Fort Pierre National Grassland

Traveling through the West is one of the more soulful experiences I’ve had in America. It is vast, majestic, and still mostly uninhabited. I’m never more cognizant of the latter as I am when driving through South Dakota, which to me is the spiritual gateway to the West more so than Nebraska, Kansas, or Texas. For the longest time I couldn’t place it. It should have been obvious but it took a detour through the Fort Pierre National Grassland to clear my mind of the intellectual shackles of economics, politics, pop culture, and the rest of the exhausting enslavements of modernism.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. These thoughts weren’t foremost in my mind on the day I drove across the state line separating Minnesota and South Dakota on I-90. I was mostly thinking that this flat stretch of cornrows might never end. Not in the negative way that I think about it on I-80 in Nebraska. The state itself isn’t really the problem, though the landscape is a bit frumpy with its industrial-style farming. Rather, it’s the overwhelming number of semis hogging the road on I-80 and pushing contraband from one end of the country to another and then back again in an absurdly endless cycle of overproduction and overconsumption.

But never mind that. There was too little traffic on I-90 to be thinking anything but how enjoyable it was to see miles and miles of corn with only a few little bergs popping up off the interstate exits now and then. I was enjoying the flatness and straightness of the Interstate. The one thing that bothered me, though, was that I could see through my rear view mirror a car coming up to pass me at least three miles back. It was painful to wait and wait and wait until the car finally went by me. My cruise control was set and the same for most other cars so if someone going a half mile per hour faster than I was came up from behind me it took about 15 minutes for them to pass me. Yet, I couldn't take my eyes off the damn rear view mirror. I don't know why, but it was true. Anxiety would well up in me and I'd be thinking, "Come on, you motherfucker, get by me so I have the road completely to myself again. Fuck!" But if I set my cruise too fast then I'd end up always creeping up on other cars which was its own type of nightmare. The phenomenon was baffling to me. 

Perhaps that is why I took a detour to visit the city of Fort Pierre. That was my intention, anyway. But it was the Fort Pierre National Grassland that caught my intention. Not at first, but as I drove mile after mile through this completely undeveloped grassy wilderness I temporarily lost all memory of ever living in civilization. I finally stopped when I found a part of the shoulder of the road wide enough for me to park my car. I had passed no one on the road and there had been no one coming upon me from behind. I was alone in this wilderness. It was a major highway, the only highway connecting the Interstate to the capitol city of South Dakota, but no one was driving on it. I don't know if it was always that way, but on that day it was and I was grateful.

I got out of my car, walked across the road without even bothering to check for cars, listened to the low wind howl, and saw how the grass waved this way and that over a long and gradually downward running slope. The slope decreasing in altitude stretched perhaps ten miles, maybe more, and I could see that at a distant point it began rising again, gradually, far off into the horizon. It was impossible for me to gauge how many miles I ahead I was viewing, but it was unlike anything I had seen anywhere else in the country. One usually had to be on a mountainside or peak to get such an unencumbered view of tens of miles of landscape stretching endlessly before one's eyes.

One of the reasons this was possible was because there wasn't a single tree to be seen over the entire expanse of my view. All I saw was the grass waving off into the distance. Wonderfully, it allowed me to track the way the wind was blowing as it approached me. For long stretches the grass would lean to the northeast and then behind that stretch the grass would lean to the southeast. Sometimes the grass would be bent toward me, due east, and sometimes it appeared the grass was bent at varying angles to the west. This bizarre swirling windscape mesmerized me.

I walked out into the grassland, unencumbered by a single impediment. The grass was waist high, sometimes up to my chest and even my neck. I'd sometimes slip as it was impossible to see a divet or hole in the ground or a sizeable bump or small mound rising. I had to be careful as I walked. I looked back now and then and my car became less and less visible. The road had already disappeared. I wanted to keep going, at least until I could no longer see any part of my car; I wanted to be in a space where I could see no signs of civilization whatsoever.

After perhaps a hundred yards I finally lost sight of my car. It was disorienting. On such a relatively flat expanse my sense of direction was disabled. I knew vaguely that east was behind me but if I made my way back I might end up on the road a few hundred feet from my car. The sky was clear above me but it was late afternoon and somewhat dark. It was summer, though, so light shouldn't have been an issue. When I looked back to the west I saw towering purple thunderheads rising above sizable hills, possibly mountains, the Black Hills far, far off to the West.

I stood still, alone in the waist-high grass. I closed my eyes and only the shifting sounds of the wind surrounded me, whistles and whips and howls. I felt communion with the universe melting away my individuality. I became a sense of awe and humility, an existence realized in the vast emptiness of the grasslands and of the infinite empty space of the universe, my consciousness no more than another whisper of wind. I didn’t see myself as separate from the grass I walked through or the ground I walked on or the air I breathed. I understood what a vital role all of the universe’s energy played in creating this landscape and my body within it.

I felt a potent obligation to respect and appreciate the universe as a whole and each particular temporal manifestation of energy around me, be it plant, animal, rock, or air. What a moment. It’s no wonder the Native Americans called us the white devil when we came storming through the plains, shooting buffalo, blasting mines, cutting down vast woodlands, and building monstrous forts on otherwise pristine lands. Standing alone in the silence and solitude of the plains I understood it was a choice for humans to be either constructive and destructive. There was nothing predetermined.

But a tornado can’t choose when to form, where to go, what areas to avoid. It’s all determined by physics. Even for animals, their genetic codes determine whether they fight or flee. It’s humans alone who have the capacity to choose to combat physics and genetics. It seems that as the Europeans and non-native Americans spread out over the Americas they invariably chose to control and manipulate the environment rather than live humbly in relative harmony with it as the Native Americans had attempted to do, to varying degrees, for centuries if not millennia.

Those thoughts came later, though. As I was standing in the grasslands, my thought wasn’t so abstract. My senses were fully engaged in the environment, my ears buzzing from the whistle of the wind, my face flushing in the warmth of the sun, my eyes wide taking in the approach of those enormous purple thunderheads, my nostrils sucking in the musty scent of the moist grass. I was fully engaged with my small area of the universe. To say I was alone would be the grossest miscalculation. I was not in the company of other human beings, but I was most certainly not alone. There was energy all around me. The grass was, like me, organic, but I was as fascinated and engaged by the inorganic as I was by the grass. The wind and the daunting storm clouds were lively companions. I had no shelter about me to isolate myself from their presence. I welcomed them both as friends and they largely treated me as such, though I did head back for the car as the thunderstorm was almost overhead.

I was tempted to stay outside and be overwhelmed by the torrential rain, the howling wind, and a possible bolt of lightning, but I decided at the last moment against spending my last moments as a conscious entity at that spot at that moment. At times I feel that was a mistake. Not because I wished to take a chance with my life out of any lack of love for it, but because I can’t imagine a better moment to end my human life than when I’m at total peace with the land, with the natural earthly environment. From my point of view, I took a real risk getting back in that car, a risk that banks on the hope that I’ll be at peace with myself and in harmony with nature at that stage when prolonging my life is no longer possible. I also took a risk that I’ll have more intimate moments with nature.

At first I just walked back to the car, occasionally turning around to look at the approaching thundercaps. They were advancing rapidly and I could see the winds of them whipping the grass far off in the distance rather violently. I continued walking, not sure exactly if I was heading in the right direction as I'd lost sunlight; the clouds reached into the sky perhaps thirty thousand feet. As I turned again, I saw the shadow of the thunderstorm advancing quickly across the grasslands. I saw the rain coming down, a purplish curtain that blinded any vision through them. It was at this point that I realized I might not make it to the car. I started running ... fast. I tripped once, difficult as it was to run through chest-high grass. I looked back and it appeared I had less than a minute until it would be on me. Who knew storms could move that fast! I finally reached the road, about 50 feet south of my car. I darted up the middle of the road, my feet grateful for a solid surface, fumbled with my keys like a character in a movie who is being hunted by a serial killer, and finally opened the car door, slid inside, and closed the door. And locked it. Within seconds the rain started pummeling the car and the wind sounded like a jet engine roaring. I couldn't see anything out the window. It looked like I'd been submerged underwater or as if I was in a car wash gone out of control. The car itself rocked back and forth and I seriously worried it would be rolled over by the wind.

It rained like that for five minutes and the wind kept at it as well. When it finally settled down I could see through the window and I looked to the West. The last of the purpleheaded clouds had past and there were only wispy strands of white clouds stretching across the expanse of the blue-green sky. The sun was low enough to light up the edges of the clouds with fluorescent pinks and neon oranges. It was beautiful. I noticed the grass was still. The road was soaked but because it was on a gradual slope there was no flooding. It dawned on me how bad it would have been to have remained in the grass while that storm passed. I'm not sure what would have happened to me, but it wouldn't have been good. I had a sense, for the first time, what it must have been like for settlers crossing the plains in the mid-1800s. It must have been awe-inspiring and terrifying. No one wonder so many died. I sat in my car for a long time in shock, awed that I had experienced such a thing. I eventually started my car again and made my way back to I-90 on my journey out to Montana.

Moments such as those in the Grassland have been fleeting. There are few places in America so natural. Most spaces are filled with the noise of industry, cars, and distracted, chattering people. The West, particularly the Northwest, is special in the sense that it holds the last few spots of undeveloped land in America: I’m including mining, timber, and oil drilling in my definition of development. Despite the fact that I despise the abstract notions of economics and politics and really all of the fundamentalist dogmas of systems and institutions, I feel I may have to waste part of my life engaged in these ridiculous abstractions in order to preserve what little land, air, and water remains unburdened by human construction and destruction.

I’m grappling with the notion even at this moment. Why waste my precious moments of consciousness in what is likely to be a futile attempt to save nature’s few bastions of independence. Would it be a better use of my time to return to an unencumbered space and create new moments of joyful communion? On the other hand, such spaces will likely be destroyed without advocates willing to muddle through the unnatural constructions of political and economic ideology in order to create systems more respectful of human nature and the environment at large.

My desire to save the environment isn’t based on some idealistic belief that the land needs me to be its steward. The earth will continue to exist long after humans cease, even if we set of ten thousand nuclear bombs. It may take millions of years for the earth to recover, but it would. Maybe life would cease permanently, but probably bacteria and other simple life-forms would live on and perhaps even eventually start evolving into other life forms again. But even if we as humans don’t cause the land, water, and air to become inhospitable to life, our dying sun will eventually do it billions and billions of years from now.

