Why I Can’t Watch Hockey

Unlike what the misleading title might have you believe, I have an enormous respect for hockey athletes, and this story has almost nothing to do with that anyway. In fact, I don’t even write that “enormous respect” thing lightly, either. I mean it. It’s mind-boggling to me the way they can coordinate movement on the ice and the incredible dexterity of handling the puck all with the tactics of play with their teammates and opponents.

Insane.

ANYWAY, I know a bit of this because of one time Amanda, Pierre, and I went to a hockey game being hosted at an ice skating rink near us. It wasn’t a pro league, obviously, and in fact it was a bunch of seniors – which made for a really easy sell even to me, a non-hockey fan.

“Hey,” Pierre pitched, “you want to watch a bunch of old guys play hockey? There might be a fight.”

I was in.

So we’re sitting there, watching the game, when I try to point out something regarding one of the players. I think he’d done some fancy skating I wanted to call out, I don’t remember- doesn’t matter. The point is his jersey number was #78, and I tell them this to try and identify him, to which they say, “Who?”

“He’s number seventy-eight.”

“Where?”

“Right there.”

“Where? I can’t get a clear look at his jersey.”

“He’s number seventy-eight,” I say, beginning to get exasperated. “There, by the other goal. He’s wearing a green jersey and red shorts.”

“Who?” says Pierre.

“The motherf**ker in red shorts, by the opposite f**king gate now,” is my reply.

He looks at me, confused. “Evan, they’re all in black. No one’s wearing red.”

I’m shocked. Never before in my life did I think my eyes would deceive me such that I confused black fabric with bright-ass, unmistakeable red. I look back to the players.

“He’s…he’s in a green jersey…”

“Yeah, I see the green jersey, but his shorts are black, dude.” He taps Amanda on the shoulder for back-up. She nods and reinforces his assertion that Red Shorts was, indeed, wearing black shorts.

I stammer, watching the players now with a bit of existential dread. Is this what color-blindness is? I thought. That is so surely scarlet red, how am I seeing that if it’s black? Uh-oh. I don’t know all how, but this will definitely affect a bunch of things in life. Ink choices, traffic signals maybe, for sure my fashion sense. Am I-

Then I see them snickering, and I’m finally allowed to have it dawn on me: I’m being gaslit, and my gullible ass bought that fable hook, line, sinker, the pole, the fisherman, and the whole damned boat.

We like to think of ourselves as mentally secure, most days. We may have our baggage, sure. It comes with life. But we see or hear stories of people that believe outlandish things, simpletons that throw in behind transparently deceitful cult figures. They’re like goldfish, with the sphere of their beliefs visible from the outside in its entirity, and we can laugh at how foolish the fish must be fore believing their bowl to be the extent the world.

But really, these situations deserve more empathy. They ought to be approached with a mindset of “There but for the grace of God go I,” for any one of us is capable – within the right circumstances, upbringing, environments, or pressures – of believing what is antethetical to that which is before our very eyes. It should be a lesson of how malleable we can be, how vulnerable even the sanctity of our own minds can be, of fatefully temporary we all ar-

…

Ahem. Yeah. Anyway, um, yeah. I don’t really watch a lot of hockey. Cool sport, though.

High School Age Catharsis

It might be the encroaching presence of my thirtieth birthday looming over the distant horizon a year-and-change hence, but I’ve been finding myself strangely reminiscing over my teen years a bit more lately. And that comes in a few forms. Basking in warm memories, obviously. Laughing at the folly of my youth, even more obviously. But also the growing that was done in those years. Namely, the first time I had an experience that gave me context for the idea of “catharsis.”

I’ve never made any bones about how this, being my own tiny slice of the internet, is basically a glorified little public diary. Don’t get me wrong – I’m glad as heck to have you here and any involvement/feedback I get on here is received like a warm batch of cuddles; but it remains just that, a place for me to stream my consciousness a little, workshop some things, limber up some mental muscles at times, and post stories that I’m positive will never see the (Say it with me, now) Light of Day otherwise.

What it boils down to is that writing’s healthy, I find. It helps you expunge some of the plaque that builds up in your machinery, and offers a net to catch pesky wandering thoughts, granting the peace of mind that you have them now, no longer risking them to forgetfulness. It’s cathartic. And the first time I can remember discovering that for myself was when I was seventeen.

