Cam Horvath

2014






























"the proverbial sun is peeking out above the clouds, kid."


















For jordi


























#
im floating. i am an ocean. the air above me is thick and
becoming part of me. what are you supposed to do now. i am what
you think of when you think of what nothing would be like. a
white floor surrounded by white in every direction endlessly and
really where does it even meet the floor, or does it at all. i
am tired but i look happy. i want to say i am trying so hard but
im not sure if thats true in the way that i mean it. my voice
doesnt tremble anymore. im sitting here and feeling nothing. i
am now sorry in only an abstract way. the air around me is the
same color as me. when the sun sets i will not turn the lights
on and i will sit in one place for the rest of my life.



2009
"so last night i watched this symposium on the multiverse, and
one theory that wasn't mentioned but that came to mind was that
our universe could be a part of a multi-universal cycle where
the collapse of the previous universe provides the spark for the
current one, and so on. which i think kind of makes sense,
considering how many cycles there are, with life and death and
new life, input and output that is also an input for something
else in a big circle, and whatever. like take rust for example.
it's like the earth taking herself back, after we took from her
to build something. what's that thing about anaximander and
justice. 'things perish into that from which they come to be.'
do you remember in slaughterhouse-five the metaphor about being
strapped to a cart on train tracks and it's moving and you can't
move your body and you can only see through one eye and that's
through a telescope looking at a mountain range and so it feels
like the mountain range is moving or it looks that way at any
rate and it looks like each mountain only exists for a moment
but really the mountains always exist and your perception is
flawed. that being like a condition of existence. but time isn't
moving, right, it's always there, every moment is always there,
it's just like we're walking forward and can't control it, but
time itself isn't moving. that's why like deja vu happens,
because every moment is always existing and sometimes the whole
construct fucks up. time slip, i think that's called. there was
this guy who was flying a plane and supposedly accidentally flew
four years into the future, somewhere in germany if i remember
correctly. but so what appears to us as a linear cycle is just
all happening at once. the collapse of every conceivable
universe and the formation of every conceivable universe and
everything in between all happening concurrently. but like,
eternally, you know?"
"mmhmm."
"..."
"..."
"so later that night i had a dream in which me from a year ago
was asking me how college was and we had a whole conversation
about it. which i think probably was related to the time slip
stuff i had been thinking about before going to bed. he didn't
seem at all like a ghost which was a pleasant change from the
usual narrative of dreams involving time distortion and the
like. i remember reading on wikipedia that there was usually a
sense of dread along with the experience. mostly little me just
asked about fake IDs and girls, but for some reason i just kept
talking about the sunset. like i was aware of him, in the dream,
and he would ask me a question, and i would reply with 'the sky
is a cold shade of pink' and stuff like that. it was like we
were talking on the phone and i was at college, still, but my
perspective shifted throughout the conversation from halfway
through my first semester until now, what's today, may
something, whereas little me stayed approximately in what it
seemed like was august of last year, perspective wise."
"what else did you talk about, with yourself."
"well okay so i'm going to be paraphrasing hard here, but i do
remember the flow of the conversation generally. after he asked
me about how easy it was to get alcohol, i said something like
'sometimes i think that shared hardship is necessary for
friendship to develop. and it can between anyone given the right
conditions,' which, by the way, is why i think i'd do fine in an
arranged marriage, for what it's worth. 'part of it is
compartmentalization, as in you need to be stuck around the same
people for extended periods of time. like those soccer kids,'
which he would have no idea what i was talking about, but there
was a little travel soccer team that practice outside my window
on some saturday mornings. and then he asked whether he should
get a fake ID. then i said something like 'i think it helps if
there's a common administrative enemy. rebellion is important in
that way. it's uniting. joining the people around you to protest
that you got stuck with the people around you.' then i mentioned
something about how people who were in the army tend to stay
really good friends afterwards. not that i would know, that was
total conjecture. then he mentioned psychedelic rock, which
again he would have no idea was most of what i was forced to
listen to in college, except for the fact that he was a dream,
of course. i remember saying, at some point around this time,
'there's no one to rebel against, then. except yourselves,'
which i followed with 'i'm not sure what that means, but i think
it sounds good, doesn't it.'"
"that does sound good."
"so then he started worrying about emily, and how she hadn't
texted him in a few days, which i remember is true to what
actually happened towards the end of last summer. but i started
talking about a self confidence shell game, which i didn't
explain to myself in the dream, but what i now in telling you
realize is like how everybody's attracted to confidence, and
like how everyone wants to either be led or having something to
push up against, in a broad sense. as in you don't need to have
confidence you just have to look like it, act like a version of
you that has confidence until it seems natural."
"i know you're taking a negative spin on this but some would
call that social intelligence."
"yeah but like it seems disingenuous to me. because it's such a
facade, in my case, i guess, as you know. but then the
epistemological thing about the difference between everyone
thinking you have something and actually having it, in regards
to confidence. so after that he said he got a new exhaust for
the car, which i knew somehow was a supra, even though i didn't
have a supra in high school, but i replied with another comment
about the sunset, which i was watching out my window while on
the phone with myself, with it resting between my shoulder and
my ear, and it was a corded phone, which is a little
anachronistic but who cares, really. and then young ben
recounted to myself the classic hope i had had for high school,
of pulling up to emily's house in, well i guess in this case a
supra, on an orange summer evening and she'd get in and ask
where we're going and me saying i don't know and driving around
to get lost. and then of course making out, which i would leave
out in the version of the dream i tell to other people, but to
myself and the dream and to you in real life i guess it was and
is necessary to be honest and realistic. but in the dream he was
freaking out about losing her, i guess because of the time frame
and the lack of recent texting activity, which again remember in
the dream i am on a corded phone, but so i'm helping him calm
down and he's trying to stay excited about the new exhaust and
he says 'it would sound really good idling outside her house,'
which to me means more than. i don't know what i'm trying to say
here."
"that's okay."
"so we dropped that topic fairly quickly, and neither of us
thought much of it, which must be a dream thing. i don't
remember exactly what happened next but we started talking about
depersonalization disorder, or i guess that's the name i put on
it when i woke up and did a cursory wikipedia search, but it
wasn't named in the dream. i talked about not recognizing myself
in the mirror, which did sort of happen my first semester,
sometimes, and then said something along the lines of 'you know
when you're playing a video game you control the character on
the screen and that's how video games work. but you're not
actually that character, you're not actually anything, in the
context of the game, unless it's super meta or something. you
control the character but really pragmatically it could be
anyone, you know, and it has to be, for obvious reasons. but
sometimes it's more like a movie and you're just watching.
you're supposed to identify with the main character and to some
extent you do. but it has its own script, its own plot, and
you're separate. distinct. one layer removed.' at which he said
'don't tell me you're into that "universe-as-a-computer-
simulation" shit.' which i remember reading somewhere that
there's a 20% chance that the universe is a computer simulation,
on the basis that if we ever build a strong enough computer to
simulate the universe in any sort of meaningful way, that that
has necessarily already happened."
"that's interesting."
"then small me also recounted to myself three other things which
i didn't remember, in the dream, but i obviously did if i was
recounting them, so. the first was when a few weeks after
getting my license i took my mom's car out into the countryside,
not really going fast or anything, just sort of dawdling. i
don't want to use the term 'out-of-body-experience' but i think
i might have to. it was like i was gliding 500 feet behind and
above the car, like a right triangle with a 500 foot hypotenuse,
and it was like the car was driving itself and i was just out
there, floating. we sort of lost track for a minute after that.
i remember thinking 'the older you get the more you need people
who knew you when you were young,' but not saying it out loud. i
think there was something about how letters were replaced by
telephone then email then texting then and how each is smaller
and more insignificant than the last, and little me mentioned
that this aligns more quickly with the nature of communication,
which made me a little uneasy, because that would be just sort
futility and that's a little dark for little me to say, that's
more in line with present me, i think. then i said, and i
remember this exactly, 'i'm struck by how frequently we're
reduced to talking about existentialism,' which, in a dream
conversation with oneself through the barrier of time is even
funnier, i think."
"your face just lit up like i've never seen before."
"haha i wonder what that means."
"i think it means you're a pretentious asshole. hehe."
"haha. well then somebody wondered aloud whether people could be
as depressed as they are now when everyone thought that the
earth was the center of the universe. and even before
globalization, when you didn't know how many people you weren't
influencing."
"i know you know that the hitchhiker's guide covers most of what
you're talking about."
"and also like individualism, keeping people separate and
distinct. i don't know. in general i think our generation sees
futility more keenly than our parents' generation. more aware of
or more willing to recognize death and inevitability. like we
see how much a total flop financial stability was, regarding
happiness. my private theory is that as soon as you have enough
stability to not have to worry about where your next meal is
coming from your mind is free to worry about other issues, such
as what's the point. the real cliche stuff. so okay the second
thing was a dream which i don't remember having, implying that
little ben had the dream within my bigger dream, which would be
just totally wild. but so he said 'there was a field that was
empty except for one rectangular hole, like a grave. the field
was very intensely green but there was some beigeish wheatish
grass too. the field was about a 1,000 ft square, meaning the
side, not the diagonal or area. the hole was at the center. the
field was lined with dark evergreens.' he was more specific
about the types of trees but to be honest i don't know anything
about trees so i didn't remember. 'the field was sloped from the
top left corner. but there was no one there and nothing
happened. the sky was bright blue with white fluffy clouds. you
know. it was july in the way that you could just tell it was
july. even though the sky was blue and the sun was almost
directly overhead i knew it was exactly 7:00 am. but no one was
there, not even me.' (me meaning him, who again was the one
having this dream) 'there was only this perspective that never
changed. nothing was in the hole. and i could tell that it was
going to be a hot and humid day. in the dream it felt like i, or
the perspective rather, was there for about 3 minutes. there
were birds chirping and a little bit of road noise, and a plane
went overhead once, leaving contrails. but nothing happened.'
and then the phrase flashed to present me, still on the phone,
listening: 'all, all, are sleeping on the hill.' it was night
now, the sky was black, as i was listening. and then the third
thing was also a dream, in which he said he was driving down a
damp, overcast city block. it was 45 degrees or so. it was rush
hour but traffic was moving fairly well and i (he) was going at
36 miles per hour. it might just be easier to tell it from his
point of view. 'everything was foggy, like the clouds extended
all the way down to the ground. the only other lights were the
red taillights in front of me, the slightly yellowed headlights
coming towards me, and the peach streetlights. endless
streetlights. the road seeming to go straight forever. so but
eventually the perspective shifted out of my body and outside
the car and i saw that the car kept driving the same hundred
feet over and over again. as in ever hundreed feet the car
reappeared a hundred feet back.' which in hindsight ties well to
the video game motif of the greater dream, like in arcade games
where if you go off to the left side of the screen you show up
on the right side. like donkey kong. theres gotta be something
bigger there, too, i think. i remember also mentioning portal,
but i won't go into much detail about that now, except that if
you're ever playing the demo it doesn't glitch at level 11, it's
supposed to do that so you buy the game."
"good to know."
"then we started talking about, and i know i've mentioned this
here before, the hierarchy i kind of developed as a result of
challenge and whatever challenge's middle school counterpart was
and being in honors classes and whatever, being, on a scale of
best to worst: success without effort, success with effort,
failure without effort, failure with effort."
"yes i do remember that."
"present me took the stance that that idea was accurate only to
a certain age bracket, after which a lack of effort is like an
uncashed check. which i thought was a fairly adult opinion, when
i woke up. but then we got back to the depersonalization thing,
and two new metaphors emerged: one in which planets are orbiting
a star and then the star goes out, leaving the planets in a dark
void, but that was dropped in favor of a mirror, but not like
before, as in being the very fabric of the mirror, reflecting
the world around you, or i guess me, in this case, being similar
to the sort of endless observation that isn't ever followed up
with any sort of action. then, if i remember correctly, we went
back to cycles, this time with regards to the denial of death,
that book i read early spring semester and really liked except
for the ending. from there it was only a small jump to the
reality of mind, and the theory that consciousness is an
illusion, which i was pretty dead-set on during the fall
semester, but little ben came up with an interesting rebut, i
thought, which was 'if it's an illusion, then to whom?'"
"hmm."
"real is to physical as true is to metaphysical. but yeah isn't
that an interesting point. but so the consciousness is an
illusion thing brought us to the universe is a hologram thing,
as in all data is stored in 2 dimensions and projected in 3, in
this case all data meaning what we perceive as reality. which
would fuck the whole thing up, really."
"what's the basis for that idea?"
"it has something to do with black holes. the event horizon.
there's a youtube video about how to understand the 10
dimensions but i can't really ever get past the 5th. but around
this point in the conversation this sort of came to me, by which
it mean i kind of saw it reflected on the window, or on the sky,
which again was definitely night by now, but it said 'and truth
came knocking on my door, and i said "go away, i'm looking for
truth" and it went away.' i know i've heard that before but i
don't know where."
"..."
"well, that was pretty much it."
"i see. well, how's your music going?"
"i, like, hate music."
"explain."
"it's just not something i can use to express myself anymore.
i'm too conscious of it. like i don't like what i'm associated
with. i hate when i see someone playing an acoustic guitar.
singing his or her respective heart out. i hate seeing bands.
the twenty people watching them. there's a certain futility to
it all. like if you don't hit a specific amount of success then
why do it, especially if there isn't any self expression going
on because you're too aware of the fact that no one's listening.
no one to express yourself to. did you hear mineral's getting
back together. mineral was an emo band in the nineties. i hate
that. i hate the idea of an emo band made up of thirty-five year
olds. because it's so pathetic if you're not as successful as
they are. if you're not somewhere by thirty or even like twenty-
five then the whole thing makes me kind of sad. or maybe it just
scares me because that's where i could end up. singing to
nobody. the futility. it's too late to be the prodigy so why
bother, it feels like. i know how defeatist this whole thing is
but."
"that's quite a jarring change of position."
"i don't know, i just look at music differently now. it's weird.
i'll still listen to recorded music. but anything live just puts
this impossible sadness into my eyes. oh jesus. it's like they
suddenly become the eyes of the generalized other or something.
some god looking down watching the little idiots trying to get
heard. even when they have nothing to say. like i have nothing
to say, i guess. or if they do have something to say, even, the
frivolousness of that. because nothing they are going to say is
going to change the fact that they are going to die and the
world is going to forget about them. and it will keep spinning
and slowly the universe will collapse in on itself. and that
person's effort will have been for nought, it will have made no
difference whether or not they existed at all. for some reason
this happens only with music, but i'm scared it's going to
spread. i can handle a psychological limit like that in one
direction, but maybe not many. not all."
"this is catastrophic thinking. can't music just be for the
pleasure of it or does it have to be about being heard, for
you."
"..."
"..."
"have you ever thought about the relationship between you and
the last person to hear your name. to have heard your name. i
used to think it would be this intimate thing. like that person
is it, the last one. after that you're gone. so there's gotta be
something there, right. but now i'm thinking, like, fuck that
guy. letting me die like that. sure it's symbolic but the reason
they're the last person is because they don't care enough to
tell anyone about you."
"it doesn't have to be like that."
"and like why would they. they have their own life as expansive
and unimaginable as yours. everyone does. the world's a big
place."
"you can't affect everyone. it's an impossible goal. the world
is a big place. what will it solve. let's say everybody really
does know your name. then what."
"then it will have made a difference that i was here at all.



