20041110   

Michael considered fate at 20:35   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment

A year and some time ago I wrote about a movie I'd seen where a man described the door test:

First date, you take her out. You go to her house and pick her up in your car. When you get there, make sure to lock both doors. Bring her up to the car and use the key to unlock her side and let her in.. Then walk around the back end of the car. Pause at the back and look through the rear window. If she reaches across and unlocks your side for you, she's a keeper. If she doesn't, she's too self-absorbed and you need to dump her right away.. if she doesn't unlock your side you're just seeing the tip of the iceberg and you need to get rid of her ASAP.

And hell if I'm not old fashioned but I still sorta buy that. In fact not sort of, I do buy it. It's something about the fact that they're paying attention, more than anything. It says to me that self-absorbtion isn't the end all be all and that other people might be important, somehow. God forbid, but that sorta makes me feel good, thinking someone else might be thinking about the rest of the world for once instead of just themselves.

thinking ahead.

you know, that future talk stuff.

Not back on it cause I'm still on it. Now is now and it's great, fun, but fleeting folks. The future does have some worth, afterall.. in whatever incarnation it might come in.

I think that might be the crux of the matter altogether. If you can't see the future, can't understand it's exact implications, than it must not exist.. it must not have worth or, at the very least, it ain't worth thinking about. Clearly this isn't a universal approach but I know enough people with some big chunks of credit card debt to know that the future isn't always consideration numero uno on people's "worry" list.

So what, huh? So people have a little credit card debt and so they're committing adultery now and fuck the future and so what if they're sitting on the couch ignoring their work watching some daytime tv - it'll come out in the wash, no? Maybe.. but to me, this future, it's the bane of my existence. Like a plague on my soul that eats away at the very fibers of my being.

As the future eats away at me the past doesn't even seem a worry, like it is for most people. What's done is done and that, to me, is a comforting thought. Not like the impending, looming, dark future. Future, you see, is all you've got. It's all I've got. It'd be a swell thought to think Now is all you have and sure, it's the only place you'll ever be.. now... now... now.. see? But that thin string attaching you to space, making sense of it all, it's like your whole being, this string.. and you can try to look down that string to find the end of it but it just goes on, out into space, for as long as the eye can see. You can look backwards, into the past, but it doesn't go anywhere - it's a big ball of string being rolled up behind you, getting bigger and bigger as you slide down this string.. Like some nightmare where the boulder gets closer and closer as you race down the mountain.

But it's the future, that forwardness of things, that's all you've really got.

If you're not going forward than you're not going anywhere because that big ball of past is sitting right there on top of you and, though it may be comfortable to crawl up into and enjoy the warmth of it, it's not getting you anywhere. The best you can do, really, is embrace that thin string - made from the fabric of space somehow, woven from supernovas and strings of vibrating energy - embrace it as you would the hand of God reaching over the brink to pull you out of the abyss?

Fack it. Ain't nobody, it would seem, is paying much attention to this string, this rope, cause look - we re-elected Bush. Look, we're just covering, cowering, climbing further into that warm ball of string. Reactionary, really. Ignore the problems or, if that doesn't work, nuke 'em. It's the new cold war, this "Terrorism" and don't think for a moment that it's not just the same thing - a poor excuse for the rich to get rich, the contractors to get fatter, and the military to get bigger. and bigger. and bigger.

Does anyone remember an old guy named Reagan? He played in a movie with some monkey, once, I think. Anyhow, I remember him for something else. I remember him trickling down military spending. I remember him loving Star Wars. I remember, vaguely, something called the Iran-Contra Scandal.

History repeats itself and why not? It's all we've got, this big ball of string. We're used to it. We're fucking James and the Giant peach hiding up in there in the cored out middle, poking our heads out now and again as if it mattered where our ball of string was going. As if, gosh, the future might matter. As if we might have some chance? Some sense of control? Some sense of planning ahead? Oh, heck no. Stick yer head back down in there, you're missing The Simple Life. You're missing Crossfire and Oprah and you're missing Ellen, too. You're missing Guiding Light and crap, you think the future matters? We'll just do it all like we did before, no worries mate. Just carry on.

Star Wars. Hyuck. A man before his time, really. If you think for a moment that Star Wars might not happen - the satellite system, in some form or another, not the movies - well, hyuck to you I say.

I dunno.. I don't really have a lotta time to be wasting on terrorists and Star Wars and old dead guys named Reagan. Not really. What I have time for is the future here in front of me, the one that involves some girl who unlocks doors for people. Fuck, call me a romantic. Call me a sap. Call me ludicris or hopeless. Call me what you will..

You, you just keep watching that TV.. you watch out for terrorist attacks and the end of the world and, well, you be sure to let me know if it happens, mmkay?