Brief back story: I went to religious private schools off and on growing up. Catholic one year, then most of my middle school years attending a little Lutheran school. That meant a lot of religious inundation, and a Judeo-Christian lens for most existential explanations growing up. That meant it felt, while freeing, a bit culture-shocky when I attended public high school and made friends who didn’t think that way. Also meant I was in for a bit of a metamorphosis as I encountered more and more new ideas that challenged the worldview established growing up.

The tipping point, funnily enough, was reading “A Dirty Job” by Christopher Moore. In summary, it’s about an average Joe that accidentally becomes responsible for ferrying souls, essentially, from one life to the next. It painted something reminiscent of a case for reincarnation, and had a very humanizing and personal (while hilarious) prism to it. But it stoked a bunch of questions I’d felt building the last couple of years.

Maybe…God…wasn’t. Wait, what? Maybe…this – this being life – isn’t structured as neatly as I thought. But if that hasn’t been right, then- but if not, then…what? Wait, what?

With the challenged worldview, I wasn’t given a thoroughly convincing new answer to replace the firm ones I’d known until then, only questions.

I didn’t call it this then, but it was a bit of a spiritual crisis. I felt a little cast adrift all of a sudden. And at seventeen, with proper adulthood and college around the corner, it came at a hell of a time. I had questions. A LOT of questions. Plus thoughts, theories, models trying to draw themselves in my brain, what felt like a forced but unsubstantiated new way to look at the world, and a lot else all competing for rank in my mind.

It. Drove. Me. Nuts.

For any other Avatar: The Last Airbender fans (which you should be, because it’s awesome), looking back on this is what gives me a greater appreciation for Zuko’s arc; specifically when he decides to help Aang rather than hunt him, and that identity/spiritual warring sends him into fever-stricken convulsions.

But while it’s tough, I think it’s an objectively beautiful part of the human experience.

Anyway, I felt insane for the better part of a week, at least. Stopped hanging out with friends, f**ked off my homework, the whole nine. Until one day, during my free fifth period, I went to the library and wrote it all down. I scratched out every thought that plagued me, every unanswerable question, every idea and model until my hand cramped. Then at the end of it, I set my pen down and instantly felt better, like someone had thrown a valve and the mental pressure just evaporated. I’d taken all the chaotic thoughts and questions, captured them, and sealed them in ink on paper.
And just, oh boy, I recommend it as a matter of good practice to anyone who finds or has found themselves feeling in similar straits.

Take care of yourself, you’s guys.

What Gorilla Nipples Have to Teach us About Consciousness

Yeah, another one of these, but I’ll keep it brief as I can.

If you’re reading this, then you’re on the internet; and if you’re on the internet, that probably means you can find a clip of two gorillas in a zoo enclosure hanging out together for the pleasure of onlookers. In this particular video, the gorillas are sitting there, minding their own business, chewing on stuff, when one of them suddenly reaches over and tweaks the other’s nipples. The assaulted gorilla briefly snarls, baring his teeth, and smacks the other gorilla’s hands away.

Then, the most beautiful thing happened: they started laughing hysterically.

These two massive, primitive jungle beasts were slapping their knees, laughing maniacally at the joke one had just played on the other. For one thing, obviously, it’s hilarious. Nipple jokes, stuff about butts, or pranks about peens will and should always be funny. But for another thing, it was- okay, a quick aside:

At the top, this will be a bit weird, but bear with me. We are, all of us, regardless of rank, station, occupation, status, wealth, or otherwise, human. We forget that a LOT of the time, but by and large we all come into this world the same way, and we’ll all leave it the same way too. I used to have a trick to remembering that where I would – God, please, again, bear with me for a moment – collect people’s farts.

And not in some weird way (*nervous laughter*) like in jars or something. It was at a company I worked for, basically an office job, and I started to notice some things. I’d go to the bathroom, be sitting in a stall doin’ business (Christ, I feel like I’ve mentioned bowel movements a lot lately. Sorry everyone.) and someone would walk in to step up to the urinal. I wouldn’t know who it was, but at that point in my life I was a nervous pooper, so I put a pause on my own business until the realm was wholly mine again. But it would be while looking down at the person’s shoes hearing the tinkle they were taking, that usually a heel would leave the ground and I’d hear them toot. Of course then they’d finish up and leave, but I found myself on the hunt the rest of the day trying to identify who it’d been that I’d just heard fart.