As such, my desire to temporarily preserve these spaces in our environment is not derived from an unrealistic idea that the earth’s life-support systems can be preserved in the long-run or even that I need to save the trees or the mountains from human defacement. My desire is fueled by the recognition that those unencumbered spaces are physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually nourishing for humanity. It’s my love for myself and for humanity as a whole that compels me to even consider delving into the drudgery of political discourse. I can see no other way of preserving lives worth living than to speak out about the contributions those spaces make to our health as a species.

Sisyphean Task

I was reading J. M. Coetzee’s Diary of a Bad Year on a train from Minneapolis to Portland. I was sitting in a lounge car listening to a young man playing guitar while doing so, just letting the beautiful notes wash over me while the words directed my thoughts. Giving up direction, in a sense, to allow what is external to guide me. That is not entirely true, though. After all, I chose to walk into the lounge car, I chose to sit and listen, I chose to open the book and read, I chose to remain seated for as long as I did while listening and reading. In that sense, I had dance partners. It wasn’t clear to me, though, whether I was leading, Coetzee, or the guitar player. Maybe we were all doing our thing but in proximity with one another, I engaged with Coetzee and the guitar player even though Coetzee was not bodily present and the guitar player’s attention was directed elsewhere.

I suppose, because of that, I had a greater awareness of myself within a temporary ecosystem, an environment in which I played some part, but not an integral part at all … except for me. There were other “parts” of the ecosystem, though, too, parts I took for granted, parts that I am even now not considering. There was the train itself, the lounge car, the other passengers, windows providing views of the land we passed by, the tracks below I could not see, the seat in which I sat, the coffee I drank, the sounds of the wind and the creaking of the train, the smells wafting from elsewhere, the shoes on my feet, and on and on and on, perhaps endless if I allowed myself to consider all of it. How little am I ever aware of at any given moment? How little in each moment?

At a certain point, it all becomes idea, an understanding that I cannot give everything my attention, that my awareness, even when heightened, is utterly limited. Why doesn’t that terrify me more than it does? Have I accepted that I am relatively insignificant, that I cannot be omniscient, that even as a human being, no matter how advanced beyond a chimpanzee or a cat or a rat or an insect, that I am still closer to those other forms of life than I am or ever will be to any imagining of what it might mean to be a god or God?

How can I be responsible given all of that? How could anyone be? Responsibility seems to be an unfair imposition, an idea that is incoherent. If I cannot know all there is to know at any moment, how can I be culpable for anything I do? Yet, laws demand myself and others to be responsible in certain ways. In that sense, laws tell us what is important and what is not. My attention should be directed toward certain rules and regulations and my daydreams are nothing more than impediments jeopardizing my ability to follow laws.

In my arrogance, I feel this as an imposition on what I believe is my right to be autonomous. But what rights do I have at all if not for laws that grant me rights? I’m creeping slowly toward issues of power by thinking this way. Where will that go? Might makes right? Probably. So why go any further? I know the outcome because that road has been covered under layers of thoughts past, my own generated as much by encounters with the thoughts of others, thoughts written by others rather than stated.

I am on the verge of being untethered. I am on the cusp of liberating myself from consideration of anything at all. What would be the point? Self-preservation? A delusional belief that “figuring things out” could enable me to change anything at all? Should I just delve into hedonism or perhaps depravity? Isn’t that what leads men and women to acts of terrorism, of what is commonly referred to as “senseless violence”? Is it any more irrational to kill than it is to help others? If nothing can be known with certainty then aren’t choices reflective only of preferences rather than any higher-minded morality or ethics?

In the end, each one of us dies. If it is all transitory then nothing at all could matter in any way … other than what is preferred, even if (perhaps especially if) those preferences are arbitrary. Might has to make right. It could be no other way. In the scheme of things, might is not held by humanity nor by any other particular form of life. Life is an accident arising from lifelessness. Lifelessness, though, will correct itself and return the universe to what, from the human vantage point, can only be understood as lifeless indifference. Saving the environment, preserving life? Pointless endeavors. But what is life to do? Eliminate itself to accelerate the process of becoming lifeless? It doesn’t matter. Nothing does.

Do I really believe that? At times, maybe, but ultimately no, I don’t believe that at all. I believe my feelings have meaning. What I feel most deeply is love, love for my being and for the being of other humans. In fact, love for all that exists and has existed simply because all that exists and has existed has led to my existence and the existence of others. Why? It doesn’t matter why. What matters, to me, is that I love. Is love just my preference? Perhaps, but if preferences are all there are then I honor my preferences cause they are all that are. Should I honor what does not exist within me? Should I honor ideas that create vacuums of feeling within me? For what purpose? There is no purpose for nothingness. There is no such thing as nothingness. How could there be? As soon as nothing is imagined it becomes something and, consequently, no longer nothing. An idea of nothing, yes, but an idea that exists within me and, as such, an idea of something that is called “nothing.”

Coetzee’s Diary of a Bad Year covers nearly everything I have been considering over the past decade. Indeed, over the course of my life. In a way, it’s depressing. His well-formed ideas have anticipated all of my developing ideas. So now what do I do? I don’t mean strictly within Diary of a Bad Year; I mean also all of his novels. I wish I’d have read him earlier in life, but then again it is his writing in the 2000s that most distinctly covers the content of my own thoughts.

What is left for me to write, though, are my solutions for the means to collaborate collectively. He writes only briefly of the body, only briefly of how structures could be created that could be all-encompassing to account for how men, women, and children can live with meaning and purpose while fulfilling needs and desires without causing undue harm to anyone. Utopian, yes, but what should I otherwise write except for a practical and feasible utopia? The critical dimension requires continuous simultaneous universal voluntary commitment to collaboration, to loving others through empathy and laborious care. It requires coordination of vision, skills, abilities, talents, drives, all of the creativity and passion and reason that humans can muster.

Now, I say that it is practical and feasible because human beings can choose to do that. If I can then anyone can. The only reason it does not happen is because individuals choose to think, believe, and act differently than what any voluntarily chosen utopia requires. But that is no reason not to craft the way there. In detail, if possible. A monumental task, but what else should I do with my life if this is the only meaningful thing I can imagine doing. It may never happen, but it is certainly not foolish to pursue this end because otherwise I will be condemning myself to a meaningless existence. I cannot function as a human being without meaning and, due to my level of awareness, I cannot manufacture a false meaning for myself. This is my meaning and that meaning is true for me even if no one else in the world believes my purpose is feasible or practical. Idealism is foolish to a realist but for me, an idealist, it would be foolish to faithfully view life through the lens of realism simply because it is evident that contemporary reality has no collective meaning.

I have contradicted myself everywhere in this writing and it is, in its way, a rambling mess. But it does represent who I am as adequately as any writing can. My thoughts flit like this all the time, from one thing to the next and sometimes back again over old ground but with a new interpretation and sometimes with more clarity and sometimes with greater confusion. It is only through the mind of another that any of this might appear to be senseless. I know all of the unspoken words that would fill in the gaps of logic, all of the connections that I have not made apparent. It is my task to fill those in as best I can but I know it will be a futile endeavor so I wonder if I should bother. But then, what else should I do if what I want most is to adequately convey to others what I mean? I have to go back again and again and again and try to fill in the gaps, make clear the relationships that I have not made apparent. A Sisyphean task, I suppose, but it is my fate … if I choose that fate.

Belief and Doubt

Did I really have that conversation with that woman? She had no mouth! Did I even meet her? I remember meeting her two days ago. Can I trust any of my memories, though?

I have a memory of a guy named Larry Wilson, hearing a story from a mutual friend that he had killed a little girl. I remember this vividly. The story I was told was that he crushed a little girl’s skull with a hammer. He was sixteen at the time. The little girl was only nine. Did she really threaten to tell her parents that he was using drugs? She had walked into his house looking for his little brother who happened to be a classmate of the little girl. Larry’s parents had gone to Vegas and taken his little brother with them. She saw a bong on the table. How did she know it was a bong? Was Larry really doing crank, too? And possibly LSD? What kind of insane drug cocktail had he put together for himself? Would I have made a similar cocktail if my parents had left me alone to go to Vegas when I was sixteen?

How did the girl know it was a bong, though? Did her school’s D.A.R.E. program train her to identify drug paraphernalia, to report drug use to her parents or the police? Is D.A.R.E. a Nazi Youth program? Would the little girl still be alive today if she had been clueless about bongs and just skipped back home after discovering her friend next door was out of town? Would Larry have merely gone back to getting high, enjoying his weekend of freedom and debauchery? Would he have never been arrested, convicted, and imprisoned? Might he have cleaned up on his own in life, maybe after high school, and lived a life neither harming nor killing anyone? Could he have lived an enjoyable and even generous life rather than spending 25 years in a maximum security state prison in Arizona?

What is the relationship between choice and chance? Can such a relationship be known beforehand? Or even in the moment? Is anything meaningful certain? If nothing substantial is predictable then isn’t absurdity as legitimate as reason?

Can I trust anything at all: memories, ideas, potentials, feelings, sensations? Was I ever married? If I was what does that mean now? Do the memories of being married mean anything? Does the past exist in any meaningful way? If so, what do those past years mean? They are only accessible through memory, those years, my memories and the memories of others. I am no longer married and if memories are unreliable and the past no longer exists then what am I to think of the present? My moments now will soon be past as well and, thus, equal in relevance to moments further past no matter how much I care about one past moment over another.

Future moments, too, will eventually become past and thus equal to other events in the past … unless I give some memories more importance than others. But if I should not live in the past and I know the present and the future will become the past then where am I to live? The past is the only thing that exists because the present disappears instantly and the future becomes now and then “then” in a flash. There is, then, only the past and the past that hasn’t yet become the past.

Do any moments matter? How could they if they disappear into a past that cannot be relived? Does existence have meaning? Is the command to “live in the moment” really a damnation to “live in the moment that has no meaning”? This is the beginning of nihilism, perhaps, the loss of the foundational basis for all thought, all belief, all experience. Would it matter if one was powerless or powerful?

Is the asking of the questions a denial that the concepts hold any truth? Is life a denial of the meaninglessness of life? Is life, then, a struggle to create meaning out of meaninglessness? Is the goal of life to transform meaninglessness into meaning? Couldn’t anything be believed as long as it provided meaning?

