Citizens of Tomorrow Tale I: A Pirate's Kidney

Let's start with the setting. The room was dank with the smell of walls and floors that had been wet for too long. I had learned by now how to block out unpleasant smells as a worker in the local Biosphere where manure was about as omnipresent as oxygen, if not more so but it still wasn't all that pleasant.

It was a little too late for second thoughts but I had them. I clutched the container's handle, feeling like a child with a morbid lunchbox. Instead of food, I held the organ that would replace my soon-to-be defective kidney. This is where I went under the knife.

It had all begun two weeks before when I won a free Predictive Diagnosis session at my local health centre in my junk mail. If I hadn't been sorting the mail carefully I would have thrown it into the garbage. My wife, Cynthia, had died three years prior to this, giving in to cancer. Had we known earlier... the children would have had a mother see them off to university or out into the working world. I cashed in the coupon, feeling as though the universe were hinting that I ought to be safe.

As I stood in the huge cylindrical scanner and they examined every part of my body, I grew bored very quickly, thinking what a waste of a perfectly good afternoon it was. 30 minutes of standing around led to a full understanding of my body's operation and could, from there, deduce the way my body would continue to grow and develop over time, like magic. A magic Cynthia had never had the chance to use. I tried to ignore this thought and came out to hear the results of the scan. My health, my looks, my state of mind... it all lay out on a map for my doctor to search and 'X' marked the spot over my kidney.

The options were explained. My insurance could cover half of the cost of a surgery to replace the kidney but the real cost was the printing process. The hospital's 3D printer could use organic ink in order to create a working replica of a kidney. I just had to pay an arm and a leg for it. I was still in debt after Cynthia's death, paying off the bills for all the extensive treatments she had received. We had spared no expenses, trying to hold on to her for as long as we could. And yet here I stood, a broken man with piling bills, a child in med-school and another working a dead-end job to help his sister out with her living expenses. We could not afford another slow, expensive death in the family.

I did not know how to tell the children so I did not. I decided that I could not die and pass Cynthia's debts on to their poor shoulders, but at the same time, how was I ever going to afford my own health?

The booklets were the worst to look at. They presented the very simple details of how I could live a full, fruitful life. All of it was possible, so tantalizingly close. It just wasn't affordable. I would certainly pass on the debt to the children no matter how long I ended up living at the rate things were going with my career as a glorified farmer.

No, there had to be a better way.

The day after the diagnosis I went to work at the Biosphere, stuck in a haze of disbelief and despair. I turned on the sprinklers for my floor level, Interior Designed Plants. On this level we grew modified plants that developed into various forms of furniture. Fern mats, oak chairs and tables, sofas with non-perishable moss cushioning and beautiful mahogany canopies with rubbervine hammock bedding. I was the manager of my floor's Growery, a sort of Bonsai farmer, making sure the plants grew into the standardized form of each growth stage. I basically just read the grower's instruction manual and then bent the sapling on the stipulated days, trimmed where instructed, taped where told. It was about as entry-level as you could get, I was not earning a lot of money. Mindless work that any robot could perform if they ever became sophisticated enough to deal with the anomalies of organic matter. In about a decade I would be unemployed and jealous of my automated counterparts. But that's the subject matter for another story.

In the shock of the day as I contemplated my own mortality and the relative disappointment that my life had come to be, I performed my tasks from the middle of an existential cloud. However it was at closing time when I saw the bio-waste guys cleaning out the Organics floor that the mists cleared and I realized how my job had finally managed to help secure my future. Dropping the weeds I had been busy plucking, I rushed downstairs, a man possessed, and directed myself toward the freezer room.

When I think about it now it was my daughter who had inspired the idea – though I don't wish to blame her of course. She had mentioned how for her practical classes and examinations, all the students were required to bring their own model organs to be placed in their dummy patients. Passingly she had said:

“If it weren't for my scholarship I would have had resort to online piracy for my printing programs. Organs cost serious money to print – even after you have the Organic Ink. The programming software packages I have to buy like Vital MD costs about as much as my tuition.”

With gratitude in my heart towards my daughter's eager rambling, I scanned my ID, typed in the combination and opened the door, breathing with relief. Here they were, the organic printing cells. About 100 bags of gelatenous matter, a little thicker than liquid detergent. They looked like bags of fruit punch.

