Pleasant Nightmare? - Part I

So I'm home for break and I had a nap.  I had this crazy dream and I wanted to write it down before I forget it.  Even though the logic and architecture are perfectly dream-like, I had no idea that it wasn't real until I awoke.   Names have been changed to better reflect pieces of my subconscious....Remember, it's only a dream....

I am living in a different apartment.  It is almost futuristic in some ways but also very normal in others.  the TV and the computer are mine for sure, as is the computer chair and the end tables.  The couches and chairs in the living room are ones I have never seen before, and the layout to the room is different than in my current apartment, although the computer, sitting area and couch are in relatively the same position as they are in real life.  They are also relative to my current kitchen, although there is a doorway to open and close to go into the kitchen, unlike in my current apartment.

I am sitting and watching TV, about to watch the next episode of a show called Gossip Girl, when in walks Cameron, back from Alberta.  Even though she's never been to this place, I know she's only been gone a week and she just uses her spare key and comes in.

"Hi!"  I say, "You're back!!  Why are you here?"  Taking this unusual event in stride.

"For my birthday," she says, "I came back to visit and to get the things I left behind!"  I know that her birthday is not until November and that it is now February, but I accept this argument without comment.  Instead, I ask her how long she is staying?

"Only a couple of days.  Hey are you watching Gossip Girl?"

"I am!   Oh my God did you see last week's episode???  I couldn't believe what happened!!!  That's cool you can watch it with me!"

Cameron introduced me to the show Gossip Girl and last week after she moved back to Alberta was only the second time that I ever watched the show without her.  In real life she's incredibly enthusiastic about the show, to the point that she is legitimately upset when a season ends or a rerun is shown.  In my dream, this seems to be the case as well, as she is initially very excited.  We sit down to watch the show, which was on pause.  I guess some time passes (you know how dreams are) because when I turn to ask Cameron something about the plot, she's not sitting next to me any more!  I look around and see her instead playing on the computer, at a strange angle where you can't really even see the television.

"What are you doing don't you want to watch?"  I ask.  "You love this show!"

"Yeah I'll watch, I just had to talk to someone," she replies.  Then she tries to manoeuvre the computer monitor and her chair so that she can also see the TV better.  "Go ahead and press play I can see" she says.

"What?!?!  No no you need to come over here and watch.   This is probably the last time we'll EVER get to watch Gossip Girl together!  Come on!  I'll just pause it until you're done," I reply, and do just that.  Then I go into the kitchen and make a drink.

When I return to the living room, Cameron is not on the computer anymore.  I sit down for a moment when in my peripheral I see a tall, dark haired man in my house.  He is facing away from me and I can only see his back.  I go "Hey!  Who are you?  What are you doing here?" as I stand up and try to see who he is.  He continues to try to turn away from me so that I can't see his face, obviously purposely, and walks into the kitchen.

Stay tuned for part II, next week....

Reinventing Spirituality...

I was listening to "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast (#179 w/ Duncan Trussell) and they brought up an idea that I just found fascinating.  Basically, the idea goes like this:

What would we as humans make of God or spirituality or the supernatural right now, without any previous information about any religion, but with the scientific knowledge that we now possess about the universe we live in?

Say, for example, that all copies of the Bible, the Koran, etc were all lost hundreds of years ago and we have no prior knowledge of anyone's ideas about God or what happens when we die.  What truths would we just sense?  Would we re-invent a sentient God?  Heaven and Hell?  Or would we go in the other direction and completely spurn the notion of anything that couldn't be proven with empirical evidence?  Could everyone agree on one thing or would we re-start the horrible, divisive and nonsensical violence that seems to be the inevitable result of people having strongly held religious beliefs?  

Could anyone say in this day and age that their way that they JUST MADE UP is the only right way, given to us by God and if we don't follow it we are doomed to unending and unimaginable agony?  However, if we DO follow it, we will be rewarded forever and never die?  Would anyone believe that?  Why did anyone EVER believe that?!?