Perhaps … but perhaps not. If a belief fails to sustain life, life as the creation of meaning out of meaninglessness, then it must be a false belief. A belief must renew meaningfulness. Any belief that can disprove its own foundations threatens life and thus the possibility of itself as a belief. Meaning must be based on beliefs that are believed to have sustainable foundations. The past must be as meaningful as the present must be as meaningful as the future. To make meaningless any moment that has, is, or will exist is an effort to invalidate every moment and thus life itself.

The logic isn’t perfect but no logic is. Absurdity may be a necessary element in the creation of meaning. Reason may invalidate life itself and if reason is but a tool of the mind then it must serve the purposes of the mind: To make meaning out of meaninglessness. But perhaps too much of one thing is not good. Perhaps it is the tension created by doubt that churns meaning into being. A momentary belief that life has no meaning must give way to a belief that life has meaning must give way to a suspicion that there is no point must give way to an inspiration that moments are fulfilling. Peace must be married to conflict, a harmonious balance between creation and destruction. The individual, perhaps, has meaning in relation to a whole that does not. Or the whole may have meaning in relation to an individual who does not.

But there can be no lost souls for sustainable meaning: The shepherd leaves the flock to find the one lost sheep. One means as much as all. All only means anything if each one is meaningful. May there be an indispensable relationship between each individual and the whole of humanity? If it is widely believed that one is unimportant then there is reason to doubt the importance of any individual. The value of one’s own life, under such a belief, is impossible. Why? On what basis could a person be important if other persons are not? There is no fundamental difference at the level of being between any two individuals. Quality of life is window dressing, preference rather than substance. To believe that one is not valuable is to believe no one is valuable. This is the defeat of meaningfulness.

The meaning of life is, perhaps, to create a sustainable meaning of life by reconciling the absurdity of life with the reasons for life. Perhaps that is done best through a belief that the lives of each individual has meaning. Hmmm. The world would look very different if that was believed.

Dying of the Light

I had the strangest feeling while driving tonight, the same sort of feeling I’ve had on and off throughout my life as the sun sets, a heaviness settling in the pit of my stomach. I wanted it to go away. I didn’t want to feel the loneliness of the world. The sun was down by the time I arrived at my apartment, but the feeling stayed with me. I wanted to tune out, to feel anything instead of that pain. After a couple hours of failed attempts to distract myself from it I decided to sit with it like I had when I was young.

My earliest memory noticing the dimming of the light, the moment-to-moment lessening of the brightness of the day, occurred in Waterloo, Iowa, when I was ten years old. I absently gazed out the west-facing window of my grandparents’ house while sitting on the side of a bed in an upstairs bedroom. Someone from downstairs called for me to let me know it was time for supper. My parents, brother, and I were leaving Iowa the next day to move to Arizona. This would be my last night in Iowa.

I continued to look out the window, watching the sun dip below the trees and the roof of the house across the street. The hazy golden sunshine sifted through the leaves, around the houses, through gaps of all kinds, and gave the neighborhood an otherworldly glow. What I saw didn’t seem real. I could detect the gradual darkening of the light, the deeper reds growing more robust while the shapes and forms of objects faded and blended together. The vibrancy of differentiation waned. I felt my heart sinking with the sun, an ache slipping from my chest into my stomach, an indivisible sorrow that seemed to grow with my awareness of loss.

I had been excited about moving to Arizona, the excitement of a child who thinks anything is possible, a naïve optimism that blinded me from who was not moving with us to Arizona: everyone we knew, every place we lived and visited, and every moment we’d experienced. As I continued looking out the window, attentive to the dimming light and the deep hurt in the pit of my stomach, I became more consciously aware of the weight of the change that was occurring, outside of me and within me. I had no language to describe what I was feeling, no prior experience that allowed me to intellectualize as a means to understand what was happening. Absent a thinking means to process what was happening I simply listened to the feelings. I felt an ominous foreboding that had an “other-than-me” quality, as if I was being taught a new but more serious way of understanding the world … so that I might develop the strength to handle the difficulty of what was to come.

That was a seminal moment in my life. I felt, even at the time, that I was no longer a child. I had a nonlinguistic understanding that I would never be a child again. The weight of sorrow I felt physically and emotionally seemed like a responsibility. What was that responsibility, though? I don’t think I knew what responsibility meant at that age, but I felt the truth of my experience as a grave responsibility.

I was overwhelmed. I write this to convey the reason why a feeling of somber emotional weight during sundown is significant to me. Sitting on that bed at age ten, I became more fully aware each moment as the light continuously dimmed until street lights came on to stave off total darkness. The ache I felt was rooted in love. I loved my grandparents, I loved my aunts and uncles, I loved my cousins, I loved my friends, I loved my school, I loved Cedar Falls and Waterloo, I loved Iowa. I loved all of it. Iowa was not utopia, but it was a place and time when and where I had been mostly surrounded by love.

All the love I’d received, that I’d felt, seemed to be concentrating itself into a ball, a sphere, deep within the core of my physical being. It was too much for me. I was a ten-year-old child burdened with the weight of awareness of the loss of nearly everyone and everything I’d grown to love. Everything and everyone was about to disappear as quickly and surely as the sun’s light. I cried. Silently. No wailing or sobbing, no terror or panic, just a simple, pure, but deep sadness. I felt older than the universe, an eternity of loss.

What shook me most was the loss of the moments as they seemed to pass. I wanted to reach out and hold on to the light, to stop it from dissipating, to stop the hands of the clock from ticking, to stop seconds from disappearing. I could feel an internal scream, a silent scream against the loss of time, a scream that became a commitment to forever remember the moment, to burn the moment into my consciousness so that it would remain with me, ever-present throughout my life.

Even as I did so, though, I raged against the dying of the light. It felt like death coming over me, the death of time. When I came across Dylan Thomas’s poem I recognized the description of the most sincere moment of my existence. I considered the notion that there are no original thoughts, no original ideas, and no original experiences. But I’ve come to the conclusion that there are only original thoughts, original ideas, and original experiences. There may only be one moment, though, and within that one moment all that is … is. Within the eternity of the moment maybe it’s life that is passing. Perhaps awareness exists indefinitely and finds the human body a feasible host.

If there is any truth to what I’ve written then the distorted experience of time changing is created by perception. How? I don’t know. No matter the truth of time, the perception of time and life changing creates an awareness that they are beyond my control. I have no capacity to stop time or to prevent my body from eventually decaying. Even if I do have that capacity, though, I haven’t figured out how to access it. What remains in the wake of this incapacity is a sense of helplessness.

It hurts. It hurts more than any other pain I have ever felt. To feel life’s finality approaching in the stillness of a moment? It felt like cruelty to become aware of this at ten years old but I think it would feel like cruelty at any age. And yet … it also feels like a blessing, like the greatest of gifts: To be alive and to be aware of being alive even if it also means being aware of life’s constant change and ultimate finitude. If it’s a privilege, though, it’s weighty and comes with strings attached.

Responsibility is the word that continues to pop into my mind. As I mentioned, I’m not sure what that responsibility is. Not intellectually. But I feel it as a physical entity that keeps my feet on the ground, tethers me to the earth, prevents me from floating and floating toward the heavens. But this responsibility—or perhaps duty—seems purposeful, not at all arbitrary, and it seems that the fulfillment of this unidentifiable purpose is the only way to free myself from this inner anchor.

The realization I had tonight, after talking with a friend about my experiences witnessing the sun set, is that this purposeful duty I must fulfill is the open, honest, transparent expression of love that I feel for not just my family and friends but for everyone, for each human being, even the most wicked and vile. On the surface, this sounds idealistic, naïve, foolish, childish, and any number of other derogatory terms. However, I’ve rejected this impulse most of my life and by doing so I’ve caused my own suffering. It’s certainly easier, socially, to avoid emotions that cause discomfort in so many others. Isn’t it odd that affirmative emotions should cause so much discomfort? That affectionate emotions trigger mistrust? Why mistrust care from others? Fear of the burden of responsibility that comes attached with loving awareness?

My friend wept during the conversation. She was going through a difficult loss in her life and the conversation unfolded in such a way that she felt comfortable weeping. Or she knew she didn’t need to hold back. Whatever it was, what I felt for her was love, a desire or impulse to heal her hurt. In the past I may have felt uncomfortable in this situation, but having experienced the same sorrowful ache earlier in the evening when the sun set I instead expressed what I was feeling. I expressed love, care for her. It was all I had to give and so I gave it. Did that help? I don’t know. But that same sorrow gave me the ability to empathize, to understand what I might need in the same circumstances. Honestly, the feeling of being loved—not a romantic love but loving-kindness—by another is as critical to my health and well-being as clean air and water. Self-realization, as much as anything else, is the integrative experience of feeling and understanding that the self does not end at the skin. 

King Cobra

My friend Milo and I were meandering through the local Liquor Barn on a leisurely Sunday evening in search of suitable companions. We had only a month to go until graduation, but when Milo came upon a forty ounce bottle of King Cobra he decided immediately to drop out of school. The bottle was standing out broadly among the other forty ouncers in the coolers on the back wall of the store. It was a nice number, grand in its size alone, but it was the sharp majesty of the black and gold label that mesmerized Milo. He opened the freezer door and carefully reached inside to clasp the wide neck with his left hand. Milo marveled at the sight of the bottle; even the cap pleased him. Milo, who had been known to court many beers throughout his college years at Pomona, hade never been in love. On this day, however, Milo met his match.

I was browsing through one of the liquor aisles and had my eye on a cute little pint of Sunny Brook, but when I heard Milo gasp across the store I knew he had come across something extraordinary. I walked over to him and I saw his eyes gazing at those voluptuous letters on the label of the bottle. I knew at that moment that Milo’s days were numbered. In the scheme of things, I was just as much to blame for Milo’s downfall as he was. We were best friends and we'd pushed each other past our limits many times. I was so infatuated with my own special brands that I didn’t notice how far gone Milo was.

We had viewed the Crown Royals and Johnny Walkers and envied the trendy microbrews in the past, but as college students we weren’t yet in their league. We slummed with the so-called low-lifes and we never apologized for it. We weren’t into the Hollywood scene, we didn’t fall for the pinup models. No, we were men and we guzzled cases of pisswater with pride. “Fuck the rich fatcats,” we’d say to one another before cracking open another can of Milwaukee’s Beast. We had both been on scholarship and financial aid to start our college days, but by our senior year the scholarships had faded and we relied on school loans to get by. A hefty chunk of those loans made their way into the cash register of Liquor Barn. Alcohol, it must be said, is an important part of any college student’s education. If volumes of beer counted as credits we’d have graduated by the end of our sophomore years.

