Amsterdam Seventy-Three: The Mundane

I went out for coffee in the morning. Fortunately, whoever had locked my bike the day before had unlocked it. I was heading toward Eik en Linde, but as I was riding along the Amstel on the east bank of the Amstel I was overcome by a desire to go someplace where I would be anonymous. I didn’t get much sleep and my powers of representation were not terribly strong. I felt fresh, but words still felt foreign and I didn't want to lose that too quickly. I knew it wouldn’t last because it never does. Language fights like hell to dominate the mind no matter how resistant the senses might be. I had just enough handle on language and symbolism to be functional with the abstract norms of civilization, but I couldn’t imagine a conversation with Peter on a morning like this. I missed seeing him, though. Another day.

I stopped at Café ’t Hooischip where the Amstel, Blauwbrug, and Waterlooplein met. I locked my bike nearby—grateful that it was early and that the rack wasn’t crowded—and walked into the café. I went to the bar and took a seat. While I waited for the barkeep to finish with another customer I looked out the window toward the Amstel. The sun was starting to come out from behind the clouds. The ride over had been cool, but not cold. The weather was becoming increasingly mild, perhaps a sign of an early spring.

I ordered an Americano and sat patiently thinking about nothing. The previous day was a memory, one that, in the light of the morning, didn’t seem surreal at all. My life had become unpredictable; what once seemed bizarre now felt commonplace. The mundane became exotic. Breathing in the scent of coffee in a lazy morning café felt like walking into a new world. In a world of language, silence was dazzling.

I dipped a biscuit into the coffee and took a bite, mindlessly looking at items of interest around the café: the stairs that led to the tables and chairs a half-floor up, the dozens of photos on the wall next to the stairs, the bottles of booze on shelves on the other side of the bar, and the dark wood floor, ceiling, and walls typical of brown cafés. It was a cozy little place, not big at all. There were a few patrons sitting half a floor above and a couple at the bar. The volume on the conversations was turned down low. The quiet was a welcome guest and the morning felt slower because of its shrouded presencce. I sighed contentedly as I drank my coffee, imagining the whole day passing like this.

It didn’t, though. I left after my second cup, riding my bicycle to Spui to purchase groceries and then back to my apartment. Once home, I made an omelet, an early lunch. So few thoughts, most of them simple observations of my own movements. An impulse to use pepper went by without a word yet my hand found the spice and sprinkled it onto the eggs. It wasn’t until I began indexing that words flooded my brain. They were all over the pages of the undergraduate history textbook and I had to engage with them. The noise of my mental voice was deafening.

I adjusted, though. I indexed ferociously, perhaps because my thoughts had been cleared of debris. My associative mind created connections that I ascertained the author didn’t intend. The connections existed, though, so I filled the gaps the author had left, massively gaping holes in the history of the United States. I wondered what process he had used to decide “This is important” and “This is not worth mentioning.” It seemed almost random, a collection of parts that, once assembled, told a story that no one with a bit of sense could believe. He had built a combustion engine with silly putty. There were mountain-top tidbits like a Tax Act passed in wxyz by the nth Congress that had been vetoed by President Z vetoing the bill before politically being pressured to sign it into law.

There was nothing about the impact of the law, though, nothing substantial. I thought about the city tax code passed in Amsterdam centuries ago that collected money from homeowners and business owners based on the square footage of the first floor of buildings and how that code led to the creative building practice of extending the floors above the first out over the street to increase the square footage of the second, third, fourth, and fifth floors so that there would be more space to justify higher rents and sales prices. Considering aftereffects like that seemed to be an important way of connecting the passage of a tax code to the practical effects the law had on the way the city developed. Such investigations also provided windows into the mindset of ownership and the importance of spatial relationships.

The fucking book I was indexing was too stupid for insights like that. It maddened me, but I did my best to provide contextual clues in the index, using creative phrasing and conceptual connections that weren't elucidated through the text. A reader using relational thinking would be able to spot the clues and see what I was creating. I was giving information not only about where in the text certain concepts were located but also providing insights into gaps that existed so an industrious reader might realize that further research would be needed if 1+1=2 didn't provide enough information to understand what the hell had happened during Reconstruction.

On the other hand, this was an undergraduate textbook and, as such, it was providing a general introduction to a wide array of information. I wondered about the usefulness of such texts. They gave just enough information to get a student in trouble. Undergrad textbooks do not provide a solid foundation for further research because they determine the starting point for an understanding of a particular topic and those starting points were usually oversimplifications and distortions. Plus, the structures of the textbooks were reliant on separation through categorization. No reader of such texts was going to develop associative thinking skills that might aid in building connections between seemingly unrelated events that, in fact, were dependent on one another.

