The other night there was a party in the apartment upstairs. Nice loud festivity beaming down through the floor-boards to help me feel more merry in the frivolity I’d given the evening up to. At some point there comes a knock on the door, and I open it to find three attractive young women standing on the stoop.
It was probably the jester hat that tipped them off to the fact that this was not the apartment they wanted, or maybe it was the fact that I look nothing like my upstairs neighbor, different sex, different race. For my part I decided to have a little fun, there are moments when your tongue has been loosened, and you can just erupt with a stream of irreverent banter. Had them laughing within seconds, although for the life of me I can’t recall what it was I said.
Before they departed, one of them decided to drop her pants, bent at the waist and smiled over her shoulder at me; no underwear, beautiful view. So what’s this you’re asking… am I bragging? Well yeah, to certain extent, but there’s more here. Some things only happen to certain people.
Ok- how to explain? First off, if this is to make any sense at all, you must accept that this world is a far more intriguing place than we as humans can ever realize. The imagery proposed by the sciences and the arts to express what this ‘reality’ stuff is all about is simply working towards defining a couple of key terms in this semantic playground that somehow manages to contain us.
Myself, I like to see the world as a work of esoteric poetry, being written as the differing definitions of individuals collide in the larger context of some sort of rhythmic structure. I like to believe that each moment where you come into contact with another individual is an opportunity, pure potentiality, a chance to weave new definitions into your basic structure and grab a greater understanding of the patterns involved. I like to believe that there are foot-notes, and even end-notes, hidden all over the place; the truly cognizant will be alert to the chances for something unusual.
This is a poor attempt to recreate the underlying theme of a handful of intriguing conversations I’ve had with my fellow cognoscenti. The truth is that some things only happen to certain people, if you look at this great esoteric poem as a choose your own adventure (link to wikipedia for those who don’t remember these books) with the choices hidden, then it is only the cognoscenti who go off hunting the places where choice is required, or try to force their own choices to matter in any given moment.
That is a more idealized conception of what tends to occur, that’s the dream. I think the truth of many lives is that these moments of choice boil down in their heads to simple either/or options, with all the flavor drained. The next time the bagger asks you “paper or plastic” ask them to surprise you, put the outcome of simple routine in doubt and you’ll surprise them. I do that simple experiment quite frequently when I go shopping, and I’ve had some interesting results, some people simply don’t appreciate that kind of reality tinkering, others revel in the opportunity.
My feeling is that destiny does exist. The fates are out there, weaving the cloth of reality; my feeling is that they provide the pattern. Your options are to take the choices offered or look for opportunities to step outside the patterns of convention. Sticking to this weaving metaphor; fate is the warp, choice is the weft. Fate is held tight, like the warp, and provides the backing that allows the weaving to occur, the weft is loose and variable; that’s where the style comes in, as you go dodging the dictates of destiny.
I think I can safely say that it has been my obsession with finding alternatives that has led me down every honestly interesting path I’ve walked in my life. It is certainly how I wound up in Florida, and plays the undercurrent to more anecdotes than I could quickly relate. The important thing is that I can honestly say my life has been anything but dull. I hope you can say the same.