30.EPILOGUE.73a: December 23, 2003
-- INFINITY.
"*30*."
PART ONE: "Two-Sword Technique."
My God, it's full of stars!
-- Captain Ahab
THIRTY
Good afternoon, good evening,
good morrow to you all! Whomsoever you may be, whensoever you may
be-- oh, how wonderful it is to be here!-- oh, how lovely and considerate
of you all to join me! Oh friends, lovers, girls and boys!
Welcome, welcome, welcome! How touched I am by your Presence, and,
and how saddened-- yet filled with the compassion and understanding that
only wisdom can bring-- by your Absence.
If you believe in gods,
may you be blessed by them; if not, may the cold, unfeeling world never
turn its back on you. May nothing bad or malicious or pointless happen
to any of you wonderful Religious, Agnostic, Atheistic people. May
all fortunes be in your favours, always. Maybe you be forever cradled
in the tender bosoms of Science and Love, Material Reality and the warm,
compassionate Infinity of God Almighty.
May you dance in light and
darkness equally.
May it never rain unless
you want it to rain.
May you never have to go
fuck yourselves unless your yourselves wish to be self-fucked.
May the howling wind always
call your name, but do so gently and soothingly.
And may the laughter you
hear behind your backs always be with you, not at you.
May it never mask the taunts,
the jeers, the malicious conniving, the hatred behind the curtain.
Let us begin, now, shall
we?
"THIRTY"
You may be confused by what
you've just witnessed, or you may be on track. I don't really know.
I can't really say. After all, I am not you.
Except, of course, when,
for the sake of convenience, I am.
This postpostpostpostpostpostpostpostmodern
world is infinitely malleable.
So, where are we, in the
scope of things?
Well, I am here, and you
are there. Out there. Away from me and caught in a supposedly
interesting, ever tightening loop.
Eventually, if you'd like,
the loop can speed up, tightening like some sort of multidimensional Chinese
finger trap, cycling round and round and round till we both explode outwards
mutually creating a metaphor for many different things: the birth of the
universe, the orgasm, whatever pretension grabs you at the climactic moment.
Or you can ignore it and find yourself safely outside. Or even both.
The choice is up to you. Whatever. Don't matter to me none.
So, you are there (outside,
inside, wherever you are) and I, right now, am standing in a huge tile-covered
room. The tile is dirty, brown. It looks like the food court
of a university, but there are no food kiosks. In fact, the stretch
of tile I am standing on seems to be (as near as I can tell) infinite.
And I know that I am dreaming.
That the last thing I was doing-- before I got here-- was sitting before
the television. And the light from the tv was blue, and I was very
tired, and I fell asleep.
And the thing I was doing
before I fell asleep? I'd been driving in circles around the city
for what felt like months, but was really only a few hours.
Or, maybe it was months.
After all, time moves differently for mouses.
And, while I drove in circles,
a great number of things happened. But a lot of them weren't really
all that important. Because, in the long run, little is important.
And then, still driving
in circles, I thought about the past in a desperate, fragmentary fashion.
And then I came home. And then I fell asleep in front of the tv.
And now, I'm dreaming.
I've been here, before.
In a way.
And, in fact, the tile is
white. It's porcelain tile, actually, not brown.
And, in fact, the food court
doesn't have any kiosks because it in no way resembles the food court of
a university.
And, actually, it's not
tile I'm standing on at all, it's more like a grid. Like an infinite
expanse of graph paper.
And, above me is a cold
night sky filled with stars. And the stars are going out, one by
one. Yet again.
And, I watch them.
And, when the last star
finally goes out (it takes quite some time. And even though standing
and watching them blink out makes my neck sore, I'm sad that this part
of the dream is over-- I do so very much like it when all the stars go
out), I begin walking forward.
"Hurry up please," I say,
to no one at all-- because, through the use of a very sophisticated intuitive
method, I have just determined that what this odd state of grace in which
currently I find myself needs, right now, is a forced and misplaced T.S.
Eliot reference, "it's time."
Pretension follows:
YEAH, BUT, WELL...
