"I don't like to be alone" you say, and I nod and pout my lips a little and sit on a log and scrape at the dirt with a long, skinny stick.
"Everyone is alone," I say, and this sounds like a very wise and solemn thing to say.
"Not that guy who lives next door to me," you say, "he has a really cute girlfriend and they're totally in love and stuff, and they have a ton of sex."
I nod again, but I'm kind of mad at you now because you deflated the wisdom and solemnity of what I said with your stupid comment.
"Plus they have like really long conversations afterwards, and they make each other laugh a lot."
"Okay," I say, "so they're not technically alone, but you know, like, in a more metaphorical sense."
You put a marshmallow in your mouth. "Not sure I follow you," you say.
"Just shut the fuck up," I say, and I break the stick and get up from the log and start walking into the woods.
"Where you going?" you ask, with your big dumb marshmallow mouth. I don't say anything, I just keep walking. "Do you have a flashlight?" you shout at me. I don't, and you know I don't, so I don't know why you're being such a jerk about it. I can't see you, but I assume you stuff your mouth with like 6 more marshmallows.
I'm walking angrily, and it's really satisfying because lots of things crunch and snap when I step on them. I pull a hunk of bark off a really big tree, which feels great, except it makes my hand all sappy, which is incredibly irritating. I want to just keep walking for hours until I'm completely lost and then I can starve to death or get eaten by a bear. Except that's actually really terrifying, so I'm just going to duck behind this boulder and sit in the dirt just long enough for you to start to get worried. Like maybe a half hour or something. I don't care if that sounds stupid. You're stupid, because you don't understand the inherent aloneness of being.
"My naybor's noddalone! NER NER NER." Stupid. Maybe I should cut myself on something so I can look all bloody when I go back. That'll teach you to point out fallacies in my statements of wisdom.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Sunday, July 31, 2011
It really is alright.
It takes a lot of the pressure off, honestly. It is a thing to be celebrated.
You know what you are allowed to do now? You are allowed to have dirty feet. You can lick most anything without even considering where it has been. You can do a google image search for "the cutest baby" and just scroll down the page saying things that are inappropriate to say to babies (especially cute ones).
"Cunnilingus!"
You are allowed to sit alone in your room and just listen. Maybe you have a nice room with clean walls and functional chairs, or maybe you are like me and you live on a borrowed air mattress that will not fully inflate or retain air, and there are centipedes that crawl around on the walls and maybe you saw a mouse scurry under the door to your closet so you stuffed some old newspapers under it to block it off, and you haven't opened it in a week.
In any case, you have so much more going for you than you could possibly realize.
Really, it is such a relief because you don't have to worry about anything anymore. You are not as accomplished as you hoped you would be? What is 'accomplished'? Say it out loud. Repeat it over and over until it is just a sound you can make, and then realize that you are capable of making so many sounds.
But what about other people! They are so attractive, right?? And they have real beds and real accomplishments. Ac-com-plish-ments. Uck-calm-plysh-mince. Uncalm piss mints. Uncle mom fish nets.
Be glad that there are other people! Have you ever sat in an audience and imagined if the entire audience was comprised of other yous? It would be awful. Everyone would laugh at the exact same time, and cough, and fart, and cross and uncross their legs. Everyone would have the exact same opinion about the whole experience and then you'd find yourself so irritating to be around because all of the yous are exactly like you and all of the other yous would get just as irritated at the exact same time as you do, and as you acknowledge this you know that all of the other yous are acknowledging it at the exact same time and CHRIST, if you have to use the BATHROOM YOU CAN FORGETTABOUTIT because you can bet the line would be HUGE, but so then no one else gets up either, even though they have to go just as bad as you do so then EVERYONE is just SHIFTING AROUND IN THEIR SEATS, NOT GOING TO THE BATHROOM FOR AS LONG AS THEY CAN BEFORE THEY PEE THEMSELVES AND THEN THE WHOLE AUDITORIUM or theater or club or municipal park smells like URINE.
You are the only you though, and also you are free.
"NUH-UH! you say, "I AM NOT FREE BECAUSE OF THIS CIRCUMSTANCE THAT IF FIND MYSELF IN!"