I patted Milo on the back and congratulated him on his find. He said nothing in return. He was drooling, entranced by the bottle. I quickly surmised that this was not puppy love. It wasn’t true love, though, either. This was clearly the beginning of a dysfunctional relationship, an unhealthy obsession. Still, I admired Cobra’s extraordinary physique; King, indeed.

I managed to walk Milo to the front of the store so we could pay and make our way. He never took his eyes off the bottle and when the cashier asked him to hand over the bottle so she could scan it Milo wouldn’t let go. Instead, he waved it over himself. The checkout girl shook her head and whistled low. She saw the same thing I did. I gave her a look that said, “I know, he’s pretty much gone.”

I paid for Sunny and a case of the Beast. I used my credit card which was fast reaching its limit; just about time to apply for another one. I knew I was going to eventually have to declare bankruptcy so I had long ago made the decision to run up as much debt as possible. Milo, meanwhile, was probably going to die of alcohol poisoning so there was no reason for him to be thrifty.

It was about eight o’clock when we left the store. We loaded the beer and liquor into my rusted ’74 Chevy Malibu. I started her up and she made a ghastly noise. There was a hole in the muffler so it sounded like roaring madness whenever I hit the gas. I started heading back to our apartment when I remembered I was supposed to pick up Frosty at Gimpy’s Guitar Gallery. I turned around and made it to Gimpy’s by 8:30. Frosty was pissed. I was supposed to pick him up an hour earlier. He had a fifth of vodka on him so I apologized.

It took Frosty a few minutes to calm down. Milo offered to crack his skull and Frosty let it go. Milo may have been a little lost in his affection for the King, but he was also a big dude who hated almost everyone. He sure as hell didn’t like listening to Frosty whine. The two of them did not get along at all. If not for me they’d have never hung out together. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that Milo would have beaten Frosty half to death if he had met him for the first time without me present.

Frosty’s trailor was only a five minute drive from Gimpy’s so we decided to go to his place to drink. Milo and I had already cracked open a can of the Beast and I didn’t want to drive another half hour back to our apartment. Milo seemed cool with it and Frosty just wanted to get the hell home.

I pulled up to Frosty’s and put the Malibu in park. It sputtered and shit and then pinged for a few seconds. God knows how many miles the thing had left in it, but it was alive for now. As we exited the car with our beer and liquor, Frosty’s old lady was out the door screaming at Frosty in Spanish. Milo and I looked at each other and shook our heads, nonverbally acknowledging our stupidity for thinking we could drink in peace at Frosty’s.

Frosty bitched right back at her in English even though he had no idea what Delfia had said. He didn’t speak or understand a word of Spanish and Delfia didn’t speak English although she seemed to understand a little. Frosty was a skinny guy, about thirty years old. He was also a weasel of sorts, no match at all for the fiery passion of Delfia. What she saw in him I had no idea. I didn’t know for sure, but I guessed she was an illegal. Why the hell else would she shack up with Frosty?

Delfia was the same height as Frosty but she was much more athletic. Milo and I had been to their place a few times and every time the two of them fought. Not just verbally, but physically, too. And every time Delfia kicked Frosty’s ass, verbally and physically. Honestly, if there was a domestic violence call I’d have to say Delfia would be the one arrested.

Milo and I stood back while Frosty approached the steps of the trailer. He held out the bottle of vodka and this seemed to calm Delfia. She went inside and Frosty waved for us to follow as he walked through the doorway. I closed the door after I entered. The place was a mess, chaotic clutter and grimy filth. In a way, it was perfect for the type of drinking we planned. As I handed Frosty the case of the Beast I saw there was a twelve pack of Hamm’s in his fridge. Good. Milo put his bottle of Cobra in the fridge as well. I guessed he wanted to get a good buzz going before drinking that sweet malt liquor.

Delfia went to the couch and threw clothes and a few empty pizza boxes on the floor so she could sit down. Milo sat in a barcalounger, not even bothering to move the magazines or underwear out of the way. Frosty sat on the couch with Delfia and I sat in a rocker. I’d grabbed three beers for myself so I wouldn’t have to get up any time soon. Milo had two cans, one open. Frosty had his fifth and he drank straight from it. Delfia grabbed it out his hand and took a swig. I cracked one of my cans open and guzzled about half of it in one drink.

We drank in silence for several minutes, all of us pretty much burnt out. Frosty attempted to put his arm around Delfia but she smacked him in the face with the back of her hand. Frosty yelped and grabbed his nose. It was bleeding. Delfia, fuck man, she was fucking fierce. I looked over at Milo. He was smiling. He took a drink of his beer and sighed. The one thing Milo enjoyed about going to Frosty’s was watching Delfia beat on him. I don’t think he cared much for Delfia, but he did like watching a woman beat the crap out of Frosty.

Frosty started in on Delfia. He turned to her and said, “You’re a fucking bitch, fucking puta!" Delfia swung her far hand at Frosty, attempting to really clock him, but Frosty blocked it. He took a swig from the bottle of vodka, put it down on the end table, and then whipped around and slammed his fist into Delfia’s gut. It looked like he caught her in the solar plexus. She doubled over and wheezed, trying to catch her breath. She was clearly in pain and it appeared that her eyes were watering. I had finished my first beer, had cracked open the second, and had drank most of it. I finished it off as I watched the action unfold. I cracked open my third as Milo got up to go to the fridge. He pointed at me and I nodded yes. He came back with five beers, two for me, two for him, and one for Delfia.

Delfia had mostly recovered and she said gracias when Milo handed her the beer. He nodded his head and sat back down. Frosty had the bottle of vodka in his hand again and he took another swig. He offered the bottle to Delfia and she took it. She took a big drink, handed it back to Frosty, and then opened the can of beer.

Again, we sat silently for several minutes. Frosty got up and walked over to his antiquated stereo. He moved some boxes that were in front of the speakers and then pushed play on the CD player. The sound of Rush’s Spirit of Radio filled the trailer. Frosty asked if anyone was up for a pizza. Milo and I agreed so Frosty called and ordered. We knew that pizza was code for coke. Frosty preferred meth being half a tweeker but he knew Milo and I weren’t into crystal. We were more than happy to partake in an eightball of yayo, though.

Frosty asked if we had any dough on us. We didn’t. There was a convenience store within walking distance of the trailer park, though, so Milo and I got up to go. We each took a beer with us as we left. I didn’t know how much I had left on my credit cards. Two were maxed out and I didn’t think the other two had much to spare. Milo was in better shape, though, so I figured we’d have enough to cover our shares between the two of us.

We’d finished our beers by the time we got to the store. We tossed them in the trash and walked into the store. We went to the ATM. I checked my limit and realized I had more than I thought. I took out some extra cash so I could buy another twelve pack. After Milo withdrew his cash and we bought the beer, we headed out the door. A lowrider pulled up thumping its bass and working its hydraulics. We admired the ride but we had business back at Frosty’s. It was likely he’d made the call and we weren’t sure when the pizza delivery would arrive. The guy always brought an empty pizza box to deliver the blow. That was the reason there were so many empty pizza boxes in Frosty’s trailer. Delfia was sure to blow her top, but it’d be a good show before she stormed out of the place. She’d give Frosty a good tongue-lashing and probably a few kicks and punches. That was how it usually went down.

We got back to Frosty’s and went inside. Delfia was in the bathroom and Frosty looked at us expectantly. We handed him the cash. He said his guy would be by in an hour or so. I put the twelve pack in the fridge. There was plenty of room because there was almost no food in there. I saw a jar of pickles, a package of cheese slices, and a gallon of milk. That was it except for the beer.

I grabbed a cold one and handed one to Milo. He pounded his down, crushed the can, and grabbed another before going back to the living room to sit in the lounger. I cracked mine open and went back to the rocker. The stereo was still playing but now it was Metallica’s Blackened. Frosty was on the couch with a can of Hamm’s in his hand. The vodka sat on the end table, about a quarter of it gone. For a skinny guy Frosty could put ‘em away. Nothing like Milo, of course, but Milo was in a league of his own when it came to alcohol. He’d been drinking since was twelve, heavily since he was sixteen. I placed myself somewhere in the middle of the two. Some nights I could keep up with Milo beer for beer, shot for shot; other nights, Frosty would put me under the table. With the powder coming we were all going to be drinking beyond our capacity. It was possible we’d have to go back to the convenience store for more booze.

Delfia came out of the bathroom and went to the fridge. She grabbed a can of Hamm’s and a slice of cheese. She pulled off the plastic wrapper on her way to the living room, threw it on the floor, and sat down. She gobbled the cheese in a few bites and then opened the beer. After I finished my can I reached down to the side of the rocker and grabbed the brown bag wrapped around my pint of Sunny. I screwed off the cap and took a healthy swig. I had a good buzz going. I think we all did, but Milo seemed practically sober. I started to wonder when he was going to break out the Cobra. I supposed he wanted to have a better buzz so he could use it to push him over the edge into drunkenness.

Milo could be a bear while drunk. He rarely got completely hammered because we rarely had enough beer and liquor to get him into that state. I’d seen him finish a fifth of whiskey single-handedly and all he had was a heavy buzz. The fucker could drink. I’d wager on him if he entered a beer drinking contest. The odds wouldn’t pay out well at all if anybody was familiar with him. Not too many were, though. Like I said, he hated most people and few hung around him often enough to know how much he drank on a nightly basis. How he’d managed to pass his classes for three and a half years was beyond me. He was quiet when he wasn’t drunk, but his silence seemed to hide his intelligence. He was a whiz at math, I knew that. He’d bailed me out on more than one occasion when I couldn’t fathom mathematical concepts. He had an innate knack for understanding abstraction.

Frosty on the other hand was dumb as a box of rocks. His primo drug connections were the only thing he had going for him as far as Milo and I were concerned. Well, it was also entertaining to watch him fight with Delfia. It freaked us out the first time we witnessed it. We’d met Frosty at a party in Riverside, how we’d gotten there from Pasadena I have no idea, but he happened to come out to the backyard to piss on the fence at the same time Milo and I were relieving ourselves. He turned to us and said, “Hey, you guys want to get high? I’ve got some killer skunk in my car." We looked at each other, shrugged, and said sure.