They weren’t those on the manufacturing floor, or working store rooms, or other factory folks. They were department heads, executives, Inner Circle types. And it was there in those moments of tooting in the social sanctuary of the men’s room that those barriers dissolved and we were just humans. Humans that both passed gas.

Which brings me back to the gorillas. In the same way that, once you strip away the titles, status, manufactured authority, and whatever else, we’re all just people who fart, the same logic applies to those gorillas. When someone’s nipples get tweaked, it’s funny as hell, and here I’m confronted by the fact that gorillas are the same way. It’s like finding out that the big hard-drinking biker guy standing next to you also really likes Hamilton, and you’re able to bond over that with him. If you’re similar in that way, how many others ways might you be kin?

“There but for the grace of God go I,” is supposed to elicit the humble realization that someone else in an unfortunate circumstance is the same as you, the only dividing factor being luck, basically. You…the conscious awareness behind your eyes, your thoughts…you could have been a gorilla. Could have been a dog, or a locust, or anything, but you wound up as a person. We just…we need to stop thinking we’re all so different. It’s dumb.

I don’t know what consciousness is. None of us really do. It’s somehow, simultaneously, the least understood and most mysterious force we have to observe in this life, while also being the most innate, familiar experience there is to be. It’s just…<groan> be it a gorilla, a songbird, or another person walking down the street, it’s a worthy reminder that we’re all just – for all our accomplishments, complications, and manufactured status – creatures trying to get by in our own jungles.

Anyway, all for now. Peace, y’all.

What Kitty Litter Taught Me About Life

There’s a meme I’ve seen floating around from the heartwarming, soul-crushing animated movie ‘Up.’ It features the main grumpy old man character when he’s young and enjoying life with his partner. They’re lying on the grass together smiling, and the text reads simply: “You never know the importance of a moment until it becomes a memory.”

Savor life the best you can, because you never quite realize the moments that make it until you’re looking at them in the rear-view. Sometimes you do. Sometimes you feel the memory being formed like a camera taking a snapshot. But the majority of times, you don’t quite have control over the moments that will stick with you.

This is one of those.

I was eleven years old, or thereabouts, hanging with my aunt, uncle, and other friends. Among those friends was one of theirs, a man in his early twenties at the time named Ian. Like a lot of conversations around the time of the “I CAN HAZ CHEEZBURGER?” zeitgeist, we were talking about cats. Being the insightful little bugger I am, I added the thoughtful question: “Why do cats poop in a box full of sand anyway?”

Without missing a single beat, Ian looks at me and ripostes: “Why do you poop in a bowl full of water?”

You see, by asking my question about a box full of sand, I was trying to imply that it wasn’t natural for a member of the animal kingdom to be defecating in that kind of environment. Ian’s sharp response informed me that I wasn’t paying nearly enough attention to my own circumstances to be criticizing where cats poop. Since then, it’s become sort of a watermark for measuring my own hypocrisy and making sure I come correct whenever I think to criticize or form opinions about the situations of others.

So-and-so may be kind of annoying when they bring every conversation back to their favorite topic, but before gossiping about that, make sure to check how smooth a conversationalist you are in your own right before going there.

It might seem obvious to you how irresponsible someone seems to be with their money, but it’s worth a double check at your own spending habits and circumstances before forming an opinion.

On and on the list goes, but the absurd fact of the matter that a comment about where cats take a shit taught me a life lesson that’s so far spanned seventeen years and counting should say something about the mysterious, wonderful workings of the universe.

“Kindly let me help you, or you’ll drown” said the monkey as it took the fish and put it safely up a tree. Just because we think we know what’s good for us – which we absolutely don’t always – it’s worth a second look before applying that kind of hubristic approach to others.

This nugget of enduring wisdom, again, brought to us by cats taking a crap.

The world is funny.

Why You Should Tip Big

I once heard somebody say, “Everyone needs to work a season of retail during the holidays so they know not to be disrespectful,” and I respectfully say, “F*ck that.”