If I was presented with the code that levied taxes based on first-floor square footage without any more information, I might have walked through Amsterdam without ever noticing that the buildings jutted outward floor by floor. Even if I had noticed I would have wondered why; it's doubtful I would have recalled reading about the tax code and applied that knowledge in a way that led me to think, "Oh, so they built the other floors in such a way that they had more square footage than the first floor! Clever ... interesting how that changed the way the city looks. What a weird world of unintended consequences." Perhaps as a tourist such wonderment is inconsequential, but as a student and observer, one who learns through the mind and the senses, information of that nature can provide a context to see much more than what is physically present. An understanding that the specificity of tax laws can change the shape of the world--in this case, literally. I was likely in the minority when it came to viewing the world in such ways. I was becoming increasingly aware that such thought is what makes thinkers philosophers and shamans and observers artists, aesthetes, and lovers.

I plowed through the text, nonetheless, delighting in these discoveries as I was transforming what might have been maddening into yet another learning experience. I made myself stop at six, though. I checked my email then took a few puffs of Cheese before unwinding with a cigarette on the couch while listening to Phish. After relaxing for a half hour I made a sandwich then got ready to head to Bloem. I unlocked my bike from the overcrowded rack and rode over the Magere Brug to make my way. When I walked inside, I saw Nina near the front entrance in the lounging area with a number of boisterous young men and women. Daniel was working behind the bar talking with Alexander.

Alex saw me and said, “Michael! Hey, how are you?” I could tell he was sauced. Daniel looked at me with what appeared to be relief. I went up to the bar and ordered a La Chouffe. Daniel poured me a glass as Alex talked about international politics. I was intrigued. We started talking about the World Bank and the IMF loans to third world countries, how international nongovernmental organizations forced countries to adopt economic and regulatory changes to reduce interest rates on massive debts. This meant opening up countries for strip mining and deforestation through deregulation, benefiting multinational conglomerates that shoveled the money back to the U.S., Europe, Japan, and--increasingly--China. It was a long-standing game INGOs had been playing with the southern hemisphere in particular. Keeping the poor … poor, as well as raping countries of natural resources.

The subject changed to immigration problems in The Netherlands. Alex told me the story of Theo Van Gogh being shot. I was familiar, but it was interesting hearing the story from a person who had lived in Amsterdam at the time of the shooting. Alex suggested that I purchase the book Murder in Amsterdam by Ian Buruma to learn more about the life of the Moroccan man as well as the historical forces in play, including Amsterdam’s tradition of tolerance.

After an hour or so, Alex prepared to leave and slurred, “Michael, it was good to see you. You’ll have to come over for dinner some time and meet my family. My wife, she's gonna kill me tonight. Too many beers.” He laughed, gave me a half hug which just about broke my ribs, and swayed toward the door. He turned back and pulled out his wallet. “Daniel, oh my gosh, I almost forgot to pay.” Daniel was at the other end of the bar talking with one of Nina’s cute friends. Daniel excused himself and collected on Alex’s tab. Alex turned again to weave toward the door. Daniel waved goodbye then walked over to me.

“Quite the conversation with Alex. I overheard a little.” I said, “Yeah, it was interesting. He’s a fascinating guy. I’m a little burned out on the politics at the moment, though.” I drank from the glass Daniel had recently poured then said,  “What’s the deal with Nina and her friends?” Daniel shrugged. “They’re just hanging out, talking about going to a party later.” I asked about Sophia and he casually said. “She’s good. I’m seeing her after work tonight.”

I took a deep breath and tried to be just as nonchalant as Daniel. “Does, um, Piper come here often?” He looked at me and barely restrained a smile. “Oh, every now and then." He paused as if deliberating. “Sophia mentioned that they're going to a club tomorrow night. You should go with them. I’ll tell Sophia to swing by Bloem around nine or so.” I asked Daniel if he was going, too. “I don’t think so. I’ll be working late so I doubt it.”

Going out with Piper sounded perfect to me. Clubbing and dancing was all the better. I ordered another La Chouffe, but Daniel had me try a specialty beer instead. He said Andy had recommended it. He poured a glass from the bottle and after it settled I took a drink. My taste buds snapped to attention. My eyes must have widened, too, because Daniel smiled and said, “That one might be a keeper.” I responded emphatically, “It would be a crime if you let that one go!” He responded, “Well, it's pricey so I don't expect it to sell too well. I have a small supply. Just have to see how it goes.”

One of Nina’s friends came up to the bar, a guy, and ordered three beers. Nina walked over to me while Daniel was busy. She put her arm around my shoulders. She was buzzed and planted a kiss on my cheek. “So, you’re coming to my competition, right?” I told her I wouldn’t miss it. She nodded and seemed happy. I asked how life was treating her. She sighed, “We have a new roommate at our flat. He’s gross. He’s such a guy.” I asked her what I was. Nina smiled, “You’re not a guy. You’re more like Daniel. You listen, you’re thoughtful, and you're not an asshole.” I laughed. “Let me know if I ever start to become an asshole.” Nina looked at me angrily. “Hell, yeah, I will!”