And naturally, in the real world--
or what passes for the real world anyway-- God knows what's real any more--
you're sitting there, reading what I've written-- naturally-- what else
would you be doing-- unless you're not reading these words at all-- and,
naturally, because you're reading all this stuff right now-- self-conscious,
pretentious, slightly irritating ramblings-- I am, way in the past (as
far as you're concerned anyway-- my present right now) sitting at my keyboard,
typing in one word after another, looking at the pale creamwhite of the
walls of my computer room. And it's-- what, summer, maybe?
Early fall? Spring? Maybe June, july of 2004-- even though
the date up there clearly reads December 23, 2003-- months after the date
this thing is supposed to represent. Months.
There's no snow. Not
that there was much snow on the ground on December 23, 2003. Christmas
is long gone (even though in one sense, if you want to take that December
23 2003 literally, it's just around the corner) and another Christmas seems
like it's coming up again. It's been way too long. But, here
we are, again.
Maybe it's even August,
or September, or October.
But, one thing, it is night.
A hot, stuffy night. It should rain, but it's not going to.
Tomorrow, the weather people say. But, right now, it's hot and dark
and I'm in my apartment, in my computer room, typing, sweating, window
open, hoping for a breeze and getting nothing, the light in the room shining
out my window onto the parking lot.
And even though there are
no clouds, and the sky is black and infinite, somehow the air is still
hot and crushing.
!!!THIRTY!!!
And, strangely enough, even
though the sky above me is black and starless, I find I can still see.
I think, This is a desperate
place.
And to my right, in the
distance, hovering above the grid, I notice a rodent and some sort of bird.
And they're spinning, locked in what looks to be a perpetual state of combat.
I laugh. I look away.
I keep walking.
Time dilates. It expands,
contracts, means nothing. I am in control, here:
A shape in the distance.
I walk closer. The
shape grows larger.
It's a woman. At first
I think it's Heather, but then I realize that, no, it isn't. Not
Heather, no.
Actually, that's a lie.
I knew it wasn't Heather from even before she appeared. I know what's
going to happen.
Once again, I am in control,
here.
Music begins to play.
After all, I need a soundtrack.
How about "Weapon Of Choice",
by Fatboy Slim?
If you haven't heard it,
go and listen to it now. You can probably download it somewhere.
Or, if you're feeling exceptionally wild and crazy you could actually throw
caution to the wind and go out and buy the album. Shell out some
hard earned cash. It's probably only about $20, maybe even less.
I know that might be hard for you to do, given the fact that you might
not know for certain what the disc sounds like, and that-- God forbid--
you might not even like it. But, live a little. You stupid,
cheap bastards.
And, guess what? If
you don't like it, it won't be the end of the world. You won't get
ebola and die. Nothing bad will happen to you and your loved ones.
And, chances are, another $20 will be coming right around the corner.
The title of the album is
Halfway
Between The Gutter And The Stars. A good metaphor for the situation
we've just now found ourselves in.
BEGIN:
I walk up to her.
She's sitting cross-legged
on the grid. She's staring at her knees.
I decide she should hear
my footsteps as I approach, so she does.
When I reach her, she looks
up at me.
"Hi," I say.
"Hi," she says.
"So."
"So."
"Looks like this is the
last one."
"Yup."
"And, you've been here for
a long time, I take it."
"It feels like months."
"It has been."
"Great."
"And I bet you have a few
things you'd like to say to me."
"You've got that right."
"Well," I say, "I guess
we should get this started."
ALEF-NULL
Scene: Drifting in the White Light.
BRIAN: Infinity.
BOB: Infinity?
BRIAN: Infinity. The mathematics of the infinite.
Infinite set theory.
BOB: Okay.
BRIAN: It's been a puzzle for a long time. And it still
is.
BOB: But the infinite is still infinite.
BRIAN: Yes, but there are degrees of infinity.
BOB: No. It's just infinity.
BRIAN: Wrong. You can describe the problem in this way:
You know, there's an infinite number of numbers. Right?
BOB: Right.
BRIAN: And you know what prime numbers are, right?
BOB: Numbers divisible by only themselves.
BRIAN: Right. Well, there are infinite primes, right?