Not because I don’t think people need better manners on the whole, mind. In fact, most definitely the opposite – all too common nowadays is it for people to feel insanely entitled – I just really don’t want to work a season of retail. Rather, I don’t want to work any retail, if I can help it, precisely for the above reason.

But that’s one of two occupations that experience a ton of entitled crap from a largely unforgiving public. The other, of course, being restaurant staff. (And yes, yes, before we go any farther, clearly there are other jobs that have to endure this too, but let’s focus here for today.) From complaints, to demands, to unreasonable privilege-seeking, Martha who grooms dogs or Bruce that manages a car lot seem to suddenly find a gem-crusted crown atop their domes the moment someone shows them to a booth at an Applebee’s.

And even setting those cultural, societal, (dumb) norms aside for the moment, working for damn-near free/”grovel wages” would be reason enough for the title. So yes, tip big if you find yourself able.

I tip between 20%-30% on average regardless of the bill for a number of reasons that will soon make painfully clear that those figures are in no way some sort of ‘humble brag.’ The first being that I can never remember what’s proper: Is it 15%? 18%? Is that with gratuity, or without? Was there a gratuity this time? I don’t want to leave 15% when 18% is the norm, and now that person thinks I’m stiffing, them or making a negative comment about their help, or something. So, if for other reason than laziness, err on the side of a touch more than a touch less.

Another shade to that reason too, actually, is embarrassment. Not at my powers of retention regarding customs, but at…hmm, expectation? Let me put it this way, if it’s Valentine’s Day and your classmate (pretend for a moment we’re in grade school, it makes the mental exercise work) gives you a Valentine’s Day card that states simply “Will you be my Valentine?” is that a sincere gesture, or just witnessing the fulfillment of a perceived obligation? Right? So if you’re given that card, it doesn’t say anything special and isn’t really even for you, it was just done out of tradition, but now you have to thank them or you’re the turd; but if you aren’t given a card, oof, well now you’ve been snubbed. Ouch.

But if you get a card from a classmate that goes a little above a beyond…? Oooo, that’s kind of sweet. That card has some hand-drawn glitter art? Got a little chocolate that comes with it? A personalized note? Oh, lawd, well now it’s kind of touching.

I don’t see how tipping is really all that different in form from the above situation with Valentine’s Day cards. It’s a win-win, too. If the service was great, the bonus tip sends the message, “Hey, you there, for real, thanks for taking care of me today.” And even if the service was awful and the person was kind of a butthole about the whole thing, you leave with the satisfaction that that person is probably going, “Aw, jeez. Well now don’t I feel like a rube…”

Moral victory secured.

But really, even all of that is just because I enjoy crafting a torturously long wind-up to my real point. And what I really draw from when I press this, is the following experience.

There was a time I went out to lunch with a friend (shocking, I know – I have FRIENDS), and I covered the bill. My memory’s a little fuzzy on who it was with, I don’t quite remember where we went, what we ate, or even clearly how many years ago this was, but I do very clearly remember what happened as we were leaving. I left a pretty sizable tip for all the above reasons (maybe closer to 30-35% this time; I was doing alright), and did so in cash just because it was what I had on me. As we were walking to the door, the fellow who’d served us ran interception and asked me if I’d made a mistake. Honestly perplexed, I just raised an eyebrow, smiled, and said, “No. No mistake, that’s yours.”

Now, there were no tears. No heart-pouring tales of hard times. But there was an indescribable look in his eyes that I didn’t know at the time I would one day understand intimately well. On the surface, he was just really grateful, and a bit surprised, so I took it that way. It was nice. Put a pep in my step, and I got to be That Guy (the good kind, not the bad kind) to somebody that day.

Fast forward a few years to Fall 2019, life’s gotten pretty hard. I’d left my job somewhat ambitiously only to wind up pouring most of myself and my worldly goods into a family emergency (Don’t regret it, do it again in a heartbeat only smarter), dropped classes I’d promised myself I’d finish that semester, had maxed out credit cards, and had $1.63 in my checking account…

It was rough.