“Ah, there's the 'angry lesbian' everyone knows and loves.” Nina laughed, but she looked a little pissed off. “I am not the ‘angry lesbian.’” That made me laugh. “I know, I know, I'm just kidding. Sorry, but I couldn't resist.” I settled down and asked, “Besides Anabel and Daniel, does anyone else call you that?” She became even more defiant and said, “Yes! I hate it. Ugh, they make me so mad.” I bent over laughing. “Nina, you’re so fucking funny.” As I sat back up she looked at me incredulously. “What?” I couldn’t stop laughing, though it was now just a chuckle. “You know, the only time you get really angry is when someone tells you you’re angry!” Nina shook her head. Not even a smile. “Michael, you're becoming an asshole.” Jesus Christ, she was fucking killing me.

Even with all the laughter and fun, I was still dazzled by Nina's looks. Strangely, I did not feel sexual toward her. It wasn’t because she was a lesbian—after all, she liked cock and, well, I had one. No, it wasn’t that. She seemed more like the little sister I'd never had. I felt the same way about Anabel even though they were both so passionate. They had an air of innocence in spite of their wild and worldly ways. I felt protective of them, too, the way I might if they were my younger siblings. It was probably because of the way we first met.

I changed the subject. “Have you heard from Anabel?” Nina said yes. “Yeah, she’s having a ball, blah, blah, blah. I miss her, though. She’s going to be gone so long and I’m stuck here in classes.” I asked her what she was studying. “Journalism and Women’s Studies.” Of course. I mentioned I had worked on a few books about feminism. She said, “Oh, yeah, you work in publishing. I forgot.” Someone from the corner of the café called to her. She turned and held up a finger then turned back to me, “Don’t forget the DJ competition. I’m going to kick ass!” She made a tough girl face and pumped her fist. As she walked away I thought, “Damn, who she’s going to become.” She was already something else.

Daniel was talking with yet another sexy woman at the end of the bar. I pulled out my wallet and called to him. I flashed my card and he came over. “You’re leaving?” I said “Yeah, I didn’t get much sleep last night.” Daniel raised an eyebrow. I said, “No, no,” then winked. “That was the night before last.” Daniel swiped my card and I wrote a healthy tip. I figured he wasn’t going to get too many gratuities from college students; well, he wasn't going to get much cash from them, anyway. He looked at the amount and frowned. “Michael …” I stopped him and said, “See you tomorrow night.” I turned to walk toward the side door while Daniel said to ride home safely. I yelled down to Nina and waved goodbye, but she was immersed in an animated conversation with a few friends. I couldn’t tell exactly, but she looked angry. I laughed again as I walked out the door.

I unlocked my bike then pulled out my dugout. I mashed pot into the bat, lit it, and took a long drag. I exhaled and felt that much more relaxed. I got on my bike and sped home, my body loose. I felt giddy. The day had been simple, peaceful in the morning followed by a workaday afternoon before the easy warmth of Bloem. When I came upon the emptiness of Nieuwe Kerkstraat I rode no-handed the rest of the way home.

Amsterdam Seventy-Two: Differentiation

I opened the email Sterre had sent: “I don’t know what to say after last week. I was alarmed, but I overreacted. I haven’t heard from you so maybe you’re mad at me. I hope not. I’m going to Berlin this weekend, but maybe we can meet after I return? I hope so. Thinking about you.”

*Sigh* I put the laptop on the coffee table and loaded a bowl of Cheese. I had stopped at the Greenhouse after leaving Bloem and picked up a few grams. After a couple puffs I pulled out a cig and lit up, turning to open the window and look out at the street. With my mind relaxed, I thought about Sterre. Had it only been a week since that happened? That was such a great night until the ending. Life had been a whirlwind since seeing her. I couldn’t keep track of it all. Maybe it was because of the DMT. Or being with Ellie. Or meeting Piper. Or …

I put out the cigarette, but left the window open. I put the MacBook on my lap and typed a response: “I’m happy you wrote. I didn’t know what to say after last week, either. I didn’t want to offend you any more than I did. I’m not mad at all; I felt horrible about the way things ended. I’m sorry that happened because I had such a wonderful time with you. Let me know when you get back from Berlin because I’d like to see you, too.”

I set the laptop on the coffee table after sending the email. “What the fuck do I do now?” I hadn’t spent time alone for a few days. It felt weird. Unnatural. I had gotten so caught up in women that I forgot that I existed independent of them as well. Maybe not entirely; memories and emotions lived side by side. I turned and leaned against the back of the couch and looked out the window. The dark had fallen and the street was lit by light from apartment windows. A couple cars passed and a few cyclists. Someone was walking on the other side of the street, walking away from my apartment building toward Utrechtsestraat. Could have been a man or a woman. I couldn’t tell; all back including the hat pulled down over the ears. Did it matter? Why would it?

I slumped back onto the couch and wondered why defining anything mattered. Orientation, ordering the world to keep track of myself within it. I couldn’t tell if that was good or bad, if it made a difference. I knew I didn’t like how I felt. Sterre’s email. It was a soft email, kind really. Why did it shake me out of the ebullience and serenity of the day? Maybe it was just being alone in my apartment for the first time in days.