BOB: There have to be. Because there are infinite numbers.
There is no end to the number of numbers, so there must be no end to the
number of primes.
BRIAN: Exactly. But, compared to the whole numbers, there
are relatively few primes. In fact, the larger numbers get, the fewer
primes there seem to be.
BOB: Uh oh.
BRIAN: Yeah. Uh-oh. There are, quite clearly and
obviously, more whole numbers than there are primes.
BOB: But they're both infinite. So, uh...
BRIAN: And, by definition, there are also many, many more fractions
than there are whole numbers and primes put together because there can
be an infinite number of fractions between any two whole numbers.
BOB: But....
BRIAN: It's a tricky mathematical problem. Cantor himself
went insane thinking about it.
BOB: Probably because it doesn't make any sense.
BRIAN: It turns out that even really simple math is riddled with
infinity. Cantor even devised infinite numbers-- or transfinite numbers.
BOB: But.... So something has to be wrong.
BRIAN: The first infinity is called alef-null, the second is
alef-one, and so forth. There's also epsilon-zero, which is the first
number halfway between zero and alef-null.
BOB: But.... Something.... It has to be wrong somehow....
BRIAN: Mathematicians even today still argue about this, because
it seems so weird, but it's self consistent. And thus it is logical.
The idea of transfinite numbers cannot be mathematically disproved.
BOB: Then there's something wrong with mathematics.
BRIAN: Not necessarily. Math is just a way of envisioning
abstract mental models in a kind of Platonic sense. And this is just
a really, really abstract one. Cantor proposed 3 types of infinity:
Mathematical Infinity-- the kind of infinity that mathematicians deal with
or the infinity of numbers. Then there's Physical Infinity-- things
like space being infinitely subdividable into smaller and smaller particles,
or stuff like the infinity of time and the universe. And then number
three is Absolute Infinity which he equated with God. Mathematical
infinity is abstract and kind of Platonic, like all math is. Physical
Infinity is more concrete but still pretty weird because here we're dealing
with infinitely large and infinitely small actual physical quantities.
And then Absolute Infinity is theological, and beyond everything both intellectual
and physical.
BOB: But did he believe that his theory had physical applications?
BRIAN: Yeah, he did. Sort of. Or if not applications,
he believed in the reality of both mathematical and physical infinities.
And he believed in the Absolute Infinite.
BOB: But if there are degrees of physical infinities, then, but
that still doesn't make any sense. Infinity is like a, well, there's
nothing bigger.
BRIAN: Except that there seems to be. And, besides, who
said the universe actually has to make sense?
MAN OVERBOARD
"So," I say, "what would you
like to say?"
"Where to start," she says,
"I've been waiting here for so long I thought you'd never come. I
thought this moment would never arrive, and I don't really know what I
want to say first. Or how I should even say it."
"Yeah. Sorry about
that. I didn't actually think that *30* would take this bloody long.
I was planning on our meeting going a bit more smoothly. And a few
years ago."
"Yeah. I've been walking
and waiting forever."
"I know. Again, sorry
about that. I didn't think that 9/11 would happen. I didn't
plan on any of this crap with Bush. I certainly didn't think I'd
be dabbling in amateur politics for so long-- what with the G8 and all.
And I mean, I also didn't really plan on it being so damn difficult to
end *30*. I mean. It just keeps going on and on and on."
"Tell me about it," she
says.
"But I guess that's what
you get when you base a continually evolving improvised work of narrative
art on something as open-ended as 'real life'. 'Real life' has no
end and so the work has no end. But, damn it. It was even a
struggle to get to this point. I mean, I had all the Bob and Heather
stuff planned aeons ago, let alone this meeting, and everything just got
out of hand and *30* just started expanding and expanding and expanding.
It's is a whale. And it's killing me. It won't end. It
can't end. I'll be crushed under it forever. It's an organic,
ever growing structure. I can't stop it, no matter how I try."
She looks at me and she
doesn't know what to say.