I had a job lined up, but it didn’t start for another week. So I was taking a walk to a local deli, and I was going to put that last dollar and sixty-three cents to work (technically, I also had a paper dollar and two quarters in my pocket, as there’s a debit card minimum set above $1.63 at most places) on a cheap roll and a mini cup of salad dressing, which I knew to be a $1.25 in total. I get to the counter, and I guess prices had gone up, because the register rings me in at $1.89.

I stare at the numbers. My stomach drops out, anxiety and embarrassment prickle my scalp in turns, and I start muttering to myself about how it’s okay, I’ll just put the cup of dressing back. The fellow behind the counter waves it off after a moment with a smile. “You’re in here all the time,” he jokes. “Let me cover this one.” He presses a button on the machine and the balance goes to $0.00. I don’t know precisely how I must have looked to him, but in that moment it occurred to me with a painful lucidity that I must be giving him the same stare that waiter had given me years back. I choked out the same, whispered “Thank you.”

I barely made it to the door before I was bawling my eyes out.

So there you have it. You never know where someone’s at, and there’s no risk in being kind. Not just nice, but kind. Really, it’s a “There but for the grace of God go I” type of tale, a reminder to be kind in all those ways that can help even if you aren’t around to see it and it costs you next to nothing, because you could very well at some point wind up desperately grateful to be on the receiving end of a token like that.

Throw in that extra two bucks, Money Bags. You could make someone’s day, or leave an impact so deep and meaningful someone will preach about it online years later.

Ciao, everybody.

Life, Death, Redemption, and Cute Little Birdies

Hey all. On a trip, so gonna make this quick, but it weirdly came to mind as worthy of sharing.

I was on a job out in a rural part of the county a few months back. It was a big house up in the hills behind a winery, so it had a really nice view from the front deck we were working on. The house itself was shaped a bit like a horseshoe, and the whole inside curve of that shape was lined with floor-to-ceiling windows. It was cool.

Well, I’m walking along that path to get some tools from the truck when I look down and see a bird on the concrete walkway. It’s on its back, wings splayed, kind of contorted out of shaped. Aww, poor little guy, I think, and start looking around for a bush to set the remains in. It was pretty obvious he’d gotten ambushed by one of the windows, and speed plus little bird spine equals…well, this.

Then I get a little closer and see what I didn’t want to: little sharp, stuttering, haggard breaths.

“…Fuck,” was of course the next mental diagnosis of the situation. Now, rather than a dead bird, here I had one that was dying and very likely suffering from its injuries. Didn’t want to move it, for fear of scaring it and causing it to twist painfully with reflex. Couldn’t just leave it there, for fear of a coworker stepping on him, if not just the unsightliness (is that a word?) for the owner. Wanted to mercy-kill it, but all I really had on me that was appropriate was my framing hammer, and that would have been a bad look if the aforementioned owner came around right as I was dropping it on the little guy.

I asked my older coworker for advice on what to do, and his answer was something akin to, “Hmm…dunno. Sucks.” I came back by the bird, and by now the dog of the house was staring at it, salivating, on the other side of the glass. So I bucked up, knocked on the door, and told the owner – just hoping she wouldn’t let the hounds out to brutalize the little guy with ‘play time.’

She saw, laughed, totally agreed, and we figured we’d just try and leave the little guy in what peace he might find in his last minutes; knowing that around evening time, nature (or a cat) would take its course.

Eventually, I come back and find the bird sitting upright, and I’m shocked. That ruled out a broken back, far as I could tell. He sat up straight, but his head was a little off-kilter. Broken neck still, maybe? I think, and I approach him a little.
[By the way, I swear to God we got work done that day, even though this view may not make it seem like it. lol]
His eyes flittered in and out of sleep. He’d lean forward with the loss of consciousness, catch himself, and sit upright again, like he was dozing off. As I got closer, he regarded me with one of his eyes, but he could. Not. Give. A. Shit. That I was coming within inches of his person. His birdsman…ship?

That was a first. I don’t think I’d ever seen a little finch dealing with results from a concussion before.

Later on, a landscaping crew came by, and before I could warn them about the bird [Again, guys, serious about my job, I really was working on the deck as my primary interest of the day.] I saw that one of them had picked the little guy up and was lightly petting his back between the wings. Who am I to say he shouldn’t? So I just watched from afar and smiled at the sweet moment.