I said “Fuck it” and put on my coat and hat. I closed the window, took another puff of Cheese, grabbed what I needed, and left the apartment. I tried to get at my bike, but some asshole had locked his or her bike to mine. The bikes were packed so tight I doubted the person had done it purposefully, but I sure as fuck wasn’t going to be cycling now. Motherfuck. I put my head down, clenched my fists in my coat pockets, and walked toward Utrechtsestraat.

I walked without thinking for some time, gloom filling me, surrounding me. A comforting gloom, though, perhaps keeping even darker emotions at bay or anxious thoughts from arising. By the time I passed Vijzelstraat my head was up and I was looking around me. I had walked out of the area of doom. It seemed to me that was the case. It couldn’t exist exclusively within me, could it? It had to be in the air around me. The air on the other side of Vijzelstraat was fresh. I could breathe again. It’s possible I had been inside the box with my eyes closed. What would the Elders think? Maybe they wouldn’t; maybe they didn’t. I knew where I was going, though. The smart shop.

Not far past Vijzelstraat, I stopped to look at a building I had passed many times in the past. It had always struck me as odd because its siding was a ridged metal. It might have more than siding, though, as the design was completely different than other buildings around it. It was modern, contemporary, and completely bizarre compared to the seventeenth or eighteenth century brick and gabled buildings that were the trademark of the old city. I stood across the narrow street and looked it over. The windows on the first two floors were tiny. There were only a few of them, anyway, and I imagined those floors didn’t get much light inside. But the third floor, the top floor, was lined with windows, only windows. The windows stretched the length of the building above a metallic cylinder that curved outward from the building along the length of it. How the hell that building wound up there was a mystery to me. There were no other buildings even remotely like it on either side of the street; every other building was from centuries past. It was almost as if there was a couple months during some year in the 80s or 90s when city zoning commissioners said, “Now’s your chance to tear down your old building and put up any design you want; in fact, the more out of place, the better.”

There was something to the building because of this. By not blending at all it made itself far more intriguing than it would have been in a newer area of the city. I doubt I would have even given it a thought if that had been the case. The American equivalent would be stumbling onto a three-bedroom ranch in the middle of Manhattan. Context makes all the difference.

I turned and walked away from the contextual anomaly. I left my gloom even farther behind; it was as out of place as the metallic building. My emotional zoning commission must have believed a dollop of dourness might make the day more interesting. Maybe they just liked asymmetry. Whatever. I kept walking. I liked Kerkstraat on this side of Vijzelstraat. I liked it on either side, too, but the street narrowed on the west side. It felt even cozier than it did near the Magere Brug. There were fewer cars which was wonderful, but even pedestrians and cyclists were infrequent through this stretch.

The foot and cycling traffic picked up at the intersection of Nieuwe Spiegelstraat but died down quickly after I passed. A middle-aged fellow ran up to me from behind, speaking loudly in Dutch. I turned, startled by the look in his eyes, and stammered, “I-I-I don’t speak Dutch.” He took a breath and calmed himself for a second and spoke. “Sorry, didn’t mean to alarm, but you dropped your bag.” He held out a plastic bag, black, that was bulging at the bottom. I looked at him and said, “That’s not my bag.” He looked at me fervently and insisted, “Yes, yes it is. I saw it drop from your hand as you crossed the street. Here.” He shoved the thing at me as if holding it any longer might make him ill. I pulled my hands away and looked at his worried, wrinkled face. “I don’t know what to tell you, man. It’s not my bag.”

His shoulders slumped as his arms fell to his sides and the panic disappeared from his eyes. He was disheveled, smelled like he had been drinking, and his face was pallid under his dark, unruly hair. He held the bag out meekly again. “I saw you drop it.” I was wearing a black hat, black coat, blue jeans, and black boots. I said, “It wasn’t me. Could’ve been someone dressed like me, I guess.” He seemed as dumbfounded as I was. I asked him what was in the bag. He shook his head then opened it to take a look. He looked up at me and said, “Looks like a scarf.” He pulled it out and as he did it unraveled. Something small fell to the ground, a sharp “thwack” crackling when it hit. I bent over to pick it up. It was a small ceramic windmill, a tourist trinket. It had cracked open and there was a white baggie inside. I looked up at the man and his eyes grew wide. He stuttered incoherently then turned and loped back toward Nieuwe Spiegelstraat.

I looked up and down the street, looking for cops as much as anything. American instincts. I sure as hell didn’t want the shit, but I didn’t want to be the guy seen walking away from it, either. I looked around and saw a garbage can just outside the door of the Hans Brinker Hotel. There were a few people near the door talking, but they weren’t paying attention to me. As I looked around I saw that no one was. I closed my hand around the broken windmill and baggie then walked over to the hotel entrance and umped the shit into one of the slots before walking past the small group on my way to the smart shop down the street.