They were the most expensive things in the store by far and their handlers earned ten times more than me. This was because of the massive amount of research that went into creating the architectural DNA for organic matter. Organic matter like kidneys. Kidneys, new eyes, lungs, blood, some types of cancer-curing stem cells... Here, stacked in neat rows, lay the results of the Medical Revolution, an offspring of the Bio-Revolution. They were generally only used by the Optometrists on floor 6 in the Health section as any other form of Organic Ink usage was only ever to be used on hospital grounds as the law stipulated.

I did not hesitate. I grabbed a bag, trying not to look at the pricetag. 

As I walked out the door at closing time I knew that I was a thief now. They would find out that a bag had been stolen by the next day's stock check but if I had to choose between losing this particular job and death, well...

The adrenaline rush drove me home and to my computer. I navigated to my favourite torrent site where all my music, ebook and entertainment came from. 'Vital MD' was the name of the software I needed. I unchecked the lungs, liver, heart, brain and pancreas options of the download. No need to perform too much intellectual theft all at once. I then rushed off to the Byrd & Sons 3D Printery while the download completed. I rented one of the smaller machines, brought it home, filled it with the recommended measure of Organic Ink as stipulated by the torrent instructions and ran the printing program. There was only an eighth of ink leftover once I had loaded the machine. I felt grateful that my lungs were all right, I would have had to steal many more bags of ink. In three hours I had a kidney just waiting to be stuck into my body, the only cost to me so far being the printer rental.

It became a simple matter of searching my local Help-Me-Help-You.org bartering website to find a black market surgeon. This had been the part that had worried me most. I had thought, 'Worst comes to worst, I'll have my daughter do it, she's passed her exams with flying colours so far.' It was a happy day when I realized I would not have to rely upon my daughter's green albeit natural talent.

He sent a very long-winded email with instructions on how to get in touch, about his credentials, about what material I needed to procure for myself – the organ in question, the logistics of printing, the best equipment to use, best Printery to visit, etc. I skipped that section, I already had the organ and I didn't believe visiting the doctor's friends with Printeries would help me more than it boosted their sales. However for the most part he seemed very legitimate and professional so we set up the appointment and then two weeks later, there I stood in the backroom of a bar. The surgeon's table and equipment haloed by a bright lamp. They looked pristine while everything else belonged with the dank bar in the frontroom.

“Philip?” asked a muffled voice, floating out of the darkest corner.

“Yes,” I said, squinting into the recesses of the room. He stepped forward, dressed in scrubs and wearing a face mask.

“Hi, I'm Dr. Blank*. As stated before, I work at the Blank* Hospital in Blank* county just next door. This is Nurse Blank*, my assisting nurse at the hospital. She and I do this side job in our free time. I trust you've checked out my story?”

“Oh yeah, it checks out perfectly, called up the hospital, looked through the Physician's Guide, everything adds up.”

“Great, so I hope you trust that you are in good hands.”

“I do believe so... I'm glad people like you exist.”

“Well, Nurse Blank and I believe that though technology has advanced in the right direction, our healthcare and legal system still has some catching up to do. People should not have to die when the technology exists to prevent their deaths. Greed is no reason to deprive a fellow man of healthcare. Anyhow, I trust you read through the instructions I sent you prior to coming in and have the small fee we've asked for.”

“Definitely, you were very thorough, it was greatly appreciated.”

“Then let's get started!”

…

After the surgery things returned to normal – there wasn't even an investigation into the lost bag of Organic Ink. A lax student-worker had made some data-entry mistakes causing that month's information to be written off as unreliable. I felt as though the whole universe wanted me to live. It's funny to think of it now as I lay on my deathbed, writing about my final days. I was naïve enough to think that my own independently sourced materials would save my life just like that. That all these randomly found materials that came to me through theft and blind searching would get me out of my situation without a single repercussion.

If I had only read the comments on the torrent file I had used to print the kidney more thoroughly. While Vital MD products were good enough for med-students to practice on, they certainly were not the same as the type of printed organs used for surgery. There were a few comments on this fact now that I have taken the time to go back and check. One or two users commented on the fact that the torrented file had a few glitchy lines making the organ useless in a live patient. You cannot imagine the self-hatred that comes with such an oversight.