Towards the end of the day, I come ’round the bend doing a final clean up of the day [See? Working.], and I notice the bird was gone. I check the hedges nearby, seeing if he was set in the shade. Nothing. I asked the owner if the landscaper had moved him, and she told me that no, he’d pet it and put it right back where it was. Then I’m ’rounding the bend for the final time that day – and I swear to God this is true – I hear a single ‘tweet’ from above me on the roof.

Now, I’ll never know if that landscaper was actually a Mexican druid with healing abilities or not, but I’d like to imagine that the bird had just taken a massive hit to the dome, suffered a bad concussion, and just needed some time to shake the cobwebs out; and that that ‘tweet’ was some kind of, “Hey, buddy, thanks for not smashing me when you thought I was dead.”

Altogether, it was a tale of trial, hardship, patience, adversity, and the ability to rally and overcome, all wrapped up in a neat little quarter-ounce package with wings.

Pros and Cons – an analysis

The good thing about leaving a banana peel in your backpack over the weekend: Your backpack smells like banana.

The bad thing about leaving a banana peel in your backpack over the weekend: You have a banana peel in your backpack you forgot was there.

The ugly truth: This is how you learn lessons.

Keep being excellent to each other, everybody.

“Artificial”

Hey all, happy middle-of-the-week.

Growing up, in the war between Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, also known as the ‘Great Conflict of Sci-Fi Nerds and Fantasy Nerds of Forever,’ I always had my flag pitched pretty firmly in the camp for Fantasy Nerds. That’s right, you science nerds can suck it with your “lasers,” and your “spaceships,” and “anti-gravity-whateverthehell,” I’m over here with dragons, immortality, ethereal curses, and all the rest.

And even now at twenty-seven, I still do kind of hold that stance, but am waaaay more of a mercenary now than married to either side. My heart will always be with the art of High Fantasy, but I’ve come to see the love for science fiction a great deal and have really become a sucker for things like the cyberpunk genre (R.I.P. CD Projekt Red). Movies like Upgrade, Blade Runner 2049, Ex Machina, Ghost in the Shell, and to a lesser degree of genre, Arrival, Inception, and Tenet.

As it turns out, Sci-Fi is awesome.

Alright, I was writing something out, but then I began to notice all I was doing was spoiling the story here today, so I bumped it to the bottom. Without further adieu….

“Artificial”

April 6, 2034

This day…just…keeps coming back to me.

You’d just died maybe two months before, and I’m standing at your grave. The headstone your family got for you is nice, nobody seems to go out for real marble anymore. Others have been by and left flowers too, I guess. But you didn’t tell too many people you liked sunflowers best, natural ones. The synthetic daises under your name smell right, the petals even bruise if you press them, but they never wilt. And they don’t bob in the same way when the rain drops hit them either.

I want to stand in the rain because with you gone at least it would feel like I have someone to cry with. But of course Lucille’s right there with the umbrella.

“Are you cold?” she asks me.

“No,” I tell her.

“Are you sad?” she asks after a pause.

I almost laugh, but there doesn’t seem to be a point in it. “Yes. Of course.”

“Barry,” she says again. “May I ask you a personal question?”

“Shoot.”

“Are you afraid?”

It’s hard to say what it was, but the question stopped me. I had to swallow a lump in my throat before I found I could answer. “Of what?”

“Dying,” she says.

All I did was watch the rain break against the marble and run along the letters of your name. She’d struck a chord.

I want to tell her I am, but am also not. After all, you’d done it, so had everyone in history, so it can’t be that bad. I think of all sorts of reasons to be or not to be, but in the end all I say is, “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“May I ask you another personal question, Barry?”

I don’t say anything, but just nod.

“Are you afraid of me?”

This time I look at her, and she looks at me. It’s tough to say what it is – at first I think it might be because she looks like you – but I think instead it’s the way she looks at me. I look into her eyes and every second longer I do, I see something else. Her eyes aren’t steadfast, they flutter subtly, searchingly, minutely quivering like yours or mine. Her lips flex so slightly, the way they do when your teeth don’t touch and your jaw is uneasy, so subtle you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t locked in such an intimate moment with someone.