I looked back a couple times, but no one was following me or even looking at me. Fuck, that was weird. I didn’t like it one bit. I stopped a building away from the smart shop and lit a cigarette. I wished I had brought my dugout with me, but a cig was better than nothing. What a weird fucking day. Everything was all over the place. I was beginning to wonder if shrooming was a good idea. I could buy them and decide later, though, so I went inside after I finished the smog.

There were two young guys looking through the glass-enclosed case as I walked toward the counter. I had a chance to collect myself while they mulled over their options before making a purchase. The woman behind the counter had long dark hair. Attractive, but nothing stirred in me. I thought of Ellie and for the first time since reading Sterre’s email I smiled. I thought of Piper, too, and that made me feel even better. By the time the guys in front of me walked away I was at ease. I ordered four doses of shrooms: one Hawaiian, two McKennaii, and one Thai. I absentmindedly paid and then left without being sociable. I was pretty deeply in my mind.

As I walked back to my apartment, the activity in the street seemed slightly more real than the static buildings on either side of me. There were lights and sounds, sure, but they didn’t possess the qualities I recognized as life. I didn’t even recognize my thoughts as lifelike. It wasn’t like walking through a dream, either. Dreams felt as lively as waking life. A hollow existed behind my observations. I didn't even feel like I was observing; it was as if someone else--or something else--had taken up residence in my body, taking me along for the ride, tucked away in a lonely corner of thought. I shook the feeling from me, reasserted myself to the degree I could, but it was one thing to be nonjudgmental and another entirely to be incapable of being judgmental. With every step I took, thoughts shifted. Not once did they linger long enough for me to follow them in sequence. They were random, detached from emotion. On the other hand, I wasn’t feeling emotions. Perhaps thoughts flit randomly without substance when there is no emotional resonance to provide enough flavor to give meaning.

I tried to build on such thoughts, but it was impossible so I just watched as I walked. There was nothing to watch, though. No, that wasn’t it. What I saw was as empty as my thoughts. No, that wasn’t it, either. I was too empty of emotion to make sense of anything I saw or thought. Maybe. Could be. Possibly, but I wasn’t able to go any further with the idea. The most interesting experiences on the walk home occurred at intersections when I had to wait for traffic to pass. Watching the tram on Utrechtsestraat made me feel something, but I couldn’t identify the feeling. I recognized that something different was occurring, though. I felt like I was tripping in a different way than I typically had, but I hadn’t taken anything. Then again, I had just done DMT for the first time the previous night. Maybe I was still altered by it.

My first LSD experience had altered me significantly. I had never been the same after that first trip. I was eighteen at the time, still in high school, and after that trip the world seemed unreal to me for almost a year afterward. Anxiety lurked beneath the surface of my awareness at all times and I was careful not to turn my head too fast in case the perceptual façade couldn’t keep up. I didn’t want to see behind the curtain; I barely made it back the first time I peeked. Was the DMT doing something similar? This felt different and I couldn't make sense of it.

I continued back to my apartment and walked inside. After I took off my coat, hat, and boots, I put the shrooms on the counter in the kitchen. I still wasn’t sure if I would dose yet. I drank some water then went to the living room to take a puff of Cheese. I pulled the MacBook onto my lap, opened the window, and lit a cigarette. Sterre hadn’t replied so I set the laptop down. As I puffed, my thoughts came together a little more. “What a weird day.” I remembered the strange guy with the bag. That fucked me up a little. Even if there had been no baggie inside the windmill that would have been a freaky interaction.

I popped in a Sigur Ros CD and decided I wanted to shroom. I ate the Hawaiian, washing down the dose with water. Having just done DMT, I wondered if a single dose would do much so I ate a dose of McKennaii, too. I drank more water and ate a couple scoops of peanut butter to get the taste out of my mouth. I left the other two doses out just in case.

I walked back to the living room and moved the laptop to the dining table. I went to my bedroom and grabbed Alain de Botton’s The Art of Travel. If I couldn’t think, maybe he could think for me. I grabbed a notebook and pen as well then walked back to the living room. I set the notebook and pen on the coffee table alongside the book then went to the kitchen. I grabbed a beer from the fridge then lied down on the couch to read. I was struck almost immediately by a particular passage:

At the end of hours of train-dreaming, we may feel we have been returned to ourselves—that is, brought back into contact with emotions and ideas of importance to us. It is not necessarily at home that we encounter our true selves. The furniture insists that we cannot change because it does not; the domestic setting keeps us tethered to the person we are in ordinary life, who may not be who we essentially are.

I had no idea what ordinary life was. I was sure I had lived it at some point, but none of it persisted. Perhaps I was living a constant train-dream. Maybe Alain was onto something, though. Maybe. It was easier to imagine the emotions that were important to me, but ideas? What ideas were important to me? I couldn’t think so I took another puff of Cheese and had a cigarette. Halfway through my stog I went to the kitchen and ate the dose of Thai. I put the McKennaii in the fridge then walked back to the living room. “Well, that ought to fuck me up.” I put out the cig and picked up the notebook. I had written notes as well as some quotes. I came across one by Aldous Huxley:

It is fear of the labyrinthine flux and complexity of phenomena that has driven men to philosophy, to science, to theology—fear of the complex reality driving them to invent a simpler, more manageable, and therefore consoling fiction.