2009
there was a small pool, 6 ft by 3 ft, that was 6 inches deep.
surrounding that was a foot of tile, like stone tile, which was
very gray. surrounding that was grass as far as the horizon,
upon which there were like 2d mountains, and the sky. the whole
thing felt like a primitive animation, super vaporwavey and
shit, something you couldve seen on a vhs, maybe. the water in
the pool was bright bright blue and the grass was bright bright
green and i imagined pink was somewhere but im not sure where
it would fit, in hindsight. so it was like this for a bit and
nothing happened, and there was no one. cut to a dark sea scene
in which im drowning in a turbulent crash of waves and the sky
is black and thick, like you could reach out and touch it, and
the water was like out of an oil painting, with the
brushstrokes, and i kept going under, and gasping for air, and
struggling, the whole thing was a struggle, and eventually you
saw my body floating, face down, being carried by the waves in
no particular direction, rising and falling, and id stopped
breathing, and the rain beat upon my back, and i didnt feel it,
and the wind blew but there wasnt anyone to notice, rising and
falling like that, for a while. cut back to the first scene.
everything is flat and still, especially by comparison. my body
is floating in the small pool, face down. white puffy animated
clouds overhead. the color pink, from somewhere. flat being an
important aspect of the whole thing. 2 dimensional, almost,
except for the body. inorganic, sort of, artificial. the term
pathetic becoming, like, a title, to me, of the dream. also,
flatline, which i think is an allusion to hospital rooms with
the heart monitors and so on. but pathetic being a very
important part of the whole picture.



2008
"you know in tv shows when they have a montage of all the
characters in the beginning and it'll show a person and they're
doing something cool or representative of their character and it
has their name and some sort of theme music. i think about what
would my thing be and who would the other people be. what would
the theme music sound like."



1998
"hey, buddy." andy came in through the front door which was
something only he and strangers really did, because of the way
the house was oriented, which everyone came in through the side-
door. he walked through the foyer to the yellowish kitchen and
poured himself a cup of coffee.
"hi." the eight year old said timidly, a few seconds late. the
sunlight pierced through the windows and caused the hardwood
floor of the foyer to fade in essentially real time. he was
sitting in the living room on the few-shades-weaker-than-mint
carpet in his pajamas. it was about 8:30.
"wheres mom and dad?" andy said as he materialized in the
living room.
""
"i guess they must have left already. how was school this week?"
andy brought his coffee over to the sofa and sat down. the lion
king was on the tv but there was a lot of glare and basically
everywhere he looked stung his eyes.
"okay." said the little boy, but it was more like ok. andy
watched him watch the lion king for about half an hour. he felt
uncontrollably sad. he did not and could not move. andy
envisioned himself saying i love you and getting in a car
accident on the way home. andy didnt want to have to watch his
brother grow up and feel like he did. andy wanted to go back and
watch disney movies on saturday mornings with sugary cereal
instead of black coffee and sit on the ground instead of the
couch and not be blinded by the light like he was now. andy felt
like stanley in the stanley parable, ben would discern later.
andy felt like he was going to throw up. he dumped out his half
cup of coffee in the sink and looked at the old family photos on
the walls. it occurred to him that very few people would ever
see these pictures or remember these people and that it was his
duty to remember them but he couldnt. his grandmothers poetry.
andy felt dehydrated. andy wanted to tell his brother everything
so that he wouldnt have to feel lied to like andy felt lied to.
but when andy sat back down on the couch he couldnt do it and
like why would he. time seemed to slow down like when youre
taking in so much information that theres no way that could
happen in real time. if life was only this one moment or moments
like these it would be worth it, was the thing. the saturday
morning sunlight blaring in through the windows and the stupid
glare and the fucking innocence of it all.