We walked around the side of the house and got in his car. He had a big, fat blown-glass pipe and he handed it to Milo. Milo fired it up and when he exhaled the car stunk something fierce … but it was damn fine sweet stink. Milo let out a low moan and turned to me. “Dude, the shit is good.” We passed the pipe around a few times and then Frosty said, “You guys want to get out of here? My old lady’s got a quarter ounce of blow back at my trailer.” Fuck yeah, we were ready to go!

Like I said, I don’t know how we got to that party, but neither Milo nor I drove. So Frosty drove us back to his place—that was well before he’d had his licensed revoked and his car was stolen—and we met Delfia for the first time. She was eating fried chicken from a bucket when we entered. She was completely wasted, drunk and stoned. Frosty gestured to her, making a snorting sound. Delfia pointed a drumstick toward the bedroom and Frosty walked to the back of the trailer. Milo sat down in the lounger and I in the rocker; this would become our permanent seating arrangement at Frosty’s.

Frosty came back in the room with a black film container. He swiped his arm across the coffee table, knocking everything on it to the floor. He opened a drawer on the side of the wooden table, pulled out a metallic slab about 8x8, and placed it on the table. He took the lid off the container, dumped a few sizable rocks and some powder onto the slab, put the lid back on the container, and then pocketed it. He reached back into the drawer, pulled out a very interesting looking razor-edged rectangle, and started mashing and dicing the coke. Once the coke was finely powdered he separated the pile into eight fat lines. Really fat. He went ahead and did a line with a metal coke straw and then motioned for us to have at it. We had nothing fancy for snorting so we each took out a bill from our respective wallets. Milo went first, snorting half a line in one nostril and the other half in the other nostril. He bolted upright after each snort, his eyes wide and watering. “Holy shit, this is really fucking clean, man!” Frosty smiled and nodded.

I took my turn and then Delfia had a toot. She woke up a bit from her stupor. Hell, we all did. Frosty had beers in the fridge—thank God—and brought each of us one. Soon enough Frosty, Milo, and I were jabbering away, licking our chops, eyeing the other lines, and occasionally letting out a “WOW! Holy fucking shit, man. Whoooo!” We were flying.

After we did the other lines and drank more beer, Delfia laid into Frosty. I never did figure out what the commotion was about but she screamed at him in Spanish for a good five minutes. Frosty just bounced around in his seat, almost getting angry at times, but way too high to stay pissed for more than a few seconds. That really pissed off Delfia and she smashed her half-filled beer can on top of his skull. Frosty screamed, rolled over on the couch, and clutched his head. Delfia sat back down and folded her arms. She whispered, “Pinche pendejo,” mostly too herself as Frosty was pretty much incapacitated. Milo looked at me wide-eyed and I mouthed to him, “What the fuck?” He shrugged and started laughing.

Over time Milo and I visited Frosty more and more often, adding a steady diet of pot and blow to our staples of beer and liquor. We found ourselves losing touch with more and more of our college friends. Well, I did, anyway. Milo didn’t really have any friends other than me, more a matter of choice on his part. He just hated people. I’m not sure why he liked me, but when we met our freshman year we just clicked. The truth is I don’t like people all that much, either. I just faked it because having friends had certain benefits I liked, such as access to alcohol, drugs, and women. I think that’s why I liked Milo as much as I did. He hated everyone and wasn’t bashful about it. No one called him out on being an asshole because everyone was afraid he’d kill them. Their fears were warranted. Milo had beaten several college students and locals to bloody pulps during his first two years at Pomona. He hadn’t had much action the past year as his reputation preceded him.

As we were all drinking our beers and bottles of booze, the pizza arrived. Frosty paid the guy and asked him if he wanted to stay for a beer and a line. The guy declined, saying he had other pizzas to deliver. I got up to get a beer and looked out the door as the guy left. Sure enough he had a pizza sign on top of his car. Smart cover.

I grabbed a beer and made my way back to the living room. Frosty broke out his coke tray and dumped out the eightball. He mashed and diced it with his special razor. Milo, meanwhile, had grabbed his forty-ounce King Cobra. He’d opened the cap and was inhaling it as if he’d just uncorked a fine wine. He placed both hands on the side of the bottle and lifted it to his lips. He tilted it back and drank … and drank … and drank. He finished more than half the bottle in one guzzle. He removed it from his lips, smiled, and let out a nasty, loud, smelly burp. Delfia yelled at him in Spanish and got up to leave the living room. Frosty bitched at him as well, saying, “Hey, man, I’m working here!” I held my nose for a good minute. Milo just laughed and admired the label of the bottle.

Once Frosty had chopped up the coke he carved out four healthy lines. He separated the rest of the pile from them and then went ahead and snorted his. I took my cue with a bill I figured I’d be using at the convenience store later and zoomed my line. Delfia returned to do hers and then walked back to the bedroom, probably to get as much space between her and us as she could. Milo took another drink from his forty, put the bottle on the table, and snorted his line with a rolled up bill. I wondered if he’d be going back to the convenience store to buy more Cobras.

Frosty turned on the stereo and Tool’s Lateralus CD played. I had had a very heavy buzz before vacuuming my line, but now I felt awake and ready to really pound some liquor. I grabbed my pint of Sunny and took a big swig before getting up to grab a few beers from the fridge. Delfia passed by me on her way back to the living room. She was holding something in her hand, but I couldn’t see what it was. As I turned around I saw Delfia swing a metal flashlight across Frosty’s face. I saw an arc of blood squirt several feet in the air toward the back wall of the living room. It made a hell of a splatter design; I thought Dexter would probably love that one. Hell, I admired it myself, but then again I’d long wondered if I was a sociopath. How would you really know if you were one? Would a sociopath be curious about whether or not he was a sociopath? I wasn’t sure, but I certainly wondered.

I felt nothing for Frosty as a person, either in this case or any other. I was just glad he was able to hook us up with good drugs. I loved watching Delfia fight with him, but in the same way I enjoyed good mixed martial arts fights. Of course, I enjoyed Delfia’s fights even more because I had a front row seat and I knew both her and Frosty. Their relationship was so weird and violent … and, yet, I liked it. I thought it was much more interesting than the relationships of my college friends. They were so predictable and pedestrian. There was real passion here and I longed for high intensity emotions. Hell, that was why I drank, took drugs, drove dangerously, and fucked women who scared me. I just didn’t give a fuck, really. I’d had so many high-intensity experiences that even Delfia’s violence was beginning to bore me.

I casually made my way back to my seat in the rocker while watching Delfia scream in Spanish at her deadened boyfriend. I couldn’t tell if he was knocked out or if he was just playing possum so he wouldn’t get hit again. I noticed that the coffee table had been jostled and the blow—oh, shit! Most of the coke was scattered about the coffee table and some had fallen to the grungy carpet on the floor. Fuck! Milo saw this, too, and he quickly began working to salvage the powder. He was using a credit card from his wallet to scrape the coke into a small pile on the wooden table. That was where most of the coke, probably two-thirds of it, had gone.

I grabbed the metal tray and put it on the end table. I took out one of my credit cards and started dicing it up, shaping it into a line. It was a huge line, close to half a gram I guessed. I said to myself, “Fuck this shit,” and I rolled my bill again and snorted half of it into one nostril and zoomed the other half into the other. I gummied the residue, sat back in my chair and let out a howl, “Holy fucking Batman and Shitfucker! Whoooooo! Motherfucker! Motherfucker!

I looked over and saw Milo looking at me. He was half laughing and half pissed. I mouthed to him, “Do all of it on the coffee table, man.” He shrugged his shoulders and nodded an okay. He had already carved up three lines, probably around a gram's worth with the sprinkled residue scattered here and there. He re-rolled his bill, leaned over the table, finished one line up his left nostril, and the other up his right. He leaned back and groaned loudly.

I looked over at Delfia and Frosty thinking it seemed like a decade sent she’d smashed him in the face. I’d seen movement between the two of them out of my peripheral vision, but I was too focused on the coke to bother with them. I looked more intently now and saw that Delfia was trying to choke Frosty as he was punching her in the face from his back on the floor. I said aloud to Milo, “You’d better do that other line, man, because they’re gonna hit the table again.” Milo, red-faced and breathing rapidly, nodded his head. Each eye looked like an eclipse, all black except for radiant reds, yellows, and whites sparking out from the dark side of the moon. He bent over and zoomed the other line the best he could, but he left a little on the table. I quickly hopped up and snorted the rest of it. Milo, though he clearly didn’t need it, ran his fingers over the coffee table and gummied what he could. He was going at it like a crack whore, desperately searching the coffee table for more.

I looked back over at Delfia and Frosty. Frosty had gotten up off his back and kicked Delfia in the crotch. It probably doesn’t hurt as much for a woman than it does a man, but I didn’t think it felt good, either, judging from the way Delfia fell onto the couch. Frosty pounced on her and as he did I noticed that his face was covered in blood. I thought it had been his nose she’d smacked, but it looked like he had a gash on his forehead and the blood was gushing down his face. It was like a scene from a Quentin Tarantino film. Frosty straddled Delfia and started wailing away with both fists. It looked like Delfia was blocking most of the blows as she had covered her face like a boxer. She was a tough one, Delfia. She had the wherewithal to knee Frosty in the balls. He screamed out and slowly fell to his side. Delfia quickly got up and ran out of the trailer.

I wondered to myself, “What did Frosty do this time?” I knew he cheated on her and I knew she knew that, but I doubted that had anything to do with their fight this night. Sometimes it just seemed that they fought because that was what they did. Some couples kiss and make love, Frosty and Delfia get drunk, do blow, and beat the shit out of each other. I really liked it. Again, I wondered whether I was a sociopath. The possibility fascinated me even more than the fight itself. I liked the idea of being a sociopath. It seemed like a cool thing to be. You never have to give a fuck about anyone. I realized I liked Milo because he was a sociopath. That had to be it. It was like we recognized ourselves in each other and admired each other for having similar values … or the lack thereof.

I turned to Milo to tell him about this idea, but he was scrounging on the carpet trying to find coke in between the carpet stains. I simply gawked at him. I didn’t know what to think. But then I did and I said to Milo, “Dude, you just snorted about a gram of coke, man. Do you really need the few flakes that might be on the ground? You’re probably putting dried crumbs or flecks of cum in your mouth.” Milo didn’t even hear me. If he did, he tuned it out. I sat back, guzzled the rest of my flask, and listened to Tool.