And I say:
"The only thing that can
possibly stop this monster is obliteration. And not just my obliteration,
but the utter obliteration, the destruction, of everything. Even
after my death, this disgusting, hideous, Lovcrafitian abomination will
continue, somehow. Somehow it will find a way. It's larger
than me, larger than everything. I have to stop it somehow.
But I can't.
"And in the back of my mind,
you know what's always there?"
"What?"
"Dave Sim and Cerebus."
"Why?"
"I'm not saying that *30*
is anywhere near what Cerebus is-- or rather what Cerebus
could have been. But there are still some similarities. We
both started our projects on a lark, and they both evolved. And they're
both-- to a certain extent 'self-published'-- although Sim's work exists
on paper and mine is on the Net. But, more importantly, they're both
works that are pure-- in as much as they have had no editorial influence
from anyone but their creators. And they both deal in a deep way
with what it is that makes each creator tick. They are both statements
of an individual self. And, of course, for the longest time, Cerebus
was my favorite thing in the world. Here was this guy doing it all
on his own, saying what he wants to say in a format he has chosen, in the
way he wants to say it-- warts and all-- and there's no one to blame but
that one guy. And if the work is good, it's all because of that one
guy, and if it's bad, it's all because of that one guy-- it's a pure statement.
Or at least as close to any sort of 'pure' statement anyone can really
make-- in the long run. And so, for the longest time, I looked up
to Sim. And then he went insane.
"And then Cerebus
became a warning. A warning of what can happen to someone if they
spend too much time trapped inside their own head. A warning of what
can happen when you allow yourself to be consumed by yourself. What
can happen when you curl in on yourself. And, all the time, when
writing *30*, this has always been in the back of my mind.
"And, all the time, I was
struggling for an ending. A way to get out of this mess I've created,
this spiral that's threatening to consume me and my mind."
"Just end it," she says.
FREEZEFRAME
And, so, yeah, here I am.
Now. Or what passes for "now," now.
In one place while the world
flickers by.
And yeah, you may be confused
by what you've just read, by the stuff with me and that strange woman on
the Grid, and the stuff with the mouse and the Eagle, Cerebus, the
passage of time, or even the reference to Bob and Heather. Or, like
I said, you may be on track. I don't really know. I can't really
say. After all, I am not you.
Except, of course, when,
for the sake of convenience, I am.
The problem with endings
is that they're hard-- or rather, the problem is that beginnings are relatively
easy. You just put a bunch of shit out there, and you've begun.
I'd like to end *30*.
I really, really would. But it's not that simple. Things don't
work that way. And if you think that that's the way they work, you're
naive. And if you think that I am in total control of my machine,
you don't understand the creative process.
I mean, on a certain level
I am in control because I want to tell you that control is difficult,
and maybe not something that's always 100% certain in any given circumstance
when you create anything-- and I'm going ahead and doing it. Sure.
But it's still more complex than that.
I want to tell you that
I don't have absolute control (even though earlier I told you that I am
in control), and I've planned this moment for quite some time-- and so
on a certain level I have control. But, I've been trying to say this
for some time-- and I sort of have already-- but not in any way I can say
is definitive. In fact, just in these 2 paragraphs I've repeated
myself-- tried to circle in on the idea of control, and yet the idea seems
to be repelling me. I am in control, and at the same time not in
control. Do you see?
It's difficult to show to
someone who doesn't create or who-- in your case, is a creation-- because
you are a creation, or at least partly a creation, of my mind.
I mean, in order to address you, I have to invent you. I don't know
who you really are or if any you, outside of the parameters of this
writing, even exists. I can envision someone standing in front of
me, or sitting at a desk, but that's just a construct, a device I need
to generate in order for me to be able to communicate. Maybe, into
the void.
On the other hand, the you
who are reading this, or picturing me talking to you, the recipient of
my words-- you have to tell yourself that you exist. And, as far
as you are concerned, you really do exist. And who am I to doubt
you?
Well, me. And that's
because the you that I'm addressing-- any you that exists outside of the
confines of this little word-structure I've created-- may or may not be
real and I have, ultimately, no way of telling. So it's your word
against, well, my nothingness.