I tossed the notebook aside and stood up. “Yes, I understand. Huxley was a Buddhist. Maybe a yogi or a shaman.” I walked back to the bedroom with my beer, guzzling most of it on the way. “When the fuck am I going to get out of my head?” I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the dark-stained wooden wardrobe in front of me. I stared at it for maybe ten minutes, thinking nothing. When I came out of my trance I realized I was far more relaxed when I didn’t think. I had been trying too hard, to get somewhere or get away from something. Maybe myself. I let go again and breathed easier.

The wood grain of the wardrobe in front of me became rivers of black cutting through the brown of the surface. I thought of the word surface. It meant nothing. I put my hand against the wood grain, but I couldn’t feel the dripping bile I saw. I felt a vibrating hardness. “Am I feeling a surface, the wood, or my hand?” I pressed harder. “This is pressure. This is feeling pressure. I am creating pressure.” The wood seemed to resist, pushing back against me the harder I pushed it. When I let up, the wood let up, too. I stood up and moved to the side of the wardrobe. I looked back and saw there was a space between the dresser and the wall. The space rippled, becoming larger then smaller. I slid a hand behind the wardrobe and another on the side, bent my knees, and used the force of my legs to push it.

It moved. I jumped back, stunned. The shape hadn’t changed in the areas where I had placed my hands, but the position of the wardrobe had moved. It looked different than it had before I moved it. I didn’t like it, not one bit. The bile kept flowing down the wood grain, but that didn’t seem to be a problem. The blackness provided a view of the geometry within the physical space, this thing I kept thinking of as surface. I looked about the room and everything was static except for my body and my shadow. I looked at the overhead light then back down at my shadow. On some level, I understood there was a relationship, a cause-and-effect relationship. My body and the shadow were the only things moving, though. The shadow wasn't in relation to the light. It was my body. I was caught in the middle of the interaction between the two. I was blocking the light and a distorted darkness replaced where the light would have shone.

I was fascinated by this. I couldn’t believe the shadow moved with me. Why didn’t it remain after I moved? I was “unremembering” what I knew. My intuitions weren’t able to construct the story of how things related. I thought, without attachment to phenomena, “I am an electron in an otherwise static atom of space. The furniture cannot insist I am incapable of change.” This made sense to me even though there was no logic to it. Logic didn’t seem useful at this point. Increasingly, there was nothing particularly useful. I realized one thing, though: I had to get out of the bedroom before I couldn’t figure out how to do it.

I forced myself back to the living room and managed to turn on the television. “You are moving colors and noises. You don’t mean anything unless I tell you to mean something.” I turned off the television. It was ugliness of sound and light. I played the Sigur Ros CD again. “Oh, yes. This is natural. A strong pull.” I stood and stared, color streaks swimming around the room, mostly blue. The waves of color gained more depth and I was surrounded by different shades of blue. I turned the stereo off as quickly as I could when the colors started to bleed into me. The sound colors almost overtook me. I couldn’t turn everything off, though. The couches remained, the plants, the windows, the walls. Even if I turned out the lights or closed my eyes I would still feel my feet on the floor. I was losing the conception of “feet touching the floor,” though. What did that mean? What the fuck did that mean?!

I sensed “ganglia slithering along a blade.” How much more would dissolve and how much unfamiliarity would emerge? Gravity still existed. I wasn’t floating … but as soon as I thought that I wondered. I looked down and the floor looked like waxy mud and my feet, wrapped in socks, didn’t seem to be touching it—the socks were black and the floor was brown. I started worrying less about floating than falling through the muddy floor. I couldn’t tell if it was like quicksand or if it was just a thin layer on a hard … surface? Fuck, surfaces didn’t seem thick enough to hold me or anything else. I felt gravity pressing down harder and harder

It dawned on me, though, that whatever I thought seemed to come true. When I thought of gravity dissipating I felt like I was floating, but when I worried about falling I felt gravity weighing heavier. Holy fuck! I had more power over the external world than I ever imagined. But maybe there was nothing external at all. Maybe it all existed in my mind and my changing perceptions and conceptions altered the rules of logic, the laws of the physical world, the rules and laws just impositions I had created to cocoon myself inside the fucking box! I made the box and I put myself in it; I had trapped myself. Holy shit. Only I could free me. I couldn’t will it; I had to imagine it.

A surge of euphoric energy pulsed through me, out of me. Lifeblood, jolts of joy. I cackled as I sat on the couch, suddenly in control of my motor skills again, nuanced but powerful. I lit the pipe and finished the bowl then lit a cigarette. I opened the window and the world appeared before me. Walkers wisped like characters in a video game I watched on a screen inside my mind. I felt like a character in the game, like part of me decided to join in the silliness of walking down the street while the “greater” me watched in amusement. I was a guy in the middle of a group of three. I yelled something I thought was intelligible and they looked up at me. I focused on the middle guy and he was smiling. That was me smiling at me!

