18

I steal my friends clothes because I think it is like wearing their skin. Not in a creepy texsas-chainsaw-massacre sort of way. But in a kind of fitted shelter sort of way. I am them, I am in their costume. I am holding their essence. Sometimes it is good to know that your people are close to you. I don’t know why I feel deeply about this, but I do. I used to steal my best friend’s clothes. My wardrobe is a litany of my exes old t-shirts, Christmas gifts, souvenirs from other people’s trips and other heavily worn things that I have accrued with a story. My outerwear is always my own though. And I appreciate outerwear, though I never really have the need to wear it. My form of manifestation I don’t even understand. I’m not really sure whether things are falling into place or I am forcing them into place with my mind. It happens gradually. I am open to anything, I am usually up for anything, and I try to be cool. (“try” being the operative word) But the reality I am in, I can never be necessarily sure. In my way, I think that a man’s outerwear is a concept of speaking without speaking. There are millions of these kinds of things. The kind of car you drive. The pattern of your speech or lack thereof. The world seems to be subconsciously governed by millions of little nuanced things that subconsciously shape our world. And in no small part, this has some merit. It basically governs why we change jobs or break up with our significant others. It probably has everything to do with our sexual identities, and in just a practical sense it seems a little too redundant to simply say ‘all of the light is moving at the speed of light.’ But, it is. And as fast as you can see my outerwear the faster I can fail to make a sexual impulse trigger in your brain and we will be on our way. Because if one really got to know me I am that asshole friend that makes your shirts disappear. This for me is a tricky subject like winning in cards or hitting targets with objects; at what point are we creating our own destiny and at what point are we just fantasizing about it? If I think about this document as I am typing it, beginning to question its real value to anyone or anything I begin to diminish, if ever so gently, the urge to continue writing it. Vice-versa if I imagine this to be a masterpiece of the utmost philosophy, myself collecting accolades at a podium while colorful petals are flittering through the air, adoring crowds face me lavishing me in their applause; and I accept it all, graciously taking in the magnitude of the moment whilst donned in the perfect coat. The inception of an idea is a powerful thing. And yet our brains operate in such a way that they are almost conditioned to filter things out. Important things. Extensively. One of the things that I wrestle with often is how alarmingly unconvinced I am. I am unconvinced that what things mean is a permanent state. The Victorian era came to an end and so too shall the industrial revolution. We won’t regress. But the concept will seem outdated and analog. We will overcome it, most likely without (too much) violence. But this has become full-circle for me, the concept of ‘Unconvinced’ means that I will drive a car without a valid license with completely bullshit tags, without a license, without working tail lights, after drinking… I made it home fine. I eliminated all the other thought possibilities until the only thing left was the inevitable. I feel like life is like this, we determine our own journey based on the cards we’re dealt, and we modify our probabilities continually and often subconsciously. I think this is because in the subconscious realm of our being things are; in their way, analog. I also think that this ‘realm’ of things is purely based on one’s own emergent perspective. Which I find endearing in a strange way; the more we seek to perceive the more we are able to perceive in turn. As if we are granted more consciousness for our desires. This, in turns makes me question the nature of consciousness. Are we just the biological and psychological legacy of our precedents desires? We are but the psychological echo seeking to imprint its legacy on time.

17

“… Its like your hands are filled with gravel. and your trying to use them to help everyone. And you can’t because they’re full, struggling with some burden that nobody else can touch. But listen, don’t you think for a second that you can’t ask any of us to help you carry some of those pebbles, sure we can’t carry them all, or even very many of them, but we can help you lift the burden; so that it frees your hands to do the things that you’re designed to do. We’re all more than willing to help carry some of the weight –just let us know how.”

there is no spoon