Cyclic model
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A cyclic model (or oscillating model) is any of several cosmological models in which
the universe follows infinite, self-sustaining cycles. For example, the oscillating universe theory
briefly considered by Albert Einstein in 1930 theorized a universe following aneternal series of
oscillations, each beginning with a big bang and ending with a big crunch; in the interim, the universe
would expandfor a period of time before the gravitational attraction of matter causes it to collapse
back in and undergo a bounce.



2009
"like you get to a certain point and theres no longer anything
to say. it could be transcendence but it could be the opposite
of that. the sun sets and you have no comment, idly watching.
you want out. or you want in. its like a headache. to be a part
of something or so separate one wouldnt even think of comparing
you. individualism fucked us over, big time, i think. also, the
world is too big. i dont know. the problem isnt even that i
dont have anything to work towards or to live for beyond some
abstract distant goal its that i wont have anything to work
towards or live for upon arrival. part of it is that im
assuming that finding a line of work that makes me want to wake
up in the morning is if not impossible highly improbable and so
its like im aiming for something where afterwards i can go
home and start doing what i actually want to do. like there
isnt a career that i would want to devote myself to. so im
basing my life around this principle because there has never
been something i want to do in that capacity be it work or
school or whatever. so like why would that change. and for a
long time even the things i like to do have more to do with the
people im around than what im doing so how do you make a
career out of doing nothing. like in office space when they ask
the guy what he wants to do and he just says nothing. i wouldnt
do quite nothing but the things i would do im not good enough
at for it to be a viable career option if im being totally
honest. i almost want my hand to be forced in some way so i have
someone else to blame when i end up unhappy. and sure thats an
attitude thing but like its a medically diagnosed attitude
thing. and also im like fairly disillusioned about any jobs
actually existing. im not sure if im pathetic or if bad things
just keep happening. im awestruck when characters in movies are
really into what theyre doing careerwise. like an fbi agent who
is so totally immersed in a case that he cant or doesnt want
to do anything else. like who doesnt go home and have a beer
afterwards. it seems like i have that obsessive personality
trait but nothing to be obsessive about. or that i can be
without the prerequisite of having any self esteem which i lost
somewhere along the line. how do you find something you dont
believe exists. where do you start looking. how do you make your
life about more than what you do when you get home to cope. when
did coping become like the primary thing to do. what happens if
you do find that great career and it makes you move and leave
everything. like who do you really need in your life to make it.
are these all moot anyway. like what is going to make life worth
it twenty years from now. i feel very far removed from reality
and the present. the problems of literal tomorrow affect the
problems of proverbial farther reaching tomorrow and so i just
focus on the latter. but like i guess i'm starting to understand
how people can move through the world without being truly
attached to anyone, or any small groups of people. like how
people break off into two person groups and have kids and die. i
think i'm starting to get that. it's like about trust. which is
part of why i'm in here, probably, talking to you, is because my
natural inclination is to distrust. or what's the thing, trust
people to do what's in their best interest. but i would amend
that to perceived best interest. it seems like most people i
know don't know what they want, really. i don't know what i
want. which goes back to individualism, in part. self
determination is hard and i'm not suited to it. the four types
of suicide are altruistic, egoistic, fatalistic, and one other
one. but egoistic is related to individualism, i remember, in
that one feels a lack of connection to the people around them,
and this is happening more and more, they're finding,
apparently, that people are feeling less connected. fewer church
bowling leagues, i guess. i hate how much i sound like a college
student, by the way. i realize that if i met someone with the
same interests and personality as me i would not like that
person at all. egoistic and fatalistic, is how they would
classify my suicide, i think, if i were to do it, which i'm not,
for what it's worth. i know you can't believe me in ernest,
which is okay. but the truth of the matter is i don't know where
i'm going or why. i feel like a lot of the decisions i've made
in the past few years were really bad decisions that seemed
right at the time, although i'm not sure how right they seemed,
really, or if i just convinced myself that they seemed right,
for whatever reason. like if i could go back to any given point
in the past three or so years i would do it in a heartbeat. i
fucked a lot of things up. and they say, well, i hate talking
about them, or they, like a rebellious teen, or whatever, but
they say that you don't have to have it figured out yet, you're
only twenty, you've still got time, and nobody knows what they
want to do at twenty, but like, everybody's supposed to know
what they want to do at thirty, and it's like this age, the
thirty, the limit, keeps getting closer. not just that i'm
aging, which it doesn't feel like it, i still feel like i'm
sixteen, but that the age is going down from thirty to twenty
nine and so on and it's really close now. if i want to graduate
on time i have one semesters before i have to declare a major.
that's like four classes to choose the rest of my life from.
which you can change directions later, of course, but that
fucking sucks, which i know from having changed direction
already, twice. and really nobody wants to be the guy who's like
five years older than the rest of the class, you know, you want
to be the prodigy, or the best. there's supposed to be something
that makes your existence necessary, which i'm just talking
about in like a program or classroom or something, but of course
what i'm really talking about is existence as a whole, which of
course makes me a little sick to my stomach, to think about,
especially regarding how i'm being perceived by you, although
probably this is how i'm perceiving myself and just placing that
perception upon you, and for that i'm truly sorry. i'm ashamed
to like what i like, in some ways, because of this, the
perception of it. it kind of gets in the way. especially when so
many truths are in the form of cliches, which you can't talk
about seriously, because they're cliches, and they're obvious,
and who cares if the grass is greener on the other side, or
whatever. the sad college kid on prozac thinking about
existentialism and playing the acoustic guitar, i hate it all.
it leads me to, almost, hate everything that i am, which relax,
i said almost. and like, even this self hatred is itself a
cliche, so it's like a metacliche, which would be great if
talking about meta-anything wasn't also a cliche. and the
aversion to cliches comes from, i'm ready for it, i'm sitting on
the edge of my chair waiting to hear you say, a lack of self
love. i need to hear you say it, captain. but so i guess this
brings me to the originality vs. authenticity argument, which
isn't one i'm particularly in the mood to have, mind you, but
i'll give it a whirl. before i begin, though, i have an
objection, or an interjection, i'm not really sure, which is
where authenticity comes from. this may go a long way towards
answering our pressing question. i am drawn to believe the
answer is the self. even if all originality is gone, everything
has been done before, to live authentically, even in the form of
cliches, one must love oneself. you see my dilemma. between the
proverbial rock and hard place is a place i know far too well. i
am remembering something david foster wallace said, which yes i
realize i am a white college-age male interested in philosophy,
i know, or i think he quoted it from somewhere else, which in
this day and age i could easily look up but haven't bothered to,
and so i wonder if technology is too far ahead of the human
condition, or something like that, but he said, or quoted, that
the most profound things can only be discussed in the form of
jokes. as in, they are too obvious and stupid to be talked about
directly, and we need a layer of irony to buffer us from the
perception of such a conversation, which is ironic because
that's what i'm doing now, in quoting him, and also in talking
about irony in a negative way, which i would say has become a
thing, for my generation, and also for what it's worth talking
about my generation. i'm really sorry if i'm becoming unclear,
it's just hard to be direct behind the muddled layer of saving
my own social face, which i know i shouldn't have to do in a
therapy session like this, but i still do, for some reason.
something about self love, probably. man wouldn't it be so
dissapointing if it all came down to self love?



#
"but okay, so i've been thinking a lot about adulthood. i don't
know why i'm telling you this. but so you know about the thing
about babies becoming like human when they reach a point of self
awareness, like when they can see themselves in the mirror and
recognize it as themselves and see themselves as actors upon the
world around them, or whatever. so how about like when children
become adults it's when they reach a point of recognizing that
other people also act upon the world around them. and actions
have consequences and so on. this probably isn't revolutionary
or anything. what's the thing. sonder. let me pull this up, and
i'm sorry for quoting this, really, i know it's very expected
and trite but i think it's very important, and like cliches can
be important, which is a cliche of its own, and an important one
i think, but okay so sonder: 'the realization that each random
passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own
populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries
and inherited crazinessan epic story that continues invisibly
around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with
elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that youll
never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an
extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic
passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.' yes i
pulled this from tumblr. one time, i wrote something about this,
before i saw it, but this is better than that, i think, in
hindsight. but so the general awareness of the world in that
way, i guess. it'd also be changing the definition of adult, a
bit, but i think it's an important distinction, when you realize
in a very real way that your actions affect the people around
you, and that that those people are, like, people, are like you,
i don't know. it's very primitive, i'm aware of that. something
parents already attempt to instill in their children. not
revolutionary by any means. i don't think each person's
individual good culminates in the good of all people. but i'm
also not sure what the good of all people is, really. i'm not
saying anything here. i don't know why i suddenly felt compelled
to tell you this. nevermind. i don't know, em. say something."
"i miss you."
"..."
"..."
but really none of this happened. really ben just wanted to be
missed. but what would he say, if he was, was the question.