“It isn’t fair,” I say.

“What isn’t fair, Barry?” she asks.

“To be so unsure.”

And why shouldn’t I be? The small signals in her eyes, her face, her hands. The soft cues of inner feelings we all use, all wrestle with. Our emotional responses have outward signs, just because she’s different doesn’t mean they can’t come from the same place. And how is she so different, anyway? Because she has a production date? I have a birthday. She has a serial number? I’ve got a social. Because of her programming? I’m a creature of habit and education too, but that doesn’t mean I’m not a person beneath it all. And that “unique cipher” DigitalBio is so proud of each of their products having…

I look down at my hands and think of the countless times since androids were first announced that I’ve done that. The runic layout of our fingerprints, the ridges of those tiny lines, the creases in the palm – it’s hard to see how that’s really any different.

I look back at her and she looks at me. Just like you she’s beautiful. The way her hair rests on her shoulder, the way the blue of her eyes contrasts against the gray background, she reminds me of you a lot.

Two men walk past and I catch their sneers. “They let you bring that thing onto the grounds?” they mutter. Of course she hears them, I’m sure, but she won’t move.

1’s and 0’s. Plastic, carbon fiber, and alloys. A machine of intelligent design is what we’re supposed to see. Programmed responses, algorithms, protocols, functions, and nothing else. But why is it foolish to see more than that? Once upon a time, the animal kingdom was thoughtless and bereft of conscious intelligence, but look a little further and gorillas take up sign language, whales and dolphins speak, crows remember faces, elephants lament and mourn their dead – all just like we do. Hell, even mushrooms communicate with each other. It only took a small amount of respect to see humans aren’t as alone as we pride ourselves.

So why am I so unsure when I look at her? I’m standing there, in a city cemetery, and she just stands there looking back at me. I feel the first tears burn down the side of my face and I know exactly why: because I don’t know whether or not to feel alone there.

“Do you,” I say still wiping my face, “do you ever get that way?”

It would have stuck with me no matter what, but what really got me was that she didn’t answer straight away.

After a few seconds of silence, I look at her again and her eyes are in the grass. I see her squeeze the grip on the umbrella, barely, hardly perceptible but it’s there.

“Yes,” she says.

Arthur C. Clarke had this great quote once upon a time where he said, “Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe, or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.” He’d meant E.T.’s, I think, but here I was confronted by a one-word answer that scared me, relieved me, excited me, lifted an enormous weight off my shoulders, and settled a new one on them all at once. I’d never felt those words more heavily than I did in that moment. The rain began to pick up again and drum against the umbrella’s hood.

“Come on,” I say.

“Where are we going?”

“Let’s go get a coffee for starters. This talk should take a while.”

Maybe she’s more like you than I thought.

Funny thing since you named her, eh?

END

I’ve harped on it at length before, but the game Detroit: Become Human may have faults here and there, but I ultimately found it to be an incredible ride in narrative. The piece below (now above) started, I’m pretty sure, was born of inspiration from playing that game. It was a Mental Movie that featured a man and a woman in a hospital room, at first. The man would be older and sort of plain, looking sort of like Paul Giamatti, and the woman would be young, fair, and beautiful. She would be in the hospital bed, and he would be standing beside her, and all that would take place is a conversation about humanity. Slowly, it would unfold that one of them was an android while the other was human, and I felt the natural assumption would be that the woman would be the manufactured android, giving how beautiful she was, but in reality it would be the man – I don’t know, an attempt to show the separations of what we value, humanity, and how those things influence our assumptions while at the same time being intrinsically linked. Then, one morning, I sat down, slapped some keys, and we got the above little piece.

Anyway, something to think about, maybe.

Til next time.

Random Thought

Mmm, yeah, we have time for this- oh! And to clarify, not “random” to me, exactly. What I’m about to thought-vomit on is a topic I’ve spent a weird amount of time fixating on every now and again; but I should be random to you.

If it’s not, then, well, that has certain…I guess, existential implications to it. Or we’re just on the same psychic wavelength, which I guess is always possible given how many people there are in the world- Anyway!

Do me a favor and look at your hands. Palms flat, fingers extended and straight. First off, take a moment to note any scars, callouses, wrinkles, and so forth. They’re all kind of a cool road map of your history, what you’ve done with these two little collections of meat tentacles.

