into oneself. part of oneself is lost either way. from zero to infinity. from nothing to everything.
    and this endless search for meaning without really knowing what meaning might be if one found it. not knowing what the search for meaning means. and the feeling that one is missing it whatever it might end up being. such is to be human.

    the circles among the stars and our eyes in the heat of red neon cool blood buzzing with flies.
    the confusion of the ordinary. shattered pieces joined together in whatever can limp its way to the bar. the foul breath. the yellowed eyes. the pale darkness. the bad poetry.

    jesus wears a dirty raincoat and a bent top hat. jesus does a goose-step. jesus stops at a bakery and buys a donut.
 
    he sits in the cafe and continues to write. his time is just about run out - or so it seems to him. there isn't anything that all his writing has come to in all the time he has been writing since he was in high school sometime. everything has pretty much evaporated into the nonsense it was all along. he has alienated most people he has known from himself or himself from them. was this something he did on purpose or did it just happen? does it matter either way? it is done.

    jesus lights another cigarette. jesus walks among the crowd.

    as the strawman - strawperson - walks down the street burning, the others don't notice. there is nothing to notice. this is internal combustion. it is a subjective abstract experience. there is no fire. there is no strawperson. he/she is just like anyone else. he/she is the common ordinary individual feeling that one's own individual experience is unique. there is nothing unique about this experience. it is the same experience anyone who happened to be this individual having this experience would experience. individuals are a dime a dozen - if even that much. they come in casts of thousands each alone en masse. one may break away but it is the same as any other breaking away. the experience of isolation and solitude is as standard as a machine part. it is a machine part. part of the machine. one's alienation and angst is human alienation and angst. just as one individual swimming in a lake will become wet so will another individual swimming in a lake.

    while waiting in the cafe for his execution drinking victory coffee - it was a bit too early yet for gin - and smoking another victory cigarette he amused himself writing general imaginary nonsense in a notebook just to see what would happen. he gazed out the widow at a kafka world. what a wonderful sight. what those moneys with picks and shovels and triplicate forms can do. it's amazing. and now that it was built it was built to last yet they keep tearing it down. an eternal monument to what they seem to have already forgotten what it was. and the machine keeps turning. the gears mesh and grind. sometimes it breaks down but someone comes along and gives a thunk with a spanner and it kicks back to life.
    but enough of that. it revels nothing. and that is what he wants to do before the bullet arrives - revel something or have something reveled through him - even if it is only to himself.
    puppies.
    big fat chance, he thinks. like the universe will allow him that. he's just fertilizer like everything else eventually. that is what is reveled. the living feeding on the dead until it becomes the dead as well.
    he is in the living part of the cycle now. coming alive from what is dead. it all seemed a dream. it still seems a dream. he thinks this while consuming more and more death.
    he lights another cigarette. he savors the smoke filling his lungs burning and painting his lungs with tar and sculpting them with emphysema. death's hand reaching down his throat and slowly choking him. this is his indecision regarding suicide. yes/no. he lets it fall on its own. he co-operates with death like the vichy government in ww 2 france. not exactly for, but not exactly against. this is his art. this may very well be his religion. ever since god died there's not really anyone to talk to about anything. just these people who shrug and say, i don't know, or say things that can mean anything. now he talks to death, the now reigning champion. but unlike god it doesn't say anything. it just stands there like a fence post.
 
    from what may or may not have made sense before we find ourselves here. fuck. not created but thrown. goddamn. we open our eyes to a world set against the earth that slowly comes to cognitive focus. cunt. before we know it we and everything else around us is defined and known to us even if it is defined as being unknown. cocksucker. whether it is unknown to us collectively or just each of us individually or both or neither is neither here nor there nor any place else known or unknown quack quack quack. shit and piss. we are this being that we cannot know except to stand within it in open mouthed gawking wonder. only we know this. god knows nothing but being god. and what good is that? asshole. but we soon learn not to do that - stand open mouthed and gawking. we busy ourselves with life. a life of everyday things. we need to survive first. then, if such opportunity presents itself, to play or relax. or perhaps at times to ponder the situation. although thousands of years of such has come up with squat. motherfucker.
    we figure out a few things. we tame fire and animals but not ourselves. we make wheels and levers and bombs and such. we enclose ourselves in artificial space and transform the landscape around us to our liking. and we stand on top of it all and beat our chests and screech and howl. then we die.
 
    still stuck somewhere thrown into it. head. sitting in a cafe drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes and scribbling in a notebook. cheetos. watch people walking by or driving by and wondering how many of them think of themselves as being someone other than someone who pays bills and wants and needs sex. he wonders which of them thinks about being.
    he lights another cigarette. death sits at his table. he blows smoke in its face or where its face would be if it had one. you're a poor substitute for god, he says. god could laugh. you're just a fence post. a big lunk of a fence post. a driverless bus swerving down the street running people over who can't get out of your way. you're our common fate but it doesn't make you anything. now god - god was something. god could laugh. but you put an end to that. no more laughing. just grim reaper seriousness and despair. well i can still laugh - so fuck you. ha!
    and being? what is there to write about being?

    eating one's lunch. eating one's dinner. a splendid nonsense. a denial. a broken mirror in the maze of mirrors. someone has escaped.
    the narrow pathway between the tall buildings where there are people living inside compartamental units designed to meet one's basic functional needs. to eat. to shit. to bathe. to sleep. the rest is left to be filled in as the individual sees fit. some leave it bare. others may fill it full.
    the clown was dancing.  the cop was shooting bullets at the over-sized shoes. an old tableau. an old scheme. yet there are so many stuck in it. and the children are weeping.

    how these and other things come about to be in the world. the possibility of them that is understood by most as being a need. a need for them to be given the situation and circumstances as things being as they are given things being possible.
    our inhumanity. our cruelty. our neglect. all possible. therefore they are.
    so that is what is. that is how it is. that is even why it is - sort of. except for the larger why. why all of it is. why just because things are possible do we do them? we feel there is a need to do them. we feel compelled. and there is nothing to tell us not to - except for the others who wish us not to do this or that and some who are able to prevent us from doing this or that. but can they get us to stop thinking about doing this or that? and when the cat's away...
    but this is our humanity. our humanity is the possibility of inhumanity, of cruelty, of neglect. it is as it is. we may attempt to gain power to change things according to our own sensibilities and will with a mix of success and failure. and that comes and goes.
    it's nothing.
    a dream life of dreams. we fit into it where and when we can along with the others dreaming. along with the others also attempting to gain power to change or to gain the power to resist change. the contest of wills. a contest of dreams. it's a snake in the grass. it's mercurial. it's more smoke than fire. it is where and when one finds it and according to what numbers come out of the mix of all the spinning wheels of the machine.
 
    something about sometimes. something about what may or may not have been. something about the nothing it becomes. something about what is here now. something about what is experienced. something about what it means. something that seems to know what it is and what it means. something about imagination. something imagining. imagining in and out of what is.

    he is still here. he is still writing in and out of circles. there are no straight lines. there are no circles really either. there is just this tangled mess. one cannot get there from here or here from there. here and there dance around each other each viewing the other from subjective eyes. here is there and there is here.
    wheels turning around inside the machine. the wheels never being quite wheels. the machine never quite being a machine.

    everything not quite being. everything being not quite being. solid and fluid at once. movement and vibration. nothing stays in one place for long. nothing stays alive for long. nothing stays dead for long. is there death except as one particular being living and dying? all is living. life transcending through the death of the being.
    should we mourn each passing moment?

    poetry for the sake of poetry. poets for the sake of being poets. life for the sake of life. along in these woodland paths sparsely but well traveled. enough to keep them from becoming overgrown again.
    humans enjoy paths. they enjoy the familiar even when it's strange that is familiar. the unusual. we perform the ritual. even the ritual of non-ritual. the unproscribed. but what is this than the ritual of nature and we being natural living beings, though we try to set ourselves apart as something special? and perhaps we are. we have envisioned gods. and we have felt that the divine is as much a part of our nature as the mundane. we are participants in creation either by having our own hand in it or having it being created for our benefit. creation is the interface between ourselves and the gods. but we are as separate from them and their heaven as we are from the natural earth. out of the two we create our own world.
    and is it true or not true? is there a correspondence between what we feel is true and what is actually true? is there anything actually true? or is it all chance? where do we stand?
    there are those who deny the earth and await salvation.  there are those who seek return to the earth, to submerge into it. there are those who try to maintain a balance between the two. there are those who examine the details of the situation in minute scrutiny until it disappears from view into the micro/macro infinity of all that surrounds us. that all-encompassing veil. but a veil between us and what? we sense that something is hidden from us. we discredit and discount the obvious that which appears on the surface where our limited senses might perceive it. it is a tip of an iceberg.
    this may or may not be so. it seems that though we may devise ways of peering into it a greater part still remains undisclosed and obscure and invisible. we attempt to reach into that with our minds beyond our senses, even our enhanced senses. we, for example, build scaffolding of mathematics inventing maps with our imaginations. but however far we go there is always someplace else, something more.
    this is what that which causes many of us despair. we feel that no matter how long our lives may be or how much we may experience it will always fall short. but how much would it need to be for us to feel it was complete? infinity? whatever infinity might entail it has at least one quality - it does not end. nor does it begin. it contains everywhere and nowhere - and anywhere and somewhere. a whole shitload of somewheres. it contains everything and nothing. we are already in it but cannot come anywhere even remotely close to touching it. but how boring it all must be for all that. but is that the point? if we had infinity would we be satisfied? maybe. maybe not.

    so - jesus in a hot air balloon. jesus waving over the crowd gathered below. is jesus going down or coming up? is jesus coming down or going up? it would seem perhaps he hovers in-between, sometimes ascending, sometimes descending. jesus bobbing up and down. are these the fluctuations of mood? of desire? of perspective? is it just the rhythm of the moon and sea? is it just the rhythm of the heart and mind? is there danger? could something explode or collapse? will we forget? will we remember? and what will it be that is taken away or given?
    jesus still waves. he can be seen smiling. unless he was gritting his teeth. is he holding on or letting go? is their love or hatred in his heart?
    what passes in a very few moments always - always passing - always in these very few moments. one moment coming. one moment here. one moment going. going into the coming. coming from the going. here in the coming and going.
    is jesus still up in the hot air balloon? has anyone noticed lately? is it jesus at all?
    who is this jesus? can we make him up to be who we want him to be? he is said to be our personal savior. so, can we customize him to our own particular taste? does he customize himself? how far will he go to get us to believe in him? how much does he want to forgive us? how much does he need to forgive us? how much of a forgiveness jones does he have? or does he draw the line? these on this side are in. these on that side are out?
    is pain the only tool jesus has in his toolbox? a flatworm will avoid pain. are we only flatworms? are we to be judged only upon what our knee-jerk instinctive reptilian brain stem response would be? can we do more than just complain how unfair it all is? is this even a question? is it just the ramblings of theology - not even philosophy? theology, that atrophied organ that has yet to drop off.

    what metaphorical assemblage of analogies cut and pasted together do we compose now? here we are together alone each of us staring at the stranger in the other. are there any strangers in this situation? aren't we equally unfamiliar with one another? aren't we equally no one's friend? but this underlying commonality is unreachable through the surface of strangeness.

    we want reality to be simple. we want it where we can understand it, where we can hold it in our understanding, where we do not need to ask it questions.
 
    so in thinking about this and/or that and/or the other thing and scribbling words of one's thoughts it comes to the moment here and now with the one who is thinking. but what one thinks as opposed to what the collective thinks - if the collective thinks - is nothing. it is only what one thinks. it has no bearing on the many. one is no one to the many. one is someone to oneself. even if one does gain the attention of the many it is only because one has somehow been able to tune into and describe the thoughts of the many. these are not one's own thoughts.
    but boo-fucking-hoo.
    who cares?
    not us.

    sometime ago or maybe today he was thinking about what there was to think about - about what thinking was about. or maybe this wasn't what he was thinking about. maybe it wasn't sometime ago or today or ever. maybe it wasn't him thinking about anything.
    he was thinking now and then about what others might be thinking - or not thinking.  but there probably wasn't much point to that. was this what he was thinking? if one isn't sure about what one is thinking oneself then what is one going to think about what others are thinking or not?
    people behave. what they may or may not be thinking as they behave is irrelevant. people do this. people do that. it is not their thoughts that we judge them by - not even their feelings. as long as they behave this way or that way is as far as we are concerned about them. thoughts and feelings are only a concern regarding each of us ourselves to ourselves - each as one alone.
    but does it matter if it's true or not? does it matter if one is thinking whether if it's true or not? what are we to do with this information either way? if it's true then it's true. if it's not then it's not. so what? dada. hoopla. oink oink. hunky dory. buzzap! here we are. we still behave as we behave. our thoughts and feelings are still irrelevant to anyone but ourselves - and the secret police. but that's another story. as we are all and only concerned with one another's behavior. one can be thinking true or not true. what does it matter? what is this but an observation and a comment or two or three on what one observes? does it need to be commented on? does it need to be observed? does it need to be true or not true?
    so he is thinking about something that is irrelevant as to what it is and whether it is true or not or even if it is thought either by oneself or by others. what is of concern is how one is behaving while thinking about it.
    so we have behavior. do we think about behavior or not? should we let him think about behavior or not? we think about it only in terms of monitoring it to be sure it is within acceptable and expected limits related to others of our ilk.
    something about many possibilities that one might be thinking. something about what is reveled. something about coming around into it where those have left it. one is left behind in the world. one tolerates it without much understanding. the world is not the same without those who left it. they were pushed out. there was no room for them. those who possessed the world wanted them removed. so they left. now the world is possessed by those wishing to possess it - needing to possess it. it is left to them. and what do they do with it but possess it? one thinks about these possibilities.
 
    one is disguised within oneself. it is not a matter of existence as it is a matter of entertainment. existence is not enough. we need to be amused. and who is there to amuse us but ourselves? beaver. but then that becomes what it is and we feel removed from something (snatch goes the weasel) fundamental. so we try to look within and behind what appears to us - cockroach - what amuses and entertains. but this becomes just further amusement. horse. we can only approach it with our imagination. we become further removed now not just from the initial something that seemed fundamental, from removed were we seemed it that, but now from the world as it appears. we find our selves in-between, suspended by our minds in a web of imagination. there is no way out. there is no way back in.
   one finds oneself thinking about this sort of business. there are those who have made a profession out of it. they write long deep books about their ideas about it. it's been viewed and described from many angles. it changes its appearance with each. what is real is fluid and flexible. it can be everything from the world within the mind to the mind within the world with sources of reality existing within either or in combination. and each idea about it can be imagined and believed. and each can be exposed as false.
    contradiction is not allowed. though all contradict each other they must not contradict themselves.  that is the rules they all agree to. we imagine that something fundamental would not have contradiction. the house divided may not stand but a process continues through it. through the rising, standing and falling of houses. neither organization nor disorganization is the rule. neither order nor chaos is the state.

    this is what one thinks about. one who doesn't do much else. one removed from the course of events of others' lives. thoughts that are written. one is here for a moment before disappearing. and every trace of this one disappearing except maybe one's words kept and read by another.
    should they be kept and read? what could possibly be transmitted? what might one write that would provide information another might want or need? what information does another want or need?
    information about a particular sort of madness that causes one to continually write though one essentially has nothing to write about. the compulsive obsession. the constant need to explain or to seek explanation. to write for some imagined person who understands. but isn't this human compulsion, human obsession? what are the gods for? what is the perfect lover for? we want another to understand. even if we don't want to be understood we want someone to understand that we don't want to be understood. we reject the gross dull masses in search for that one who knows us. perhaps knows us better than we know ourselves. yet we each are among the masses. we are individually collectively the masses. the masses are the jumbled mix of our uniquenesses which are all fundamentally the same uniqueness. the same motivations having different modes of expression. but we believe otherwise. we would like to believe otherwise.
    but this is what it is and what it is not. is this an explanation? is it even a description? what is to be explained? what is to be described? is there any explanation that explains? is there any description that describes? and if so, what would we have then? what would an explanation and/or a description do for us? would we have control? would we have acceptance?
    they say that behind everything that we are faced with death - our death. whatever we might gain, we still die. and there are those who believe that death has been overcome. what do we have without death? we live forever with what? as what? just something living? forever warm and comfortable. forever at peace and contentment. but isn't that death? isn't life the unpredictable struggle? isn't life always the chance of death? aren't even the immortal gods so bored with their existence that they had to invent and create mortal death to amuse themselves with? and what other threat does a god have over us but the threat of death? the god that has power over life and death.
    and so it is now that death itself has triumphed over all. even over this god who is pronounced dead. we have mastered all other powers of imagination except death. death remains. we have tried to frighten it away, to bribe it, to command it, to rise above it, but we still die. death surrounds us at every moment of our lives. we may find ways to amuse ourselves and avoid seeing it and avoid thinking of it but there it is all the while. what else drives us to live? there is no explanation of life, no description, but we still live. is it because we are too stupid to do no more than the simplest speck of life does - survive?
    and what would it be if death were removed? suppose this god - who is itself dead - did finally come through and wave its hand and banish death forever. what would it be if this final fear is taken away and we can lie in the sun without worry about tomorrow? it can rain, it can snow. terrible storms or earthquakes could happen as they do. the whole earth could flood or freeze over or catch on fire. and none of that would move us. we would lie there forever without a moment's concern about anything else occurring. without notice of anything else occurring. we would be as bored as the ancient gods themselves. all blending into a gray fog of bliss. and what would be the difference between this and death that has been banished?
 
    and so he writes on about that business. he forgets where he began and where he was trying to end. was there a beginning? is there and end? is there anything that finally concludes and states this is what it is?
    eventually at some point he will stop. not because it has reached an end but because it will have stopped continuing. because he has stopped continuing. then that will be it. that will be what it is. until then he continues. he continues because he does, because he is. it continues. he continues with it.
    and he writes in order to have something written. something of his passing thoughts scribbling marking the page like an eeg. all it is is his thoughts passing. some of them get written down. some disappear into the ethereal fog. it is written not to have an effect. it is written as being an effect.
    he wants to be anyone. he wants to write what anyone would write if one allowed oneself to write as freely as possible. this is impossible. each is shaped by circumstances and environment. no one can write what anyone would write.

    so he wakes another day. he gets dressed and goes down to the cafe. the tv is on. some news with his coffee. he lights another cigarette.
    there is zero and there is infinity. each are impossible for us to truly conceive. nothing and everything. we can put names to them. we can imagine the possibility of their existence. but we have no direct experience of them. what would direct experience of them be? actually it would seem that the two cannot exist together. each swallows the other. is that what we experience - each trying to swallow the other leaving us suspended between? does one really need to be thinking of this?
 
    and here we are within the matrix of design and happenstance. he wonders about his relationship to it. he shouldn't be here, but he is here. he maintains his ground against the forces of this matrix that work toward his elimination. he maintains his ground also by design and happenstance. he designs one thing but another thing happens instead.
    he is human. humans design but they are in a world of happenstance. how much our designs play into this happenstance we can never know.
    he returns and remains here from his life in the world. this is where he meets himself. he searches around in the confusion of his thoughts for whatever he might be thinking. he searches for himself thinking these thoughts. is that a clue? is that any indication of who he is? do the parts add up to the whole? is the whole within the parts? is he within himself? what are the possibilities? how many questions can one ask?
    in these moments when he tries to be aware of himself he becomes aware that there is too much happening within these moments than he can keep track of. there are any number of components. which is himself and which is not?
    it is said and written that one should isolate oneself from the external noise of the world to find oneself. one should then isolate oneself from external thoughts within one's mind. what is left is oneself. one finds that raw naked being that all else has been put on. one finds that one who looks out on it all. that is the point of all possibility. but the question one finds oneself asking at that point is, now what?
    there is that each can be and the ugliness is everything we continue is secondary whatever else the beauty do anything that we might to common place bring us does not come from away what truths are known questioned or denied imprisonment murder coming first religion be except making babies.
    and that is the fragmentary nature of one's thoughts that one has. that is something one thinks. and it slides away like everything else. it is a momentary impression. it is returned to zero. it is returned to infinity. it is returned to what we think of god as being when we think of god. that god-thing that has been in our consciousness all through history and quite a bit longer.
    one has this momentary impression of god. then it is returned to zero and infinity. that which is infinity must also be zero. but how can infinity contain zero? he understands how zero can contain infinity. this is another momentary impression. it is the noise his thoughts make inside his head and brain.
    the noise we make to each other from the noise of our thoughts. we place meaning on some of these noises. to communicate. we evolved to communicate. this social species that we each are alone in.
    zippy pins.
    and maybe all he has written is, i am here.