being in me, a dialogue of inner voices
"what do you do?"
"uhhhm..." groupie, slacker, parasite, consultant, prostitute, communicator, i draw breath, amuser, thinker, author, beloved.
"...not much." or maybe: "things."
"so you just take and don't give any company your time, or your brain, no one anywhere is making money off you? no one is drawing on your energy to build something distant from you?"
"and you're ok with that?"
"usually not, but i wish i was."
"what if everybody decided to do nothing like you?"
"i've not asked anyone to live my life! it's enough work not to hear how other people live theirs as a condemnation of my own. actually, it's one of the hardest bits of my life.
"ok, but the question stands: what would happen if everyone did nothing like you?"
"i guess a lot of people would do things they talked about doing and things they never imagined doing and i guess they would take a lot of time to think and talk and be really scared. and they would take time to be paralyzed and confused, and much of the time they would talk to themselves. i guess that's what would happen if they did nothing the way i do nothing, because that is a fair summation of the nothing i do."
"so what contribution do you make? what justification do you have for being here?"
"i don't know what contribution i make. thing is, i'm never going to know, am i? i can always make my life out to have been more or less worthwhile, but if something outside me counts, chances are i won't know what that is until too late. i also have no justification. i have faith that it's better to be here than not, and that's it. the rest i know i'm just making up from there."
"but you haven't achieved anything! there's all these people out there everyday, doing things and achieving things, how do you compare to them?"
"i don't, at least i try not to."
"you're enjoying yourself, aren't you?"
"yes, so much that i feel bad about it. i don't see how i could ever repay the universe for the incredible time i'm having. my life is everything i prayed that it would be, interesting and difficult beyond my imagination. i see this world as unendingly full of beauty and surprise, in absolutely everything.. in a leaf, in a bomb exploding, in vomit, in wounds and in healing, in art... i see it screaming at me from every side, and i see that it's all put there to be watched carefully and played with by me. and i stuff that because hardly anyone else sees it that way, or maybe they do, but no one talks about it. so maybe i'm scared to talk about it too. except with you. since you asked and all."
"but what about all the work that goes into making all the things you're busy enjoying? if everyone lived the way you do, doing nothing but concentrating and enjoying themselves would we do the do's and make the things you are having so much fun with?"
"we would do them, but we would do them deliberately."
"could anyone enjoy them, doing them deliberately?"
"there is no other way to do so."
{-q-}