Drama, venti
Sunday morning. After a couple days of playing soccer and catching rays at the beach, Ned's gone back to the city of angels, where the streets are paved with stars, and people of unswerving integrity flick lit cigarettes out of moving Humvees.
My eyes open against the morning sun, and a mental tally starts, ticking off the number of my close friends that still live nearby. Just as it has for several weeks, the tally zeroes out. I'm left staring up at the ceiling over my futon, shifting with a vague feeling of unease at the long, vacant stretch of daylight ahead of me... and also a pressing need to pee.
Carpe diem? I wouldn't even know where to start.
I remember my anticipatory whining about this very moment to Ned, not long before his departure on Saturday. He said I should I hit up a coffee shop, which seems as reasonable a suggestion as any. I roll out of bed, wash up, and walk over to the bookstore. Straight off, the day starts looking up. A rack full of Nick Hornby's new book, A Long Way Down, greets me at the doorway. I don't even have to browse the shelves after that; the rest of my day's been spoken for. A little swipe of debt switches a few bytes in my bank account, and I walk out the door 333 pages richer.
Conveniently located next door to the bookstore is a Starbucks, simultaneously a symbol of corporate greed and a welcome haven. I remember, in a fit of snobbery, hearing on NPR that their coffee isn't even any good. People go there for three reasons. First, they know what they're going to get. Second, cream. Third, sugar.
Then I remember that I don't know anything about coffee anyway, so I go in and get a small iced coffee, with some cream and sugar. I eagerly head for the tables outside to crack the spine on my book.
On my way out, I notice a couple seated by the counter. They might be about my age, although I find it ridiculously hard to tell ages these days. They have oversized plastic cups, filled with that blend of ice, coffee, cream, and sugar that triggers all my Pavlovian impulses. The man slouches in his seat, sucking on his straw with an elaborate, practiced nonchalance that makes me wonder how long he's been trying to play cool. The woman opposite him is sitting ramrod straight. She's tapping a foot, toying with her straw in one hand and flipping a pack of cigarettes in the other. She's wearing sunglasses, but they've slipped a little, and I can see her eyes floating around the room.
Just another caffeine junkie working off a hangover, I guess. I push through the door and claim a table in the sun, eagerly folding pages and sipping cold coffee.
About fifteen pages later, the door coughs up Rico Suave and his sidekick, Jitterella. They still have their drinks in hand, and promptly flop down at the table next to mine. She lights up, giving me the reason for their migration, and blows an impressive cloud of smoke, giving me a reason for one of my own. I switch to a table upwind. She burns through a cancer stick with impressive speed, and lights up another. Halfway through this one, she starts talking intensely to Rico.
"I don't think this is going to work out."
My fellow Frappuccinistas and I, who were -- up until two seconds ago -- enjoying a peaceful early afternoon tinged with caffeine and sunlight, freeze for a split second. An ice cube shivers its way down our collective spine because, although we are strangers, in this crystallized moment we've become that most uncomfortable of beasts: the Social Audience. Trapped between a sense of propriety and morbid curiosity, the beast can do nothing but sit still and observe, hating itself a little bit more for every moment it exists.
Normal motion resumes, more or less, but I can practically hear popping sounds as ears prick up all around me. I give thanks to the good folks at Oakley, who put the mirror finish on my sunglasses. Due to their hard work and dedication, I can pretty much eyeball any social street theater with impunity.
Rico's mouth is slightly open, a little bit of whipped cream drooling its way down his chin.
"What?" His hand scrubs away the whipped cream suddenly, like a snake striking at a rare treat.
"I don't think this is gonna work out. I'm sorry, I really am." Jitterella ashes her cigarette onto the sidewalk, but there's no grey showing; she just needs a manual full stop.
Some more conversation ensues, of the stunned, circular type that should be familiar to anyone who's gone through an awkward breakup (or seen one on TV). It comes out that she's been dating two guys at once, and Rico just couldn't compete. It never degenerates into open anger or tears, for which I must salute him; I don't know if I could have gone through what he did that day, without a hearty "shit" or "fuck" thrown in for karmic balance. Eventually, a couple cigarettes and zero pages later, Rico stands up from the table.
"Just tell me one thing... what does he have that I don't?"
Jitterella is obviously tired of talking to him. Twin jets of smoke stream past lips pressed to a thin line, and she squints up at him against the sun.
"Me."
Rico's face tightens, then he turns and walks away. He seems limp and empty, a balloon with a slow leak. He crosses his arms as he wanders away from us, but it just looks like he's trying to hug himself.
She sits there for a minute or so before crushing out her cigarette. Geting up smoothly, she strides away with poise, head high and shoulders back. As we watch her disappear around the corner, I hear a single word.
"Bitch."
I'm just surprised it isn't my voice.
Reading list
Picked up two books today:
What should I Do With My Life by Po Bronson.
This isn't a hokey self-help book, though arguably I should probably get one of those, too. It's a collection of stories about people who went searching for their "destiny," or their destiny found them, or they somehow lost track of it as they were living their lives. I was just walking past one of those center stacks at the bookstore, and the cover jumped out at me. The first few pages really drew me in, and... here's the kicker... it was marked down to $7 from $24! It's well written, and within the first four or five stories, I've cracked a few smiles and gotten a little choked up. Not with emotion, though... I'm way too macho for that. I was choking on, uh... beer. Boo ya!
