January 19, 2010
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I’m safer in an airplane
Magic is built on a paradox, because we are dazzled into wanting to know how the trick is done, yet to reveal it would ruin everything.
Relationships aren’t altogether unsimilar, because we often desire greatly to know people, but once we do things become lackadaisical and routine. Over time they settle into the “picture” of life.
But magic tricks are minutiae and if we forget them, it doesn’t matter; but when someone who has been stitched into the fabric of your life rips themself out, you realize what it means for people to mean something. What a bleak place the world becomes when they’re gone. Stars lose their luster, waterfalls everywhere stop, there doesn’t seem as much reason to talk. Who knew that another human could be so key to the functioning of the universe?
The thing about friendship is that it means your life exists somewhere else; it exists in the memories of your friend. The great part of having a friend is you don’t need to tell them stories, they are your stories. And when you’re around each other, you can assume all that has happened. Go around strangers, and it’s like you have never existed at all.
Friends are what make it so we can believe our lives are real.
Ever feel like not being real? Like hiding for good? Maybe we should go deep into the woods and bury our life in the ground, then build a behemoth fortress on top of it, complete with enhanced fortifications and an army fit to defend a king. Then even if people find the fortress they won’t even know we are in it, and if they do they won’t be able to break in. Did I mention there’s a moat?
People get buried anyway because of bad memory. Our life of a kindgom inside of us lasts centuries and centuries, our past selves really being kings of times long ago, but there are no historians in the kingdom, so we are really only the presently reigning king. This present king is really the only king people get to know when they meet us. The rest are dead and gone; somehwere back in the dark ages probably. It is only our friends who can keep us accountable to the kings of the past.
Thus as your friends disappear, so does your life. They are the ones who bring to life all the rich and varied nuance about you that has accumulated from times past. Without them, at most, all of that is a ghost in the room. Spend enough time away from people who know you, and it vanishes completely.
And that is how you hide. The masses are plentiful enough; hide amidst them. Do not spend too much time around any one person; they may begin to fit things together. Spread yourself thin, as though you are already disseminating your dead body’s ashes over the Caribbean, like you will someday ask the children you never had to do. Never speak to people directly; always send an emissary from deep in your castle to give them a note with an entirely formal and perfectly vague reply written out on it. Act normal enough about it and they will not catch on. In fact, act normal enough about it and eventually you will not even catch on that you don’t actually mean what you say anymore.
That is how you stay safe: play dress up everywhere you go, and always go someplace new. You will eventually be a person who has only lived for ten minutes. But that’s okay, because no one’s heart ever broke in their eleventh minute.
Most people, it seems, do this accidentally. Over time they get further away from who they wanted to be, because they have no friend to be an anchor at that past self to keep the dream alive. Soon we are lost at sea, not even sure whence we disembarked.
I’m feeling rather sad and cynical tonight, but I do have to say this: it only takes one moment to realize it’s all worth it. When you meet with that friend who can instantaneously disarm you, and the world flashes bright as you see that fantasyland you once conquered together on your many imaginative escapades as daring adventurers in the universe, you know that not existing and the pain it would save doesn’t measure up to the glory of a good friendship. I’m not feeling it right now, but I know that’s true. I’m really tired and I need to get to bed. I hope everybody has a good day.
Comments (6)
You write thoughtfully and thought-provokingly even when you are sad and cynical and tired.
I enjoyed your perspective on why we miss people so much when they’re gone, even if they weren’t amazing while they were here. That was good.
But our lives don’t disappear with our friends. It’s not addition and subtraction. It’s…more like that whole idea of synergy. So, while it’s hard, there is a way to live after someone is gone.
Believe me.
~V
Wow, wow, and wow. I have this love/hate relationship whenever I read your posts – they’re absolutely mind-boggling and exhilarating, yet once I finish, my brain has melted into a perceptive slush overload, making me unable to comment to the degree necessary to convey the… awesomeness that is your writing. (See what I mean?)
I wish I didn’t relate to this… but I do. Overwhelmingly so… you hit the nail on the head.
I can’t get over how much I can truthfully say I feel & agree with this. And that it was beautifully written.
Also, I have Forget & Not Slow Down and ‘Savannah’ is definitely my favorite song on the album. Relient K has this way of growing up but still reminding me why I first fell in love with them when I was thirteen. :] And Copeland. Wow. My favorite song of theirs is ‘Love Affair’, though I don’t know why. I don’t really relate to the lyrics but the melody is haunting.
Anyway. Thank you for the suggestions. :] I appreciate them.
Very deep post. I find your descriptions of being in and out of friendships as lyrical, and also engaging. I relate to what you write! I hope that if you are writing from experience about losing a friend - that you are also writing from experience about having a close friend that brings your universe alive and close to you.