Terror management theory
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In social psychology, terror management theory (TMT) proposes a basic psychological conflict that
results from having a desire to live but realizing that death is inevitable. This conflict produces terror,
and is believed to be unique to human beings. Moreover, the solution to the conflict is also generally
unique to humans: culture. According to TMT, cultures are symbolic systems that act to provide life
with meaning and value. Cultural values therefore serve to manage the terror of death by providing
life with meaning.
[1][2]
The theory was originally proposed by Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon,
and Tom Pyszczynski.
[1]

The simplest examples of cultural values which manage the terror of death are those that purport to
offer literal immortality (e.g. belief in afterlife, religion).
[3]
However, TMT also argues that other
cultural values including those that are seemingly unrelated to death offer symbolic immortality.
For example, value of national identity,
[4]
posterity,
[5]
cultural perspectives on sex,
[6]
and human
superiority over animals
[6]
have all been linked to death concerns in some manner. In many cases
these values are thought to offer symbolic immortality by providing the sense that one is part of
something greater that will ultimately outlive the individual (e.g. country, lineage, species).
Because cultural values determine that which is meaningful, they are also the basis for self-esteem.
TMT describes self-esteem as being the personal, subjective measure of how well an individual is
living up to their cultural values.
[2]
Like cultural values, self-esteem acts to protect one against the
terror of death. However, it functions to provide one's personal life with meaning, while cultural
values provide meaning to life in general.
TMT is derived from anthropologist Ernest Becker's 1973 Pulitzer Prize-winning work of
nonfiction The Denial of Death, in which Becker argues most human action is taken to ignore or
avoid the inevitability of death. The terror of absolute annihilation creates such a profound albeit
subconscious anxiety in people that they spend their lives attempting to make sense of it. On large
scales, societies build symbols: laws, religious meaning systems, cultures, and belief systems to
explain the significance of life, define what makes certain characteristics, skills, and talents
extraordinary, reward others whom they find exemplify certain attributes, and punish or kill others
who do not adhere to their cultural worldview. On an individual level, self-esteem provides a buffer
against death-related anxiety.



#
andys little brothers dream car at age 14 was a mk3 (1986-92)
toyota supra turbo. What most people failed to realize was that
all the common headgasket issues (caused by a switch from
asbestos to copper) on the 7m-gte (which was the flagship engine
at the time, for toyota, a dohc inline six w/ 4 valves/cylinder,
but quickly overshadowed by the later 1- and 2jz motors of the
mk4 supra, which was a halo car far greater than the mk3, in all
honesty, at least in the united states, although the engine was
also noteworthy for its place in the flying soarer, which was a
halo car in its own right, though of a different sort, it should
be noted) even though they could easily be fixed by28torqueing
the head bolts to 75 lb ft (102 Nm) of torque, but all the
service manuals offered for the car claimed an erroneous 56 lb
ft, such that the headgasket problems people were experiencing
would recur every 75,000 miles or so, even when torqued by a
qualified technician at a dealership, and the engines got a
rather undeserved bad rap, he thought, even though they were
extremely durable when torqued correctly. notably, the mk3 supra
was the first time the supra had been a separate model from the
celica, as opposed to a trim level, but due to the
aforementioned headgasket issues, along with the fact that it
was very heavy, the mk3 never really caught on in the same way
the mk4 did, which kept prices down 20-30 years later, if one
could find one without any headgasket issues, which again
because it never really caught on in the first place, were hard
to find. probably as a result of many hours spent intently
watching initial d, andys little brother ben had a sort of
penchant for the underdog, one he didnt realize he shared with
the overwhelming majority of americans, with the whole
meritocracy / self made man sort of thing, which further
appended to his interest in the car. the car also had flip up
headlights and host of outdated but advanced-at-the-time
technology, like TEMS and ACIS and LSD, which to a 14 year old
is unbelievably funny for a name for a car part, which made it
hard for him to talk to any of his friends about the really cool
antiquated tech, but made the car even more desirable and fast-
sounding, which he figured when he was old enough he would slap
a bigger turbo on and modify in countless other ways that he
would contemplate between now and then, considering he didnt
really know what he was talking about at this point.



2009
"i see you brought a book with you today."
"yeah there's something in here i want to talk to you about."
"what is it?"
"i think it makes more sense to quote a section in full,
actually. the book is the pale king by david foster wallace,
which he was writing when he hung himself, and it's mostly about
taxes really, but i read this section last night and kind of
stared at the ceiling for several hours in lieu of sleep because
of it. so okay, page 229, halfway through the second paragraph:
I mean true heroism, not heroism as you might know it from
films or the tales of childhood. You are now nearly at
childhoods end; you are ready for the truths weight, to bear
it. The truth is that the heroism of your childhood
entertainments was not true valor. It was theater. The grand
gesture, the moment of choice, the mortal danger, the external
foe, the climactic battle whose outcome resolves all all
designed to appear heroic, to excite and gratify an audience. An
audience. He made a gesture I cant describe: Gentlemen,
welcome to the world of reality there is no audience. No one
to applaud, to admire. No one to see you. Do you understand?
Here is the truth actual heroism receives no ovation,
entertains no one. No one queues up to see it. No one is
interested. which like, i don't know. i didn't like it at
first but the more i think about it the more i like it. i'm
digesting it now. if heroism can be this sort of secret thing,
or has to be, then regardless of self worth or whatever it seems
possible to extract meaning from oneself. which is better than
from everyone around me, like how i've been talking the past
several months, with the wanting to be remembered but even those
who remember me will die and blah blah blah ultimately forgotten
the universe collapsing in on itself blah blah blah. if the sort
of courage to live in the face of tedium and meaningless and do
it uncomplainingly, like in a way that you feel like only you
know the full extent of, i don't know if i'm losing you, like,
if no one is interested in heroism, or pays any attention to it,
then necessarily heroism is quiet. well not necessarily but i
think you know what i'm getting at here. heroism being
essentially solitary. the more i go on about this the more i
realize that this might've been how people have been living for
generations on end but like no one bothered to tell me. i mean
i've mentioned the denial of death before, how heroism is either
belonging to something greater than yourself that can extend
your life well past your physical one, life that is, or becoming
so great, for example plato, that people remember you. but then
at the end of the book which really pissed me off it was like
'well for this to work you kinda need to believe in god' and i
was like 'dude i was so on the same page with you up until this
very moment, becker, really.' because of the whole truth v.
pragmatism thing, where in order to believe something it needs
to be the truth instead of what is most useful, which is
something i struggled with for a long time, longer than was
necessary, i think, but whatever, especially with him being a
psychologist and all. so it goes. so where was i. heroism. part
of it being that it goes unnoticed, or like, the heroic part of
it being the accepting with silence. the secrecy is what i'm
drawn to, i think. i was listening to 91.3, the classical
station, and there was this segment on codes in classical music
that composers put in there, and never really expected anyone to
ever analyze or figure out or whatever, but was there for them,
the composer, as sort of an inside joke that was supposed to go
over everyone's head. i don't know i kind of like that. the
heroism being necessarily untellable.



#
there was a dim sort of light. a neighbor's porch light through
a thin layer of clear plastic, a sort of insulatory measure,
which prevented the much thicker and dimming drape from closing
fully, or well preventing the light from getting through, at any
rate, which ben woke up to every morning at 7:00-ish, depending
on the time of year and also whether daylight saving's time was
in effect. but so it was about 4:00 now, and the sun was due to
rise relatively soon, and ben was a little dizzy, and he wasn't
sure if it was in a pleasant way or not, in the same way that he
managed to be both tired and not-tired. he was reminded of a
time approximately a year ago when he woke up at about this time
and wrote himself a five-note to-do list, which he didn't end up
doing any of, but made him feel better about his life and the
direction it was going in, which he thought would be a nice
feeling to have again, regardless of whether he ended up
accomplishing any of the list or not, just having that direction
and knowing, somehow, that it was right, or at least not wrong.
life felt like a watercolor, sometimes, now.