Frosty brought me out of my reverie when he bumped my chair as he walked past me. I asked him if he was okay. Not because I cared about his wellbeing, just because I was curious. He grunted and then stumbled out the door, presumably after Delfia. I got up to get some beers from the fridge. I grabbed a couple for Milo, too. I figured he had probably finished the Cobra by now. When I turned back toward the living room I saw Milo in his chair. He had swallowed half the bottle in an apparent attempt to drink every last drop of the King. His eyes were bugged out and disturbingly loud gurgles were coming from his throat. He had both hands on the bottle, but I couldn’t tell if he was trying to remove it or push it in further.

I walked over to him and his eyes turned toward me. I couldn’t tell exactly what he was feeling, but his eyes seemed to be screaming in panic and pleading with me to help him. I put down the beers on the coffee table, all but one. I cracked that one open and took a big drink. As I took the can away from my lips I let out a satisfying, “Ahhhhh.” I sighed and smiled at Milo. He was more frantic now and he was trying to get out of his chair. The problem was he wouldn’t take his hands off the bottle. I asked him, “Do you want me to help you take the bottle out of your mouth or push it in further so you can get every drop of malt liquor?”

Milo’s eyes somehow became wilder and he shook in his seat. Noises came from his mouth and throat; it sounded like someone yelling underwater: “Muuurgle flehhh bhhuysh!” I said to Milo, “I have no idea what the fuck that means, man. Look, I’ll try to remove the bottle because you can always try to shove it further down your throat again if that’s what you’ve been trying to do. Don’t get pissed at me, though, if I’m misinterpreting. I can’t understand a fucking thing you’re trying to say.”

I put my hands around the bottle and was about ready to pull, but I stopped. I said to Milo, “You know, you fucked up a potentially interesting conversation, man. I was gonna ask you if you thought we were sociopaths. I think we might be.” I paused, realizing he couldn’t talk back. “Man, you’re a fucking buzz kill, making me fucking work when I’m trying to fucking drink.” My hands were still on the bottle and I gave it a good pull. Nothing. I climbed up on the chair, putting my feet on the arms on each side, and reached down with both hands. “If my back goes out because of this you’re gonna carry me wherever I want go from now on.” I took a deep breath and as I exhaled I pulled as hard as I could. At first nothing happened. My face was getting hot, I could feel sweat on my face and in my armpits, and my arms and legs were starting to quiver and shake.

Just when I was about to give up, the bottle popped out and I flew backward off the chair and landed on the coffee table, my back making a loud “wollup” sound. It knocked the air out of me, but after a minute or so I seemed to be okay. The beer bottle had flown through the air and shattered against the wall above the couch. I looked at Milo as I slowly got up off the coffee table. He had his head in his hands. He was weeping. I sat on the edge of the coffee table and put my hand on his shoulder. I asked him, “What’s wrong, man? Are you okay?” He didn’t look up but he shook his head no. “Can I do anything to help?” Milo looked up at me with tears streaming down his cheeks. His lips were bloody and his cheeks were red. It almost looked like he had stretch marks. He said to me, “I think I have a problem, man. I don’t think I can live like this anymore.”

I considered his words. I wasn’t sure what he meant so I asked him. “The drinking, the drugs, the violence. It’s all too much for me. I think I hit my breaking point.” My first thought was, “You fucking pussy,” but I didn’t say it. I wanted to say it, but I held back. He was too fragile for me to be myself. I realized right then that I probably wasn’t a sociopath. I was bummed out by that because it meant I gave a shit about Milo. I helped him up and walked him to the front door. I walked him over to the passenger side of the car and helped him inside. I went around to the driver’s side door and hopped inside. I fished out my keys and started the Malibu. It declared its ugliness with a roar and I put it in reverse. I looked behind me and the way looked clear. I was glad I’d done that fat fucking line. Took the edge off the drunk and I could see pretty well. It was a half hour drive back to our apartment and I figured the coke would get me through that stretch. I hated wasting a high to tend to Milo’s breakdown, but that’s what friends are for, I suppose. Damn, it sucks not being a sociopath.

Milo dropped out of school and checked into rehab. I never saw him again. I continued my wild ways. In a way, it was easier without Milo because he was the only person I cared about in this world. I was free to be the next best thing to a sociopath, just a guy who doesn’t a give a shit about anyone or anything. Now that I think about it, isn’t that what a sociopath is? I guess I graduated after Milo’s downfall.

Bad Romance

Bad romances, huh? Yes, indeed, I’ve had a few. One of my first really bad romances occurred while I was an undergraduate at a small liberal arts college. I was 20 years old and I met a woman at a party early in the second semester of my sophomore year. I knew her through mutual friends, but that night we wound up getting drunk and making out on a couch while everyone continued partying all around us.

I called her a couple days later and she asked me to come to her dorm room to visit. I walked over and when I got there we awkwardly chatted a little as I looked around her ultra-girly pink and fluffy room. Her bed was covered with stuffed animals and a shelf was lined with porcelain horses and unicorn figurines. In the scheme of things, I was inexperienced with women. Most of the sex I’d had with women involved alcohol. So, being sober, I really had no clue what to do with this woman I really did not know. Judging from the way her bedroom was decorated I was guessing we had nothing in common.

I was shy and so was she. She was sitting on the edge of her bed and I sat down next to her. Neither one of us said anything for what seemed like forever. It was probably ten seconds but it felt like ten minutes. I started to turn toward her and as I opened my mouth to say something she kissed me. She put her arms around my neck and we made out.

That’s how the rest of the semester went. I’d go over to her dorm room—she never came to my dorm that semester; I had a roommate and she had a single—on a Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday night, we’d goof around, have sex, lie in bed exhausted, whisper into each other’s ears, tickle each other, laugh, and then I’d get dressed and cruise. On the weekends, I’d go out with my friends, be as open as ever to meeting other women. Not that I did too often, but I was always open to it.

I didn’t know what the hell my relationship with Natalie was. I didn’t think about it much. The few times I did think about it I’d generally tell myself, “What are you doing? Stop thinking! You have a perfect relationship with this woman. You go to her place during the week, you talk and laugh, and then you mess around with her late into the night before going back to your room. Enjoy yourself, you idiot!”

I enjoyed the hell out of it. Sometimes I’d want to bask in it, though. But basking, turns out, is related to reflecting. Inevitably, I’d start thinking about who she was, how I felt about her, what we were doing, where this was going, and on and on. Did I … love her? Whoa, hey, whoa, enough of that talk, man. Let’s not go getting all, you know … you know?

It was easy to keep thoughts like that at bay, though. When I wasn’t with her I was going out with my friends, getting loaded, going to parties, road-tripping to some concert or event somewhere, always searching for a higher high, a better buzz, more action, more adventure, more wildness. When was I going to reflect, really? During classes? When I went to my classes I slept. I was always short of sleep, always felt like I was living a waking dream, wondering if I’d ever slow down enough to rest.

The summer came, I went back to Arizona to stay with my folks, and I worked in a gold mine. I called Natalie once, she called me once, but otherwise she was mostly out of my mind. I imagined I was out of hers, too. I had never wondered what she did on weekends during the previous semester. We had never talked about dating, going to see a movie, to dinner. I brought her no flowers, she gave me no presents.

By mid-August, though, I was thinking about her again. A lot. I was anticipating seeing her when I returned to school. I had signed a lease for an apartment off-campus with a friend, a two-bedroom attic apartment in a huge Victorian downtown. Natalie kept her single dorm. I called her the night I got back, a Sunday a few days before the first day of classes. She invited me up to her place. I walked up the hill, a farther walk now than it was the previous semester.

When I arrived and walked in the door, she was lying naked on the bed, rose petals spread everywhere, as many on her body as on her bed and the floor surrounding. That changed things. We went out more together, to parties, to movies. Friends asked me about my girlfriend. When I saw her friends they asked how Natalie and I were doing.

We’d become a couple. Somehow. We saw each other on weekends now. Sometimes. She still went back to Chicago to visit her family now and then. I never went with her. I never met her family. She never met mine. We hardly ever talked about our families, our futures, what we wanted to do with our lives, or where we wanted to live after we graduated. Nothing like that, as if we existed in a bubble of time that was somehow eternal, an infinite loop of college semesters playing out where we’d have great sex and appear to be a couple but without ever really knowing each other, without discussing anything significant, and while still living mostly separate lives with closer connections with our respective friends than with one another.

Even so, whenever I walked into her room that semester, it was an inferno. The previous semester we were like too clumsy teenagers trying not to embarrass ourselves by making the wrong move. Sometimes we’d lose our self-consciousness, but not for long and not often. By the time we started up again the following semester, most inhibitions had disappeared. The sex was now torrid, the hunger ravenous. When I walked to her room I’d sometimes catch myself licking my lips, my chest heaving, breathing hard and heavy, like the foreplay had already started. I’d arrive in a fever, open the door, and find myself in a sweltering jungle, a wild-eyed woman, naked, sweat beading all over her body, her muscles tightening, crouching, and then leaping at me like a panther. We had sex like our souls were at stake, like we’d just been to the Pearly Gates and Gabriel told us that we had one last chance to make up for all of our passionless moments, that if we fucked until we could no longer breath that maybe God would smile on us for eternity and let us do this forever and ever and ever.

We became more intimate as the semester passed. I’d stay the night at her place and occasionally she’d come to my pad and stay with me. After sex, she’d rest her head on my chest, caress my stomach with her hand, and slide it down my thigh. Sometimes I’d hear her sigh or giggle and I’d say “What?” She’d lift her head, turn back to look at me, her eyes beaming at me, an open-mouthed smile. She’d blink, dip her head a little, look up at me, pretending to be shy, and she’d bury her head against my stomach, her hair shrouding her face so I couldn’t see her. She’d curl up next to me, on top of me, and she’d put her arms around me, hug me as tight as she could, and she’d say, so softly I could barely hear her, “I like you.”

I would melt. I was falling for her, this woman I did not know. We went to some sort of end-of-the-year bash together, had an amazing time, went back to her place, and made love. When I woke up in the morning she was staring at me. I looked back at her and we gazed at each other, wordlessly, for several minutes. I fell deep into her and I let her swim as deeply as she wanted within me.

She went to Chicago over the holidays and I traveled back to Arizona. I called her house on Christmas day, wanting to surprise her (since we never did that sort of thing), and her sister answered. She said Natalie was in Arizona on vacation. I said, “Where?” She said, “I don’t know. I think she’s in Winslow, or something like that.” Winslow? Northeast Arizona? Why? Weird.