If I had only read the doctor's careful instructions about what torrents were good choices and which were not, things would have gone flawlessly. Instead of dying steadily over years with my previous kidney or living a full, healthy life with a properly programmed printed kidney, I now have a week left to live, the damage wreaked by the kidney too much for my system. The dialysis is hell and the doctors have little confidence that it will work for very long. I were to survive this I would have to spend the rest of my life medicated or in perpetual debt. Either way, it makes me rue the very day I cashed in that stupid coupon. 

I did not want to go then and I do not want to go now. However I have refused treatment despite my childrens' many protests. The doctor is set to pull the plug on the dialysis as soon as I have said my goodbyes, per my request. They all insist that I am making a big mistake. As far as I see it, health is not right of birth. Nature sees to that with genetically transferred diseases, deadly viruses, natural disasters... the list goes on. Nature sees to the negation of many a human right. However, we exude a power over nature that ought to keep it in check. Healthy is not a right of nature but we try to make it a right of society. My death was not inevitable. It was a mistake. A collaborative mistake, I should think in which many levels were involved. As my fingers grow weak and I type these last  few words, I hear the sweet tinkling laugh of my darling Cynthia as she beckons me forward into the darkness with her. Our bodies have both pushed our souls out, rejecting them with ever weaker thrusts as the end approaches. I saw her go. And now the children see me go. They will have their own struggles and their bodies will also eject them in due course.

Still, it's too late for regrets and nostalgia. The doctor has entered the room as have my darling children. Even now, my soul scrambles to force its way back into the beaten pulp lying in this premature morgue. Inside I scream: "I want to stay! If only, if only, if only - heavens if only! Can't we somehow go back?"

But what's a body to do?

*Names omitted in order to allow these fine people to continue to do their good work.
Written by: Philip Boileau

Birth Date: 14-09-1999

Died on: 05-06-2047
Published by: His loving son Thomas Boileau and adoring daughter Teresa Boileau.

The Worst Thing I Learned In Belgium

[Disclaimer: This is not directed at any one person and I think I know someone who may feel particularly targetted because I have spoken to this person more than once about this habit. It's really not meant for you, it's kind of just a long-winded sigh of frustration at the word vomit I find coming out of my mouth sometimes and a reflection on how it has got to this. Sorry.]

Now, don't get me wrong, I like Belgium a lot. Well, I mean, I don't know shit about most of Belgium but Gent has been good to me despite the fact that I have not been good to it. And furthermore in the following statements I by no means wish to imply that I am perfect and unflawed because if we're honest I have got so many flaws I can't shut about them and keep flinging blogs at you to talk about them and the world and all the interactions involved. Still. This has begun to make me really angry.

The worst lesson I have learned while living in Belgium, the worst habit I have picked up, the worst social practice I have adopted is, without a doubt, this constant habit of apologizing for who you are as a person.

It pisses me off. So many people do it once you get to know each other and I do, more and more, in fact.

Once upon a time you could be an asshole or a bitch and it was just fine but noooo, now you have to be a self-conscious asshole, a self-conscious bitch. What's the point of that? The worst part of this, of course, is that most of these people saying these things are far from being bad people. They just happen to be people doing people things. Sometimes you please everyone with it, sometimes you don't. Tough shit. 

Sometimes this habit is harmless - in fact most times it's harmless. But the cumulative analysis makes me feel troubled.

I've had someone apologize to me for being low energy saying - I've had a tough day. I've had someone apologize for rushing around, they have to get somewhere after this - please don't be offended, I find your company perfectly delightful but I also happen to have other obligations outside of your tiny little world.

The self-consciousness and analysis certainly doesn't end there and of course there is a bunch of private anguish that gets hidden but in the end the problem lies in this element of control that is being implied. The implication of control is all-pervasive while simultaneously paradoxical. Because you are to be in control of yourself as an individual, you are supposed to be strong and decisive and responsible for these choices you make as an individual and able to empathize and do right. At the same time, there is an acknowledgement of socialization and upbringing as a deciding factor for some tendencies. IN OTHERS. Certainly not in ourselves. We are aware of our past, thereby giving us the power to change our behaviour. Like a less fun interpretation of the Future Paradox. The idea is that the past is an influence on other people's behaviour which is why you can sympathize - must be tough for them, poor things. Yours only influences you sometimes when you lose control. But never give into the analysis - it was a moment of weakness, not something you are prone to do. You may only ever give in to analysing the effect your past is has upon your behaviour in private and then squash every single tendency that has ever caused you to behave irrationally like a bug. 

