30.EPILOGUE.61: September 23, 2003.
"Heather's Soliloquy (II)."
And the fifth kills the women who've loved him
And the sixth kills the couldn't-care-less
The seventh kills people who fill questionnaires in
The eighth kills the deeply depressed....
--Momus, "Eleven Executioners."
"When I was 8 years old, I saw
a UFO in the sky. It hovered in the distance and then shot away.
When I told my mother, she said I was lying. Then, days later, when
I told my mother again, she said I had been dreaming. After a while,
I also began to believe that I dreamt it.
"When I was young, but older
than I was when I saw the UFO, I liked drawing. In fact, I wanted
to be an artist when I grew up. But I was never really all that good
at drawing, so I gave it up.
"I also wanted to be a poet,
once. I still do, actually. Kind of.
"The only problem is that
in order for me to write anything, I have to feel something in the extreme.
"However, I never really
feel anything in the extreme. Not anything I can encode into poetry,
anyway.
"Here is a confession:
"I like Star Trek.
Not around my friends of course, because my friends fancy themselves 'intellectuals'
and would label me a geek, and thus pathetic. But around Bob I can
watch it on tv, and read the novels. Classic Trek, Next
Gen, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise, everything.
"Sure, it's pop-culture
crap. But I think it's fun. And just because you read Star
Trek novels doesn't mean you can't also read things like War &
Peace. And just because you watch it on tv doesn't mean you also
can't also like Chaplin and Kurosawa.
"And besides, who's Bob
to complain? He likes Spongebob Squarepants.
"My 'intellectual' friends
like shows like Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and Firefly.
Joss Whedon. I guess that's the pop-culture crap for the 'intellectual
elite.'
"Once, I had a boyfriend
who hit me. He hit me a total of once. Then I punched him back,
broke his nose. It was in highschool. And of course I was the
one who got yelled at. But that was okay. After I broke his
nose, he never came near me again.
"I get mad a Bob a lot.
And this makes me feel guilty.
"But I don't get mad at
him because I don't love him, or regret marrying him-- but because of his
sheer lack of ambition. His utter unwillingness to do anything, to
expand himself and his mind. Beyond just crabbing about things.
"But lots of men just crab
about things. Growing up, I always thought girls and women were petty
and whiney-- until that is I started spending lots of time around men.
Give men the chance and they'll sit around all day, complaining and fiddling
with their balls, and thinking they're actually doing something meaningful
with their time. And this isn't just sour grapes. Men do like
to sit around, and complain, and sleep in-- and they only get the job done
if they're either forced to by someone with power, or it's the 11th hour
and their asses are on the line. And even then, sometimes, they don't
get the job done.
"Whatever job that might
be.
"I never did drugs, I will
never do drugs. I was always scared of drugs, and am still, right
now, scared of them. Scared of what they can do to your mind.
"I know no one who does
drugs, who is happy.
"But, secretly, I've always
wanted to know what they felt like. I've always wanted to know what
it feels like to take LSD or PCP, or marijuana, or mushrooms.
"Part of me suspects that
when you're on drugs the world feels like it makes more sense. That
you can order things easier, categorize them, make patterns, and through
these patterns feel like the world is actually a meaningful place.
"However, I also suspect
that 'feel' is the operative word, here. That when the drugs wear
off so does the feeling of sense, the feeling of order-- the categories
all fall apart, and the patterns dissolve back into noise. And so,
the user finds him or herself back in the confusion of reality-- only now,
maybe, they're more confused than before.
"Also, I've seen people
on drugs. And while they may have seemed-- inwardly, at least-- to
themselves-- to've been making sense, and to've been filled with insights,
in reality all they are, are just foaming, spitting lunatics babbling nonsense
and making jackasses out of themselves.
"I tried religion once,
that didn't work out too well.
"So then I tried atheism.
Again. That didn't work out too well.
"And so I came to the conclusion
that it's only the people who are sure of themselves that are ever truly
wrong. Once you get into a position where you're sure of yourself,
you are automatically wrong.
"When I was little, I spent
a lot of time alone.
"Go figure.