And so, as far as I am concerned,
you are a fiction-- a creation of my mind and my words-- something I need
to generate in order to give my words a frame. (But maybe also real.)
However, as far as you are concerned, you, the reader, you are real.
You are not a construct, but are reading, right now, about your own potential
(in my viewpoint) irreality.
The truth, probably, is
somewhere in between.
UNLICENSED RADAR
"I'd like to. I'd really
like to stop. But I don't think *30* wants me to end. I mean,
even this epilogue is going to be really bloody long. It's going
to be long, and desperate, and screaming. Because *30* does not want
to end. It's going to be a battle to the finish. It may not
seem like it, just reading it, but every word I'm writing, right now, is
insanely difficult. Because on some level *30* is resisting me.
Because it wants to exist half-formed forever, open-ended, always awaiting
closure. Even though it can never really have closure because of
the kind of writing it is. But it still doesn't want me to finish
it, formally-- it doesn't want me to write the '30' at the end of the last
word. The '30' that will signify the end of this whole insane experiment.
I mean, this thing right now... it's the epilogue to the epilogue.
And the epilogue itself is already probably longer than the main body of
the work. It's probably the longest fucking epilogue in the history
of epilogues. And it's still going. And it has an epilogue."
"That sort of fits, though,"
she says. "Doesn't it?"
"How so?"
"Well, *30* is a typesetting
code for The End. For 'It's Over.' And the End of *30* is larger
than the beginning and the middle. It's The Illusion of The End--
to cop a term from Baudrillard, And I know how much you like to rip
stuff off from Baudrillard."
"I guess. It's the
ending that keeps on ending. That never really finishes. The
--30-- part of *30* goes on forever. The gift that keeps on giving."
"The longest ending in the
history of endings."
"The eternal anticlimax."
"Yeah."
"Just like every day and
year that's to come after The Year 2000."
CONSUMED BY THE INFINITE
Some time in, maybe, March 2004:
Watching Neon Genesis
Evangelion again. I've seen it before, but like all true art,
it generates interesting resonances.
The title means something
like "gospel for the new genesis," or "gospel for the new millennium."
Shinji, the protagonist
of the show, is a passive, depressive 14 year old boy. He's stuck
with operating a giant biomechanoid fighting machine called an "Evangelion,"
or "Eva" for short. He has to do this because his father is forcing
him to, and he's also desperate for his father's approval. There
are two others who do also pilot Evas. Two girls. (Rei Ayanami
and Asuka Langley.) Both girls are also 14 years old. It is
crucial that Eva pilots be roughly 14 years old. Eva pilots have
to be on the cusp of puberty, either that or slightly pubescent.
Why, is not totally understood, but it probably has something to do with
hormone levels, because it seems that in order to pilot an Eva, you must
be emotionally unstable.
Thus: Shinji is erratic,
paranoid, passive and filled with hatred and shame. Rei is psychotically
detached, almost schizophrenically flat. While Asuka is a walking
ego. They are also all near some form of emotional collapse.
They must be, they must be vulnerable, otherwise they will not be able
to engage the enemy and win. And the enemy is a bunch of beings known
only as "Angels." And these "Angels" are angels. They're not
aliens, they're angels. Actually, the Japanese word for the invaders
is "Disciples." We use "Angels," though. Regardless, either
term has Biblical overtones, and the "Disciples" / "Angels" have the names
of angels that are mentioned in the Apocrypha. Why the earth is being
attacked by angels is not made clear. Either they are destroying
us because we have in some way transgressed, or they are attacking us to
make us kill them in order to kick start our evolution into godlike beings,
or to kick start our eradication, or to make us become god.
Now, in order to be able
to do battle with the Angels, the three Eva pilots must be able to extend
and solidify their "A.T. Fields." The "A.T. Field" is an abbreviation
of "Absolute Terror field." The A.T. Field is a bit of appropriated
Freudian terminology. In Freudian terms, the AT Field is the area
of personal space the child constructs around it, a boundary which when
violated generates a feeling of "absolute terror," which can in extreme
cases produce a result similar to the child's experiencing a kind of psychic
rape. In Evangelion, the Absolute Terror Field is equated with the
soul.