But the reason we’re here today, look at your fingerprints. Not even actually caring about how unique they are to every person, have you ever noticed how, if you stare at them long enough, you can start to see the ways in which those tiny grooves are almost runic? Just, the texture of the skin on your palm and fingers has a pattern like stylish filigree. And to the smart guy out there who’s maybe googled “where fingerprints come from” or whatever: 1) I haven’t, and 2) that’s not the point, really.

At the end of the day, I like to think of the pattern’s presence as a little reminder that we’re all works of art, and that’s a trait we all share.

I guess, unless you’re a spy or something and have had your fingerprints smoothed over for work. But I think we should agree that’s pretty unique.

Anyway, something to chew on. Happy weekend, y’all.

Ciao.

Path of Paine

Wow, hi guys!

Can I lead up at the top that I appreciate you? Whoever you are, though I don’t know your name, your voice, your favorite food, or whether you prefer high-five’s or fist-bumps – I think you’re pretty great.

Out in California, right now we’re all collectively preparing for fire season. Mostly that means expecting power outages, preparing (at least mentally) go-bags we can quickly pack or grab in the event of an evacuation, and taking stock of what things are important enough to warrant inventory space and which might need to be committed to flames (worse case scenario, obviously).

Most of us have an idea of what we’d bring, and what that does is highlight what matters to us. It also usually highlights how many things of ours are…just things. And when that happens, it leads to a deeper appreciation for what we have. This could lead into a never-ending rant about how Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and how I think it suffers the incredible irony of being severely underappreciated whilst getting crushed under the stampeding boots of Christmas shoppers- BUT we’ll leave that for another day.

In a largely roundabout way, what I mean to center on is that it’s a common thing for most go-bags to include a small stack of a person’s favorite books. Now, while fiction is my first love, and my treasured collection of Witcher novels would need to be pried out of my cold, dead hands, another that would need to come with me is Thomas Paine’s “Age of Reason.”

Enormously controversial in its day, I’m sure it could still be seen that way nowadays. In short, Paine describes it simply as his thoughts on religion. No wonder why then, in the mid-eighteenth century, the book landed him in some pretty hot water (and, actually, totally in jail). The second half of the book was written from prison, and it’s essentially his dissection of the Bible and the reasons why, in his view, it’s complete cockamamie nonsense.

I don’t love it for its second half. I love it for the first half.

The first sixty-eight pages (of my edition, anyway) are Paine outlining his own personal form of Deism – deism being a viewpoint that sees the universe as having a supreme, creating intelligence, but one that is separate from and does not intervene in the material world (Creation).

And while I want to, I’m not going to quote anything here – because I insist you read it yourself (found easily enough as a pdf right here —> Here!); and if you do, scroll down to pages thirty-three and thirty-four to get a taste of the root of his outlook.

In brief, he doesn’t see God necessarily as being a big bald-headed man in the clouds with a big floofy beard. Whatever name you want to give the force greater than understanding, more universal and common but as mysterious as consciousness itself, doesn’t matter so much.

But what is important is that the worship is in seeing. It’s in listening. In feeling. In smelling. In tasting. Taking in the world around us, trying to comprehend it, but above that – appreciating it.

Not to get too ‘woo-woo’ on us, but do you ever take a moment to recognize that you exist?

Just the fact that you, the awareness behind the eyes, inside the body, and behind the thoughts of whoever you are – are real. For no discernible point or purpose, from a mysterious some-say-unknowable origin, as a cosmic phenomenon…you exist. AND you’re able to contemplate that fact. Cogito, ergo sum, after all.

Worship is in appreciating what’s in front of you. What’s in you. What’s happened, or all the unknowable things that will happen. All of the heart-breakingly beautiful shapes and creatures on the planet, or those things our astronomers have shown us out in the cosmos.

It’s such a warping thought to know it’s so large that to even try comprehending the full breadth of it is unimaginable from the start.

Anyway, I’m feeling lost in the weeds now. We’re FULL rant. But…gah, things to think about right?

TL;DR – I appreciate you, things are awesome, good to think on that sometimes, woo-woo.

See you guys next time.