Other influences on your behaviour can be your present company. They are allowed to influence your decisions. The future outcome of your actions is also a factor. However emotions are not. They should not be taken into account and if you give in to them you have made the wrong decision. Emotional responses are things to be apologized for cause emotions are stupid, everybody knows.

For example: if your current emotional state for the day predisposes you to grumpiness because you are tired, you had better rev up your 'Sorry' engine because you are a bore and a drag and you need to make up for this great inconvenience by assuring everyone that were it not for your stupid humanity you would be the life of the party. The fact that you had this once in a month dip in energy levels is a cause for shame and constant apologies. I've done it, I've had it done to me.

I have apologized for not being very funny - I'm having a shitty week so I can't be my usual entertaining self. I've found myself apologizing for not replying a message as soon as I got it - I was just too tired. I've had someone apologize to me about that too - life got in the fucking way, ok?! I've had that conversation more than once. I've had that conversation devolve into apologies about other possible missteps. That was a long talk.

Since when was it so shameful to be a human with a functioning frontal lobe? The frontal lobe is not responsible for blocking out the limbic system's tantrums, it's there to communicate with it. However since I've come back to Europe I have increasingly had to apologize for making decisions based on emotions or acting according to my emotions out of fear that I may have possibly, somehow offended someone. These apologies are used not as sincere solutions to conflict but as preventative measures. God forbid I step on anyone's toes because we all know how fragile our entire social network is.

It is positively stifling. If the bonds of friendship or even mere acquaintance leave no wiggle room for the simple act of being a human with moods and emotions and off days, it feels as though we ought to be meeting other people. Possibly people with a nice tough exoskeleton to protect their house-of-cards feelings.

Still... you're probably not convinced because my frustrations are possibly only based upon my terrible behaviour or my company.

But this is not true. I've had people apologize to me for how they were behaving countless times now. And I've found myself apologizing to someone for a caustic joke I made after they had just apologized to me 15 minutes before for their own mean joke that they felt might have been over-the-top. It is so fucking boring and useless - and most times unnecessary. Well, maybe in my case it is necessary - I sometimes don't know where to stop. However I've had people over to my house who apologize for not eating fast enough and saying - it's not that I don't like it, it's just hot. Who cares if you didn't like it - it's not a big deal if you don't, I tried, it went wrong, these things happen, I would recover. If you've already complimented the meal, consider me satisfied with your appreciation of it. How you eat it is up to you. 

I've apologized for being sad. For being sad about a genuinely sad thing that had happened and that I had decided to take a moment to be human about. I've had someone apologize to me for complaining about the the legitimate problems they were facing in their life. I've apologized to people for complaining so much about other people. That one might have been necessary.

It is a never-ending merry-go-round that is neither merry nor enjoyable. It is only self-analytical and futile. 

From the people who brought you Pascal's Wager, heeeeeere's Friendship Insurance! Not sure if you've hurt someone's feelings? Why don't you apologize for your behaviour before it even has the chance to ferment in anybody's mind as a complaint! Pre-emptive apologizing! It's free and it works! Every time.

Snore. Snore snore snore and also annoying. I'm tired of doing it, I'm tired of having it done, it's just no longer cool or interesting. Let's all just stop. If we start to piss each other off and we care about each other enough to want the best future for each other then we can complain about things that bother us and move on. But enough of the pre-emptive bullshit. It's a conversation killer, it bums me out and it can't be good for anyone's self-esteem. I need my esteem, man. My esteem's my bread and butter. Quit fucking with my esteem. Leave my esteem alone :C

Blink, Blink, Sparkle, Boom!

[Feel free to skip ahead of this section:

After watching On The Road last night I felt my shame at never having got past the first few pages of the novel and a growing desire to both read and write that has been gestating since having read Donna Tartt's The Secret History. 

Furthermore I have been intensely fascinated at how to live a post-religious life, it has been the undertaking of my existence since I lost my faith all those years ago. I don't suppose it is fully understandable unless you have gone through the experience yourself but here, I have a story for you. Maybe you'll understand a little bit of it once this tale is through. It is stream-of-consciousness, intentional psychobabble. Draw from it what you can as you would the words of a foreign language that you have just begun to learn. Most will remain a mystery due to my own inadequate communication but context clues, gestures and simple concepts may form the bridge between minds necessary for successful communication. I wanted to experience the feverish go-go-go! of Kerouac's mind, time and writing but realized that I could not at this moment in time. The result here is certainly no parody - Kerouac is merely a faint source of inspiration. Here we go.]

