Two Hundred and Seventy Three

I’ve had two dreams since I spoke with Justin.  One would be remarkable enough, because I almost never dream now.

In the first dream, Justin was a monster from a Maurice Sendak children’s book.  He didn’t seem to be in the second, but there was someone in it like him—someone I hadn’t seen in years, and barely remembered—who telephoned me and asked me to join him on a cross-country road trip.

In the dream I speculated why he had chosen me, because we had never been friends.  But I’m friendly with everyone, or try to be; and often people without many, or any, real friends attempted to turn our relationship into a friendship, or something more.

Most people don’t have many, or any, real friends or real lovers, and settle for sex because they can’t find love.

I used to hear them crying out in my dreams, like souls in Hell; but I almost never dream now. 

Two Hundred and Seventy Two

Should I write about this?  Should I examine—no, dissect—my only remaining relationship?  Why not?  What else have I got to do?

Yesterday Justin showed me a Zoom presentation he’s created for our prospective clients.  It’s a well-made presentation.  The problem is the presenter.

I haven’t seen Justin in years.  We used to Skype until I got fed up with his bigotry and told him I was done with him.  Eventually I relented, but now we talk only by telephone. 

I can see from the presentation that he’s changed, and not for the better.

Some people of mixed-race ancestry have an exotic beauty.  Justin isn’t one of them.  Nevertheless he’s vain, buys expensive fashionable clothes and boasts of exercising every day—which may be true, but he's gained weight over the years and now looks soft and flabby—which makes his boasted prowess with women sound ridiculous.

As I watched him host the presentation, he stuck a finger up one nostril and started picking it as unselfconsciously as a toddler. 

Justin is one of the least self-aware persons I’ve ever been involved with.  Is there something about me that attracts people like this?  Probably not.  Most people lack self-awareness.             

Two Hundred and Seventy One

 What is truth? asked Pilate.  Only those who followed Christ believed the answer to that question was self-evident, and they’re all dead now. 

All gods are dead now, because all those who used to believe in them are dead now.  We worship the state now.  Not the real state, but an idea of the state that’s as insubstantial as a god—and that, too, is dying.

Nietzsche said in all of history there was only one Christian, and he died on the cross.  I agree with those who claim he died voluntarily, but not because he believed his death would save others.  Only a fool believes he can save others by dying for them.  That’s even more foolish than believing we can save others by living for them, as Buddha did.  I think Christ died voluntarily because he realized he could do nothing to save others, and despaired.  He was wiser than Buddha

Nietzsche called Christianity a religion for slaves, but all religions are for slaves.  And whatever we worship—science or art, money or the state—no longer consoles us for the knowledge that we’re all slaves, the most foolish of whom imagine they’re masters.  So we despair.

Two Hundred and Seventy

I can’t read anything anymore—not a magazine article, let alone a book—so I went into the library and looked for one of the books I’d read when I was a child.  It would be a matter of remembering it, rather than reading it.

I found a copy of the Buddhist scriptures.

I remembered my grandmother dying on my tenth birthday.  I wanted to die, too—but instead of killing myself, I decided I would live, and try to help others.  I would become a bodhisattva. 

As I reread the scriptures, I saw how I had learned from them the words for what I already knew.  But they’re only words for children now, like the one I used to be and am no longer.