"I watched something called
Neon
Genesis Evangelion, once. It's a Japanese cartoon.
"It's about a young boy
named Shinji who pilots a giant bio-mechanical robot called an Evangelion.
He uses the Evangelion to fight these misshapen, abstract-looking monsters
that are attacking the earth. In the cartoon, they call the monsters
'angels.'
"And, it turns out they
really are angels.
"Eventually, the constant
strain of the war against the angels gets too much for Shinji and, near
the end of the series, he collapses into paranoia, self-hatred, and schizophrenia.
Because Shinji goes insane, and because we see most of the story from his
viewpoint, a lot of the plot points remain unresolved.
"The director of Evangelion
also had a nervous breakdown while creating the series. He started
the series in an unbalanced state, and then by degrees he slipped into
paranoia, self-hatred, and mental collapse. You can tell.
"There's a point, near the
end, where you can even tell that the director's mind has completely shattered.
"Both Shinji's and the director's
mental collapses are intertwined.
"I feel bad for Shinji.
He didn't know what was coming.
"When the director regained
his sanity, he redid the ending to Evangelion. He made it
more linear, but only slightly less despairing.
"Another confession:
"I am simultaneously afraid
of losing my identity in marriage, and yet I love my marriage.
"I need that telepathy,
that sense of-- that feeling of-- union with another. That thing
where you know what he's thinking before he thinks it, that familiarity
with the mind of your lover-- finishing sentences, thoughts, nonverbal
communication. I need it, and I love it, and yet when I experience
it I feel like I am losing part of myself.
"And I'm aware that this
feeling of telepathy, this sense of union with the other is an illusion.
I'm not in his head and he's not in mine. So I'm not really losing
a part of myself. And so I love the feeling.
"But, at the same time,
I'm still scared of it.
"Because I do feel
as if I'm fusing with him. And if I feel it, in a sense, isn't it
true?
"Not in any verifiable scientific
way, of course. But, because psychology deals with the mind, and
this feeling of fusion is an effect of the mind, if I feel it, in my mind,
and with my mind, doesn't it effect my mind? And since my mind is
me, if something effects my mind, doesn't it effect me?
"So, most of the time, I
feel like I'm changing into someone else. Someone, somehow, less
independent and more vulnerable. Once you begin to need people, there's
no turning back. And I want to resist it. There's a core to
me that resists it.
"And yet, I'm driven to
need someone other than myself.
"When I think about this
too much, I feel betrayed by my own neurochemicals, my biology, and my
mind.
"Dave Sim, the creator of
the comicbook Cerebus has also gone insane. He's probably
been insane for quite a while, actually. But now, the insanity is
beginning to creep into his work.
"No, not creep. More
like gallop. More like roar through it like a convoy of motorcycles.
"Even though Sim is still
sharp.
"But, still, he is insane.
"I've read all the Cerebus
collections. The 'phonebooks' as they're colloquially called.
"Cerebus is a comic
book about a cartoon aardvark. It starts out life as a parody of
Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian. Cerebus teh Aardvark
has adventures wandering through the land, then he comes to the Big City
and gets involved in politics. Then, in an amazing satiric flourish
he becomes both Prime Minister, and then Pope. Cerebus discovers
the secrets of the universe, gets immeshed in all kinds of intrigue, and
eventually even meets Dave Sim who explains life to him. Then we
watch Cerebus as he declines, over the course of years, and while he still
influences the world around him he does so indirectly. And now, he's
very old.
"Cerebus starts out rough,
but funny, and it becomes better and better. Then it becomes genius.
Then it becomes an angry diatribe against women-- but, even then , Sim
can still write a good female character. And, even then there are
still flashes of brilliance.
"But, now... now Dave has
religion and the book has become a strange mixture of conservative religious
rhetoric, misogyny, black humour, and-- even now-- some flashes of genius.
"But, there's a point in
the book where you can tell that Dave Sim has really gone over the edge.
A point where he also collapses into schizophrenia, and paranoia.
But no self-hatred. Dave Sim does not hate himself. He burns
with the righteous fire of someone who knows what's 'True.'
