Thursday 25 July 2002

Pic of the day: This is not a pipe - this is a pipe dream. [1] No, seriously, it's just pixels. Not that we are much more, under the microscope. But our left brain hemisphere keeps giving our stories life, and our life stories.

Destined for deconstruction

Last night my best friend (or should I say my last best friend) came to the South Coast to help with someone else's wedding. She doesn't stay here at the Chaos Node, of course! But we were supposed to eat lunch together today, or so I thought. Evidently I thought wrongly about that, because I didn't hear from her until late in the evening. At this time she called to confirm our lunch tomorrow. Oh well. Chances are that she originally said Thursday, the way I remember; but arriving in the middle of the night is not conductive to unnecessary socializing the next day. Anyway, those who live will see tomorrow.

The interesting part here is my reaction to the whole thing. I haven't seen her in half a year, I think, since Christmas. Lately she hasn't even been connected to the Internet, so she hasn't replied to my e-mail. I have felt that our drifting apart, for years a glacial process, has finally picked up momentum. For the first time in many many years, since before I became the man I am today, I was facing life without a best friend in the world.

I must admit that a part of me wished for this to continue. For me to be even more disconnected from the world of men (and women, not least). A part of me wants to disengage from the consensus reality, which I feel I have outgrown the way a snake outgrows its skin and must shed it to start growing again. There are so many things that humans take for granted but that I no longer believe in. Some people, for instance, object to the expression "one nation under God" because they don't believe in God. But I don't believe in nations. They're just inventions of the mind, like the monsters under your bed, or like the trolls in a role playing game. They are real only as long as we believe in them. After we stop believing, we may still act as if these things are real; but we know better. And this is just one example. For each passing year, I less and less confuse words with things.

***

I guess I am drifting slowly in the direction of Buddhism. Not the popular Buddhism of Eastern countries, with its worship of Buddha as a god (and you can hardly believe how ironic that is) along with many local gods and saviors and spirits. No, rather it is the core belief of Buddhism that attracts me: That life causes suffering through desire bred of ignorance. And the heart of the illusion is the ego, the self, the soul. Through observation and reason we can realize that our self is not important, and not even real. It is a name for a elected subset of reality in time. It consists of parts, and itself is a part of other constructs. Our bodies are part of the Earth from which they come and to which they return; our minds are part of the civilizations that have shaped us, and to which we contribute just a little bit while we live here.

It is not for nothing that Buddhism is known for its monks. It may be interesting to deconstruct consensus reality, and it may even fulfill a deep inner need; but it does make it harder to live a normal life at work and in a family. As I use to say, we know that the sun doesn't rise and set; it is Earth that rotates. But we still talk about sunrise and sunset, because it is short and practical and understood by all. When people make a fuss about those things, it is usually a sign that they need professional help.

So I don't make a fuss. I don't begrudge people their illusions. But I don't want to backslide into human thinking. And become too attached to humans will work in that direction. We are social creatures; that's the way we are made. We are social chameleons by design. From we were born – perhaps before – we learn from others and imitate them. It's instinct. We are hardwired to act like that.

And it is easy to become attached to someone like SuperWoman. There is another part of me – a not insignificant part – that values her too highly for my own good. There have been brief moments in which I have almost missed her, as in longing for or at least wished I could be where she was. Then again, I sometimes wish I could fly, too. If wishes were horses, every man would ride. (There would also be a lot of manure.) But the more I see her, the more I want to see her; the more I hear her, the more I want to listen to her. I wonder when that will stop. I know it will. It is my destiny.

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[1] "This is not a pipe": I am of course referring to the (in)famous painting by Magritte (I think it was Magritte), a very realistic painting of a pipe but with the caption "This is not a pipe". The most commonly understood message from this is that the painting is not the real thing, even when it is made to resemble the real thing; but some read deeper implications about the perceived world into it. I would not be surprised if the painter was just having a whim - humans are prone to those.