Hello, universe. It's me again, beginning again. And I find myself here as I have for so many times. The blank brightness of the page before me makes me think of Limbo. Whoever knew the void could be so full of light? Yet it is darkness in the shape of letters forming words that gives meaning to the page. Tell me, Do you ever wonder what it exactly means to be here and to be you? Do you ever wonder who or where you could have been for want of a nail, for the barest chance proton being two microns to the left? From an instant of random chance of a thousand lotteries divided by 99 spaceships and 27 meteors landing in your backyard, go you and I. One might think such a remote rarity to be glorious and golden. And what if we are? I'll vouch for you if you vouch for me. And could there be dimensions where we get to be everything and everyone we could ever wish to be? And what would it be like to see through each and every looking glass? Would I be happy for me or would I burn with jealousy? I would honestly hope for the former, even if for my alternate self. You know we all have the ability to change our minds, but have you ever been in the unprecedented situation of your mind changing you? I have. Have you ever kept a secret from yourself? Have you ever been so close to the truth that you actually had to step back a bit to see it? And were you just totally floored when you realized it? And, afterwards, did you make connection to connection to connection to a lot of your past and think, "It makes perfect sense now!" when it never did before? I see now: how many times have I said these words? It is really something else when that chaotic jumble of reasons unexpectedly falls into place, and you know. You know why. I would hope that maybe knowing that the dream is alive and well at least somewhere besides my own dreams would indeed fill me with happiness. Well it would most likely be alongside an unquenchable longing. Maybe not jealousy, but certainly a longing. That cannot be helped. Maybe an intermingling of comfort as well, for simply knowing there is a dimension where I finally made it home. If anything is possible, and if all possibilities are merely quantum borderlines, maybe, maybe the dream lives. Either way, I'm sure I'll never know. Maybe just for once, I'll pretend that I do.
Pretending, this morning, sure seems a whole lot easier than actually thinking. Clearly the fog in my head is just as heavy as the fog outside. (And it looks like the setting for an old monster movie out there) If you happen to run into Lon Cheney Jr out there, tell him hi for me. I tell ya, it was a job and a half to drag my head out of bed this morning. Feeling foggy and not so froggy. Ribbit Ribbit! It's just another day in a long string of them. I've been having the same old thoughts but (As you can hopefully see) I've been making my best effort to try and not talk about them so much. I am the only one who has to live in this particular mind. And these are things I must figure out for myself. I need a distraction. I really need a diversion. I feel quite ready to try something new. My old hobbies just don't really do it for me like they used to. Guess that old flame has turned to scattered cooling embers. There used to be few things that could get me more giddy than a stack of decades old computers to get running / clone as VMs, or a stack of cassettes, records, VHS tapes or 8-Tracks to digitize, or a radio that can be tuned to seldom heard frequencies. I used to spend hours doing just that. Nowadays, all of the above would spend weeks, months, maybe even years collecting dust. The same is actually true for my digital stuff. I still find something cool enough to add once in a while, here and there, but it's not like it was even a year ago. I keep getting the feeling that I have just about everything out there that I would possibly want. It's like the legend of Alexander The Great weeping because he had no more worlds to conquer. I just think it's time to send my army of obsessive passion to another universe. Maybe it's time to back into some outdoorsy stuff. The last time I tried gardening, the damned deer ruined it. I am not against hunters but I'm not really into hunting myself. If you ever see me hunting it will be because the apocalypse happened and I have no other choice. It's not a pretty picture so let's please quit putting lunatics in positions within reach of red buttons, East AND West. I do my best hunting on Isle 5 of the grocery store, by the way and thank ya very much. Be vewy vewy quiet. I'm hunting gwoshwies hahahahaha! So what else is there? Woodworking? I'd probably hurt myself. It's tough being an old school computer nerd in the 2020's. It seems all the things I loved are becoming quite ancient. And I do not meld well with this world of streaming and smartphones. I wonder if this is what it is to slowly become a relic. The world around changes so much faster that I ever could. I've changed a lot, more than I ever even imagined, but the world has changed so much more. That's the thing, really. It happens so much sooner than one can imagine. And the real kicker is to find yourself still struggling with so many of the things you thought you would have long figured out by now. Life, I guess.