I thought about her the entire break. I kept imagining myself with her, imagining her in bed, daydreaming about her laugh, her smile, everything. When I got back to my apartment I called Natalie right away. She answered and seemed surprised to hear my voice on the other line. I skipped the small talk, “I want to see you right now and when I get there I don’t want you to be wearing anything.”

She interrupted before I could get another word out. “Michael, now’s not a good time. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

I was bursting. There was no way I could wait until tomorrow. I had to see her. “Why? What are you doing that’s so urgent right now?”

“I don’t want to talk about it right now, Michael. Just … I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

I was impatient and frustrated, my mind wandering. “What were you doing in Arizona?”

“This isn’t a good time.”

“I’m coming up if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”

“No! Don’t come up here right now.”

Now, naïve and simple as I was, even I started to understand. “So, you’ve got some guy up in your room right now.”

Silence.

“Are you kidding me, Natalie?”

“Michael …” I heard her sigh. She was crying, softly. “I got engaged on New Year’s Eve. My fiancée is in town. He’s going to be here soon.”

“What?! You're engaged?! Who's the guy?!”

“He’s … my high school sweetheart.”

“Are you kidding me? What the fuck, Natalie?!”

“I’m so sorry, Michael.” I heard a few sobs over the phone.

Shocked. Stunned. Overwhelmed. Something inside “clicked” and I shut off all of my emotions. Looking back, it was probably a good idea because I would have exploded otherwise. I just said, “Wow. Well, congratulations. Have a nice life.” Then I hung up.

I found out later that that she’d been seeing him on and off for years. What was I? A fling that became too serious? I wondered. A few of her friends called me within the next couple of weeks, telling me Natalie was distraught, that I should talk with her. I was still hurt and angry. “She can call if she wants to talk to me. Otherwise I have nothing to say.”

That wasn’t true, of course. I missed her, I was heartbroken, devastated. But I also felt humiliated and furious at her. But why? I never said a thing. I never said, “I love you, Natalie” or “What are you going to do when you graduate? I have another year to go after you’ve finished. I hate to think about this but I want to talk about it because I don’t want to lose you.” I realized that was true too late. She was gone.

But how could I have known? How could I have left for Arizona worrying that, of all things, she would get engaged? Yes, there were signs she may have been seeing someone else, but not to the extent that she’d wind up engaged! Still, she was rarely available on weekends and went back to Chicago a lot. I was young, inexperienced, and foolish. I didn’t even care one way or the other most of the time we were together. It was near the end of that second semester together that I really started to realize how incredible she made me feel, that she made me feel exactly like I wanted to feel, and that I didn’t give a shit that I knew so little about her life. I knew enough, I thought, enough to know that I loved her. She never knew that, though. I never told her.

Floyd's the Name

My friend lives in New York. He says it’s a strange city. I wouldn't know. I've never been. But he does say it’s strange. He said this to me the first time he called after moving there. Must have been after a month or so. He had been living in Arizona. I was living in Wisconsin. Both before and after he moved from Arizona to New York. Just to clarify I mean New York City. Specifically, Manhattan. Upper West Side. 79th Street, I think, less than a block off Central Park West.

I looked at a map to see where he lived. I like looking at maps. There’s something about them. I imagine going to all of the interesting landmarks and museums and parks. I like imagining what places I haven’t seen look like. I can imagine anything I want to imagine. I get to thinking anything might be possible when I do this. Makes me feel free. I don’t always feel free. I rarely feel free. I feel free when I look at maps, though. Maybe not every time I look at maps, but a lot of the times when I look at maps. Especially if I’m not looking at them to find out where I’m going. That’s the best time to look at maps, when I don’t need to look at them. That was how it was when I looked to see where my friend lived.

My friend’s name is Joe. It’s a plain name. There’s not much to it at all. A lot of people have that name. It might be the most common name in America and Europe. Steve is pretty common, too. So is John. A lot of Johns out there. Maybe John is even more common than Joe. I don’t know for sure. But I wouldn't be surprised if either one of those names was the most common. Floyd is much more unusual. I don’t personally know anyone named Floyd. Except for me. That’s my name.

I’m not sure why my parents named me Floyd. I've never asked them about it. I just knew my name was Floyd from a very young age. It never dawned on me to question it. I guess I am now, though. I’m not sure why. I’m not really sure why I’m writing any of this. I just am. It seems like the right thing to do. It is the right thing to do. That much I know.

I do write a lot. I write when I wake up in the morning. I write just before I go to bed. I write before and after I eat. Not every time I eat or every morning or every night. But a lot of mornings and a lot of nights and before and after a lot of meals. It’s something I've been doing regularly for a number of years. I can’t remember why or if I ever had a reason. I just do it without wondering why. Until now. Now I do wonder. I’m a little frustrated because I can’t remember. I’m trying to remember, but I just can’t. I even stopped typing for about fifteen minutes since I typed the previous sentence trying to figure it out. But I couldn't. I don’t know why I couldn't, though. I guess it’s not important. It would be nice to know so I didn't have to wonder, though.

But I like to wonder so maybe it’s not so bad not being able to remember. Sometimes I let my mind wander wherever it wants to go. That’s what I've been doing for the last half hour or so. I do that a lot when I write. I just let my mind roam around. Right now my mind seems like a huge forest. A pine forest. In the Rockies. The Northwest Rockies. The kind of forest with no underbrush. Just a floor of dead pine needles. I like that type of forest quite a bit. I can wander around pretty freely, nothing too cumbersome to prevent me from walking or running or climbing. I can see a long way yet not too far because the trees get thicker off in the horizon. Plus, there are slopes and rises here and there. It just depends.

Right now there’s a creek in front of me. I’m standing on the edge of the bank. It’s probably an eight-foot drop. Not exactly straight down. It’s jagged, a lot of clay with rocks jutting out here and there. I see tangles of roots, too. The roaring sound of the mountain creek has my attention. It’s deafening. It's as loud as an airplane. Yet it’s gentle. It’s gurgling just as much as it’s roaring. It’s roaring and gurgling. Not as two distinct sounds, but one fused sound. A roaring gurgle. A gurgling roar. It sounds the same no matter how I type it. I could write that the creek sounds like a dog barking or a hammer banging but it would still sound like a gurgling roar. Or a roaring gurgle. Maybe a bubbling rage. But not a raging bubble.

Joe had a bubble. It was on his cheek. It was really a boil, but I called it a bubble. It was a raging bubble. It looked like a bubble filled with rage. An angry bubble. A deep red angry raging bubble that always seemed like it was about to burst. It never did. At least not while I was living in the same town as Joe. That was when we both lived in Arizona. That was a long time ago. Maybe ten years ago. But maybe more than ten years ago. I can’t remember exactly right now. I moved first, I remember that. That was tough for Joe. He told me it was tough. We talked to each other on the phone a lot. We still talk on the phone. But not a lot any more. Every now and then. It’s been some time since I've talked with Joe. I should give him a call. I would like to talk with him again. He’s a good friend.

I know it must seem as if I’m a little slow or trying to come across as a little slow. The writing style or the tone or the cadence or something about the content makes it seem like I’m a simpleton or that I’m emotionally stunted and socially inept. That’s not the case. I simply like writing this way. It’s soothing. I can complete a sentence. Add a phrase. And carry the thought into the next sentence. Or for several sentences. I don’t necessarily like to follow the rules of grammar. Or narration. I could go back and edit or revise, but I don’t want to do that. I just like writing. These are my thoughts. As honestly as I can put them down. Not that my name is actually Floyd. Or that I have a friend named Joe living in New York City. But at the time I wrote about Joe I was imagining having a friend named Joe who lived in New York City. Why? Why not.

It popped into my head and seemed as worthwhile a subject to write about as anything else. It’s not what I write, but that I write. I have to write. It’s important for me to write. I guess I should say type. Either way, it should be clear what I mean. If not then it won’t be. But it’s important for me to type. Not think it through too much. Just type. Let the fingers move on the keys. Let them flurry about the keyboard tap, tap, tapping. As fast as possible. The sound, I love the sound. I like to look back and forth between the screen and the keyboard.

Sometimes I stare at the keyboard as I’m typing. I watch my fingers dance, hitting this key and that. I can think several keys ahead and yet still hit the key I’m supposed to hit. But I hit the backspace button, too, when I feel like it, when I know I've made a typo. Just did it there. Sometimes I’ll miss a typo or actually misspell a word without notcing. That wasn't one of those times, though. I thought it might be fun to purposely misspell that word. And it was. I’m laughing. More like cackling. Uncontrollably. While I type. My eyes are circling wildly. I can type without looking if need be. I know where the keys are. My fingers do, anyway. It’s not like I’m conscious of where they’re going. They just go there before I have a chance to think about it. God, I love to type fast.

You know, I actually have a friend named Joe living in New York City. I really do. But we didn't both live in Arizona years ago. He never lived in Arizona. I did, though. I moved there in 1980. Of course, you probably don’t believe that at this point. You probably don’t know what to believe, whether what I’m typing is the truth or not the truth. How could you know? You don’t know me. I’m anonymous, at least to you. These are just words on a computer screen—or maybe on paper; it’s possible this has been published. But if it’s been published you could probably do a Google search to find out who I am and possibly verify what is or isn't true about me. Then again I’m not a famous person so there’s probably not a lot about me out there for you to find. You could hire a private detective or something, maybe find out that way. But if you’re that obsessed you should probably get professional help. But if you’re that obsessive you probably won’t. Or maybe you have tried to find help but you’re still obsessive. I really couldn't say. I don’t know you after all. You’re anonymous to me.

In fact, you’re not even reading this at this moment. There is no you at all. I’m typing to myself, so to speak (or so to type). And yet ... you must be reading this at this moment because it's your moment. But you're not reading while I'm typing. If you are then you've hacked into my computer and I hate you. I just took a break to look at what I’d written; the last paragraph, anyway. I’m not sure if this is something people will want to read. As I mentioned earlier, though, it doesn’t matter what I write, but that I write.

You know how I said I don’t like to revise or edit? That’s not true. I do sometimes. But not all the time. At the time I wrote that earlier I really felt that way. But now I don’t. Now I think I should revise this. I should also start writing about my friend Joe again. He’s a good friend. I miss him right now. Very much. I’d call him, but I don’t have his number any more. Seems odd to say since I was talking about how we call each other and whatnot, but the truth is I don’t call him and he doesn’t call me. We’ve never been phone people. Well, at least not with each other. Maybe he talks on the phone with other people quite a bit. I don’t know. I could see him doing that, though. He has a lot of other friends. At least he used to have other friends. Some of them seemed like the type of people who would talk on the phone. Just some of them, though.

