Mind flow

MindFlow is a novella I started in 1994 and struggled through until about 1996. It has since sat awaiting my proofreading and editing. Little by little I approach this epic task. Here is an excerpt in its unedited, raw version.

I no longer feel bitter, really. Or groping through trembling ground. Inside of me I feel now that I determine my own reality. And I know that it does not matter whether what I perceive around me is real or not. That more than one dimension can exist in the same time, and that I exist in both the fourth and third dimensions at least, simultaneously. That I may be creating this third dimensional existence with my spirit, my mind of the fourth, but that everything is as real as I am in that existence. That I have accepted it, created it, and live in its limitations, boundaries, and joys. I believe that some of us are more aware of that fourth dimensional state, and are able to connect with it through mediation, sleep, and death. That we visit it in meditation and sleep, and return to it in death. That we, therefore choose our deaths, choosing when this world has finished its purpose.

I was the closest to madness as I have ever been, ever will be, with Jacob. And it was not that he caused it but that insanity was my reaction to the stimuli he offered. It was from within me; it was one of my many possibilities, but always my choice. And by leaving him, rejecting that stimuli, I refused that shade of myself. And now, you see, I am very happy. Emotional, still; turbulent, sometimes; sensitive, but sane. And never, never again will I admit that stimuli into my life. My grasp on reality is firm, but my mind is open, and certain possibilities, experiences, discoveries may cause a precarious reality.

That does not mean that I no longer believe the same way as I did, about aging, society's sexuality, any of it. Only that I do not accept these into my life, that I empower myself with the right to chose what my life will be how, with whom, where, all of it. That respecting my energy and realizing that even in remaining unaffected by circumstances teaches energy, and that that energy is more important, more needed in focusing my mind, in my chosen relationships, in my creativity, and in my survival. That I can therefore acknowledge a person or situation, but not accept it, not admit it into my life. Not allow it the power and right to decide what will be a part of my life. This mind is limited to a degree by the body which carries it, which enables it to function in a three-dimensional plane, and so abstract ideas will always taunt it, feel overwhelming. But they intrigue at the same time, and I can draw closer to realizing them by simply letting myself feel them, rather than by analyzing them. Where I came from, when I started, and the end -- I do not have to let these distress me. I can consider them always and search for a better understanding, a higher consciousness, but I do not have to let them tremble my reality.

I fear, however, that this still means that I will forever be alone. That once again, I can acknowledge another's ideas and beliefs, but not simply accept them as my own. And that my always questioning feels to that person as though I do no accept him, am not open to his thoughts, cannot process on his level. And in the end this will always mean incompatibility. Always. I am sad. But only inside. For I know that everything matters, but nothing does. That there is always a way. That nothing is permanent. And that there are no absolutes.

I am close, close to creating a home now, with my lover, but still so distant. I feel still that I am connected to nothing, that nothing, no one belongs to me, even my family. I do not feel myself as part of them, but that they are comfortable, familiar, accepting people -- of me. If they were not my family, they would not be this, and so perhaps we are attached in some way. Yet I cannot feel that this world is mine, not truly ever. I do not belong here.

But when I do not feel this way, how do I feel? Complacent, static, comfortable. I hate it, but crave it at the same time. Just as I do this, this turbulence.

The days, the days they slip by, and soon, all too soon, this dream will be over. Because I do love it. I love the world that I have created for myself, the people I have brought into it, the feeling I experience. I love the sorrow because it is passion. I love the complacency because it is mine and I can do anything with it, because I made it, shaped it, and can change it. We spend so much time trying to let our world mold us and then blaming it when it is our creation and therefore only our blame. I decide who will be in my life, from my worshipped and adored lover to the snapping, self important, threatened little man who holds my paycheck. They are all my choice; it is my power to change my circumstances, or the light in which I perceive them. I suppose it is in a way like practicing an art in which you are not adept. Like if I were to draw or to play the guitar, I couldn't say how my picture or song would turn out. I might not ever have any direction for them. I simply direct my feelings through them, so as the express and understand myself, to experience my soul, my being, my life.

The funniest thing about this life, I think, is that we experience it in such a linear manner. And this is what ever saddens me, that we move forward in a degenerative direction. Think of how this colors our expectations, goals, desires, attitudes! A grand basis for our nurture. What interests the people of this world? How have I created them, colored them in my mind, say, that in turn decides what options will be available, presented to me? I sit despairing of this world and its peoples and standards, values, when it is all only as I perceive it, as I color it, as I create it. What does this say for me, that this ugliness and repression, numbness to compassion and insincerity are my creation, are my fault?