"This means, of course,
that deep down inside he's wrong.
"And, as Sim collapses,
so does the narrative of Cerebus. As SIm becomes a religious
fundamentalist and pours over the Torah with a fine-tooth comb,
so does Cerebus.
"And, as Sim develops a
personal philosophy based upon a seemingly random mixture of Islam, Judaism,
Gnostic Christianity, misogyny, and particle physics, so does Cerebus.
"Their trajectories match.
"I remember just before
the year 2000, Johnny Hart's B.C. comic strip got really weird.
Hart's some kind of hardcore Christian, and I think he was waiting for
the world to end. He must've been disappointed.
"I studied singing when
I was in highschool. It was one of the few things I did in highschool
that made me feel sane.
"I was actually pretty good
and I decided I wanted to become an opera singer. For about a year,
anyway. Then I realized my parents didn't have the kind of money
that was required to send me to any sort of decent opera school.
And they also didn't support me. They barely even knew I was interested
in it. So I gave it up. Sort of.
"I still sing, now, but
I only do it in private. And I think I have a nice voice. It's
high and pure and I can hold a note for a long time before my voice starts
to waver, And, even when my voice starts to waver I'm good enough
to make it seem as if my voice is wavering on purpose. And I can
modulate the wavering as I drop my volume and the note fades out.
"I never sing for Bob, though.
Never sing in front of Bob at all. In fact, Bob doesn't even know
I can sing-- even though I'm pretty sure he's heard me singing softly once
in the bathroom.
"I haven't told Bob I sing
because I sing for myself and myself only.
"I firmly believe that everyone
has something they do only for themselves, an interest they don't want
to share. Either that, or some little secret they keep to themselves,
and treasure as if it's art.
"And I firmly believe that
people who say they don't are lying.
"I don't know if I want
to fuse, lose myself. There's a word for it:
"'Intersubjectivity.'
When two subjects intermingle, not a subject and an object, or an object
and an object. Intersubjectivity. It's a philosophical word,
a theological and psychological word. It's an interdisciplinary word.
It's when you treat the other as a subject, not an object, and the other
treats you in the same way, and you mingle.
"There's another term for
it, serotonin high. Or love.
"Every day, it's always
the same: the same protests, the same paranoia, the same artificial problems
being used to disguise the fact that we are really, and truly safe.
"The Western World is safe.
Despite what we see in tv, despite what all the concerned citizens tell
us. We are still safe.
"Any real danger in the
air is an illusion of our own making.
"Yeah, sure people will
still remind you that those two towers blew up, and that Americans are
being killed in Iraq on a daily basis, and so on. But the casualties
incurred by the Word Trade Center crash were miniscule. And the Americans
being blown up in Iraq are a drop in the bucket.
"We are safe. That's
all there is to it. I said it before, I'll say it again.
"We're going nowhere.
I said it before, I'll say it again.
"Globalization will continue
as planned. I said it before, I'll say it again.
"Fundamentalist terrorist
acts will eventually stop because all the fundamentalist terrorists will
blow themselves up. I said it before, I'll say it again.
"The Eastern World-- or
at least the Capitalistic Asian countries-- will begin to embrace the Internet
more and more, and they will amalgamate with the USA.
"Then all other countries
will dissolve, and nationalism will become outmoded because we will have
to all merge if we're going to survive as a species and get into space.
"Or, maybe Capitalistic
countries will merge in order to better consume the few-- is it two, now?--
Communist countries. And then the planet will become a giant supercorporation.
"And, through it all, we
will remain safe.
"Because we always have
been safe, and we always will be safe.
"We will tell ourselves
we are under attack, because that stimulates us, motivates us, and excites
us.
"Meanwhile, we will always
be safe.
"And, despite all my whining,
I will enter into a state of permanent intersubjectivity with my other.
And I will lose myself, I will change, and I will be happy.
"And he will lose himself,
he will change, and he will be happy.
"We will make each other
stronger. Or at least that's what we'll tell each other.
"And, throughout all the
artifice and violence, we will remain."
30.EPILOGUE.61: September 23, 2003.