I wanted out of the video game so I closed the window and put out my cigarette. I remembered water, the importance of water. I drank the bottle I had earlier placed on the table then went to the kitchen to fill two glasses from the tap. I carried them to the coffee table. I thought, “Ritual, this is a ritual of water provision. Rituals create differently shaped containers. An octagon instead of a square box.” I wondered what I was when I wasn’t ritual, but I let it go, laughing at the absurdity of the curiosity. After I placed the glasses on the table, I went to kitchen and ate the last dose of McKennaii. “Fuck, will I manage to come back? Maybe I shouldn’t.” I returned to the living room and sat on the couch facing the kitchen. The kitchen door was open, as it always was. I took notice of it, though. “Door, I take you for granted.” I felt myself sinking into the couch, becoming part of the couch, and then being the couch. “I am the couch.” I thought someone could walk in the door and sit on me, not noticing me as anything but the couch itself, myself an object within an object.

I would be treated as an object. For the first time, I felt I understood what that meant. I couldn’t figure out why that would be a bad thing. What’s wrong with being an object? I like objects. Maybe I would be more appreciated as an object than I would as a person. Perhaps. I laughed when I realized everyone treated objects as objects. “The objects never complain, though. Why are humans so fickle about such things? Ridiculous.” As if objects would be offended by being treated as objects. I would no more be taken for granted as a couch as I had been as a person. I knew ex-girlfriends who valued couches more than they did me so, hell, being a couch didn’t seem bad at all.

I winced, though, when I realized I had treated a other persons with less dignity than I had this couch. “Why are we cursed this way? Why do we do this to each other?” I realized with even greater horror that I had treated myself as an object more than anyone else ever had. Something within me shut off and I went deep inside myself, so far I began losing track of being. The last thought I had was that I was existing without existing. Differentiation ceased entirely after that.

I had no sense of time because I had no sense of being. Awareness had ceased. It wasn’t like being asleep. It was not existing. Later, I would describe what was not being as a new experience. It was the experience of not being aware of being, an experience that wasn’t experienced, a paradox of some sort. I wasn’t even the couch or an object when my awareness disappeared. I could have been an object, but there was no one present with awareness to turn me into an object. So I wasn’t.

I don’t know how much time passed before I began to feel something. I was looking straight ahead without being aware of it. I was aware of was a sensation in the middle of me--as if I had a middle. I wasn’t thinking in any conventional sense. The word middle didn't exist, but something akin to curiosity was developing. As I stared I had the sense that I was seeing my being. The feeling that was “the middle of me” was just as much “the totality of me.” My totality, though, expanded to what I viewed. None of this was comprehensible. What I "saw" had to be me because there was only me. I had no memories, no prior conceptions, nothing but the sensation of a feeling that had no discernible meaning and a "seeing" which was just the being of "me." There were still no words; words hadn’t been invented yet. Eventually, a glob became yellow. There was a newness to this identification and it manifested as the beginnings of a conception. The idea of “me” wasn’t quite firm yet, but the concept was developing.

“Yellow” was the word that formed, the first word that existed. It meant everything, everything that existed, and all that existed was yellow. I felt yellow, a totality of yellow. As I perceived myself as yellow I realized I saw. I had been seeing, but I had no understanding that I was. Seeing was another expansion of myself coming into being. I was the feeling of yellow that saw myself as yellow. The feeling, though, became two things: yellow, yes, but also grumbling. I didn’t like myself as grumbling, but I liked myself as yellow. This confused me for some time. Eventually I realized more fully that I was an “I” and that I needed to mix the yellow me with the grumbling me to make me completely yellow again. There was a relationship between the yellow and the grumbling, but they still seemed to be the same thing in some way. More confusion. Was I the grumbling feeling of yellow that saw yellow?

I was rapidly becoming, taking shape, forming. I wondered, now that I was an “I,” why the yellow that I saw seemed different than the grumbling yellow I felt. I realized with some surprise that they were not the same. Yellow was me as I saw myself and grumbling was me as I felt myself. Related, but not the same. Differentiation was returning and I was beginning to categorize.

I realized the yellow in the kitchen wasn’t me at all. The yellow was … bananas … and the grumbling was not fully me, but "me as hungry." I lost track of the thoughts, though. I had to put them together again.The bananas were not me and I wasn’t sure if the grumbling was, either. I knew I felt the grumbling and I had called it yellow, but it was the bananas that had given the grumbling the color yellow. I remembered there was a relationship between the grumbling and the bananas. I wasn’t sure whether the grumbling began before seeing the "bananas as me" or whether the bananas that had been me had caused the grumbling. It was a chicken-or-egg question. What I knew, though, was that I wanted to eat those bananas to eliminate the grumbling I felt. I was rapidly becoming myself as I had previously existed.