Time slip
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the paranormal phenomenon. For other uses, see timeslip (disambiguation).
A time slip is an alleged paranormal phenomenon in which a person, or group of people, travel
through time via unknown means. As with all paranormal phenomena, theobjective reality of such
experiences is disputed.
Characteristics[edit]
Feeling of unreality[edit]
Many time slip witnesses report that, at the start of their experience of the phenomena, their
immediate surroundings take on an oddly flat, underlit and lifeless appearance, and normal sounds
seem muffled. This is sometimes accompanied by feelings of depression and unease. In some
respects, this facet of the phenomenon is similar to the Oz Factoridentified by
British UFO researcher Jenny Randles in some reports of encounters with supposed extraterrestrial
craft.
Moberly's account
[5]
of her experience at Versailles records:
We walked briskly forward, talking as before, but from the moment we left the lane an extraordinary
depression had come over me, which, in spite of every effort to shake off, steadily deepened. There
seemed to be absolutely no reason for it; I was not at all tired, and was becoming more interested in
my surroundings. I was anxious that my companion should not discover the sudden gloom upon my
spirits, which became quite overpowering on reaching the point where the path ended, being
crossed by another, right and leftEverything suddenly looked unnatural, therefore unpleasant;
even the trees behind the building seemed to have become flat and lifeless, like a wood worked in
tapestry. There were no effects of light and shade, and no wind stirred the trees. It was all intensely
still.
Jourdain's report
[5]
of the same event states that:
there was a feeling of depression and loneliness about the place. I began to feel as if I were walking
in my sleep; the heavy dreaminess was oppressive.
Ability to interact[edit]
Reports vary as to whether those experiencing time slips can take an active part in the event,
interacting with the time being "visited". In the Versailles case, the two ladies were apparently seen,
and spoken to, by people they saw. The British holidaymakers in 1979 went further, staying in a
hotel and eating dinner and breakfast in the course of their experience. Both these cases are also
unusually prolonged experiences, taking place over at least several hours.
In other cases, the subject is a passive observer of the "past" scene, and it seems that the "typical"
time slip lasts only a matter of a few minutes.



2000
when ben leyland was 10 he secretly (ie against his parents'
wishes) bought one of those screen lights for the gameboy color
so that he could play pokemon blue at night, which in hindsight
was the beginning of some particularly bad habits, sleepwise.
ben always started with bulbasaur but mostly because he felt
like his rival was best suited to charizard, when he would get
to the end of the game, even though he liked the squirtle
evolutionary line better. this likely had something to do with
his social interactions at school, which weren't bullying per
se, and were not typical according to the relevant media and
school administration. ben, being a quiet and relatively mature
boy for his age, more or less just watched the other kids
interact instead of jumping in, usually, and while this did give
a lot of the kids and many of the teachers throughout the years
the creeps, it wasn't something that made ben a particularly
easy target, and since his exclusion was essentially voluntary,
most kids tended to just ignore him. since he observed
aggression but never really took part in it on either side, this
is what he imagined his rival to be like, ie in pokemon blue, as
he associated himself more with the kid being bullied than the
bully himself, although again he was almost always never
involved. there was a certain uneasiness surrounding his
observation, which is very much related to the creepiness that
others eventually associated with it, that made you think he was
going to follow you home and kill your family but also kind of
made you want to give him a hug, in an almost inexplicable way.
his silence gave you the impression that he was taking
everything that was happening around him to heart and that one
day he would proverbially go postal. most of this went way over
ben's head, however, and generally throughout elementary school
he was just thinking about his ideal pokemon team, both if
pokemon were real and just in the game. during recess, which
would later be difficult for him to even imagine, as a concept,
ben favored taking free throws at the basketball hoop to any of
the more social activities and sports, but didn't really start
feeling lonely until much later. he was absorbed. ben wouldn't
remember much of his childhood, but it wouldn't really bother
him either. venusaur vaporeon rhydon zapdos ninetales alakazam



#
in 1994 andy witnessed a car accident. he was driving home from
work at 11:13pm and it was raining. there was the kind of
lightning that lit up the sky even though you couldn't really
tell where it was, exactly, but andy thought it was beautiful
and also distracting. about 1,000 ft in front of him, when he
was getting in the turning lane on anderson hill rd to turn left
onto king st, he saw a chevy s10 turning right onto the same
street hit a telephone pole. but the thing about it was, for
andy, that it seemed almost intentional. of course it was more
likely that between the lightning and rain and inevitable
cigarette and bald tires and whatever that it was an accident,
but it didn't feel like one, to andy. this was the first time
that andy leyland called 911, omitting the hand placement
related calls of his infancy. he was nervous about the call and
also about that he was nervous, as in he thought that this sort
of thing shouldn't be the sort of thing he gets nervous about,
now that he had turned 18 and was a legal adult, this was part
of it, he thought, the collective responsibility of being a
citizen or whatever that meant. andy didnt remember much about
the incident as it was acutely stressful and he tried adamantly
to forget it, but he did remember thinking it was a suicide, or
at least somewhat intentional, and mentioning that to the
operator on the other end, not that it made a difference to her,
probably. after he placed the call he wanted to sit in his car
by the side of the road forever but he didn't because he was
worried about the opinion of the middle aged adult male in the
driver's seat, whom by the way he didn't attempt to help except
by placing that 911 call, the whole incident having more of an
effect on his personality than even he would've guessed, after
driving away from the near total silence of the scene. as in, he
didn't check to make sure the man was okay or breathing or
anything, he just left, which he cringed at noticeably whenever
flashes of the memory bubbled up to the surface. andy literally
hated himself. this twitching happened a startlingly large
amount of the time and was, andy thought, the cost of being a
self aware human being, ie he paid this price after most social,
professional, or other interactions, unable to escape the
monotonous replaying of the worst single moment of every single
conversation in his mind, which he was not stupid enough to
believe only happened to him, though he did believe that it did
seem to happen more often to him than anyone else he talked to
about it, which he thought was unfair, andy did, while of course
recognizing the very specific way in which the world is unfair
to certain people and the great indifference with which it
watches their suffering, as in the case of andy, he thought. but
justice is that 'things perish into that from which they come to
be,' andy would sometimes misattribute to anaximenes, while
trying to reconcile the gross injustices paid him, while also
trying to recognize the gravity of the situation that one failed
conversation is not the same as children starving to death in
africa etc, though just because someone has a worse situation
doesn't prevent you from being sad in the same way that someone
having a better situation doesn't prevent you from being happy,
andy would internally argue, all the while violently wincing.
just below andy's layer of consciousness was the thought that if
he had never witnessed that inital car accident then this
cringing problem, which andy became very self conscious about,
obviously, further amplifying the issue, along with the thought
that well, really something would've set it off eventually and
the only way to avoid the grimacing was either for nothing bad
to ever happen to him at all or for him to figure out a way to
avoid it, which he seemed all but unable to do, it being the
sort of motor tic that is naturally very difficult to control.



2009
"so when i was entering middle school i had to do some
prerequisite forms for the guidance or counseling department,
i'm not sure which, but i remember that i wasn't sure if it was
just me and a select other few so called high risk students or
if everyone had to do the forms, like i'm not sure if my mom had
already been in touch with the counseling department is what i'm
saying, but one of these questions, which i think might trigger
some sort of 6th grade self esteem slash identity issues, was
whether we, or rather i, felt either too big or too small. as
in, you had to pick one or the other. i mean i'm what, 5'4" now,
right, and i've always been the shortest in my class, even more
so in middle school when all the girls hit their growth spurts
before all the boys, supposedly, and i remember writing too
small, and thinking that was the fitting answer, but when i
remembered this, whenever it was, a few days ago, i realized
that i might have some of the traits of someone who considers
themself to be too big. i would think that someone who thinks
they're too small would try to make up for that and be or
attempt to be hypermasculine, well in a male case, and you know,
otherwise make up for that deficiency. whereas someone who
thinks they're too big would try to make themselves smaller, so
to speak, by sitting in the back of the room or by the walls at
a party and not say much and so on. the gentle giant. but it
seems like we, like myself and i don't know who else, whoever
else had to answer that question, emphasize those traits instead
of trying to make up for them. like i make myself even smaller
than i am. it's easier that way, i guess, because you already
have a head start. so those who think they are too small make
themselves even smaller, and those who think they are too big
make themselves even bigger. i don't know if any of this is
true. in my case it is, i think, though."
"my son had to fill out those forms when he entered middle
school, for what it's worth. it's standard practice."
"good to hear. i guess. but i remember also wanting to check the
other box, the too big box, because i was, hm, husky. that's the
term. i had to wear husky jeans and i wore oversized t shirts
and shit. but i was short, still, so it was like both problems
in one, the worst of both worlds. i think that's why i'm so
skinny now, maybe. or part of it. i'm what, 110 pounds? 5'4"?
you can see my ribs and my spine through my shirt sometimes.
granted part of that was like medical issues but i think even
without them, i don't know."
"so the problems of someone who is too big accentuated the
problems of someone who is too small, in your case. or rather
believes to be."
"yeah. and it got worse once my world got bigger. like in high
school i had 350 people to impress. to be remembered by, to be
considered important to, etc. then i went to college and
suddenly there were 20,000 more people and the realization that
this had happened to each one of the original 350, that the
world was bigger than i could even imagine. but there seemed to
be an inside circle, still. especially because of the internet,
it was like everyone knew eachother, which i both loved and
hated, mainly because i wasn't in that inner circle, which i
guess reminded me of high school, the worse bits of it anyway,
not that it was exclusive in the same way, but more like it was
exclusive in an entirely new way that i thought was okay, so to
be excluded by means that i thought were not the problem made
the bigger, larger level problem much worse. it's much harder to
be big, now. much easier to be small."