Blink, Blink, Sparkle, Boom!

I had met Pastor Victor at a charity event. Somehow I had found my way there via a friend who had done some work in Senegal and wanted my company. She was my age, 21, and all the other members of that particular charity where she undertook her internship were rather grown up and boring for her taste. I, her clown, sat by her side during speeches about the children of Senegal and the good work of the organization in their schools. I cracked jokes as any good jester would and saw my presence rewarded with free appetizers and booze, an ok way to pregame for that night's party at my friends' favourite club. I was pleased to find my French very much intact and I was able to understand a school principal visiting from Senegal as she spoke about the progress that had been made so far and the upcoming problems facing the schools in her city. Next was Pastor Victor, on the podium, talking about the help his Church had provided and their continued desire to help.

Soon after there was more food and drinks and I began to speak to the Pastor, curious as to what his mission was doing. He explained how they built houses and schools, donated books and of course Bibles, spread the word of God, etc.

"You could join us on our next mission, maybe," he said kindly.

"I'm afraid I don't really believe in God anymore," I replied, "so I would feel very uncomfortable giving Bibles to people and praying and all that."

"Anymore? May I ask what caused you to lose your faith?"

"Hm... well, I'm not sure how to word it, it wasn't just all of a sudden."

"I'm still curious to know." He was a patient and kind man and his words did not pressure me but there was an intense curiousity that gave me the time to think.

"Well... I don't know... I'm better on paper than I am in conversation, if I were to tell you it would have to be written I think. I just can't find my words out loud."

"Well then, here is my e-mail address, as well as my church's address. When you do find the words, if you have time that is, I should be very interested to read them."

He handed me a card. I was impressed at this modernity, though I do not know why.

"I am afraid I might offend you," I said honestly. It was already taking all I had to remember not swear in front of him. I swear so much these days, I just love the wrap, twist and slip of 'fuck', 'shit', 'bitch', 'cunt', 'motherfucker' off my tongue so much that I lace my words with them as often and freely as I like. However here I stood in front of what used to be authority to me, and wondered about my manners.

He shook his head. "Don't worry, I am very interested," he said.

"May I ask why you're interested?"

"Well... look at it this way. If someone gets lost, it can be useful to ask them how they got where they are so that you can see if you know a way to help them get back." It was not as condescending as it could have been and I felt that if I were to have this conversation, it would be with Pastor Victor.

Two weeks later I finally found time and motivation enough to set finger to keyboard and concoct a semi-coherent letter.

Dear Pastor Victor,

I hope this letter finds you well. I will endeavour to provide some kind of history of myself and my current leanings. I hope you will understand by the end that I have no hope or desire of 'finding my way back'. I hope also that you don't feel the need to rescue me from my life of sin as I currently enjoy it very much.

The Beginning:

It was a very distinct moment of speech that determined my loss of faith. I said it to my friend while we watched Bruce Almighty. I had spent the past month obsessing about Faith. It had started with a Richard Dawkins video, suggested to me by YouTube due to the fact that I had decided to Google my Biology homework and one video on evolution had led to another and then finally to a fascinating debate. 

I had already had distinct moments of doubt manifest themselves in the face of some particularly unfortunate event like a woman on the streets who had lost her leg to diabetes and now begged for a living. It had struck me fairly strongly that she too must pray as I did at night, she too must hope for help, and yet I sat cosy at home and she sat distinctly uncosy on the streets. However the videos of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and a few others such as the ever-charming Stephen Fry led me to give much more thought to the issue than I ever had and I became obsessed with researching as much as I could. 

I began to apply literary criticism to the Bible while at church just as I would with any other book. There were two creation stories. How had I missed that? I thought of how a Sunday School teacher had taught us that the flood of Noah's time had buried all the dinosaurs. But the science pointed to the fact that humans and dinosaurs had never lived at the same time, otherwise you would find some trace of human remains - and a whole pile of them if the flood had killed all humans aside from Noah's family - on the same layers as dinosaurs, surely. I studied all the other creation and Messianic myths that I could find. I researched when the stories about Jesus had been written as compared to when he had lived, and thought about how easily out of hand rumours could get. I thought about the contradictions of cruelty and kindness involved in God. And then I thought, how would I know I was wrong? 