I may have touched on this topic before, in fact I must have because it is something I think about a lot. Perception. Perception is everything. Not only how one is perceived by others, but how one perceives the world around them. It's a bit sad how we can miss out on the wonderful aspects of reality. It's maybe a good thing how we can miss out on the more depressing aspects of reality. Just how much do we base on a mental mirage? And of course I have gone on at times how feelings color our perception and how perception is our world. It's not what's there, but how we see it and whether we see it at all. And there are so many factors. It can be physical as well as mental. It is always best to be kind when you can. Yet it's also understandable why we can't be all rosy chipper sunshine every single day. Still, I try because nobody deserves a grouch that would even make Oscar say, "Hey, lighten up, pal!" I am not always successful though. Far better if I spare the world of myself as much as I can on days like that. I'll be better later. We can't be at our best every day, can we? We're only human, after all. You know it's kind of messed up when the thing you look forward to most each day is the moment you can finally crawl back into your bed and sleep. I remember being a kid and wanting to stay up late into the night. I remember being on night shift as a young adult and watching the sun come up before calling it a night. Guess that's just another way I've changed. It wouldn't be the biggest change. Not by a mile. Not by any measure. Is this really my dream, to be drifting away into the darkest night, to a place where the light of the moon can never touch? A practice run for eternal oblivion? Or maybe just a temporary refuge for a soul too exhausted to move and a mind too tired to think. Go figure, Go Fish.
I spend so many of my days on this weird sort of autopilot. Work, Home, Sleep, and repeat and repeat and repeat. And I spend as much time as I can deep within my thoughts, letting robo auto me deal with the day to day because the real me is just bored with it. I would rather be in a dream. I would rather be in Wonderland. I'd rather be somewhere beautiful, a nice quiet garden with an old rock wall and the sound of a distant waterfall, far off television snow, forever and ever amen. Maybe somewhere I could actually feel like a living being again. It has been such a long time since the world was new, since possibility was endless, and dreams seemed as if they could become reality. It has been a long time, such a very long time. I truly believe that just as the body needs to breathe, so does the soul. It is just not healthy for one to close it off, box it up as if in a coffin. This just can't be conducive to a healthy soul. And soul is just another word for self, that true self I was so long in discovering. We are not the body but the soul. And the soul needs to breathe. It most definitely needs to breathe. Now, don't let me confuse anyone. One indeed can believe in the soul even if in nothing else. And such is mostly the case with me. Well, I believe in souls, spirits and the multiverse. It is also my belief that there is not one single spirit that did not originally coalesce in the mind of a living creature. Of what may happen afterwards I couldn't even guess. Oblivion or somewhere in the multiverse. It would be a comfort to know the people I loved most in life are somewhere and happy. Oblivion would be far less a comfort. Though if I forget myself and everyone else I suppose I'd have no more need of it. But getting back to what I was saying, we all need to breathe, body and soul. I think when people talk about soul crushing situations, what they really mean is a soul that is trapped and cannot breathe. Not exactly a good place to be. Hobbies let the soul breathe. Friendship is even better. Purpose? Now, that's off the charts. That's where it's really at. Gotta have it. That's real freedom and not very many of us truly have it.