#
"the sun has set on our day in the sun," said janice in a
nondescript episode of friends in 1998. this was much more
profound to andy than he would have hoped. he felt as if his
life had bookends. chapters. subdivisions. impenetrable barriers
of time. what no one had told him, was that childhood innocence
and naivete and egoism and carelessness and beauty and awe and
for example. in 1986, when andy was 10, and ben had yet to be
born, there was this game that he used to play, which was in
itself a notion of childhood that andy would never really get
back, unless he were to have children, and even then, but the
game was to stand at one end of the driveway, which was
unnaturally long for the development his house was in, and throw
a frisbee to what he dubbed 'the crease', which was the line
between the driveway and the road, and it wasn't much of a game,
there was no score, nobody could win, or perhaps more
importantly lose, all there was was an objective, and for a
while, nothing else mattered, existed. he got very good. he
eventually had to make the game harder, so he would throw from
the doorway, or his bedroom window, or from behind the garage.
it didn't matter to anyone else whether he could hit the crease.
but that was part of it, for andy. in hindsight, of course.
hours per day, throwing the frisbee, trying to hit the crease,
mindless and yet concentrating intensely, later observing that
there is not much difference at a certain point. like how
reactionism and progressivism meet if you go far enough in
either direction, or going off the screen in certain video
games. one thing andy would discover during his first failed
semester of college was that he was a communist of sorts and
that that probably started here, throwing a frisbee at the
crease, the line between his and theirs, self and other, which
he would find was an important concept in philosophy, but only
from mildly drunk philosophy students at parties. and besides,
how could someone own land, he wondered, and why would they
bother, with land especially, considering their impending death.
society had changed in a subtle but important way, he thought,
in that egoism had overtook something as the primary cause of
acquiring money and property, that something being ill defined
but largely covered by the phrase 'for the kids', as in parents
working for their kids' education, for their kids' education,
and so on indefinitely. somewhere down the line, society at
large shifted to be about the self, and while andy worked mostly
for himself, he was unsure how he felt about the concept as a
whole. the problem being, he would come to find out, that it's
an empty way to live, really, that futility loves these sorts of
people, gobbles them up. adults had become children, was a way
to put it. the true adult being someone who recognizes reality
as it is and works anyway for some cause other than himself,
andy considered, but was generally unsettled on. andy felt that
the true adult was a hero but was a breed that was rapidly
diminishing out there, in the real world, and so strived to be
one, an adult, but somewhat reluctantly, when upon watching some
mindless episode of friends in 1998, 8 years into ben's life,
janice said those infamous and humorous (?) words, "the sun has
set on our day in the sun."



Ultimate fate of the universe
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The ultimate fate of the universe is a topic in physical cosmology. Many possible fates are
predicted by rival scientific theories, including futures of both finite and infinite duration.
Once the notion that the universe started with a rapid inflation nicknamed the Big Bang became
accepted by the majority of scientists,
[1]
the ultimate fate of the universe became a valid
cosmological question, one depending upon the physical properties of the mass/energy in the
universe, its average density, and the rate of expansion.
There is a growing consensus among cosmologists that the universe is flat and will continue to
expand forever.
[2][3]
The ultimate fate of the universe is dependent on the shape of the universe and
what role dark energy will play as the universe ages.




#
"oh my god oh my god oh my god."
"so like i was saying, i think it's interesting that when places
begin to feel, familiar, is the word i'm looking for, they cease
to be, in a sense."
"slow down."
"like, you stop paying attention, which of course is a given,
but it's more than that."
"slow down."
"it feels different. there's an automatic piece to familiarity
but like."
"ben."
"like the trees here aren't really any different from the trees
on some other road, and the night sky is the same, and the road
may well have the same curves and so on. but there's a feeling
that you've been here before that changes your whole
perspective, for some reason. i think it's a matter of paying
attention."
"i'm serious."
"do you get what i'm saying? oh, brace for this next turn."
"jesus."
"everything is changed simply by having been here before, as in
my case, or not, as in yours. don't you see the difference?"
"..."
"and i think in some cases, it becomes more beautiful by
familiarity, but in others, less so. not that i'm saying
anything at all by saying that. hm."
"we are going to hit a deer and i am going to die."
"i don't know exactly what i'm trying to say. i get nervous
around you. i don't know why i started rambling like this."
"fucking shit, ben."
"oh, sorry. i'll pull over. there we are."
"thank you."
"..."
"..."
"i've been here before. i feel like in this exact same moment.
the cold shade of violet in the sky. the half moon shining
bright. stars struggling to make themselves visible. the field
blackened by night. i've seen it."
"it is a beautiful night."
"yeah."
"so. why did you bring me here?"
"does it make a difference?"
"yes, actually."
"well just like look at it. this is it."
"i see."
"it's familiar. it's exactly as i remember it. it's something i
don't want to change. i can still be the me i was in high school
when i knew what i wanted and who i was. i figured if i could
bring you here then i could be like i was. so you wouldn't have
to see me now."
"aw."
"i'm sorry i didn't mean to, like. it's just. i really wanted to
be with you. and i thought if i could remind myself of what that
was like maybe something else would become clear, too. i know
that sounds really selfish. or is selfish. but. i don't know."
"ben. i. well. did it work?"
"i'm afraid not. but that's not your fault, i mean, a lot has
changed."
"yeah. it sure has."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"just, uh, let me know when you want to go."
"okay."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."



#
the game of truth, known for a short time as 'truth or truth',
derivative of the ubiquitous 'truth or dare', was a game
developed by ben and other 15~ year olds the world over with the
inexplicit but subtly implied purpose of discovering whether
girls they were talking to wanted to go out with them, or found
them attractive, etc., while not having to specifically,
unambiguously ask that and those questions, which of course
would put self esteem and social grace on the line, something
that would come later whether they liked it or not, which in the
case of the boys who played this game, was generally not. it
consisted, in the earlier stages of development, of one asking
'truth or truth?', which would always be responded to with
'truth', by the game's very nature, obviously, and then the
asker of the question got to follow with anything he or she
could dream up, but which usually toed the line of sexual or
semi-sexual, and at the very least social perception, everything
from 'rate me on a scale of 1-10' to 'who's cooler, in your
opinion, me or _____'. the game was almost exclusively played
late at night, or more accurately, 'late at night'. almost
inadvertently, the game of truth allowed two people to become
very close very quickly, because amidst the questions of future
sexual possibility, there were questions of unintentional and
intense beauty and meaning, like 'what is your greatest fear',
'what's your perfect day,' 'what is life for,' and so on, which
i guess i should retrospectively mention are questions of
intense beauty and meaning to someone who is like 15. were for
ben, anyway. the obvious double entendre of the game of truth
notwithstanding.



2009
"afternoon."
"good morning."
"how have we been this week?"
"you know i don't like when you use the plural."
"..."
"well i've been okay, i guess. i had a troubling thought on the
way over here, though. that any preference implies an ultimate
point to existence. and like i'm over the militant quasinihilist
phase and all, but i just don't like it one bit, which itself is
troubling because, well, you know. you get it."
"and how did you reach that conclusion?"
"the you getting it or the preference thing."
"the preference thing."
"usually it routes itself through pleasure, but. so let's say i
buy a new sway bar for the car, right. why would i do that? so
that the car handles better by limiting body roll. well why is
that preferable? because it's better. better. better for what?
towards what? there has to be something that it's directed at.
so let's say cornering speed. well why is that better? faster.
better? it's fun? or we could go through some self esteem thing
derived from being faster than others, but for this moment let's
say it's a fun thing. for fun. better? the point here being that
fun or pleasure is the point. or in the other case an improved
self esteem is the point, itself being because it's...
healthier? or happier? regardless. it tends to go to hedonism.
which i'm not totally down with, shall we say."
"..."
"but then of course we have the opposite side. the quiet hero.
like i talked about last week. secret. that being better because
it is heroic even when nobody's interested, or paying attention,
but doing it anyway. 'it'. i guess to mean getting the job done,
right? or helping others but that's a little too new agey for
me. so getting the job done. that's better because. you're
supposed to? i'm not quite sure where to go with this. but it
implies an order, there's a certain conservativism of it, a
point, a classical point, or traditional, that you do what
you're supposed to unquestioningly, well maybe i won't take it
that far, but i don't know. it's in that direction. honor. maybe
that's where i'm going. it's an honor thing. honor is good.
wisdom is good. what even are these things? what are they for,
are we better off for having them, and if so, better for what?
are they their own telos?"
"i see you've fallen back into the truth vs. pragmatism debate,
again."
"oh god i hadn't even thought of that. jesus. okay. yeah but
that is the same thing. is truth 'it' or is pragmatism better,
is just doing whatever works best without giving a thought to
why better, because is it working best the best or is knowledge
important in it at all. fuck."
"..."
"i have to tell myself that truth is better for something.
because if it's pragmatism then anyone can find it. and i think
self awareness is important, that it's better, shall we say, and
not many people i've met are that self aware and that should be
the key, for some reason. obviously i'm not doing a very good
job of sorting this all out. ignorance is bliss. but bliss
cannot be best. i'm sorry but mental health cannot be the point,
no offense."
"none taken."
"that's why i was so fucking pissed at the end of the denial of
death. leaving your mark on the world makes sense, as a point.
but it's unfeasible. the earth taking herself back. so doing it
in secret, in a way that is necessarily secret, that kind of
works. only you know you're doing it and it's still not
pathetic, somehow, which those things tend to be, in my opinion,
which sucks but. okay maybe i'm content with that, for now.
making your mark on the world in secret. an unsigned piece of
art. that kind of thing."
"we certainly have made great strides today, already."
"don't patronize me."



