When the questions why? and where to? intersect, there is something to take a closer look at. The intersection of these two questions can be blamed for several home-removal projects that culminated in a new zip code. But that impulse is a simple response to questions that mean something different than what they’re asking. They’re asking, “what are we going to do about this disequilibrium?” And they’re not exactly asking, they’re saying: “do something about this disequilibrium now.” And I’ve always read fiction with a little more focus on the plot than the character development (a lot more) and non-fiction more vigorously than fiction. So I haven’t paid sufficient attention to the character development. More like: “where is the character? Why is the character doing what it’s doing?” What is the character is the question of the moment. Italicized, dear audio book reader, not in quotes, and without a question mark at the end. Did you miss me?
Reading on and ignoring the author, we ask ourselves, where is this going? But this is another trap. What is the character? [No italics, but this is in brackets. Come at me.] The character is both an ant and a pro, in the language of the tagonist. In addition to being a neutagonist. You know the type. Confused about the non-duality of its non-being and the duality of so much language. Reading Nietzsche and getting convinced, reading Sartre and feeling briefly confident, then reading some more and getting confused. The reading stands in for the answers to the questions at the beginning of this chapter, even though stand-in answers keep bubbling up and ending up on pieces of paper that are meant to convince people to give the character the means to be mobile and over-fed. But if the mobility is sufficient, over-feeding the character seems impossible.
There is a solipsism that ends up in a person writing something that vaguely resembles something about their life turning themselves into a second person, and a third person. We’re circling that toilet bowl here together, and it’s also where we’ve brewed our coffee. Before you turn away in disgust, just smell the chemicals we used to disinfect. Yes, those are definitely gone too. Would you like milk and sugar?
This is where the solipsist finds the way: from a foundation of some sort, invented through a Herculean act of civil engineering. A bridge in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, can you picture it? It’s a start. Civilization started somewhere, probably. Even if it was when the first cell divided. Or did the division come before the cell? Probably. Eukaryotes don’t really get the picture, you know?
Europe extends the notion that abstractions are a filtering mechanism that one should never put in a cigarette (at least from what I’ve observed). Rather, they filter out the Americanisms and sweep in the Americanisms with the same motion. So continental, oui? Don’t bother with the accent mark, they’re not accepted here anymore. Only Euros. It is still morning in July, in case you’ve forgotten. I know there are those among you who need that little sip of plot pointed your way, I can relate. But I can’t provide much. You understand. It’s too complicated to explain. Check the index for all the references.
Roman Ryan 