This is why the Eva pilots
must be young, unstable, and vulnerable (they have all been more-or-less
strategically psychologically abused by their parents throughout their
childhoods, they and all deeply psychologically wounded and are extremely
needy, and yet defensive): they must be able, with the help of their Evas,
to generate an Absolute Terror Field that is both an offensive and defensive
weapon. Because they have been so abused and have developed different
kinds of psychic shells around themselves, their A.T. Fields are so well-defined
they can become a kind of forcefield. These three kids are literally
showing the world their souls and, when they are hurt or destroyed, they
are having their souls wounded, ripped up, and obliterated.
The Angels also have A.T.
Fields that must be forcibly penetrated or ripped through in order to render
them vulnerable enough to kill.
Basically, the Eva pilots
have to tear through the souls of their enemies in order to obliterate
them, while protecting their own malformed souls from destruction.
Rape metaphors abound, and
in the end many people are killed, and the minds and souls of our protagonists
are raped-- either by Angels, or by each other, and usually both.
The Angels begin the series by invading the planet and end it by progressing
to the fabric of reality itself.
In the end, Shinji goes
mad. Either that or he becomes God. Or does both, simultaneously.
And as he descends into deification and schizophrenia, the show decays
into captions on black screens. The captions provide scene shifts,
and then eventually interrogate Shinji, obsessively asking him "Why Do
You Pilot Eva?" over and over and over until he either reconciles with
the world, is brought into a new, cosmic state of being, or simply goes
mad. It's also difficult to tell what's really going on when your
viewpoint character loses his mind.
Hideaki Anno, the director
of Neon Genesis Evangelion also went mad while producing the show.
He had a massive mental breakdown just before then end, and so both Shinji's
descent into the abyss and the Anno's are intertwined. And, thus,
as it progresses, Evangelion becomes more and more desperate, schizophrenic,
and insane. Until, finally, there's the ultimate collapse.
Anno, Shinji, Shinji's and Anno's realities. Everything shatters.
The effect is something
like watching the climax of Twin Peaks, or conclusion to The
Prisoner, or what happens at the end of Gravity's Rainbow.
And the funny thing is,
When Anno got released form the hospital, he directed a movie that was
supposed to clear up the vagueness of Evangelion's ending.
However, the movie that Hideaki Anno directed when he was "better", the
movie that replaces the last 2 episodes of the tv series, the movie that
Anno did when he was "healthy" is actually more despairing, paranoid, angry,
nihilistic, and disturbing than what he did when he was "mad."
Neon Genesis Evangelion
will, thus, provide a kind of pop-culture subtext to this epilogue.
However, you can decide
how and why it applies. Or even if it does.
GRINDING TEETH....
She looks at me for a minute.
Then sighs.
"This again."
"Yeah. This again.
Sorry."
"I dunno," she says, "what
would have pleased you?"
"I'm not sure."
"What did you want?"
"I dunno," from me, "more
I guess. I just guess more."
"Yeah, but what more?"
"I'm not sure. But
somehow something more."
"Yeah, but what? No
matter what happened I get the feeling that you would've been disappointed.
I mean, if on the first nanosecond of January 2000 the earth had cracked
open and a giant bird'd flown out you probably would've just yawned."
"No," I said. "That
I probably would've applauded. That's something I could've backed
100%. Then and now."
"You wanted a radical change
overnight."
"Yes."
"But that's not realistic."
"I know."
"Then why do you keep harping
on it?"
"Because why couldn't it've
happened, though, just once?"
RATIONALITY
--Because calendars are all
subjective. The Year 2000 is only the result of a dogmatic, irrational
dating system devised by the Christian Church and centered around the death
of what they perceive to be their key figure. Someone there is no
real definitive evidence to support even existed, let alone was who they
say he is. The Year 2000 is just a conceptual illusion, something
a group of people invented for their own purposes. There are lots
of other cultures that have their own calendars. You can start your
own calendar. It's all relative. Thus The Year 2000 is meaningful
in only a personal way, and represents nothing objective at all.
And it never did.