But no, no I cannot say this. It is either a challenge that my fourth dimensional self, my higher consciousness has contrived as a learning experience, or simply as feeling experience -- perhaps a bonding experience?? Or I am from a pool of energy which has simulated this existence and agreed upon certain universal attributes, and everything in between is a medley of the most varied and distant stretches of possibilities thrown into evince the furthest reaches of our feelings, each tiny, petty one; each grand, catastrophic one.

And the beauty, the passion that this opens up. The marvelous throws of love and its many intimacies. The intriguing bond, so shattering to the confines of our solitary realities, the aloneness of our minds.

Yet still, event this marvel, this love, snaps and disappears into the strands of time. And death proceeds. How easy it is to grow tame. To swallow life in and lose your own to the madness you've digested. The madness that possessed the mind and draws you into its world so effectively that you can no longer feel. That you are a laughing zombie frolicking with all the other lonely souls seeking a home that can never exist, seeking it in each other. And you close your eyes and laugh away.

But too much! Too much and it all becomes so poignantly the farce. And you, the wandering being, detached from any solidity because it is all a lie. Everything will die, and everything will go away. There is no such thing as home, as happiness. It is all just an endless search to feel OK somewhere, with someone. To feel safe. To stop drifting through this black, empty space. To feel life in another, to share it. Not to feel so fucking alone. And every time you stop and try, it belies you, because we can never be one. Either we are all too different, or no one else really exists. Is there another answer?

It all fades away. Everything, everyone fades away. How easy it is to end their reality. Step away; stop believing, and they're gone. And there is another life that you never lived because they never existed. It was all just a hazy, drugged illusion. I do not know that me any more than the others.

Life after life passing through these eyes, peering from them and smearing their memories all over my spirit. I know it is alive in there somewhere. Is it me? Is it me? How do I expect to find a home when I am never the same me and therefore can never be comforted by the same energy, same remnant of that lie? But if it could evolve with me. To find these beings whose realities travel parallel paths to mine, or to create them.

They tell me that I think too much. That I don't have to see it that way. Maybe I need some drug to alter my thoughts so I can be happy and grin and grin with you all in this delirious farce, up against the wall with our blinders on. And I say that you are closing your eyes to reality. Because I know you see what I do. Because you could not seriously believe that I should allow some chemical to alter my mind and therefore me, to think for me, to take me over to imprison me inside. So that I would be the dummy, and the world the ventriloquist, relieved that at last they do not have cope with my reality. Because it is so horribly frightening, because it is true.

No, I cannot close my eyes. I do not believe it is the only, nor the best solution to this raving existence. I believe that if I watch and probe carefully, thoroughly enough, I can find the way out, or in, or back -- back to the pure. If I deny my sight, what do I live then but another lie, only this time the lie is within myself.

But what do I do with this that I reject? Laugh and laugh at its ridiculous antics, because it is all so damn predictable. Ha ha ha! Laugh with it. The earth trembles as the laughter rocks and sways it. The greatest joke, life.

That's not the way it is; all of life and people aren't like that, you tell me. How did I know you would answer me so? How did I know you would defend this frothing reality with your self reassurance, with the despairing conclusion, the fatalistic acceptance that this reality is all there is, and so it must be right, must be OK.

No, no, no! I do not accept this.

But I begin to die any way. To fade, to fade like all my other lives, and all the other hopes and people in them. I solidify and sink, then flatten into the ground, spreading in darkening tendrils until I coalesce into my shadow, a haunted, loveless thing, nonexistent and therefore unable to experience emotion, and light. I become the model citizen, drawing vacant beings to my side.

No! I lash out to see if you still fear me. Do I make you uneasy yet? Do I seem so - sweet, yet just a little - weird? Do you really want to be with me, spend time around me? Am I really like you?

I am afraid. Afraid. Don't answer me. How well I meld. Just like my little chameleon whom I so despise. Because my little friend, he blends with the rocks and trees, but never me. Am I just like you, then? Is this why you loathe me and my kind, we the self-righteous bastards of the world feigning a distinction we do not possess? Because we choose ourselves and never the rocks and trees?

© Elven Lore 1996