Well that is untrue. I understand that you are trapped in a terrible job or a loveless marriage or a prison cell or a cycle of debt or drug addiction. But you know what you still get to do? Besides apparently browsing the loneliest places on the internet? You get to think. Anything. Think about jumping into a pool of whipped cream. Think about that song that you always get stuck in your head but that you don't really know the lyrics to. Think about all of the people in the world with the name 'Mandy'. And then you get to feel something. Anything.
"NUH-UH MR. SMARTY DUMB DUMB!" you say, "I HAVE A CHIP INPLANTED IN MY BRAIN BY ECCENTRIC SCIENTISTS THAT GIVES ME PAINFUL SHOCKS WHENEVER I THINK ABOUT WHIPPED CR--AAAAH!"
Well in that case I am sorry. I stand corrected. If you are that guy then you really don't have a lot going for you. Please accept my sympathy and if you want I can draw you a picture of a sad child petting a dead puppy with the name 'Giggles'.
But to everyone else, I am very excited to have found you here and I am so glad that you exist. You are not alone with yourself. You are alone with everyone else, and that is just the place to be.
Sincerely,
~BRAD~
You know what you are allowed to do now? You are allowed to have dirty feet. You can lick most anything without even considering where it has been. You can do a google image search for "the cutest baby" and just scroll down the page saying things that are inappropriate to say to babies (especially cute ones).
"Cunnilingus!"
You are allowed to sit alone in your room and just listen. Maybe you have a nice room with clean walls and functional chairs, or maybe you are like me and you live on a borrowed air mattress that will not fully inflate or retain air, and there are centipedes that crawl around on the walls and maybe you saw a mouse scurry under the door to your closet so you stuffed some old newspapers under it to block it off, and you haven't opened it in a week.
In any case, you have so much more going for you than you could possibly realize.
Really, it is such a relief because you don't have to worry about anything anymore. You are not as accomplished as you hoped you would be? What is 'accomplished'? Say it out loud. Repeat it over and over until it is just a sound you can make, and then realize that you are capable of making so many sounds.
But what about other people! They are so attractive, right?? And they have real beds and real accomplishments. Ac-com-plish-ments. Uck-calm-plysh-mince. Uncalm piss mints. Uncle mom fish nets.
Be glad that there are other people! Have you ever sat in an audience and imagined if the entire audience was comprised of other yous? It would be awful. Everyone would laugh at the exact same time, and cough, and fart, and cross and uncross their legs. Everyone would have the exact same opinion about the whole experience and then you'd find yourself so irritating to be around because all of the yous are exactly like you and all of the other yous would get just as irritated at the exact same time as you do, and as you acknowledge this you know that all of the other yous are acknowledging it at the exact same time and CHRIST, if you have to use the BATHROOM YOU CAN FORGETTABOUTIT because you can bet the line would be HUGE, but so then no one else gets up either, even though they have to go just as bad as you do so then EVERYONE is just SHIFTING AROUND IN THEIR SEATS, NOT GOING TO THE BATHROOM FOR AS LONG AS THEY CAN BEFORE THEY PEE THEMSELVES AND THEN THE WHOLE AUDITORIUM or theater or club or municipal park smells like URINE.
You are the only you though, and also you are free.
"NUH-UH! you say, "I AM NOT FREE BECAUSE OF THIS CIRCUMSTANCE THAT IF FIND MYSELF IN!"
Well that is untrue. I understand that you are trapped in a terrible job or a loveless marriage or a prison cell or a cycle of debt or drug addiction. But you know what you still get to do? Besides apparently browsing the loneliest places on the internet? You get to think. Anything. Think about jumping into a pool of whipped cream. Think about that song that you always get stuck in your head but that you don't really know the lyrics to. Think about all of the people in the world with the name 'Mandy'. And then you get to feel something. Anything.
"NUH-UH MR. SMARTY DUMB DUMB!" you say, "I HAVE A CHIP INPLANTED IN MY BRAIN BY ECCENTRIC SCIENTISTS THAT GIVES ME PAINFUL SHOCKS WHENEVER I THINK ABOUT WHIPPED CR--AAAAH!"
Well in that case I am sorry. I stand corrected. If you are that guy then you really don't have a lot going for you. Please accept my sympathy and if you want I can draw you a picture of a sad child petting a dead puppy with the name 'Giggles'.
But to everyone else, I am very excited to have found you here and I am so glad that you exist. You are not alone with yourself. You are alone with everyone else, and that is just the place to be.
Sincerely,
~BRAD~
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