--But, if the Year 2000
is subjective and a consensual illusion, how does that distinguish it from
the rest of reality where, especially in the social realm, the rule seems
to be if the most people believe it, it's true? All reality is a
conceptual illusion-- it's all stuff we thought of and convinced other
to believe in, and it all shifts, all the time-- from politics to science
to philosophy-- and so if the majority of people accept the Christian Year
2000 as being somehow significant it becomes, through the very principles
you espouse, significant. And thus its failure is significant.
Because even the idea of objectivity has its roots in the collective subjective
experiences of groups of subjective minds.
QUASI-OBJECTS
"You're always looking for something--
you always want something-- that you can't have. Either that or doesn't
exist."
Me: "I'm human.
That's what being human is all about. If you only want what you can
have, you get that stuff and then you stop. Your life becomes empty,
and you become useless. Someone who is totally fulfilled is shallow,
useless, and lives a meaningless life. Being human means wanting
what you can never have."
"But if you know you can
never have something, then you just stop wanting it."
"No."
"But, yeah. Because
you can never have it."
"But there's always the
possibility, the potential that you can have it."
"But if you know you can't
have it, deep down inside...."
Me: "Then you tell
yourself there's that potential. You convince yourself. You
don't just pay lipservice to it, either. You really believe it."
"But, then you're just lying
to yourself."
"Yes. But, in a sense,
everything, all belief of all kind, is a lie. Even believing belief
is a lie, is a lie."
"So..."
"The entire universe, everything
humanity is or does or has done, or will do, is nothing but a bunch of
lies."
"That's really negative."
Me: "Are you so sure
about that?"
THE OTHER WAY OF STARTING OR INFINITY IS STILL A PROBLEM
I look up at the "sky."
It's really just a bunch of infinite black. Right now, anyway.
"So," I say, "want to get
this started?"
"I thought that was what
were were doing."
"Well, we're trying to.
It's just not going too well."
"Oh."
"Well, we were about to
get derailed by a discussion on subjectivity. And that will come
later. Right now, we should just started, deal with the subjective
when it's time to deal with the subjective-- it'll happen naturally, I
guess," I say, in love with my own voice, "but we should deal with you,
right now. What you want. After all, we were supposed to meet
here for a purpose."
"Okay."
"So. Right now.
It's Q&A time."
"Sure," she says, wary.
"You ask me a lie, and I'll
answer with a lie of my own. To the best of my ability."
"Okay," she says.
She thinks for a minute,
and then:
"M+Ms."
"M+Ms?"
"Yeah," she says, "what
the hell is your obsession with M+Ms?"
LAZY CRAZY DAYS OF YORE
"Hopes and dreams," I say.
"Hopes and dreams."
"That hardly clears things
up."
"Okay. Well, to start
with, in 1999 M+Ms were being advertised as 'The Official Candy Of The
New Millennium' because, well, there's two Ms-- and that's the Roman numeral
for 2000."
"Okay."
"So, in a whimsical moment
I thought I could use them for something-- maybe a metaphor for how the
New Millennium was being sold as a product, maybe something along the lines
of the New Millennium being a sweet candy. Maybe something about
how the New Millennium really isn't real but it sure feels good to believe
in and consume, and there will always be more at the store if we need it.
And then, fizzle. Nothing. The New Millennium amounted to nothing
and the marketing scheme quietly vanished and everyone forgot about M+Ms
and the New Millennium, kind of like the way Y2K just suddenly wasn't any
more. And the M+Ms just didn't cut it any more. They lost significance,
but they're always still in the background. They're nothing at all,
like the New Millennium and everything that surrounded it. Just an
empty, disposable sign, empty calories, and empty meaning. So they
really and truly are the Official Candy Of The New Millennium because
they're just there, in the background. Trivial and yet pleasant,
kind of like the way the New Millennium is utterly devoid of anything good
or bad, but it's fun to wallow in it-- just like M+Ms are pleasant to eat.
And you do it on your own terms, and it never really matters much.
And yet if you indulge in them too much you get fat and unhealthy, eat
even more and more and then you die. So M+Ms are empty calories and
sugar, but too many of them can be really bad for your body. And
the New Millennium is is also empty, yet too much of it is extremely bad
for your mind."
