And here we have another account of a random incident that exemplifies the sort of encounters I love the most in life. About an hour ago I finished the first essay (of 4) of a take home exam and decided that a nice run would get my blood pumping to finish the other three. So I take off running through the chilly but clear afternoon down to the riverwalk. Once I get down there I take a left, like I normally do, and see that about twenty feet of the riverwalk is under water. I leap up on a bench and survey the distance thoughtfully.

Two girls are already at the waters edge, balancing on their bikes as they look into the water. They look back and see me standing on the bench and laugh: “Are you planning on crossing,” one says.

“Hmm, I don’t know,” I say. “It probably pretty cold.”

We have a short exchange then they start to walk away…but then one pauses. She looks at the other girl and says, “If you do it I will.”  The other girl looks uncertain. I decide I should hop in and make this interesting. Why not?  ”If you two do it, I’ll come too,”  I say.

So we did. We took off our shoes and waded across. It was freezing cold and came up to the tops of my knees–one of the girl’s waists–and went on for about twenty or so feet. The whole time an older black gentleman was watching us from the other side laughing. After we got across we introduced ourselves as we put our shoes back on and joked about how we’d remember this forever. I think they’re names were Lisa and Alena. We were all USC students. They went on their way and I walked home, thats it.

But that is truly the amazing sort of occurrence that I love. Not only did I do something absolutely insane–wading through river water in the middle of December–but I did it with strangers. Doing so we established an immediate connection. I’m sure that if I wasn’t moving to Raleigh, I could have gotten their numbers and we could have hung out some more. I love it!

Time passes on, it is gone and yet it isn’t. I have spent the past 14 hours with my mind not escaping from a novel even as I slept. I am naked and it touches me and we are one, for the moment, like a strange memory spontaneously rejoining my conscious awareness.  My life, already, is a memory stretching back through chapters of time. The past dissolves the matter of “ifs” and relegates it to the “already done,” a book set into type, never again to be written, only edited by the constant means of recollection.

Kayley and I are done, it had to be done, the whole thing, the whole instance of childish, pure enthusiasm and love. My life as a Mormon is gone, a thing to be bemused or frustrated over, much like a good piece of biography. My life dissolves itself into biography with my constant writing.  My childhood melts away into the words that I give it and I see myself as maturing, ever moving forward away from the life that was mine but yesterday.

My friend whom I’ve found reason to share my not-so-curt thoughts and ramblings with has returned from an existence as lined sheets of paper and I find my mind invigorated by his physical presence. My classes, my professors inject me with enthusiasm; we imbue each other with each response, each lesson, each reading. The two together have changed me and the me lamenting over lost love is near-gone, save for the renewed sense of loneliness that is stronger than it was before. I allay it constantly with thoughts that begin with wonder and end in excitement and questions that come together to make my neurons fire with renewed vigor. I am alive; I am present.

Things have formed for me, a lifetime full of things. My mind touches insanity, runs its tendrilly fingers through its dry powder, contemplating what color it would give the face of my life if applied. A mask through which my enthusiasm may express itself. Questions to take up and forge a life out of.  A philosopher. A writer. Dare I be such things? Dare I attempt to be both, a philosopher first, and writer second? Life is construction, how can one come before the other? They are co-current.  Every understanding begins with the words we give it, every word begins with the understanding that conjures it. Can I make such creation my life? Dare I?

More aptly, how can I not? Anything other is not life to me.

You know. Sitting here just getting over a nice bout of depression and my mind has done the thing it always does in response to feelings of worthlessness, pointlessness, and lack of motivation. It goes into overdrive. It makes me want to laugh at everything, to flout…not necessarily just tradition, but everything. Suicide, says the existentialist philosophers (I am currently reading Camus’ Sisyphus) is the ultimate question. Nietzsche also says the thought of suicide is the ultimate comfort. But that’s so lame. The illusion of meaninglessness and anguish and suffering is all born of a world where we are completely consumed in ourselves. It is a conceit to suggest that the absurdity of life is built from existence itself. The absurdity of life comes from what we’ve built out of life. The absurdity comes from humanity, from the artificial (and everything we do is artificial, by definition), and from the intelligent–but only a weak form of intelligence, one that lacks rigor to see past its own conceit.  What we have built is absurd–but it is most absurd in the fact that we do not see it as such. When we wake up and see it as absurd, by God! says the existentialist–what is this planet we live on?! Now I must consider suicide for I see that there is no purpose because in the midst of creating a world we forgot to create a purpose for it.  Woops.