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult.
Sounds like a really interesting concept, and the first few pages had a lively tone to them. If it's any good, you'll probably hear more about it in a little while.
Oh yes, and I recently finished reading A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby. Purnima, I gotta thank you again for getting me to read Hornby's books. There are a select few authors whose books I keep an eye out for in the New Releases section every time I hit up the store, and he's now one of them.
Not Donne Yet
I apologize for the unreasonable amount of introspection that's about to hit you. The kava's wearing off, I guess. Also be forewarned, there's no real point to the following, just some late-night navel gazing, accompanied by a glass that is neither half full nor half empty.
"No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main."
John Donne, Meditation XVII
John Donne was wrong, as are all the people who've (mis)quoted him over the years. There are men... and women... who are islands, entire of themselves. More popularly, they are islands unto themselves. The issue is not whether these men and women can be disconnected to others about them. The problem is that such people are, and forever will be, only who they are, and nothing else.
Who they (and therefore, we) are, essentially, are bags of liquids and minerals. Blank slates. Unfulfilled potential. This is not a bad thing. In fact, it's incredible, considering all the various bags of liquids and minerals that can't walk, talk, or quote other, long-dehydrated bags of liquids and minerals in angsty ways on the internet.
However, it's not necessarily a good thing, either. Here comes the raving.
A human being; that is, an individual physical specimen of homo sapien sapiens, by him or herself, cannot be "human" in anything other than a purely scientific sense. Imagine that you are the wisest, most brilliant, and most spiritual human being in the world, and you generate the most mind-blowing artwork/philosophy/invention ever. Now imagine that nothing, and no-one, will ever know or appreciate what you've created, or that you ever were. Note that this is an atheistic hypothetical... there's no omniscient checking out your guitar riff, theory of life, or Atomic Port-a-Potty. So... what are you?
Nothing. This is not a question of credit. It doesn't matter if people know it was you who created this thing. What matters is that nobody will ever see the proof of your existence, or know your story. The question is not whether you existed or not, because in a physical and temporal sense, yes, you did. The question is, whether you mattered.
In the hypothetical above? Not a whit.
In the average person's everyday life? Absolutely. We work, we play, we live and love. We touch lives as easily as sunlight hits our face when we step outside so the dog can scrub his ass on the neighbor's lawn. We are given purpose and meaning by our friends, our family, or that homeless guy who got a couple bucks from us.
The point: we are defined by the lives we move, and how we move them. If there is no-one for me to affect (or, realistically, if I have no meaningful effect on those that I can), then there is, for all practical intents and purposes, no me.
As a corollary, if I am granted the time, ability, and means with which to move lives positively, and I fail to do so... what kind of existence am I leading?
That's the kind of question I ask myself when I get into these moods. I might as well get an eyebrow piercing and black lipstick.
I know this is not exactly original thought. This probably treads pretty close (for or against) to a lot of established philosophy, but I'm not nearly well-read enough to know how closely. One marginally relevant example off the top of my head:
- Cogito, ergo sum.
From Descartes, this is pretty simple. I think, therefore I am. In a pure sense, this is absolutely true. If there is something or someone to think that thought, then by definition they exist. In a larger sense, however, this is patently false, and also incredibly egotistical. "I think, therefore I am" only applies, in the pure sense, to the inside of your own head. While, in an arguably valid sense, the entire universe exists nowhere but inside your head, I prefer to think in less radical terms. The man sitting next to you on the bus doesn't know what you're thinking, if anything at all. For all he knows, it's just white noise (or, worse, this show) in there. Therefore, "I think, therefore I am" becomes useless except in the context of French philosophers, laying in bed alone with the sheets drawn up to their chins.
For the purposes of wider application, I might suggest: I matter, therefore I am. I don't know enough Latin to do a proper translation, so let's say... uh... Coitus, ergo cum laude. It won't get you anywhere in philosophy, but it might get a snicker out of your PHIL1A prof, provided he or she ate a lot of paste in art class. Me, I feel dumber just from having written that down. Der.....
Translations aside, the point remains. As long as you are relevant, as long are you are important in some way to something or someone, then you are. The moment you have no importance or relation to anything or anyone other than yourself, then you have ceased to exist in any meaningful way. I haven't worked out how you can be important to a thing yet, so don't ask to buy my Import-a-Matic (only 3 easy payments of $39.99). People did buy Pet Rocks, though. Hmmm....
There's a similar school of thought pertaining to deities. Basically, the gods of the universe are created through belief, and are sustained by it. Zapping the occasional rival temple with a lightning bolt, or granting some schlub in the countryside a three-headed dong... key, is just a way of keeping the believers in line. As believers stop believing, the gods get progressively weaker, until finally, they're playing metaphysical banjos in the woods while Jon Voigt is giving Burt Reynolds a bikini wax on a rubber raft in the 5th dimension.
Yeah, I never did manage to see all of that movie.