Hello everyone
I don't know who I am. You'd think after all this time thinking about it and
ruminating over it that I'd know but I don't. There are times where I've caught
a glimmer but as soon as I try and grasp the clue, poof, it's gone like a puff
of smoke, wafting through my clenched fingers and beyond my dreams.
"It's like a hall of mirrors at a carnival where some mirrors distort you one
way and some distort you another...Each person you come to is a different
mirror. And since you're just another person like them maybe you're just
another mirror too, and there's no way of ever knowing whether your own view of
yourself is just another distortion. Maybe all you ever see is reflections.
Maybe mirrors are all you ever get..." [LILA]
I like taking pictures of myself in front of mirrors. I'll arrange one close by
another and try to catch a glimpse of infinity but no matter how I twist and
turn it is always just there, outside my view. My cats come and watch the play.
They're as mystified by it all as I am but they seem to get over it more
quickly.
"But what controls all these mirrors is the culture: The Giant, the gods; and
if you run afoul of the culture it will start throwing up reflections that try
and destroy you, or it will withdraw the mirrors and try and destroy you that
way... The mirrors take over your life and soon you don't know who you are..."
[LILA]
I fall into silence for hours, then days, and then weeks to months at a time. I
speak when spoken to, you know, to maintain appearances, to make a semblance of
a living, but otherwise there are no words to be found breaking the silence. I
live alone. I prefer it that way though at times the loneliness tends to press
on me more than at other times.
I speak through my writing though that too seems to dry up occasionally. The
words are there but the meaning isn't. No matter how I struggle against it, the
silence has me in its infernal grip and refuses my freedom lest I embrace it
fully. Someone knocks at the door; I don't answer. The phone rings; I let it.
"Sometimes you could see little fragments of reflections of what was wrong but
they were just fragments and you couldn't put them together... Everyone seemed
to be guided by an 'objective,' 'scientific' view of life that told each person
that his essential self is his evolved material body... Each individual in his
cell of isolation was told no matter how hard he tried, no matter how hard he
worked, his whole life is that of an animal that lives and dies like any other
animal... Scientifically speaking he has no goals." [LILA]
I see others scurrying here and there, going about their lives as if they have
goals... and I am envious. I want to be going somewhere, as if I too were doing
something important. But I am what I am. I go for long lazy walks during the
day when others are working at their jobs. I see them drive past me on the road
in their dump trucks and telephone vans. Sometimes they wave and sometimes I
wave back.
I like the sunshine more than clouds but I like my freedom best of all. Four
walls close me in even if they have windows to look out. When I was young I had
a job working in an old building all day long. When I could I would sneak off
and peer out the dirty windows at the brightly optimistic day and it would take
all my willpower not to quit at that very instant and make my escape... When I
grew older, I finally did.
"They just hate it when people make love. And then they'll go to a fist fight
where someone's really hurt and all covered with blood and they'll just love
it. Or a war and stuff like that. They're all mixed up and they're trying to
take it out on you so you'll get mixed up too. They want to mix you up just
like they are and then you'll be all mixed up too and then they'll like you..."
[LILA]
I remember when I had a real job that I felt like I was part of something.
There was a camaraderie between me and my fellow workers born of having gone
through trials and tribulations together. Sometimes I miss that, the feeling of
being part of something bigger than I am. But then I realize it was all
predicated on a lie, and they lied despite themselves. I can't hate them for
lying to themselves, can I?
"...What did he remember? It all seemed so long ago. Aunt Ellen. When he was
seven. There was a noise in the downstairs in the dark. His parents thought it
was a burglar, but it was Ellen. Her eyes were wide. Some man was chasing her,
she said. He was trying to hypnotize her and do things to her. Later, at the
asylum, Phaedrus remembered her pleading, 'I'm all right! They're just keeping
me here when I know I'm all right.' Afterward, his mother and sisters had cried
as they left. But they didn't see what he saw. He never forgot what he saw,
that Ellen wasn't frightened of the insanity. She was frightened of them."
[LILA]
I find myself apart from the world though I desire more than anything to
belong. I am human, I howl at the rising of the moon. I see the neighbor's
window shades flutter at the noise though they never speak it aloud. They no
doubt know it's only their neighbor, drunk again on loneliness and despair,
bleating out his heart to an uncaring goddess hovering high and ghostly white
overhead.
"Maybe if, during the show, the whole theater collapsed and the audience found
themselves among the stars with just space all around and no support, wondering
what a stupid thing this is, sitting here among the stars watching this film
that has nothing to do with them and then suddenly realizing that this film is
the only reality there is and that they had better get interested in it because
what they see and what they are is the same thing and once it stops they will
stop too..." [LILA]
My eyes grow dim in the fading light of sanity. I flounder about, flailing at
shadows, greedy for company. I smile hello to everyone I see. It's too cold and
noisy though; I retreat to my own private paradise. I take care not to look
into the mirror lest I see the true hell of my own making. So I don't know who
I am.
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