I remembered a story I had written as a young girl about characters whose thoughts could be traced depending on what they had been touching when they had had the particular thought, and how paranoid I had become about touching things while thinking anything private. I had persuaded myself of my own story as a child - so what was to stop others from doing such things? What was to stop an ignorant person from hearing a story and thinking it true and spreading it as fact rather than metaphor? What made me believe this story and not others? What would the world have looked like if there had been no creator? And always I thought back to my very young days when I had asked my Godmother - who was God's mother? If complex creation requires a complexer creator, then this would create an infinite regression. However if complexity could come out of simplicity then we would be getting somewhere. I thought and thought, and feared the devil had set me on this course, always hearing somewhere in my head: "The greatest trick ever perpetrated by the devil was to convince the world he didn't exist." I persisted despite my fears. I had to know what I believed. Blocks, Legos, fitting together, building my unbelief despite the fears it awakened. 

Then followed my belligerent, arrogant, argumentative phase. I wondered why we all participated in this lie. I wondered at the hypocrisy of the fact that anyone could pitch a tent and invite people with the name of the lord and earn a living, professing to know the unknowable, offering advice that they did not know to be true, only believed. I debated any and everyone. I enjoyed the opportunity to put my research to use. I enjoyed the shock and awe of it all. However, I eventually moved to a more disbelieving country and environment, and had no one left to debate. I began to grow more sympathetic to the Faithful way of thinking.

I did not suffer so much a loss of faith as a very distinct acknowledgement of a loss of certainty. I suppose there is a big difference here and it is important to define it. Certainty is the distinction between those with faith and those without. Certainty is the context of Destiny. Certainty is the outline of omens and prayer. Certainty leads one to believe that things happened or didn't happen because of logical and soon-to-be-revealed-and-understood reasons. Certainty is not foresight, it is simply trust that the best is yet to come. The loss of it is the beginning of a blurry adventure or the underlining of irony depending upon how you interpret life - the irony apparent in some who lose Certainty or never really had it and yet still behave in the way of the Certain.

To further illustrate this statement, I can easily present a friend of mine, let us call her T. She had never been raised religious and was rather firmly atheistic. She had taken up a degree in Social Studies and expected to become a Public Servant of some sort at her parents' behest. As thoroughly persuaded as she was that she would spend her adult days in a dull, numbing environment surrounded by the unpleasant whiff of boredom, she never rebelled against this future, only disdained and anticipated it with an already cultivated regret.

It mystifies me now. For me, as with anyone who once had Certainty, this desire for it remains and that way of thinking takes over unless one remains vigilant against it. As much as we may try to throw ourselves off into the frigid waters of Nihilism, Absurdity, Existentialism - anything that glorifies the haphazard and meaningless - we cannot fully, our upbringing catches up with us and we start again to think that perhaps things went wrong this time because in the end it would not have been good for us. On the other hand, though many will learn to embrace the meaninglessness of life, they forget the last word of the phrase. Life. Life is experience. Life is chance. Life is unlikely. And that we experience it merits recklessness abandon and experiment, not a docile acceptance of timelines and responsibilty or else simply giving up and in to boredom, fatigue and a desire to end it all.

The years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds of an existence always so ever balanced upon the non- that it might as well not even be there at all except for the one who stretches the small blip of time into a 'Lifetime', sufficient for them to want to cling to it... how short and irretrievable, and how pitiful to spend it ticking off 'To-Dos'. Of all the millions and millions of people around, you will not even meet a 16th of them, and yet we tread carefully upon the minds around us, we waste time treating them as fragile, irreplaceable things, not as similarly flickering consciousnesses in need of stimulation, in need of prodding, poking, experience, experience, experience! Upon that day when I truly realized that Certainty had left me like a bird, flying off to settle upon some other, more worthy consciousness, I determined that Experience would be the plot device for my story. 

I much prefer the French understanding of the word 'Experience' as it also means 'experiment' and, after all, they go so often hand-in-hand. It was my new raison d'être and it stirred me frantically, suggesting itself in people and places. I became a hedonist for a little while. I thought, surely this will be the way to find out what I'm really made of. I did what I wanted when I wanted and soon fell bored, and needed thrill, thrills that never came easy, thrills that couldn't come through alcohol or sex or parties, thrills that eluded me. Only in pursuing my passions did I find again that small spark of enjoyment: painting, drawing, filming, taking photographs. These brought joy when I grew tired of my company and withdrew into the shell of a dark studio apartment. