the news is on tv. people eating breakfast and/or reading newspapers. cloudy morning. it rained yesterday. one can hear the dishwasher machine. the woman washing the dishes brings out some silverware and stacks it in the tray. she takes some of it to set a table.
    he's going to visit his son who is in jail later.
    everything seems to evaporate.
    things change and do not change. toward what is and what is not.
    now sitting in another cafe - without a tv.
    he already visited his son.
    people talking around the tables. some reading newspapers. all have their own problems probably equal to or more than his own. does he have any problems? he can't think of any. oh yeah - his son is in jail. but that's his son's problem.
    what spins out of whatever is now spinning to uphold itself for its own brief time surrounded by decaying forces as it wills its survival apart from the other things taking up space and time along with it.
    it becomes this and it becomes that and it becomes the other thing. whatever it needs to become. transcending through shape and form.
    it becomes this guy sitting at a table by a window he gazes out of in a cafe. it becomes others sitting in the cafe with him. it becomes itself other than itself.
    it becomes existence. it becomes not existence. it becomes divided into what is and what is not.
    it is not important. it is the basic stuff we encounter every day and have learned to ignore for the most part except that which gives us pleasure or pain.
    and as it is this guy sitting here writing about himself sitting here writing. he lights another cigarette.
    he feels somewhat dizzy. there are these moments of derealization, as it is called professionally. to him it's probably an acid flashback - if there is such a thing. but that's what it feels sort of like. there is vagueness. there is the feeling of not belonging where and when one is at the moment. there is awareness. it is what he accepts as being as it is. being what he is. though others might be and feel different. who knows? they are them and themselves. he is himself. he is what it is and where it's at. he is himself in an expanding envelope of being. alone. he accepts being alone as part of the experience. he does not try to rectify it. he doesn't see it as something to rectify. why should he? what out of all he experiences needs to be rectified? his experience happens as it happens. he's changed what he wishes to and could change. there are some things that could not be changed. there are some things that are too twisted up with and tangled with other things to sort them out. mostly things having to do with what other people do and what they want. there are things of the collective will. so he does his best to ignore it.
    one balances happiness and unhappiness. one balances what one can do with what one cannot do, what one wants with what one doesn't want. one balances the simple and the complex. one balances being in balance with being out of balance.
    one places oneself in the place of the least amount of harm. one realizes that what poses the least amount of harm in one moment can pose the greatest amount of harm in the long run.
    the long run. he wonders if he has fallen into that, whether placing himself in the place of least amount of harm is ultimately destroying him.
    what is his destruction? it comes upon him. it wears and breaks him down. it becomes painful. he becomes weakened and ill. another would despair. another would fight against it. another would not have allowed it to happen to begin with. he observes it. he attempts to come to some understanding about it. he comes to accept it. he comes to accept his defeat. are those who come to accept defeat victorious?
    he does not feel so though it does come to him that way sometimes. however, he gains nothing. there will be nothing left behind from him except these doubtful scribblings that are as one who mumbles to oneself.
    what is there to win? what is there to lose? what measurement do we use to compare?
    how many are unremembered for all who are remembered? how many existences and experiences are erased from the collective memory? or are they still remembered? does one touching upon another's experience however so briefly or lightly leave behind a trace that though unnoticed has an effect? multiply this billions of times each moment. the currents passing through us of others' existence.
    this he thinks about while he writes. he is here and now. he is where and when others pass though. they see him sitting here by himself writing. what do they imagine from that though it may be only a glance?
    he walks along the street. others notice him as they walk or drive by. or maybe not. but what do they imagine? are they aware that they are imagining something? imagining him as someone? as he imagines each of them as someone. what we do, what we say and think blurs into this collective imagining of reality we all share a part of imagining and being imagined.
    he writes this down. does it matter if it is written down, read or unread?
    he sits here and writes. writes about himself writing. writes about himself thinking. he has tried to write down all he thinks about. he has discovered that he doesn't think about much. he thinks about a few things over and over again and again. he writes about a few things over and over again and again.
    does this make him the same or different than the others? are we each going around and around over familiar territory in our heads? repeating thoughts. are we such creatures of habit? are we such creatures of comfort?
    he lights another cigarette.
    he tries to imagine what everyone including himself comes down to. what are the essential active ingredients, the fundamental components, the underlying factors? are there any?
    one can put down that we are human. but what does that indicate? does it describe our being similar or different? does it need to describe anything? can it describe both? is that the closest we can get to it?
    who wants to be similar to the others? who wants to be different? who wants to be an individual? who wants to be part of the social collective? who wants to be defined by any other than oneself? but we are constantly defined by others as this or that or the other thing. we are something or someone to another whether we choose to be or not. others are something or someone to us whether they choose to be or not. we are friend or enemy and all in-between.
    he dives into this and dives right back out again. there is no substance to it to hold one for long. it seems like something but disappears once one reaches for it.
    that is his world - a world that at first appears to be substantial and then is not. this applies to himself as well. perhaps it is because of and through him that it applies to everything else as it is himself which is ultimately insubstantial.
    and the scribbling from his hand continues. he watches it as it leaves marks upon the pages. it leaves words that may or may not be read by another.
    dancing around one's grave until one falls in. then someone else comes and fills it in. death may be the only thing he encounters that is substantial. it will take him away from himself.
    doo-wah-ditty.
    oh boy.
    ho-hum.
    dance as long as one is able. breath in. breath out. eat a sandwich. watch tv. read a book. smoke a cigarette. gaze out the window. make money. vote for someone to be president. shoot a gun at something or someone. sing a song off key. shit a brick. yawn. sleep.
    die.
    rot.
 
    what comes out of himself? what comes into himself? who and what is himself for anything - whatever - to come into and/or come out of?
    are these questions asked by an idiot? - someone remaining behind the others who have moved beyond him? is there anything practical, material, profitable to asking them?
    one comes up with answers. one decides this or that or the other thing about oneself. one comes up with practical, material and profitable answers. one survives and becomes successful.
    he sits dreaming like a idiot in his swirling imagination from which spill these words while others work and toil from one paycheck to the next.
    he could write about anything. he could write about peanuts. he could write about all sorts of things. he writes about himself. it is the only thing he knows anything about, if it can be stated that he knows even anything about that.
    he asks questions about that - himself. he looks into himself and cannot distinguish between image and reflection, between reality and imagination. what are those things?
    and how do these questions relate to anyone else? are they questions anyone can ask about oneself? are they questions anyone does ask about oneself?
    the others go on without seeming to ask anything about themselves. is that true or just appearance?
    the questions unravel oneself. they break down the assumptions one has built upon oneself. it is agreed upon not to ask these questions - any questions that will lead one to the vagueness of being.
    we march onward. one identity locked in with another.
    but something haunts one's mind and even deeper into one's being. there is a hollow sounding void within. one looks into it and sees nothing. so one instead turns one's gaze back to what appears to be oneself in the real world.
    to be that which is human. that which has been human since there were humans to be. we walk and talk and beat each other over the heads with sticks in some form or another. we divide the world into this and that and the other thing and give each thing a name. we have come from the trees and the savannas to the towns and the cities. we fly above and dig below. we are pulled by our desires and pushed by our fears. we have put together complex knowledge yet we do not understand some of the simplest things in the world around us and within ourselves.
    we have learned what we can avoid and ignore while we undertake our conquests. one does not pause to ponder mysteries. one places them in the realm of the divine and marches on. otherwise one becomes absorbed and paralyzed as he has been. like others such as him have been.
    an abstract monster. a fear of something. the wires and controls.
    there is that which destroys. one becomes destroyed. all that one is and has attempted to do becomes destroyed. it is as if it never was. it becomes piled underneath and among the garbage produced by this human race.
    the machine.
    he might as well not be sitting here writing anything whatever he is writing.
    does he expect to survive? does he expect anything he has attempted to do to survive? does he expect any of it or himself to be remembered?
    does it bother him that none of it survives or is remembered nor himself?
    yes/no.
    or will it be only lies like lies are told about him now as he is living?
    the others build and mind the store and control the past and the future. they direct the spotlights on themselves. everyone else is no one or their enemy or both.
    what is to be remembered in the moment now? this space and time stands as it is. yet one wonders about other things. we humans wonder about other things. he wonders about other things. is there a future? is there a past? we imagine the future and remember the past. we are divided from both as both are divided from one another. divided by the moment now. now is the only experience we have of time. the only experience we have had and the only experience we will have. it is the only time we can act. yet our actions come from the past and move into the future. there is no other alternative to this as it is.
 
    there is a confusion of errors.
    there is a poetry of order.
    that is what brings us back - the poet's words.
    the poet works for the ruling class.
    the poet gives us visions to imagine while we work in the fields and factories and offices.
    we imagine a better life while chained to the oars of this galley ship plowing ever on.
    we imagine truth.
    we imagine justice.
    we imagine freedom.
    we imagine a flag waving in the wind.
    we sing the songs of the masses who are the ruling class.
    the masters are but puppets who have no will but the will of all.
    we bring upon ourselves our own oppression acted out through agencies of our own devising.

    7/6
    born into a world in which we are given the freedom to choose in what manner and situation and circumstances will constitute our being molded into ourselves. we become ourselves - these deformed and hideous things cowering before our own shadows.
    there are those who charge into it and defeat everything but that which they run from their whole lives.
    in the midst of it he sits in a cafe. the waves of the sea roll gently onto beach. the fury set upon them from the far off storm has been spent. they return to their calm soothing state.
    there are times when the storm does circle in and blows upon the island from the rage of the others camped on the shores of the sea. the waves become rough and biting. the wind becomes howling. there is a dark grayness low overhead. these are periodic and must be endured while they happen knowing they will end before too long. one moves inland to the forest and the house. and one waits.

    7/16
    he sits in the cafe plotting further degrees of deception. a distance away the dada-ananda is rumored to have been sitted nearby toward a window smashed open and disguised by itself among others who prided themselves to be the dada-ananda's closest followers.
    and the dada-ananda spake thusly: i am the humble pie. i am that which those who have lost themselves come upon in the hunger gnawing within them of submission. let the lowest lead. i lift my leg for you. come, prostrate yourself before me. i will make you into nothing more than the least that you are now.
    or come to me to cut off my head with your sharpened wit. bring yourself to the task that will rise you above me. loudly proclaim victory.
    i am such a fool, if not an idiot. but i am not real. am i not merely imagined among you? am i not a lie you tell yourselves?
    and i can imagine as well - being that i am imagination, you know.  i imagine someone sitting in a cafe writing all about me and other things.
    he is a fool as well. and an idiot.
    yet i say this is the only path to sure disillusionment which far surpasses enlightenment in that one is never disappointed.
    with that the dada-ananda fizzled and winked out with a sparkle of light.
 
    and he sits in the cafe continuing to write this account of no account of nothing. this is his function within society as he understands it. and he obviously doesn't understand much about it. but this is as it seems to him to be. he does not understand the purpose of this function. he only understands that this function exists and that he was led to it by certain unforeseen events in his life little of which he determined or had any meaningful control over. society itself decided and created these events through its appointed agents. what guided society along this path of contrived events is a mystery. many theories are proclaimed but in the end they are only theories. the supposed authorities argue over them constantly. why they do this is a mystery as well. society is a fiction imagined by society itself.
    he sees no hope and only his long-lived doubt for any great fundamental change in those around him neither individually nor collectively. what changes there are are purely superficial.
    he has come to a rather knock down drag out form of realization about whatever. this was the resulting effect of him discovering the imagined dada-ananda now over 13 years ago back in 1984 - the golden era.
    either he or the dada-ananda might not exist. one may be imagining the other. both may be imagining each other. there are many images and reflections in this maze of mirrors. the hand draws the hand that draws the hand that draws the hand that draws...

    the simpleness of the complex. a cup of coffee and another cigarette as he sits here as he has sat here for about 10 years or so and he has watched as nothing happened with everything that is happening. nothing has come out of it that he feels should be particularly noted.
    at another place and time where and when the dada-ananda was rumored to have appeared and spake thusly: how much more truth can there be than the lies we tell one another? - except myself, of course. i am among you as the greatest of all fools. and why am i this? i am this because i cannot tell the difference between one thing and the other or the other. i am easily misled into thinking anything is possible.
    i cannot exist except in the imagination of others. the world would need to be an entirely different place if i were to become manifest. and who would want that? not even the fool who is writing this who first imagined me. is anyone clever and brave enough to imagine me actually materializing as being as real as a spoon?
    what little teeny weeny minds there are in the world that only passively receive reality and cannot actually transmit it. how absolutely boring. but such dull excitement keep the masses amused, both collectively and individually.
    and myself? i am entirely ignorant about most things that are. i am constantly amazed by my ignorance far more than i am by my knowledge. i do not even know myself. there might not be a myself for there to know anything about. i may only be a delusion of a madman as he writes about me in his notebooks.
    and one asks, dada-ananda, why have you come to us?
    and the dada-ananda spake thusly: i know how difficult is it for you to decide to agree on anything. but that is not the reason i come to you. i come to you because i am bored. i suffer from universal boredom. the same boredom the gods suffer from. that is all.
    and another one asks, are you the messiah?
    the dada-ananda spake thusly: i have been asked this before and i forget what my answer was. but which messiah would you have me be? whose messiah? who should i save and who should i allow them to follow the fate of their own destruction? who would believe me if i were to proclaim myself to be the messiah? how many others make such a claim? it is not i who makes the determination whether i am the messiah or not, but others. if others say i am the messiah, should i disagree? should i not go along with them? should i not make demands upon them? for if i were to be called messiah i would not do it if not given absolute authority. if this is not acceptable then they must find another. yet this is not usually what they want. who would they trust? they want someone they can purchase with golden cities sparkled with jewels. they want someone to pose on a throne. they want someone who will leave them alone to their own devices.
    this i have already given them.
    with that the dada-ananda turned into a snowflake and melted into the palm of a child's hand.

    he wonders about a cat. he wonders what there is to wonder about a cat - about how much wonder there is in a cat.

    8/8
    still as it is. still as it was. still as it will be. all the uncertainty. all the ingratitude. all the high emotional drama.
    we pass through this and that and the other thing. we surrender ourselves to it. we explore the limited possibilities - limited by ourselves as much as our environment. our own limitations limit our environment. whatever we could want our environment could provide if only we did not impose limits on it.
    we limit ourselves by our demands. we limit ourselves by our greed and selfishness. how little we have left now when we used to have the whole world before us.
    drowning in a sea of sorrow.
    drowning in a sea of happiness.
    drowning in a sea of madness.
    drowning in a sea of thought.
    washing ashore on an island of imagination within the eye of a storm that rages on an otherwise calm sea.
    one does not believe in anything.
    one survives.
    one watches and waits.

    8/10
    but this is not real. what is real is the world that surrounds one. a world that one feels a growing amount of difficulty remaining connected to. one feels separate from it although it is what sustains one. one exists. one exists in one's existence in the world. this is where and when one's existence takes place - one's awareness of existence.
    we have been here before and we come here again. to begin again. being able to write words though the same words over and over. it helps one to maintain some cohesion of self. it is always the self (selves?) writing. a continuation of the self writing before. one has thoughts that follow from one to the other. that is what calls itself consciousness. it does not know quite what this consciousness is but it has been aware of it for some time now.
    the words pre-existed one's own existence - one's conscious awareness of one's existence. so one concludes that there must have been others who had this consciousness before oneself. and the words are used by others beside oneself presently. so they must have consciousness. that is what these words mean to him - consciousness. whether these words mean the same thing to others he doesn't know. he can only guess and/or assume. and all these words may only be reflections or echoes of his own consciousness reverberating in the void.
    such a simple thing as that.
    it is a simple thing. it is the only thing. it is the one thing we fear to let go of - or have it let go of us. consciousness continues. we do not. we come into it and become aware of it and then go out of it and are aware of nothing. so the theory goes.
 
    8/13
    an opening mind while things are breaking down. a broken mind while things are opening.
    writing words comforts and pleases him. it gives him something to do. it channels his thinking. otherwise he really would go insane as he is supposed to be. it remains a question that answers itself with questions.
    he sits in the cafe. people come in. people go out. not much changes while everything is changing.
    a notebook that he writes in across the pages line by line.
    dreaming a dream of being - of consciousness. who is it who dreams? is it a god somewhere as others would have one believe? where else is there to be somewhere but here and now? all the other space and time may only be imagined. one may go out into it but then it becomes here and now. one brings the here and now along with one everywhere one goes. only the here and now is experienced. if there is this god then this god must be here and now.
    it tangles itself at the edge of his mind. he may barely touch it without knowing what it is. he is finite. everything is finite - even in its infiniteness. it may be that god is finite with all its infiniteness. or maybe all finite things are infinite. where exactly do they begin and/or end? where do we draw the black line? on this side of an infinitesimal particle or the other side? or do we divide it in half? and where do we draw that line? it just may be that finite things are not infinite all at once. that is why there is eternity.
    imagine that.
    we are left to imagine that. we are beings of the finite - though our being as a whole may be infinite. we might be the immortal gods who have forgotten themselves dreaming about the life and death drama of mortality. like playing a computer video game. maybe. what fun is it if one's characters cannot die? what fun is it if one does not experience that death?
    imagine that.
    imagine anything one might wish to. anything might be true or false. how are we to know? by what are we to measure it and determine what it is? do we measure it by parts of itself? we certainly cannot measure it by using words.
    words can be anything. they can mean anything. they are not the world or reality but are only about the world and reality. if we cannot judge the world and reality to be true or false then how much less can we judge the words?
 
    he is bored with his words and with his imagining. neither leads anywhere but turns back in on itself. here and now. he is bored with the here and now - why else would he be writing and imagining?
    and it might be that he is more frustrated than bored. his life has come to nothing that can be resolved within the conditions imposed by the circumstances he is and has been in and will be in that are created by the others and their domination. he is advised to forget. he chooses not to even if it were possible. he has witnessed the cruelty of others in the greedy selfish pursuits that push others aside and out of their way leaving them broken and damaged. he has experienced this himself in his life. in order to forget one must be able to forgive. he will never forgive but seeks ways in which to destroy them by any means necessary and/or possible. that is how and why he discovered the machine. the machine of anger, hatred and vengeance.
    for now he sits in the cafe with these imaginings, some of which he is not able to write down. it does not matter what he writes down or what he imagines. it does not matter that he exists, that he was born, that he is living, that he will die. he knows all that is nothing. he knows that there will be no revenge except that everything will fall away back into the void. but that is not revenge. revenge must be eternal if it is to be revenge. revenge is not revenge if it eventually comes to an end. in this he understands god and the creation of hell.
    yet even his feeling for revenge is momentary. it comes upon him, then it is gone. not really gone but recedes into the background of his thoughts. it is always present. it is always in his mind. it exists in the absence of any feeling of love, forgiveness, compassion. it is what he chants into the world. it is his prayer.
    and what is this? what is its purpose? its need? it is and it remains. it has been and it will be. it is the emotion of being human. it is part of human thought. is there anything more than that?
    this is the meaning and purpose of the messiah. the vengeful conqueror of enemies. the one who drives away those who are the evil ones. who does not consider someone else to be evil? who does not wish for another to die so that one may live? this is being human. this is him being human.
    96 tears.
    there might be somewhere where he is not touched by this. there might be somewhere where he rises above it into clouds of bliss. but that somewhere is not here and now. here and now he desires that his enemies - the others - suffer a thousand times what he has suffered at their hands. he desires to laugh while they cry out in agony.
    is this somehow wrong? he desires to do and enjoy what they have done and enjoyed. should he be denied what was given to them?
 
    8/17
    should he not be permitted this revenge that these ones were permitted? and what did he do that made them seek revenge upon him?
    but it would not be satisfying. no suffering on their part would be enough. and he would feel that any suffering on their part would be too much. he would feel that he had merely fallen to their level, that he was being ruled by emotions of primitive human mind as they had been. would he not be able to forgive? but they count on that on that forgiveness as much as they do the other's powerlessness. forgiveness inspires them.
    but all this is moot as nothing will ever come of it - except for the god awful machine.
 
    diving into it. diving into the dream. the dream awakens.
    it might have been something once - alive with possibility. it still may be. he does not know.
    he reduces the possibility down to a minimum. he shrouds himself from it. he does not seek it willingly. this is why he has parked himself here and now for years and years.
    time is an interesting experiment. time overlapping space onto itself. space remains ever measured by time. time remains unmeasured except as with the movement of space.
    to imagine any number of things to be imagined. yet the real is real. it holds us to itself.
    falling into it. falling into the dream. the dream rises over one's head. the dream continues out beyond our imagination.
    to no longer even doubt in who and what one is. to see nothing in oneself to be able to doubt, much less believe in. yet to be continuing out of habit and instinct.

    and he feels as though he has entirely screwed things up. still. he is alone with nothing and no one. he is doing nothing that has any useful purpose. he was unable to protect and defend himself and his family from those who attacked them. he did not even see it until it was over. if there is anything to believe in, it is that - to have the ability and be in the position to attack first and hard. those are the ones who survive and  thrive. those are the ones who have the power and are in control and gives them authority. that is who and what one must be. only then can one afford to show compassion. compassion in any other's hands is pointless. it is the compassion of those who are frightened to show anything else other. it is compassion from those who can and will destroy that is all that means anything.
    a spoon is a spoon - unless it is not a spoon.
    and a hat is not a hat - unless it is a hat.
 
    8/18
    the words that we trade to one another describing the world and how we are to behave in the world and in relationship to each other in the world. the words that shape what we are and what we perceive.
    being alone with the words. the words he has are all that's left. he has hidden himself within them. and he hates them. all he can do is write them down. the words are not for anyone and for everyone.
    he had thought that by following them he would arrive somewhere or to find someone. they have brought him here to this cafe alone writing words.
    there were some people who would come by for awhile but they are mostly gone now. he did not know why they came or why they left. they became bored and looked for other amusements. he was no fun. he just wrote his words.
    he has thought of the island. but that is its own involuted solipsism. he has expounded his theories about this and that and the other thing. but that was its own convoluted sophistry.
    he is here now with everything that one is best advised to avoid. he took all the wrong turns. he acted without any plan as to the outcome of his actions. the world goes on easily shrugging off his kind.
    of all the people who sit in places scribbling words to themselves, who is he? what are his words?
    he describes nothing more than the human condition - if even that. he has nothing to advise or amuse anyone. he has no grand story to tell or philosophy to dwell on. nothing that has not been written before. he does not even know what he wants from his words for himself.
    he thinks a moment. what does he want? what does anyone want? money? power? fame? love?
    he has enough money - if he lives simply. he has the power to keep himself apart from the others, those who are disturbing to him. he has fame among those who have met him and known him - and infamy. he does not trust love - either his own love for another or another's love for him. it is enough to tolerate one another and to not have any expectations.
    he expects little from others while at the same time expecting everything. he is willing to tolerate almost anything except if it interferes with his position. his position is to interfere with others as little as possible. he expects and will accept only the same from them.
    and so what does all that come to?
    he takes up space and he takes up time.
    he was speaking with someone - a cook who was on his cigarette break - who more or less does the same thing he does. he doesn't like being alone in his apartment so he goes out to some cafe to be around people. not necessarily to be involved with them but to be among them. he also writes. the imaginary and the real in a wandering poetry prose. he also thinks it's nothing. just whatever it is.
    just enough to keep oneself from evaporating. just enough to keep one's mind located in space and time - to the here and now.
    the others are here and now. are they at the point of evaporating as well? is that why they talk and talk and talk? what is it to evaporate? floating away from the world - away from oneself. to be dispersed. to be where and when there is no where or when. no awareness of where or when.
    that is the goal of the mystic. to evaporate. to shed all sense of self as this mortal being. to be here and now without being here and now.
    that is all fine. that is all very well and good. if that is what one wants.
    for mystics would say that he is too wrapped up in the world - into all the endless thinking that circles and circles and goes nowhere. that is what still links him to the world and himself in the world. that is what keeps him from letting go - from evaporating.
    he supposes that is true. but he feels that if it were supposed to be different then why isn't it different? if we're supposed to be elsewhere then why aren't we there?
    and he has come from that point of evaporation. he has been nowhere. it's boring. that is why he is here - to be amused and entertained.
    it is the play we go through. there is no supposing. supposing is fantasy. we imagine whatever else. we do not want what is real to be real. we pretend around it, trying to get out of it.
    but where is there to go? back to the nirvana of nothingness? that may be all delightful but then what is this? why is it here? why is it now?
    within the play he is this person who sits in a cafe and writes. he writes about himself writing. he writes about himself wondering about what he writes about writing about himself wondering. that is the part he plays in the play. in the burning theater. the part he fulfills in the play. he supposes nothing more. he imagines everything more.
    in this part of the play he fills notebooks and now computer files with his writing - writing about himself writing. meanwhile the others go about doing what they do. fulfilling their part of the play whatever that may be. they have theirs whatever it may be. whatever get us through the night.
 
    the night is ever-present. it still exists beneath the brightest day. the sun exploding with violent fury cannot push it away very far or for long. the night is within every shadow. light is superficial. all light disappears eventually. the night is eternal. what god can prevail against it? what god does not arrive at the conclusion that its own existence is pointless - existing merely to exist? the night absorbs everything without changing. it always remains the night.
 
    to describe what? the starkness of reality? an idealized possibility? what has not been described?
    his view of reality is not so stark. he cannot imagine what reality must be for those who describe as stark as razor wire. he has got things pretty good. he has always had things pretty good. he has suffered but superficially. he's gotten over it though it still twists in his gut.
    it comes and goes.
    and as far as an ideal - what ideal has not been dragged down through the mud? we are humans. humans are not ideal however much we may be able to imagine ideals. we are miserable and misery loves company. and any ideal by its very nature must be exclusive? what is to be done with those who cannot or will not fit in? the ideal must separate those out from itself. and what sort of ideal is that? who makes that decision as to who gets let in and who has to go? this has been the course of history. this has been decided by the individual as well as the collective - though the collective must back up the individual.
    so he has nothing to write about this. he does not foresee anything changing from that. there will be those who always divide themselves apart from the others. he has done this himself. he revels nothing here that is not known.
 
    to sit still breathing.
    to banish thought.
    to slip away into mystery.
    to come back and still be here and now.
    to get up as if nothing happened.
    what has happened?

    to all those who basically do nothing. to all those billions who are born, live and die without anyone much noticing. he does not notice either - as much as he is not noticed.
    should he work to become noticed? should he find something to do that will bring attention to himself? what would he do with such attention? would it make his life any more fulfilled?
    he sits here. people either notice or not. he is here to be noticed if there ever might be those who wish to notice him. there is not much to notice. one more anybody. this is the place in which he hides. hides in full public view. he knows he won't be much noticed.
    it is not noticed what he is doing nor what he is not doing. he walked out and who noticed he was gone? there are scores of others to fill whatever space he leaves behind. that will true even here. some may wonder where he has gone, but who will seek him out? who does he seek out of all those who have disappeared? no one. not one.
    who should seek him out? what is there to find? he is a rather uninteresting person who has a minimum knowledge about things in general and no knowledge of anything specific that people find interesting and talk about endlessly.
    he does not sing. he does not dance. he does little but sit alone in silence writing. he had thought that that would attract notice. some do ask him what he is writing. he tells them nothing - just dada. no one asks him twice.
    and he continues. he always continues.
    he does not know who he would attract or who he would want to attract. who is out there? what ideal person would it be? who would be accepted? who would be rejected? what would he himself have to do to be accepted or rejected? which would he rather have happen?
    he rejects himself. he does nothing to participate in what others are doing. he sets himself apart. he sits and does nothing. but that is what writers do, don't they?
    there is no one coming and everyone is already here.

    8/26
    breathe in. breathe out
    from the simple to the complex.
    the creepy crawly things inside one's head. shivers up and down the spine. suicide is the only question. what happens next? the end of thought and feeling. the end of experiencing.
    one's life reduced down to whatever is remembered by those still living. that remembered remembering no longer has awareness of itself.  it might transmit its awareness to others through what words and actions are remembered. it may be remembered that one was once living and aware.
 
    to have been brought into this world. to have brought others into this world. not knowing what this world is. to be aware of it. to have the world be that which one is aware of. to not be aware of anything that is not part of the world even in one's own imagining as one's imagining is part of the world. to not be able to say, the world begins here and ends there.

    he is sitting here. now. he is aware of this and that and the other thing. and something else. and more. he is aware of himself being aware. he is aware that he is surrounded by others who seem to be aware of this and that, etc. as he is. though maybe different things that are this and that, etc. than he is. or in different ways and with different meaning. he imagines that they are aware of themselves being aware - though that is probably different too. he can never actually know. this is only how it appears to be.
    it is illusion or not illusion. it is his solitary illusion or a collective illusion. anything seems possible. and there may be possibilities beyond what he or ourselves can or might imagine.
    he has to come back to this time and time again. to begin again. he becomes lost in his thoughts otherwise.
    there is this world that rotates through patterns and changes of patterns. there is cyclic linear time. it is the wheel along the track repeating with nothing ever repeating. we are ants within towering temples of stone. we are elephants among anthills.

    when one's god speaks through the world. when the world is presented as the medium of exchange between two beings radically polar opposite from one another.
    existing within another's mind both creator and created. the death of one is the death of the other. can one exist without reflection and the image of reflection?
    what about a rock?
    kick it.

    the same words written out in little different ways. sometimes the exact way.
    he reads stories written by others that are stories about their thinking this or that or the other thing.

    8/27
    not every day. not every time.
    to look out into the familiar strangeness of it all while we are dreaming our lives. to be among the others of us who want nothing to do with us. those who call us them. we are them. whose side are we on? whose side are they on? are there sides? how many? who determines what, where, when, how and why? who has the control? from who was it taken or given?
    to be within oneself as the dreamer dreaming. how deep is the dream? how deep is the self? does it extend to the moment of creation when there was no beginning? do we discover ourselves as the creator or the created? or both? what transcends through it all? what do we remember from what we have forgotten? what have we forgotten? have we forgotten anything? or were we only dreaming?
    words - merely words. a thousand words. a million words. a billion words. a trillion. a quadrakilzillion words. there are these and other words in his mind. his mind is words. cluttered and babbling - spilling out onto pages turning as he writes on and on. he turns with the words and the pages. he reaches silence for all the noise of words.
    the mystics speak of the art of reaching silence. to answer the question by not asking it. unfed, the question evaporates. one awakens from the dream of questions. one awakens into the dream of silence. dreams of creator and created vanish as if they never were. one awakens into the dream of the nevermind.
    all action is a dream. all thought is a dream. all feeling is a dream. all being a dream. all awakening is a dream.
    he is left back in the cafe - dreaming? still sitting and writing. that is the present dream appearing as here and now.
    who is with him? who has followed a similar path that has woven a similar tapestry? no two or three are the same. this and that and the other thing are defined as being different. what words can be exchanged between one and the other that have any meaning? what questions can be answered? what questions can even be asked? what leads only to silence?
    it is by questions and/or our attempt to answer them that we shape ourselves - ourselves shaped by them.
    or something like that.
    something like something. something like everything. something like nothing.
 
    playing with words. words that can have any meaning. words backwards or sideways or upside down or inside out.

    he has awakened. he has awakened to a dream of being awake. he laughs after he screams.

    and one learns to eat whatever is in place before one. there is nothing to be done except to make an attempt to get a better seat at the table struggling against the others attempting the same. such is human history. such is that which we inherit from our nature. are we to be blamed? have we designed the world and ourselves in it? not at its heart. we just follow the design.
    we ask for mercy from those in power to give it. yet mercy was not the quality that gave them that power. it does no good to ask for mercy from those who do not have power. and it not the nature of those who have power - who have surrendered to power's spell - to be merciful.
    we are on our own. there is nothing to be done. nothing we can do but endure as long as we can except to acquire power for ourselves and to be as unmerciful as any other with power.
    there is no reason to write about this. yet he has the need and compulsion to write about something and to pretend it might be something someone might read. it is the imaginary conversation he has in the absence of real conversation. who does he talk with? who is there to talk with?
    there is silence.
    there is the silence of his raging thoughts like a river cutting through a rock. white noise silence.
    this is as it is. this is the being of it. he exists within it. he exists as being it as we all exist as being it. that is the nature of it.
    this is a poem that writes itself out of itself. a poem after all the poets are dead and the death of poetry has been proclaimed. a poem that sings to itself. a poem that is not even a poem. a poem declared to be a poem by someone who is not a poet and knows nothing about poetry.
    so, it is not a poem.
 
    a journal of thoughts rather than events. thoughts scribbled down whatever which way describing the whatever which way of the thoughts themselves.
    thoughts as the product and tempering of wild enraged feelings tearing up one's gut from the self-feeding cycles of fight or flight response to the world and those in the world.
    a dark gray day with thunder.

    we keep ourselves and each other in cages. we all want to be free yet fear freedom. our cages offer us security. we suffer many abuses in order not to be left alone.
    we remain in the collective reality except for the few who wander around in each their own.
    to have them wash one away in and out from the deep sea to the shore. to be floating keeping one's head above the waves. to sometimes be able to touch the bottom. other times to be left treading.
    this is the experience. this is the experience of being one person out of the billions. how much is it the experience of each of the billions in some general way or another?
    common words about common experience. common broken bonds. we all fall down. we all climb upon the backs of the fallen. we cannot allow them back up without threatening the stability of the entire structure.

    he returns to the island.
    thing: so, what's happening now?
    him: i seem to be in some despair.
    thing: about what?
    him: about everything. i look around and see it hanging in the air over everybody. and it's gripped around my heart and has penetrated within every thought in my mind.
    thing: that doesn't sound too good.
    him: no, it's not. there's something frightening about it as well. i'm supposed to be excited about the new fall season on tv. i'm not, though i'll probably watch it - parts of it that are not so terribly bad. it is a thin veneer on the void that yawns beneath it.
    thing: so it's the void that is frightening?
    him: it has never felt so close. i've always been aware of it in an abstract sort of way. but i don't know if that's what it is that is frightening. there is something else.
    thing: the angst? the nausea?
    him: perhaps it is those things. how does one know? what can be communicated from one to another? now there is a baseball game on. there is much excitement about it. two teams scoring points, hitting balls, getting on base. and there's the commercials - all the excitement about consumer products. and it all works. millions of people get excited about it all. they cheer for teams. they buy the products. it all goes on and on. the life and the death of it.
    thing: and what about that causes the despair and fear?
    him: i feel apart from it. i feel apart from nearly everything. i don't understand how others are satisfied by it all.
    thing: how do you know if they are satisfied? they seem to always want more.
    him: but they feel that more will make them feel satisfied. they are satisfied with always wanting more. but this is nothing. it is how things are. it's how people are. it is how i am. i cannot say anything about them. what am i doing? i have nothing to offer anyone nor to offer myself. i sit here and make up imaginary conversations. i think i used to be satisfied with that. i used to be satisfied with my writing in general though it never went anywhere. i used to feel that it meant something. i used to feel that i was writing something that needed to be written. it used to make me laugh at the absurdity of it. now there is nothing in it.
    thing: well i still feel ok about it.
    him: but you're imaginary.
    thing: maybe that is why. i don't face the same things you face. i don't have the same concerns. i don't feel pain - nor pleasure. i cannot experience despair or fear. but then i do not exist except when you write about me - not that i'm going to tell you about anyway.
    him: you are the other. no one exists except when i perceive them. if they do it does me no good. i am not a part of that existence. i remain separate from it. it might as well not exist.
    thing: i suppose if you want to think of it that way.
    him: what other way should i think of it?
    thing: i don't know. why don't you just relax and watch the game?

    9/23
    across a flaming sky opened by tears. zoom in on one person and the anguish that one feels in one's very heart. zoom out to the masses the one disappears into. what is one among the many? what are the many but the one multiplied?
    he has few words left he hasn't overused already. he has few specific thoughts about any of what goes on. the thoughts he does have are wild and flowing through vague generalities. what is the solution? what is the problem?
    is he unlike any other? is any other unlike him? they act so normal and composed. but are their own thoughts as wild and vague as his?
 
    back to the island.
    thing: you are here.
    him: i am here. i am always here. i cannot be anywhere else. i can change where here is but it always remains here. i am forever here.
    thing: does this bother you?
    him: should it? what else is there no matter what it may or may not be? when we move from one location of being here to another of being here i think we hope to get away from ourselves. we hope that this person who we are will not come along with us. i envy that about others who have left me. they get to do just that - go some place else without me. leave who i am behind. i cannot blame them. i would do the same if i could, leave myself behind, but i cannot.
    thing: why would you want to leave yourself behind?
    him: i am this boring selfish ugly man. i stay with myself because i cannot leave myself. i have to accept the limitations of being who and what i am.
    thing: you could change.
    him: change to what?
    thing: someone not boring or selfish or ugly.
    him: someone more likeable?
    thing: you could say that, yes.
    him: i try to be more likeable. but being likeable seems to be being someone who pleases others. am i someone here to please others? how does someone please others? do they even know what will please themselves? but i do seem to please some people being who i am. i try to be just myself. i try not to have expectations nor to fit into the expectations of others. i remain as neutral as i can. there are some who seem to be comfortable with that and many more others who are not. but being likeable is not really the problem. there are a lot of people i would not like to be likeable to. it's not being with others that is the problem, it's being with myself. other people are idiots.
    thing: maybe you're the idiot.
    him: probably. i just try to stay out of the way.
    thing: by yourself?
    him: mostly - though there are a few people who come around to sit with me. i get along with them alright. we have no expectations of each other except to be reasonably polite and undemanding. no - it's myself that is the problem. but i'm more or less happy with that being the case.
    and then in a flash of light...

    back into the spirals not knowing much of one thing from the other. we bleed through ourselves. our thoughts try to arrive at some conclusion but come back empty.
    coffee vibrates. cigarettes cloud. he sits in the vibrating cloudiness.
    he sits by himself writing.
    the emptiness of thought is not nirvana. it is not emptiness of thought but a noise of buzzing of a thousand thoughts at once with none arriving at a conclusion neither together nor independently.
    there is the mystery of not knowing. but what is the mystery of anything? it is all before us in everything we experience. it is what happens as we a born and we live and we die. it is who and what we are. would a thousand more years of experience lessen the mystery of it? we may amuse ourselves with almost anything but still remain just as ignorant. that is the mystery - our ignorance.
    being and whatnot.
    thought and whatever.
    not even a joke, but we need to laugh at something.
    we laugh at one another when it is proven that we are as stupid as we are.

    dreaming in soft light we fall through ourselves.
    the drowning of horses, nightmare screaming alive awakening.
    who is left who has not been discovered as being nothing like one is thought to have been? who has not had one's pants pulled down around one's ankles?
    a discovery of frightened foolishness.
    come away toward oneself if one can find oneself again - if one has been oneself ever.

    one searches through the ruins looking for some evidence of structure that might endure. what endures are the ruins themselves. the structure of destruction. fading fast. falling apart. falling down. leaving empty spaces for more to be constructed.
 
    the bullet strikes deep pulling away the fabric of reality to revel the workings of the mind.
    romantic.
    the mind becomes all as it has always been all. in the moment when one can shape the shapeless. to bring form into form. to be before the moment slipping sideways around it. back into its beginningless beginning. to be terrified to the extent of having no fear. to be mistaken about all things such that one has the freedom to create.
    or death.
    but death is already present. it belongs to everyone and everything. it is at the end of each moment. it becomes now soon enough. to gamble with death is to gamble with nothing and everything. life is the transitory moment. how much are we aware of it sometimes?
    the madness creeping through the mind. one has no other place to hide from it. to cure the madness one must destroy the mind - to liberate the mind from itself. such a backward thing it is.
    writing words that are gibberish over forgotten moons. laughing all the way. who can discover the secret code? is there a secret code? there is if one wants there to be. but in realizing the gibberish of the words is to find their meaning.
    a live wondering amazed at the motion of one's own hand across and down a page leaving thoughts trailing in squiggled lines. a design of deception of awareness of remembering nonsense.
    let's get real.
    how does one know real from not real? there is the distinction of pain.
    painless we proceed into the waiting moment. the moment revels everything to be reveled in the moment. time is a slippery thing. space is a confusion of images. the bullet brings one back to now. the bullet marks the entry point.
    bang!
    dead and not dead yet. the possibility divided and suspended in the final moment while one gains access to the machine. not anyone, but someone. the impossibility of it makes it certain. what cannot happen must happen here. now. or kiss infinity good-bye. then any finite number is as good as another. let us choose one. let us create one apart from zero and then count down.
    when one gazes out the window. when one returns to the island. when the bullet enters and has no way out except infinity. when zero has the last laugh as he is clubbed to death by the monster of his own invention.
    forget the bullet.
    remember the vision one had once when the door was quickly opened and shut in one moment. what was it one saw? what was it one had become? what divides that moment from this one? what divides it from the moment of one's birth or from the moment of one's death?
    the mind crashing into itself. it has lit itself on fire to see in the dark.
    the bullet is screaming. the bullet has caught one's total attention.
    what was he thinking when the logic was precise and the mind plays tricks to save itself or surrender to reality that fluid thing flinging itself to the floor in a tantrum and when fantasy is banished and when the bullet is the incarnation of the fracture between this and that and the other thing?
    all split from itself.
    when the logic fails.
    a study of death in still life. a frozen final moment split from itself.
 
    he conceives an experiment of foolishness hoping to tread beyond the fear of angels at angles dancing on pinhead allowing the possibility of impossibility.
    how does one explain what can only be perceived by imagination turned in uncertain ways from itself?
    to keep the mind occupied deceiving itself centered away from itself while one acts quickly and steadily performs the occasional act of the destruction of its own confinement.
    not to question one's sanity or insanity. how does one tell from one's own experience which is which?
    a moment is suspended before one as being eternal. it is one possible moment that exists as an infinite number of possible moments.

    broken. shattered. when one used to think that it might have made sense. when one thought that it would make sense over time. and now that time has gone past. one is left washed ashore on some strange island.
    and one has been here before.
    and one has been here always.

    dreaming a dream within a dream screaming a scream within a scream. doors slam shut. we are growing beyond our own comprehension.
    we wave a white flag attempting to surrender. but who is there to surrender to? who is the enemy but ourselves?
    he is sitting in the cafe again and still. he has nothing new to report but feels the need to report. who is there to report to? who is in command? who is on our side?
    from one question leading to another question. through the jungle.
    toward a vague tomorrow. toward thinking of the moment when thought comes to an end, resting. what intelligence do we have then?
    and there's this certain uncertain percentage of people who write down their thoughts. what's wrong with them?
 
    the sorrow of drowning within oneself into the happiness of regret. to not know how one really feels whichever way it goes. is it sorrow? is it happiness? what is the difference between the two? does one cover over the other? and which covers over which?
    these tides of experience evoking emotion - unless emotion evokes experience. it is still a mystery to him after nearly 50 years within it. but then he thinks too much about it.
 
    secret diagrams of lunch and mythical zeros displayed underneath the arching brow.
    energy impulse.
    lifting a leg around a misty corner.
    the wall was scarred and weeping.
    imagine the becoming of light with prancing sheep.
    a howling service rendered by the froth in-between fingers.
    excited dimples.
    easing the time whiled away.
    the reflection in the spoon demonstrated with chair leg.

    something deeply hidden within the unholy matrix sublime mundane experience enveloping the unwary mind disguised from itself opening a door looking inside standing above guilt pointing toward heaven.
    he is weaving. he is despised alone to himself wondering about the glory of disease and death. sealed fate arising from the fact of fiction. making it up as we go along and all go along with us. we are the deceivers. we bend and twist and call it straight. we are many, legion, so who is to argue with us when any other voice but ours might as well be silent though it might be screaming? we can whisper and our voice carries around the world. our voice is the world.
    cracked insane and dancing to a different tune that lies within the empty hole within our heads. our voice is distant. we are monkeys sitting up in the trees. we worship power. we are waiting for the one with the big stick to punish us for our evil ways. that is the gist of the thrill. what other lure does evil have?
    don't ask us any questions within this dark night before our immortality. carve the design of our approaching into the flesh. don't listen to orders, we ordered before we fell.

    this is the dawn of the demise. we raise our hands and lower our heads. we step in time while proclaiming our independence.
    he tried to speak while they were shouting. he tried to walk the forest paths while they built walls to defend their faith.
    he strolls along through the hallways of the mansion of many empty rooms pretending. he drinks the blood of the fallen angels. he stands before mirrors seeing no other than himself as other.
    what becomes of our struggle except our lonely survival? he wonders about this. he looks up into the sky to see god. he digs into the earth to plant the seeds of rebirth. he is sacrificed. he is hung for all to see and be afraid. we put everything to fire. who understands our reasons? he feels his way home. he sings to himself for his own delight.
    he has written his own story that doesn't make much sense to him himself let alone anyone else. what is left to imagine? how little has changed. he smashes the idols he has made which then he picks up the pieces and hurls them into the darkness which is the content and context of his mind. this is where he had come alive out of. can he understand any of this?
    he lies about his ignorance to himself. he is always discovering his isolation to himself. he builds an altar out of lies and doubt.
    knowing what comes to an end is only just that. knowing what continues is eternity. laugh at this tragedy. snicker behind the curtains while those on stage wail and weep. it's all on tv. it's all just particle waves of light. it is all just as if in a dream we happen to dream out of the elemental forces exploding from themselves. who else are these gods but ourselves? we choose to experience all pain and sorrow. we design ourselves into the picture.

    another thankless clue. another day and night as the spheres turn. another spoon. another wonder to behold before ourselves. the design is formulated into a one shot deal. the bullet is waiting to be fired in its sudden chamber. the bullet will split the dimensions. or not. what promises can be made?
    but that is the point - that no promises can be made. one plays the idiot. one plays at being a god. only death stands in the way. can it be calculated as just another variable within the equation or is it the only constant? can we write it that way?
    bang!

    it sets up a probability field. who observes the experiment but himself?
    the dead undead.
    everything else can be predicted.

    the afternoon of the shaking hand.
    mysterious clowns talking on television on a cold shaky night while we somewhat subscribe to the hats we wear out of tune which is the common disease among evaporating donuts describing the later forms of logic surrounding the calm certain heads of the state witnessed by other eyes discussing the plan for the eventual creation of pages of documents absorbing the floors we are designing peacefully integrated within the height of the semblance of ordered square meals left out of mind eating holes away into our own dilemma sliced shaped risky behavior studied from afar with x-ray detection believing the easy way out as the dogs bark on easy streets without pain while darkness becomes itself suddenly once upon a time withdrawing from itself known in conclusion.

    driving insane babbling nonsense of freedom abstracted from the wild mind unleashed from conformative comfortable structure arising from the mist unto the very heavens controlling each aspect of itself and its relationship with the other of its kind.
    the other is everything that is not self. the self is nothing but its own idea of itself. but its idea of itself originates with the other. the self is other.
    the man bragging about himself to this woman. they trade business cards.

    a thought of oneself thinking of oneself within the idea of oneself. what proceeds from that? what proceeds from the idea of oneself into the thinking of oneself or from the thinking of oneself into the idea of oneself or do we have it backwards? who is thinking what about whose idea?
 
    and he can go home. and he can go back to bed. and he can go to sleep.
    then he wakes up, and then what?
    he can stay home or go out. at home he has a television, a radio and cd/tape player and a computer and books.
    but he goes out.
    out around all the other people.
 
    dripping into a shattered mind.
    an opening within the wall that confines our existence to this absurdity.
    liquid observance.
    a holding pattern before being allowed to land.
    trouble every day.
    we are raining.
    we are distant to ourselves.
    we dig through the trash for something new to bring to ourselves to the point of disappointment that revels what is and what is not.
    he falls through his life.
    he cannot remember from where.
    he cannot imagine to where.
    he only knows the falling.
 
    dividing time with intimate touch upon the faces of those peering through space.
    tomorrow will become today as always dreaming within a dream of our lives as we live them.
    what returns to our minds listening for discordant sound that upsets the otherwise perfect balance.
    we make up whatever out of imagination. we walk along the thin line of what is drawn precisely through the dark cold chaos surrounding us.
    whichever way is what or is not flashing faster than our minds perceive and comprehend. it blurs and appears to us as solid physical things in a solid physical space with stream of time running through it all.
 
    writing pages and pages without rime or reason.
    how stupid can he be?
    how stupid it is to have spent years and more at this pursuit and have gotten nowhere.
    what a numskull.
    what an idiot.

    dreaming of the meantime.
    putting words together as they appear in his head and go around and around as if they might have meaning.
    one could call this a poem and that would deliver it from having to mean anything.
 
    the constant mind ever-flowering out from and into itself.
    we are the petals.
    we perceive ourselves perceiving from the mind.
    of course none of this is true.
    of course none of this is false.
    what do we know when we are both able to tell the truth and to tell lies?
    of course this is nonsense upon nonsense upon nonsense upon nonsense all the way to the original point of nonsense which is where and when here and now that we find anything remotely resembling what we call god.
    why does god refuse to go away?
    what does it want from us?
    some say it treats us to reward or punishment.
    some say it involves us in eternal play.
    some say it is a empty concept the modern era of science and technology has exposed.
    some say that whatever it is it could not be bothered with us.
 
    to enter into the mind which pays the least attention to whatever claims for itself to be real.
    one imagines what that mind might ponder to itself. could it even be a mind at all? what mind does not give thought to what is real? what mind does not perceive what is real? what mind is empty without proof of its own existence?
    what mind does not reflect, though it may only reflect itself? is what is real only the mind's reflection being opposite in every way from the original?
    what dumb questions. what stupid questions only an idiot would ask.

    to sit here pondering the same pondering about what it is to ponder. what thing is it that surrounds one that appears to many various things all together at once? tables and chairs and coffee cups and these moving people. the one thing that is all things. he's looked for this vision and now he has it. so what? so what now? it is still as far away as ever.
    sitting here on a rainy day afternoon. to be warm and dry for these moments passing.
    to be not thinking about much of anything. what is there to be thinking about?
    one could think of all the people about wherever who are not in as fortunate a position as oneself. one could think about how one's position is not so fortunate.
    everything just is as it is. everything is a given. yet we are all part of creating it. and we are discovering everything is as it is.
    one could think about how one is alone most of the time, but not really entirely. there are all these people one likes to watch behave themselves like they're supposed to.

    an envelope of time frozen within the mind knowing. flesh rips apart. a disease screams. pleasure awaits behind door #3. the fool laughs.
 
    what do we want? do we know? would we know if we had it?
    what we presently have is not enough. what we don't have is too much. we endure our collective agony. we are sickened with one another. who does not believe that the world would be a better place if certain people were eliminated? and we all are on somebody's list.
 
    immortal boredom. paradise that becomes rotten from the inside out. no wonder the gods long for death and its eternal silence of experience and thought.
    it seems odd that existence should include its own disgust with itself - its own longing for ending.
    or is this just him?
    his thoughts wander off somewhere. there is a baseball game on tv. there are books he could read. the words jumble together and can mean just about anything. he lights another cigarette.
    we speak to one another with little understanding. or is it just him?
    he is in this corner that he has painted himself into with his madness. it is an invisible corner. he does not see it but feels it around him. he tries to sketch it out with his writing. does it appear?
    and what is to be done with it or about it? it is nothing more than the existential angst that lies beneath the things we believe in that keep us afloat above the terrible void in the pit of our existence. it is no more or less than that.
    and so he could inflate his own whatever he could believe in. but he would always know it was just that - an imaginary fiction. something to occupy the mind to keep it from the despair.
    this is what we all do. and this remains with us always as it has always been with us since our species gained awareness of ourselves and the world.
    for a long time our ignorance could comfort us. we could imagine meaning and purpose. we could believe that we were special creations of the gods - the gods' playthings. but our imagining has always been hollow. we have always known that we are alone and without hope.
    so it comes back around to him in the cafe writing about whatever turns through his mind at this moment now forever. the song that repeats itself over and over.
    we enjoy repetition and become bored with it at the same time. we wish both the familiar and the strange.
    this is his balloon that he inflates to keep himself afloat above the void and despair.