No. 2
"Oh."
"Does that help?"
"I guess so," she says.
"Also, the metaphor was
supposed to be better and deeper than it really ended up being. So
the whole M+Ms thing is actually kind of a failure. Again, much like
the New Millennium. And don't yell at me about this because I know
how much you hate it when I go on and on about how the New Millennium was
a disappointment because you asked me and I told you what it's about.
If you don't like what the M+Ms mean, that's your problem. Not mine."
"All right."
"So, next question?"
She thinks for a minute,
then:
"In 'The Mouse And The Eagle,'
who's the kitty cat?"
"That's easy. That's
my friend Kim. Next question."
No. 3
She looks pensive for a minute, and
then:
"What happens to Bob and
Heather?"
...AND YOU LOOK LIKE ONE, TOO...
"Bob and Heather will continue
on much in the same way as they have, for quite some while. He will
behave strangely, sometimes like a little kid and other times like a wounded
puppy, kind of seeming innocent, but secretly cynical and corrupted and
angry, while she will alternate between growing more and more frustrated
with him, and more and more accepting of his quirks. She will also
grow more and more cynical as time progresses, but he won't really notice.
"In short, like most people,
their trajectories are pretty static. They are simply going to amplify
their behaviors more or less in a predictable way. In other words,
he won't really change much, and neither will she.
"She will always be smarter
than him, but will never really live up to her full potential because she's
afraid of seeming to be his superior.
"He, however, will always
try to be smarter than he really is because he's secretly intimidated by
her.
"So, while her proximity
unintentionally builds him up, his proximity unintentionally drags her
down.
"They will tell each other
that they love each other, all the time-- and some parts of them will honestly
believe this. In truth, their 'love' will quickly fade into a sense
of mutual comfort, and the spark will be gone. This won't stop them
from publicly expressing their affection whenever their friends are near,
but when they're alone at the end of the day, there will be a strange distance
between them.
"Together, they will exist
in a strange state somewhere between mental collapse and euphoria.
Always agitated and kind of confused, secretly wondering what their lives
would have been like if they had never married. However, they will
both lack the courage to express these feeling to each other because, deep
down, they both fear that if they talk about being apart from each other,
it will happen. And then they will both die alone, and unfulfilled.
"And so the days will pass.
Occasionally they will wonder what life would be like if they had children,
but they will not have children because they are both smart enough to realize
that in order to have children you have to have some sort of financial
stability to give them, otherwise the lives of their kids will be miserable
and the kids will grow up to be ruined, like so many children. Also,
they are both far to immature and self-absorbed-- in other words, like
many people born after 1970, too 'artistically tempered'-- to be good parents.
But, they also realize this. And so they will never have children.
Which, in many ways, is a blessing because any kids born into their union
would be doomed from the outset.
"And so, they will grow
old together, neither one really fulfilling the other, but both too afraid
of loneliness and failure to try anything else. They will be comfortable
and slightly lazy. They will never really grow up (which isn't really
a bad thing), but also they will never really mature (which is a bad thing).
"They will have strings
of crappy low-wage service level jobs for decades. They will never
be able to scrape up enough money to own their own home. Ennui and
anger and confusion and regret will multiply as the years pass.
"Eventually, they will be
of retirement age, and won't have saved much money because the only jobs
they're qualified for won't allow them to save much money.
"Therefore, what little
money they get from their tiny pensions will have to be supplemented by
welfare. Because of this they will be even more bitter and regretful.
"Resources will dwindle.
They will spend their declining years wondering what would have happened
if.
"They will look back on
the years following the shift into the 21st century with nostalgia, completely
forgetting they mutual hells they imposed on each other.
"They will stop talking
to each other, the desire for mutual communication squashed by ever-present
proximity-- but they will each have volumes of things they want to say
to each other. Mostly lists of faults and accusations.
"He will die before she
will.
"Cremating him will take
up the majority of their savings.
"She will become so lonely
she will die soon after.
"The end."
30.EPILOGUE.73a: December 23, 2003
-- INFINITY.