Random chance is a hell of a thing. It lets a sentient mind sit in wonder at the improbable chain of events that led to them to be sitting here and wondering. But if those improbable events did not happen, there would be nobody here wondering how or why nothing happened. Would you call this an inverse catch 22? If you didn't happen, then neither did anything else ever. That doesn't exactly sound right, does it? Though I guess it does from a certain point of view. (Hello, there!) I suppose the world is real enough. We invented language so we could sort of compare notes, right? And if I happen to be imagining all of this, then I guess it doesn't matter. That would indeed be a case where ignorance is truly bliss. I wouldn't want to know. So, let's be real. Bet that's a new context for that phrase, huh? But, yes, let's be real. I talk to myself sometimes, but I really call it verbalizing my thoughts. I write to the universe, but I really call it keeping a blog. The difference? Why it's that small chance of being overheard by another human being. Why is this a difference? I really don't know. I have said to myself on occasion that words spoken are words spoken, even if to an empty room. So, here I am again, as here I was before, as here I am likely to be again. This is the place where I let a bit of my true being exist on the outside. As I so often say, out of my head and onto the page. So, here I am, Universe. Well, most of me anyway. The rest awaits beyond the edge of no return. I still stand there, waiting, thinking, wishing I could know if it's freedom or a dangerous fall beyond that line, As well as whether what I have now would be worth losing simply to find out. The question is not simply to be or not to be. It is asking could I be free and still be at all. And whether it's worth taking that precarious step. New life or a fate worse than death. Not exactly the makings of a good mystery box. It's like that three strikes game Bob Barker had contestants play on his game show. Except that this time one strike is all it would take. The bag is full of prizes, but that big red X with the promise of a swift game over looms in the darkness. Hell of a choice, and a lifetime to spend on the fence if you stand there indecisively. Or you could take that step. Which would be the greater Hell? Now, maybe THAT is the question. And so many other thoughts intermingle at this remote juncture. I said I wouldn't go on and on about these same old heavy thoughts, but it's hard to express myself completely when they're such a factor. It might be clearer why one might ask themselves, who am I, over and over again if they mention that they lost such a fundamental part of themself when they lost a close loved one. It might be more understandable if they expressed just how close to the abyss they were a few years ago, and the slightly unorthodox way they were able to pull themselves back, and precisely how it also relates to the edge they are standing on today, and exactly what that last step means. It's all context that frames so much. There are so many points of reference that kinda get lost in the translation. It's like the background on an old web page. If it's too much like the text then you'll never see the words. Only this time I'm talking about meaning and not just the words themselves. Otherwise there would still be ways of knowing without having to be in this same skull. Funny how my allusions seem to become more and more abstract. Language evolves when a people become separated. And for a single person in their own exile? Oh boy, here we go again. We're not gonna need a decoder ring, are we? Like I said, I spend a lot of time in my own head.
What is the best nation on Earth? Why, I'm glad I asked. Hibernation! Ever since this early change in season, that's what I feel like doing. Hibernating until spring. I must be part bear. Forget the cold weather. Forget the holiday season. There are gonna be some empty key chairs around that table this year and forevermore. So yeah. Hibernation sounds just fine to me, as would mauling any so daring as to wake this grumpy grouchy bear up. Roar! Grrrrrr! and stuff. Keep away from the bear cave, Just drop your pick a nik basket and run, a voo va voo voo! Ah, but bear with me, harr harr hardy harr harr. It's only October and this old body's already going into Winter mode. Part of this living creature I'm stuck with being. We're all still critters I guess. Hooray for evolution? Still this is proof that even in all our evolving, we have kept quite a bit of the old stuff too. The traits built in, baked in. Winter mode commencing. It's like I'm in power saver mode, sleep mode not far behind. It does not exactly help with the disconnect. It's not 100% the world. It's maybe 50-50 the world and me. As I said I live in my head while the rest of me is on autopilot. I always wanted a robot to do my chores for me and I guess I finally have one in a way. A human robot? A robotic human? While I live here in the CPU? This strategic retreat from reality can't go on forever. It's just I wouldn't know how to re-engage. I was mostly gone before I lost Marsha. And things have been quite hazy since then. Now it seems I have gone as far as I can. Otherwise, how could it be already October? I feel I have lost a bit of time somewhere or some when. I'm just that giddy tone arm skipping across the record of time. Every song is a hip-hop remix on this particular turntable. I know there's a couple months to go, but I am so ready to start anew with 2023 while telling 2022 to return to Hell where it belongs. When I wave goodbye, it will be with just one finger up. I gotta get back to myself somehow. I know I need to. I was always like this, but to nowhere near this degree. I didn't know it was even possible. I guess it goes back to what I was talking about earlier. I need a new diversion, something I can find just a bit of joy in. And it's not going to be that great pyramid I've been building of 1's and 0's that I wish to outlast me, to enshrine all the things and people that I loved. It's gotta be about living. It's gotta be about the present day. It's gotta be about the moment. And it's gotta be about here and now. And that, my friends, my Romans, my acquaintances, and my strangers, brings this particular rambling to a close. Sending love, good vibes, and all the things that I would if I could. Maybe in infinity, eternity, none of us are as alone as we often feel. See you next time.
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