I stood up, but it was awkward, as if the arms, legs, and hips had not figured out they were part of me and in service to me. I made the legs move in what I remembered was called walk and entered the kitchen, marveling that such a space existed independent of me. I was inside it; I existed in an enclosed space, like a cage. I was free to leave, though. But why would I? The bananas were in this room! I took a banana, wondered at it, and then peeled it. Amazing! The exterior had been waxy but the interior was soft and mushy. It smelled good, too. Smell! I had forgotten that sensation.

The sscent was gratifying and I thought, incredulously, “This is how we survived as a species—we were gratified by things that made us feel good. We were somehow able to make sense of things in some way similar to the way I just had. Grumblings told us something within us was not whole and we needed something that existed outside of us to make us whole again.” I took a bite of the banana and felt a burst of flavor and a wave of sugar flowing through me. I was invigorated. I chewed and the mush of banana became less and less sweet. I swallowed and the grumbling in what I now knew was my stomach was somewhat satiated.

I continued to eat the banana and when I was finished my stomach was no longer grumbling. I was aware in a way I had never been previously, but this level of awareness was functionally debilitating. I went back to the living room and sat down. My thought was returning and as it did I realized that Huxley was wrong. The “labyrinthine flux and complexity of phenomena” hadn’t driven men or women to science or philosophy; it had driven men and women to become less aware of the flux and complexity so that they could survive in a world that required action. There had to be some awareness, but it couldn’t be total because there would be no possibility of thought, analysis, or decision making. We could remain in a state of unawareness similar to the one I had experienced and then hyper-awareness for a period of time under secure circumstances, but neither state was conducive to survival in the world over time, whether in the wild or in civilization.

I sat back down, a bit shaken up by the experiences I’d had—and the experiences I couldn’t recall because I had been unaware. I loaded a bowl in awe, awe that I had managed to figure out what I needed, what I wanted. I couldn’t tell the difference between need and want, but I recognized how vital desire was to survival. The philosophies and religions that suggested resisting desires were completely wrong. They were detached from reality; they were madness. How could anyone believe that desire was bad? It was the only thing that had allowed us to survive as individuals and as a species. I realized as wholly as I ever had how dangerous morality was.

I set down the bowl and put my head in my hands. A deep sorrow overcame me. Western civilization was hopelessly fucked up. There was no way I was going to be able to fully relate how crucial this seemingly simple discovery was. Humanity had veered too far away from the physical experience of living to be able to understand. The most profound mathematical and scientific concepts had been discovered and understood, but the most essential relationships between being and other were lost on the world and they had no idea desire was the essential relational connection between hunger and food. Humanity understood it, perhaps, but as something inconsequential, something unworthy of serious consideration because it seemed so basic and easy to understand conceptually. They were missing the profundity of the experience as it was, though. Desire was fundamental to being human, but the “pursuit of progress” was really the abandonment of human fundamentals. Western civilization was a species-wide disease.

This brought me down a bit and changed my mood so I picked up the pipe again and lit up. After a couple puffs, I went to the shower and disrobed. The water felt good on my body. I needed to come more fully into my senses and let go of the thoughts swirling in my head—they were detaching me from the wonderful basics of “grumble = hungry; yellow = banana; banana cures hunger.” My body, for all intents and purposes, carried me along, made me functional; my body was importantly me. The essential me was my body in combination with sensations, thoughts, and feelings. Not enemies, but friends. I wanted to make sure I became good friends with those essentials because I didn't want to lose myself as a being. Far from being airy or flighty, I craved earthiness, grounding. I got out of the shower, dried off, and got dressed. I went for a walk to feel even more grounded, to prevent the apartment from becoming a prison.

Once outside in my winter gear I breathed deeply. The air was cold but crisp. I didn’t want to walk far at all so I headed to Frederiksplein. I didn’t know what time it was, but it was still dark and there was no one out. The walk was pleasant and I found I enjoyed the feeling of my legs moving and my arms swinging. I walked into the park and even though I saw a bench, I didn’t feel like sitting down. Motionlessness seemed like a bad idea. That was interesting to me. As opposed to the bananas, the bench didn’t speak to any desires I had. Objects attain meaning only in relation to desires; perhaps needs or preferences, but that seemed more a matter of semantics than an important distinction.

I walked around the park again and again. Movement was key; it was what I desired most. One or two people passed through the park while I was walking but that was it. I wasn’t sure how much time passed, but I walked back to my apartment when I became tired and cold. When I entered I felt relief. The apartment was warm. I looked at the coffee table and saw my cigarettes. I went to the window, opened it, pulled out a cig, and lit it. The taste of it soothed me. I blew the smoke out the window and continued puffing until the cigarette was down to its butt. I snuffed it out in the ashtray, but left the window open. The fresh air felt good. I took off my winter gear and grabbed a blanket from the bedroom. I wrapped it around me as I went to the couch against the window. I pulled the blanket dangling over the couch onto me, too, and I lied down.

Each of those actions was in response to a desire. Every object had been external to me, but I brought them into my sphere of experience. I realized, in yet another way, that the self doesn’t end at the skin.