See also
Origin and nature of life and reality
Abiogenesis
Awareness
Being
Biosemiotics
Existence
Logos
Metaphysical naturalism
Nature of life
Perception
Reality
Simulated reality
Theory of everything
Teleology
Ultimate fate of the universe
Value of life
Culture of life
Bioethics
Quality of life
Value of life
Purpose of life
Destiny
Ethical living
Intentional living
Life extension
Man's Search for Meaning
Means to an end
Miscellaneous
Life stance
Perennial philosophy
What Matters
World riddle
World view



#
everything is the same, over and over. you are beginning to
realize this. it is constantly changing but it feels the same.
my grandfather feels 60 in the same way that i feel 16. the same
metaphor, over and over again. something about the sky, surely.
it is dreadfully slow and not. it's like only hearing overtones,
knowing the timbre and pitch but not what it sounds like. it's
like sitting at the bottom of a pool with your eyes open and the
chlorine stings and you're not even sure why you're doing it but
you are and the legs around you kicking are attached to eyes the
same as yours but that at this moment are not stinging and are
breathing, and you're not sure why you're thinking of this or
how this supposedly relates to your current situation, of it
always stinging of chlorine, in a continuous repetitive way that
you don't quite understand, as in, it is repeatedly the same, if
that makes any sense. ad infinitum ad nauseam.



#
one time, at a party, emily mclinden was particularly nauseous,
like after an uncertain amount of vodka, which ben never really
liked, he always preferred beer to most liquors, she just
stopped, not literally of course, but in the way that you could
tell that all of a sudden she was very nauseous, and her face
became pale, and she sat very still for a moment, and ben, who
was very familiar with nausea and the psycho- and socio-dynamics
it brings to a party such as this one, was not quite sure what
to do, ie, he was not sure if he should help her or not, ie, he
was not sure whether she felt that a certain amount of dignity
would be lost if he or the rest of the party were to know that
she was throwing up, which it was kind of obvious what was
happening by this point in time, although most were too drunk to
really know what was going on, and the others were willing to
ignore it if she so wished, which if it was ben he totally
would, ie, not want anyone to notice or say anything no matter
how blindingly obvious it was that he was in there, face to
toilet, feeling the blood flow to his brain to send the signals
to his stomach to just let it all go, get rid of it, as long as
it will stop feeling like this. so there emily was, hair tied
back in the bathroom alone, wondering whether anyone knew or
cared enough to come in and help her, whatever that entailed,
which she wasn't sure she knew, but something would help, she
had to think, just the presence of another human being who cared
could help, somehow, and 20 ft away, there ben was, sitting at
the kitchen table alone, mildly drunk, as in the beginning of
being drunk, though he knew he would have to drive home later so
he had decided to not have anymore, wondering whether emily
would prefer it if he or anyone really was in there helping her
of if she would prefer the let's face it fairly obvious charade
of nobody knowing what was happening in there, or even knowing
where she was, such as to hold on to some scrap of alcohol
related dignity and apparent self restraint. ben wondered if she
wanted someone to know but not make it public, eg, for him to
look at her with that certain look that meant that both knew
what was going on, really, but that he knew that she wouldn't
want anyone else to know. there was generic house music in the
other room which ben secretly quite liked. emily had decided
that if someone really did know what was happening and didn't do
anything to help her in this time of relative need she would be
like super pissed, because who wouldn't want the comfort of
another human body rubbing your back while you're throwing up,
or something at least, someone sitting on the counter, giving
you cups of water from a plastic cup, anything to know that
someone else was figuratively sharing the pain, somehow. ben
meanwhile was still indecisive on the whole social grace vs
personal comfort issue, because although he knew that in his
case he would of course take the social grace option of nobody
knowing he threw up and couldn't hold his shit, unless he were
of course in imminent danger, which it didn't appear that emily
was, but was that a common preference to have, especially
considering the whole masculinity vs femininity bias thing in
which someone not holding their shit is inherently weak and non
masculine, ie feminine, and so would emily ascribe to that line
of thinking, as she was of course a girl, ben figured, and
prefer the personal comfort that was so damaging to a
hypermasculine entity, which ben was not but to which it seemed
girls of many types flocked to and was so a far off and mostly
theoretical goal for ben, who did fifty push ups every morning
and fifty sit ups every night. well but so should he go in and
help her, yes, he thought, his decision finalized by the
seemingly irrelevant fact that emily did not do fifty push ups
every morning and fifty sit ups every night, or so ben thought,
again not that physical fitness was inherently masculine, he
justified to himself, but it sort of was, he rejustified. really
it was just that emily was a feminine entity, not that ben
wanted to get into that whole thing right that moment, because
there was a girl in trouble in there, which made him take a step
back and reevaluate once more considering the arguably sexist
conclusion he came to, even though it happened to be right, but
not for the reason that he thought, and so on, as he slowly and
uncertainly made his way to the bathroom to knock.



2009
"it can't be anhedonia if i'm crying about it right. i don't
know. i'm very tired. exhausted. i feel very alone. i'm aware of
all this, and how cliched it is, trust me i know. that's okay
for now. that's the nature of it all. like that emphasizes it
even more in some way, that it's so pathetic it's not even
unique. not that anything. well. let's not go there. can we
focus on how i've never been in love? like sometimes i think i
loved emily but other times i'm like pretty sure i didn't. or
wasn't in love, because i feel like there's a division of terms,
as in in love instead of just love, if that makes any sense.
this too you've heard before, from some other white boy, i'm
sure. but not being sure if you're even capable of love? that's
like. man. i don't think i've ever felt anything towards another
person that's like half as much as what i've felt for myself
even when i hate myself. like i'm not an arrogant prick, i tell
myself, and you've mentioned, which i'm not sure if i believe
you on that, but whatever, i don't fucking think i'm god or
anything, i hate myself. i do. not that being me sucks because
that's another long and fruitless road. that didn't make sense,
as a metaphor. like i am a failure as a human being but somehow.
okay i'm getting off track. i hate but am about to utilize the
saying, 'you can't love others if you don't love yourself.' i
can't love others, if i don't love myself. the very nature of
this is all so self pitying which makes me even more of an
object of pity, in my opinion, which is so fucking meta i can't
stand it. i don't like this one bit. i don't think CBT would
work for me because i think that even though i hate myself and
am an idiot i'm still right, in some way, in the major areas of
life and the universe being fruitless and essentially a total
drag. which you tell me how that works out. how am i supposed to
love emily if i want to die. i don't know it doesn't make any
sense. make sense of it, please. this is what i'm paying you
for. or am i mistaken. oh. how am i supposed to love emily if
the only thing i can talk about is how stupid what i'm talking
about is ad infinitum ad nauseam. you see the problem. how do
you, or i, i'm all but ready to just give up on pronouns,
honestly, how does anyone say they love someone sincerely.
sincerity is it. we are weak and tired of sincerity. yes? we
don't allow ourselves this, this, thing so that we don't make
things worse. i think. i don't know. we are children who have
achieved self awareness but are not strong enough for its
implications of responsibility and possibility. that we could
get hurt. 'you can't possibly hate me as much as i hate myself
so don't bother, oh, but also reach out and touch me and i'm in
love with you, and i really mean that.' what the fuck. what are
we so scared of, again? everything? like could it really get
worse, is what i'm asking. regarding the isolation but i mean
like self isolation. there is no room for being clever anymore,
and so we sit in our corners and make jokes to ourselves jokes
about how bad things are as a way of dealing with the fact that
they are indeed so horrifically bad. but i don't know. sincerity
is for those without self awareness, on the other hand, you know
what i mean, the people that high schoolers in black call idiots
and naive and shit. it's for children. because the real world is
a scary scary place. i mean there's got to be something about
how the most entertaining thing in the world is an
overwhelmingly beautiful and oedipal-complexy woman saying 'i'm
so very, very sorry.' that's got to be something. listen i know
the only words i use are like something, anything, nothing, etc.
okay. but that itself seems like it means something. shit.
meaning, too, oh jesus. what about emily. do i love emily. emily
mclinden. i don't think so. i want to but. i don't know. i want
to love her but a result of that is that i want her to love me,
right, and so for that she has to think highly of me in some
way, right, and the only way that i could do that is by being
'clever' but that won't work, not really, it's sincerity that
counts, that she would love, but that's also the object, no not
object, something like it though, of derision, these days, and
if you hide you can be safe, because what, because being naive
is the worst of all possible outcomes, i think? that's bullshit.
it's a protection thing, i'm aware, but like, we're keeping
things, how do i put this. it's a plateau instead of a mountain
range. this isn't just the medication. it's bigger than that,
where like it's just flat, and that way we, i, you, whatever,
doesn't have the lows or the valleys and yeah i know okay can
you just stop laughing at the stupidity of the metaphor for one
fucking second, i get it alright but this is it, this is what
i'm talking about now, okay, but it prevents them, us, we, from
feeling the highs as well. i know it's stupid as all hell. can i
just blame education for this. what can i blame, please. it's
like that pet theory about how no matter how good or bad things
are they are usually normal, and can be good or bad only in
relation to that normal, which is why rich people are all so
fucking unhappy. again, not revolutionary, i know. but you'd be
surprised. building up walls we want others to knock down not
that we'd be willing to do that for somebody else. again, like,
it's the very thing i'm doing, i have to do, now, that i'm
talking about, that i hate, until it's just metametametameta-
anything and it doesn't matter at all. we can't be first level
anymore because we see how dark and cold it is now and that it's
an object of disdain even though that's where all the 'real'
'emotion' was. like the fact that i can't say any of this
seriously. like how i can't even whine about how it's all a
cliche i'm so fucking sick of it i'm not allowed to feel
anything anymore. it's not quite anhedonia. i don't know."