These typed words are a snapshot of my thoughts as I’m thinking them. A strange transition, I know. Sometimes there just are leaps like that when I’m thinking. That’s why I don’t like trying to tell a story that makes sense based on typical narrative patterns. I sure as hell don’t think that way. I might try to think that way or try to filter my thoughts through some sort of self-narrative so that they’re meaningful to me. But that’s not how I generally experience them at first. By putting these thoughts down in this way I’m freezing them in a moment of time. They aren't likely to be thoughts I will always carry and yet they may be thoughts I have again. Essentially they are just thoughts, fragments of myself reduced to words and trapped “as is” on the computer screen I’m viewing right now. That last thought has passed and now this thought is passing. On and on, a perpetual march of moments that come and go, a left-right-left of words following one after the other. Some holding meaning in and of themselves, others creating meaning in combination with others preceding and following them.

It depresses me sometimes. I want to hold some moments and prevent them from passing, holding not the words but the experiences and meanings those words represent. Most I’d just as soon forget and would rather have never been. I feel down right now, a little low. I’m not sure why. A creeping loneliness, but with a presence, absurdly enough, at the edges of my awareness, somewhere seemingly just beyond the peripheral vision of my focus. I turn to the right and the reasons for feeling low turn as well, remaining out of sight. I can feel the shadow, the remnants of the cause, but it’s not the cause itself and provides nothing but a distorted understanding. The reasons aren’t outside of me, though, and it’s because I’m looking for an external reason that I can’t see what is evident within me. I know this only because of past experiences. I know if I look inside or, rather, stop “looking” and allow this experience of dissatisfaction to linger that I’ll have the answer. If so, I might gain the knowledge of how to address this feeling, to change it. I would like it to end. But there’s, well, not so much an effort to be made, but a “letting go” that requires a relaxation of intellectual control, a relaxation of my will.

It’s difficult to take a break from trying to control each moment, to limit it to something verbal or visual. But it’s necessary. It demands the abandonment of writing and a shift to sitting still and emptying the mind of verbal thought and of thoughts arising from senses and emotions. I have to allow the wordless and senseless mind to rise to the fore and provide what I’ll call wisdom the opportunity to become known. It’s like birthing an infant, with all the pain of childbirth that metaphor implies. Wonder and awe that follow the pain: the process of discovery, revelation, epiphany. Could be joyful, could be horrifying, could be filled with regret and longing. I can’t say. But it is there and it won’t come into consciousness until I allow it to do so. Once conscious, I can control, resolve, reabsorb, categorize, and become it. Whatever I want to do with it. But it has to come to the fore to be malleable.

Right now it’s sort of like a cancer. I could, possibly, purge the cancerous aspects of it and reabsorb what is valuable and healthy for me, record as memory the experience of my awareness of it to be used as a guide or caution in the future. Knowledge is power, but it’s also liberation. A burden and an opportunity.

Sometimes I blather. No, a lot of times I do. I become far too abstract and it separates me from reality. It’s a coping mechanism, one when used judiciously is valuable. But when overused becomes a crutch and results in stagnation. That’s not the intent. It’s just the way it is.

I learned a lot of these things by talking with Joe years ago. He didn't come up with any of these ideas. We didn't talk about this stuff. But it was through conversations with him that I began to think about this or that, the particulars of which I can’t recall at the moment and ultimately seem unimportant. After some of our discussions I thought about what we had talked about and one thought would mysteriously give rise to another. On and on it went. Eventually I’d be so far away from the starting point that I’d forget why I was even thinking about what I was thinking about. Which made me wonder if I would have ended up thinking about things such as these no matter what I had originally started thinking about. In other words, they may have been my core thoughts, the thoughts that wanted to be thought but hadn't yet been thought. They seemed to force their way out from the depths of my mind, dark areas I couldn’t access consciously. Thoughts trapped in a subconscious purgatory, shedding their impurities so that they could squeeze into the heaven of my consciousness, liberated from the shackles of vagueness into the airy realm of awareness, free to remain as a part of me or a possession of mine or to roam into the beyond-me ether with the possibility of becoming either nothing or something, both independent of me.

Fly free, thoughts past. Become what you will, evolve into something greater than I could ever be. Come back if you’d like to visit me some time. Let me see how you’ve grown, let me see what you’ve become. There have been a few thoughts that have done just that. They come back and there are little more than traces of what they once were; some of them are full-blown philosophic worldviews, some are sage insights into the nature of being, and some are so complex that I can experience only fragments of them as they wash over me like an endlessly cascading waterfall. A former thought once came to me as a constellation of mathematical formulas, illustrating patterns in the stars and awing me with its beauty and intelligence. Incredible, I said to it. It responded with a solar eclipse and I could only guess what was being communicated. Far beyond my comprehension. I have a humble pride that I gave birth to something that has grown so far beyond my own limitations. I weep with both joy and sadness; joy that it exists and sadness that I am too simple to understand it. What are you trying to say, I asked, and its presence disappeared from my awareness. I miss it so much, as much as I miss Joe.

That’s a load of crap. This is my cynicism speaking. I can’t stand the flighty self-importance of that kind of bullshit. Just read it. READ IT! It’s crap, man. Who makes up shit like that? Clearly I do. No one is visited by “constellations of mathematical formulas,” least of all me. I can imagine something like that as a phrase but could I explain what it means? Good God, yes, but please don’t ask me or I’ll just make up another load of crap that drags for paragraphs on end. I can bullshit and bullshit and bullshit, fucking streams of words rolling either out of my mouth or onto this computer screen. Fucking fuckin shit. So much fluff. Action, more action, less bullshit talk.

But see, this is where my cynicism is off. This is action, especially if it leads to a change in the world. Suddenly, this total bullshit is meaningful, useful. It might provide me or someone else a pay check. When you read this you may find yourself incredibly pissed off that you wasted so much time. You’re now reading these words and perhaps your fury is so great that you smash your laptop or smart phone. Now you have to buy a new one and that will very slightly increase a company's revenue while hurting your bank account. See? A change in the world that came from what you had thought was meaningless writing. Not so meaningless any more, is it?

Who knows, though. Maybe someone will enjoy this. Besides, aren't all stories just a bunch of bullshit, anyway? Even nonfiction is usually a pretty slanted conglomeration of total crap. Everything written or said is limited and every representational image is a fucking distortion. So I say to my own cynicism, “fuck you!” If I listened to that defeatist prick I’d never do a damn thing. I’d just mope around in a daze thinking, “Man, everything sucks. What’s the point?” Whatever, cynic. You go mope. I’m going to think for a little bit and write more in an effort to figure out if there is a point. At least I haven’t given up yet. And, yeah, maybe I’m naïve and maybe some of the crap I write is odd or foolish or weird or stupid. But at least I’m putting myself out there for all to see, allowing myself to be who I am in the light of day. You’re just using that stupid fucking tough-guy façade to hide because you’re terrified that everyone will think you’re a fraud, that everyone will realize that you don’t have anything special to say or any particular wisdom that is worthy of being read.

I live in this world, I observe it, I function within it. The world is crap and is filled with posers trying to be something they’re not, cynics manipulating and castigating others as if they have a fucking clue. They just want power as a means to shield themselves from the awareness of their own eventual demise. We all do that to some degree, most commonly with ourselves. We’re all going to die. Every individual in every generation will die. That’s the nature of being human. You want to chastise me for being self-important? Look, I know I’m going to die. I know part of me is immature or self-important or whatever. I do the best I can. I didn’t decide to be human. I was born this way. If it’s not enough for you or anyone else, well, I can’t do a hell of a lot about it. In fact, why would I? I’m not responsible for you or anyone else. I’m responsible for me.

By saying I’m not responsible for you I may be saying I’m not responsible for my cynicism. But I am responsible for it. That’s why I have to put it back in its place or try to eliminate it completely. It starts out as skepticism and skepticism does serve some purpose, I suppose, in the sense that it tries to protect me from harm, from being naïve, from getting used or abused by others. I appreciate the intent, I appreciate the function it serves. It’s not bad in and of itself, but when it turns into fatalism to stop me from writing and doing something I’m enjoying or is of some necessity, then it defeats its own purpose by protecting me from an imaginary threat instead of a real one. Cynicism is a serious problem. Not just for me, but anyone allowing it to control one’s thoughts and actions.

On the flip side, naiveté is also problematic. Remaining blissfully unaware or endlessly "innocent” can prevent a person from maturing as a being, from becoming well-informed and, more importantly, conscientious. I have to be able to think, to use my brain and my senses to react wisely in a given situation. Life isn't all roses and cherries and milkshakes. There are some tough decisions to be made, the type of decisions that require judiciousness. I have spent a great deal of my life trying to figure out what is right and wrong, what is good or bad, what is valuable and what isn’t.

I haven’t spent quite enough of my life building up the will to always make the right decisions even when I know the best choice given my ethics and values. To be judicious and conscientious I have to be dedicated and disciplined, I have to put forth the effort to figure out my principles and I have to be humble enough to be willing to change if or when I discover that I’ve been wrong in my thoughts or actions. That’s not easy to do, but choosing to do something only because it’s easy, fun, or profitable does not necessarily mean the choice will be fulfilling. I have to do what leads to making ethical decisions knowing that is where satisfaction is derived and that means continuously thinking about my own ethics and values, learning from the decisions I make. The next step would then be to take action based on any conclusions I may derive. It began as a trial-and-error process but it's evolved into a complex analysis that uses experimentation much more purposefully than in the past. Sometimes I follow a dead-end and have to go back to the beginning and sometimes I go further down the path toward knowledge and wisdom while strengthening my will.

I wonder what Joe would think of these ideas? Yeah, I’m going back to Joe again. It might seem like some frivolous or silly little ploy, but it’s not. It’ll become clear eventually. Right now just know two things: Joe is important and it’s not what I write, but that I write. Things seem random to you, perhaps. It seems like a lot of jumbled thoughts, a lot of random musings. But this is going somewhere, I assure you. You will learn something. And I think you’ll be entertained at times while you’re reading. You’ll probably experience a few other things as well. But you should keep reading. You have no idea where this is going yet. You really don’t.

This post is over. It's the whole of all the other posts combined that tell the story ... but you'll have to do the work to put it all together. I've done most of the work for you: I wrote them.