explains the world

1/13/09

one of the two problems with life, here, as humans, is that there are these other humans, see, and you can't just ignore them. or rather, you can, but it tends to be better if you make at least a few exceptions. you kind of have to talk to them, and listen to them, and sometimes you have to suck it up and let them invade your life.

see, it all starts at the beginning, when you get born. you enter the world and WHAM there they are, and they say they are your parents, and right away you are forced out of that cozy warm solitude that you now realize wasn't solitude at all.

and then you meet more. siblings, who are difficult to discard, and friends, who are marginally easier. problematic, however, is that not all of these will submit to being got rid of. and, according to the testimonies of various reliable sources, it is not advisable to shake them all. (don't ask me why this is so; i am in the process of researching this issue.) and yes, that includes those who speak necessary unwelcome truths, and it includes those who don't buy an ounce of the crap you so enthusiastically feed to the rest of the world.

and then eventually, if you're like most, you start looking for another human to be your Person, your permanent Person. if we are to believe the lessons of history and aforementioned reliable sources, then this is where the real [...] goes down. it is so much more dangerous because it looks appealing, what with all the promises of romping in daisy fields and feeding each other cherries.

but then one day, you look over at the Person sitting on the other end of the couch, and you realize that something has changed. unbeknownst to you, you have actually succeeded in slicing yourself open, from nose to navel, and you have invited somebody to plunge in elbows-deep and rummage around your innards.

had you chosen solitude, none of this would have happened. you could very well have gone on unexamined, unexcavated, and undisturbed. but one of the prices of having a Person is that they tend to drag your pale blind cave-creatures into the glare.

now let's say, just for the sake of argument, that you manage to survive this particular invasion, and in the middle of it you decide that you're going to team up with this Person and make a bunch of little people to release into the wild. suddenly, and without really knowing how any of it happened, you are standing there with Your Very Own Human in your arms. at this point, you can no longer pretend to be a separate and distinct entity, because there you have it, half of your DNA wrapped up in a blanket with its oddly large head resting in your elbow cranny. you look down and your own eyes look up. and you are not permitted to flee.

time goes by. she begins to insist that even though it's your blood and your DNA in that sack of flesh, she is not. actually. you. she will learn to feed herself, she will prefer vanilla while you prefer chocolate, she will get her eyebrow pierced, and she will make jokes that you do not understand. she will kiss your cheek one minute and scream that she hates you the next, and it's too late, far far too late, to reverse anything.

your self is now a mess of frayed threads and paper scattered across geography, across time. it is mixed up with many other selves and bits of this and that, and you never did have solitude, not in the beginning, not in the end, not ever.