2009
"did you know that you can win a conversation? i only found that
out because i just lost."
"what do you mean?"
"like, before texting or email or the internet or whatever, you
pretty much had to respond. with the glaring exception of
letters, i suddenly realize, but that feels different. bigger or
more regal or something. but like now you can just not respond.
in the middle of a conversation you can just stop. and this
stopping and the threat of stopping has created a power balance
thing."
"..."
"stop fucking with me. but like that's it, isn't it. like you
can pour your heart out and have it be met with silence.
silence. not even the forced pity or 'i'm so sorry' or anything
just the void. nothing. the sound of being alone. that's so
scary."
"..."
"seriously. but like the whole winning thing implies that it's
something of a game."
"i wonder how far you'll take that."
"hey you're talking again. i thought i was losing you."
"..."
"i wonder how much more effective social interactions would be
if, on a grand scale, everyone was drunk."
"inhibitions."
"yes. i'm doomed to be desperate. socially. i don't know why."
"i think i know why."
"..."
"would you like to hear?"
"..."



Wikipedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the Internet encyclopedia. For other uses, see Wikipedia (disambiguation).
For Wikipedia's non-encyclopedic visitor introduction, see Wikipedia:About.



#
andy was really really sick. was also distracted by the color of
the sky. the thunder and lightning and the raindrops on the
windshield and the road and their reflection whenever the light
struck. did you know that lightning goes from the ground to the
sky. not the other way around. andy only ever listened to music
that he felt would be fitting music if he were to die in any
given moment, now. until the end of the world off of julee
cruise's album the voice of love, 1993. how do they make it so
that the white lines on the side of the road are reflective. the
toyota pickup andy was driving had an electronic transfer case,
which was set to 2WD in high traction situations, due to
problems of excessive wear, especially tires, though this 4WD
system is barely related to the AWD systems that would come
later. andy noticed that his crying matched the sky's proverbial
crying. rain-x is a hydrophobic silicone polymer that causes
water to bead on automotive glass surfaces. it's like nausea but
it's everything. in 2010, influential online music site
pitchfork would rank julee cruise's single 'falling' as the
146th greatest song of the 1990s. i suppose it is not entirely
clear why andy killed himself. it wasn't entirely clear to him
either. it was just something that he felt very very strongly
about. or perhaps he was just distracted when his toyota pickup
(known in some foreign markets as the hilux [and would come to
be regarded as indestructible due to a fascinating segment on
british tv show top gear]) lost a game of chicken with a
telephone pole in the rain in the early 2000s. what's the thing,
life's a bitch and then you die. i'm not explaining this very
well. in the early 2010s there would be a video of a comedian's
show except with the laughter replaced by sad music, in which he
talks about how really the only thing you need to do,
specifically as a single person with an atypical job but in a
way that i think can be extrapolated to much of the population,
if you want to get through the day/week/year/etc is that you
have to make plans. you just have to make plans, you just have
to have goals, the thing about it being the journey and not the
destination, though i stress that having a destination is
necessary in some way, at least on some base level. it has also
been hypothesized that you just need to know (how one comes upon
this understanding i am unsure) to deal with boredom. boredom
and loneliness being inherently related to depression in some
way. it's absolutely astounding more people aren't alcoholics.
but so andy's truck hit the light pole, in the rain, very late
at night, with 'until the end of the world' swelling softly from
the old toyota speakers, with the driver's side window down,
because the air conditioning was broken, water be damned, and it
would be at least ~2 hours before anyone would stumble upon this
little scene, at which the appropriate agencies were called, the
door was opened, and andy leyland was given unsuccessful cpr and
chest compressions to the ironic beat of 'stayin' alive' by the
bee gees, as thunder crashed, and andy was announced dead on the
scene upon the arrival of an excessive amount of policemen and
firemen and health personnel, as the semianonymous older woman
cried into her sleeve and wouldn't sleep well that night indeed.
the world is a quasibeautiful and quasihorrifying place to be
and not be. it is ironic that those who wish to die often have
such trouble sleeping. it was not determined if it was a suicide
or simply an accident caused by excessive speeding in poor
conditions and distracted driving. in some way it did not
matter. andy left a note though it was never found. andy's
depression was characterized as treatment-resistant depression
(trd) after years of fumbling around with different and
tirelessly ineffective SSRIs, SNRIs, tricyclics, DNRIs
(buproprion), MAOIs, etc., w/w/o lithium etc.; CBT and ECT
notwithstanding, as in, this shit just wouldn't quit. at some
point during his increasingly tiresome, well he wouldn't have
called it a life now would he, he had considered briefly the
interaction between information and neurobiology, ie. philosophy
and the psychology/biology/chemistry/physics/mathematics of his
brain and so on, and how what one thought affected how one felt,
and what the causal direction of the relationship was, if there
was any. in an interesting way, actually, andy's depression and
subsequent suicide affected ben in such a way that he became
uncharacteristically depressed and followed each of an ever
diminishing series of mental paths and philosophical routes
towards becoming increasingly, as he termed it, 'realistic',
though in truth it was flat out dark and unhealthy and, what's
the word, maladaptive, though it is still being considered
whether maladaptive and realistic could in fact be synonyms,
specifically in this case by ben (see truth vs. pragmatism). it
is both interesting and not how the ultimate fate of the
universe affects your body.

the way in which ben and andy's post death relationship affected
ben is in fact very similar to the way in which emily mclinden
and her father's post death relationship affected her. i truly
did not want to go about this in this way, i promise, though
what does that mean, really, but so: the chevy s10 mentioned
earlier is the respective toyota hilux, if this was not already
clear, and the middle aged man is the respective andy in the way
that andy affects ben and emily is affected by her father, but,
if this makes any sense at all, ben's soon to be charactarized
as treatment resistant depression can in fact be traced to
emily's father, mr. mclinden, who so affected andy and emily and
ben, in that order, i suppose. hence the as of yet unknown
subconscious 'bond' between ben and emily, not that that makes
the relationship any less uncomfortable for one to watch, which
is an aspect of most preblossoming relationships, relationships
ie the relation between people not necessarily but quasi-implied
romantic relationship. platonic love was named for plato and his
(via socrates) speech in the symposium about the difference
between vulgar eros and divine eros, the divine eros being the
basis of our conception of platonic love. the point is, the very
specific effect of emily's dad's suicide on ben was that ben
became obsessed with the idea of being remembered, an idea that
was reinforced during his reading of the denial of death by
ernest becker, specifically in its sections pertaining to 'the
creative person', with the endless and bothersome cycle of one
giving his meaning work and vice versa, such that confidence was
an essential part of the whole thing or else it all came
tumbling down and falling to bits. this being because the 'being
a part of something bigger' didn't much appeal to ben due to its
apparent anonymity, that is, until the silent heroism of page
229 of the pale king, and also the paul tillich line, not that
ben was religious in any sense of the word, which went something
like 'to accept oneself in spite of being unacceptable', which
certainly drove the point home for an everloving creator, not
that ben could get over that whole thing, such that his feeling
particularly small in an everexpanding universe felt even more
futile and meaningless and generally just sort of bad. that was,
until, for now, and this is probably just temporary, ben's
silent heroism, the sort of going over everybody's heads that
the more he thinks about it the more sounds generally
conservative and probably the way things were for a very long
time, which brings him to a sort of junction, in which the very
heroism that he can take part in, as in is able to, can being an
increasingly meaningful word, brings him right back to the start
of the small and meaningless in a big and unforgiving universe
deal, which of course is not ideal at all. the whole thing, for
ben, with the driving, is control. it is imperfect, obviously,
considering the huge amount of external influences on the car
and the road and so on, but the feeling, and this is a feeling,
of being in total control of ones motion, and in a way that is
far faster than humans can go on their own and could go for the
majority of man's existence, plus the relevant life/death issues
regarding his brother and both known and unknown to him, his
best friend's father, which of course he knew affected her but
could not possibly know or really understand just the way that
he (ie. her father) affected him (ie. ben).

the overarching theme here being able to be expressed in four
words:



#
"so where are we going?"
"i don't know."