In the Middle of Everywhere.

Sometimes I just need the lights off.  I fit better in the dark.  I like the room illuminated by nothing but the harsh glow of my computer screen in front of me.  I like seeing the wisps of smoke from my stick of incense occasionally wafting in front of my eyes.

Many years ago at a party I was introduced to scotch with water.  All of my drinking buddies and alcoholic friends tell me unanimously that this is the "pussy way" to drink it.  They're probably right.  I don't really drink much at all anyways so it doesn't matter to me in the long run. It felt nice, made me warm, and didn't burn going down.  Some would say the burn is the point.  Maybe it is. I don't like the burn, so fuck it.  I'll take it smooth.

Except I have no scotch with me, so its all a moot point.  I'm just thinking in this moment that I'd kinda like that.

That's just it though.  In this moment there are a few things I can think of that I'd like, that I don't have.  None of these things are material.  None of them are possessions.  None of them are tangible.  None of them are here.  So I think about that scotch with water, and keep dreaming.

"To die.  To sleep.  To sleep perchance to dream.  For in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause."  (I think that's how it goes, but I'm too lazy to actually go look it up.)

I have never, not once, not a single time in my life had a dream that contained nudity.  For someone who makes so many naked jokes, and lives as much that way as convention will allow, this seems kind of strange.  I also can't fly in my dreams.  I cannot commit murder.  I've tried, but the people always remain alive.  I can't read in my dreams.  I can never remember my lines when I'm on stage in my dreams, and if someone is delivering a message to me, I will never, ever receive it.

I can however slam dunk a basketball, and breathe underwater.

Of all my little recurring themes I like that one the best.  It always starts out so terrifying.  I'm underwater, and drowning.  I feel the pressure.  The burn in my lungs.  I feel everything collapse.  I feel blackness wrap around me.  In the deepest moment of panic, I just tell myself...its okay.  Just breathe.  And then I do.  The pressure lifts, the light returns, and I can see everything.  I always feel so happy in that moment.  When the air comes back.  I'm beneath the surface of some raging sea, but inside I am calm.  I can move.  I can explore.  I can breathe...only because I told myself I could.

In my dreams, I can accomplish the impossible, simply by telling myself I can.

"We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little lives are rounded by a sleep."  (I think that's how it goes, but I' too lazy to actually go look it up.)

Sometimes I feel in waking life, like I am underwater.  I try to communicate, but the words come out muddled.  I have so many things to say, but if I open my mouth it is instantly filled with silence.  Everything looks just quite not right.  As though light refracted bends the reality to something grotesque.  Not quite the way it should be.

On ancient mariners maps, where seas were untraveled or undiscovered, the mapmakers simply drew pictures of large scaly sea-creatures and wrote the words, "Beware all who enter, for here there be monsters."

In the English translation of Dante's Inferno, the sign over the doorway to hell reads, "All hope abandon ye who enter here."

Jean Paul Sartre informs us that "Hell is other people."

I have spent a large part of my life trying to ignore the apparent and congruent truism of these statements.

I feel overwhelmed by the pressure of existence.  So much of it.  Everywhere.  And that's just my little speck of minutiae.  The world is a big place.  The solar system even bigger.  The galaxy unimaginable, and the universe...well...its just so much stuff.  And even more
and even more
and even more
nothing at all.

Here there be monsters.

In my entire life, I will encounter such a small percentage of the everything, that I may as well not encounter anything at all, and even that much seems sometimes like so much.  Like too much.

Unless I have my lines and blocking, I will virtually shut down in large groups of people.  And this large group of people is less than one percent of one percent of one percent of a fraction of a millionth of one percent of all the people there are or ever have been.

I am, in the grand scheme of nothings, so incredibly insignificant.  And yet...to me...I am the most significant thing there is.  My brain chases its own tail.  I am consumed.  I can't fathom the vastness.  I can't imagine all the imaginings.  All the stories.  All the passions, and drives.  I can't comprehend the lies, and truths, and cheating and plotting, and planning, and preparing, and ridiculousness of cleverness that is always happening right next to me at any given second.

Every single person next to me, any given instant, is in pain.  Is happy.  Is sad.  Is getting over a loss.  Is preparing for something new.  Is in love.  Is in hate.  Is thinking about something that is more important to them, than it is to anyone else, and they can't comprehend how it wouldn't be important to everyone else they meet.

Every single person next to me, any given instant, is hungry.  Is full.  Is celebrating a birthday, an anniversary, a job promotion, a wedding, or a divorce.  They are praying, or thinking that prayer is ridiculous.  They have to pee.  They have a funny taste in their mouth.  They are secretly worried about that cough that just won't go away.

Every single person next to me, any given instant, is missing somebody.  Is with somebody.  Is with an old friend, or making a new one.  Is thinking about what to say when they see someone.  Preparing the lie.  Preparing the seduction.  Preparing the apology.  Preparing the sales pitch.

And for some reason.  Some reason I can't understand...  I'm always aware of all of this.  I can't stop being there inside my imagination, inside their lives.  I can't not be overwhelmed by how incredibly meaningless every single bit of it is, and yet...

How really
Honestly...
Its well...

The most important thing in the world.

And just when its all about to crush me.  When the light is going out.  When my brain can't take any more of it...  That's when it happens.

I just tell myself...

Breathe.

And I do.  I remember that I can, and that all that stuff happening on the surface is exactly how its supposed to be.  That this reckless life is beyond comprehension.

It is all of those completely unrelated parts, that make up the whole.  That make it all so goddamned spectacular.  That as different as all of it is, as completely pointless from one person to the next...its all
all
all
the same fucking thing.
 And I realize

In my waking life, I can accomplish the impossible, simply by telling myself I can.