Residue.

30.EPILOGUE.69: November 23, 2003.
"Residue (Bob's last soliloquy)."

Past midnight. Never knew such silence.
The earth might be uninhabited.
(Pause.)
Here I end this reel. Box-- (pause)-- three,
spool-- (pause)-- five. (Pause.) Perhaps my
best years are gone. When there was a
chance of happiness. But I wouldn't want
them back. Not with the fire in me now.
No, I wouldn't want them back.
(Krapp motionless staring before him. The
tape runs on in silence.)
--Samuel Beckett, Krapp's Last Tape.

I do what I want.
I admit it.
And I don't care.
I just don't.
Actually, I don't care a lot, these days.
And this isn't depression.
I simply don't care.
People seem to care on tv.
They seem to care on the street.
And they all seem so unhappy.
When you care, things matter to you.
You do things, and these things matter.
And when things matter to you, other things stand in your way.
Things that prevent you from doing the things that matter to you.
That leads to unhappiness, to conflict.
When people care, they are automatically put in a situation where they can become unhappy.
But when you don't care, nothing matters, and then nothing can make you unhappy.
Or happy.
But happiness always eventually becomes unhappiness, and vice versa.
You cycle around and around.
But if you don't care, the playing field is always level.
So to speak.
Everything bad is the result of people caring.
So is everything good.
I prefer to find a third way.
A neutrality.
The world is neither bad, nor good, now.
Because I simply don't care.
I find it freeing.
I don't care about art.
I don't care about love.
I don't care about politics.
I don't care about truth.
I don't care about music.
I don't care about books.
I don't care about what we're doing now.
I don't care about how we got into this mess.
And I don't care about how we're going to fix it.
On either a global, or personal scale.
I'm simply not interested.
I just want to watch tv.
Even though I don't care about tv.
Or play with my PS/2.
Even though I don't really care about my PS/2.
Or go for walks, alone.
Even though I don't really care about going for walks, alone.
Or with people.
And I don't want to talk to anyone, at all.
I don't even really care about thinking, or myself.
It's interesting.
Well, not really.
I'd have to care in order to find it interesting.
And I don't care, really, any more.
And it's funny.
Well, not really.
I'd have to care in order to find it funny.
I just simply don't respond, don't care to respond, to anything.
It makes life much simpler.
And, in a way it makes life much more rewarding.
When you don't care about anything, nothing bothers you.
It's kind of Zen.
When the world has flattened out, everything moves much more smoothly.
No little bumps.
I think I get what all those Eastern Philosophy books I used to read in highschool, I think I finally get what they're about.
At last.
Just go do your stuff, the stuff you have to do for not reason at all, and then stop.
Or, maybe, go do something else.
Or not.
It doesn't matter.
Go through life.
And life doesn't matter.
And that's the beauty of it all.
It just doesn't matter.
At all.
Ever.
Never did, never will.
It was all just an illusion.
And I don't care.
Refreshing.
However, sometimes, I do think about going back.
Back in time.
I find myself wanting to go back.
Back before the century changed.
Daydreaming.
I find myself drifting back to the coffee shop.
Back before it burned.
Even though I don't care.
Trying to get back.
Wishing I was there again.
But I don't really care.
Remembering....

Next: Thomas Pynchon....

Epilogue 70.
Epilogue 68.
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