For myself, I think I would become an agnostic, basically.  I would be completely positive that there is more to life than what I can see and prove.  I would be fairly certain that some part of human consciousness will live on past the expiration of the body.  This I would base on the science of our "sea of atoms".  Nothing is ever just GONE...all things transform.  For example, ice doesn't melt and disappear forever, it simply changes states to water and then vapour.  Since energy and matter are the same thing, and everything is made up of everything else, we all live on in some form.  Whether we still retain our individuality is another question, one which I have no answer for.  I'd never come up with clouds, harps, fire and brimstone, an old man sitting behind pearly gates in the sky judging us and his enemy that used to be his buddy but now hates him and so tries to trick people with uh...stuff.  Not that it isn't all possible, but it sure wouldn't ever occur to *me*.

At the end of the day, there are countless ways one could speculate.  MUCH, much smarter people than myself could come up with all sorts of fascinating theories.  The only thing that I can be sure of is that I would never say that I was sure of anything!  I'd never hold a belief!  Just like in the movie "Dogma" I'd just have a GOOD IDEA.

There are things in this world worth fighting for, and even dying for!  Protecting those weaker than yourself, preserving life, preserving human rights, free will, justice, the higher ideals!  Religion doesn't make this list.  All you zealots out there who think God wants you to hate your fellow man, knock it off!  Why should we believe that people that lived thousands of years ago, who thought the Earth was the centre of the universe, who thought it was great to treat women and other races as subhuman slaves, who lived every day in violence, filth and disease...why should *I* believe that these people know more about the nature of God or spirituality or the afterlife than those of us who live now?  Not only that, but if you don't believe what I believe, I'm supposed to convert you or kill you?  Doesn't that seem ridiculous?

I'm just saying...and I know not even really for the first time...what WOULD we come up with if we could do it all now? 

ALONE.

"Nobody Loves Me

Everybody Hates Me

Going to the Garden 

To Eat Some Worms..."

Come Saturday, my "impromptu houseguest" situation is finally going to be resolved and my life can go back to the way it was back in October of last year.  "La Vie Solitaire" returns!  I am both overjoyed and miserable. 

All of my life I have been alone.  I'm an only child.  A latch-key kid who rarely spent more than an hour or two a week with either parent as a child (at least that I recall).  I also moved constantly in my early years, changing homes, schools, towns, cities, even countries.  I quickly learned that forming any sort of meaningful attachment to anyone was a complete waste of time since I'd just be leaving soon anyway.  It was better for everyone if we all just kept a nice, cool distance.  That way, no one got hurt!

Come high school of course things changed.  My life had achieved a modicum of stability and I began to form the sort of lasting relationships that I'd avoided since I was 5 or 6.  For a few years this worked out fairly well, even to the point that I fought to stay here in Toronto and keep those relationships when I really should have left.  I was just too scared of ending up alone again.  The decisions of a 17 year old...what can ya do?

In any case, by staying instead of going I learned a very valuable life lesson:  EVERYONE IS ALWAYS LEAVING.  If I don't leave, eventually you will.  It IS inevitable. 

It took me from 1977 until 2011 to accept this simple fact and decide, as I did back when I was 6 or so, that I am meant to be alone and I ought to be happy about it. 

Don't get me wrong, when I say everyone is always leaving, there's no judgment involved.  I'm not bemoaning my lot or criticizing the ones who've come before.  Their actions are rarely malicious and almost always make sense.  I'm just not the most important person in anybody's life.  No one is sticking around just for me.  Nor should they!  I'd probably just leave them, anyway. 

It's true.  I just haven't entirely figured out how to be happy about it, yet.  I'm learning, though!

Infection Detection

Been sick all week.  Found out on Wednesday when I finally went to the doctor it's bronchitis.  Got tons of lovely antibiotics and on the mend!

Of course it doesn't do much for my artistic abilities.  Hard to be witty or good with words when one is sitting like a lump, motionless, in a zombie-like daze.  At least I have no compulsion to eat human brains.  I might try one once as a delicacy or something, mind you, but I don't need to attack the living or anything.  More Hannibal Lecter than Night of the Living Dead.  Have I said too much?

Anyway just don't expect too much this week, that's all.  I haven't exactly accomplished a lot.  Mainly I just keep trying to breathe.

Ahh well, back to work on Monday if all goes according to plan and should be fully 100% by this time next week!  Actually after all the antibiotics I've been taking, perhaps healthier than ever!!!  See ya then!