Here is my response, however: By God! What a strange world we have built! What odd customs! Look at so many creatures who create shallow purposes for themselves! What fun it’d be to flaunt those purposes, to push existence!  What is the value in pushing existence? Well the engineers know this! It is in the mere value of creation. What do we create? New purposes, new identities, new experiences!  The intentional insanity I speak of is the sort who can say “Ah, screw this, I’m going to take a year and live in the Caribbean. Why? Because this existence will let me.”  But this is only the beginning form of intentional insanity and any of us who may recognize this capacity for insanity within us are afraid to take it far–because to take it far would be a form of suicide or at least to the same effect. Plus you might get mistaken for being actually physically insane. In which case the nuthouse might  not be the most interesting place for such an intentionally insane person.

But what am I saying? What am I promoting? Insanity? Kehe, but what I mean by insanity is this: insanity means going against rationality. But we also use it in the sense that we dub insane those things which we, as a society, do not understand and deem aberrant. So partially I speak of insanity with irony: the intentional insanity rebels against the logic of a system that is itself insane: lacking reason, rationality, and purpose.

This is only just a thought that occurred to me in what I will now deem my post-depression euphoria. Its the best frikin drug I have, ok!

Another note: Camus speaks of the point of life that one creates to be the defiance of the absurd, sitting between the point where absurdity is recognized and where you must leap from the cliff of suicide (of either sort). But I do not like to think of life as a defiance. Instead, the insanity I speak of is different…somehow. I think.

Bare feet on stone, toes gracing the air, the young man looked out into the darkness. Below was the soothing sound of the river. Behind, cars went by heedless. His hands were outstretched, one on the lampost on his right, the other feeling the night air, trying to grasp from the darkness some form, some feeling.

A smile spread across his face and his resolve became set. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his cell phone and dialed.

“Yes, hello operator,” he said quietly into the phone. “I am going to jump off this bridge. It’s not very high and I don’t want to die. In case I’m hurt, please send someone over. Thanks, goodbye.”

He leaned down and set the phone down on the bridge–liking the idea that he might somehow be able to get it later. He looked over his shoulder at the incoming traffic and waved, a big smile spreading across his face. Then he let himself fall into the darkness towards the shallow river.

~

He took his hands off the keyboard and glanced around his apartment. What insanity was this that he had just written?  Why would anyone want to leap off of a bridge, to perform an act associated with suicide without the intention of suicide?

He stood up and gathered his big blanket around him. He stepped out through the screen door in the back. He circled the large tree that stood in the back then headed for the larger patch of grass. This he also circled for a moment before simply falling over, his large comforter rubbing into the grass. A few minutes later he was asleep.

~

Why? Because I could. Did I or will I do either of these things? No, I am too scared. Why am I too scared–that is the question. What is it that I am afraid of–that we are afraid of that makes these two things absurd. I want to continue this to contemplate on this very question. Keh, absurdity, insanity–whatever.

And this is what I shall publicly envision this to be: a writer (obviously not me, of course) who is full of eccentricities (like taking showers in the dark) that are meant to help him control and find meaning in life finds himself writing of a person who is completely devoid of meaning, such as the person in the first scene above. Go from there.  Many smiley faces

Uh, I just saw a cockroach. Got to go kill it because that is what we do with cockroaches.  If I were to eat it, that would be for mere shock factor. The absurdities I am talking about are the ones that balk convention but not for the sake of shock. You don’t joke about suicide.  Perhaps setting the cockroach free–that would be the sort of absurdity the writer would do with some saying about the value of life and the absence of disdain for living things. The person he writes of…would probably not care much about the cockroach. In actuality, both of the actions above would be ones that the writer’s character would do. And its time for me to stop elaborating now. This is enough for me to go on later.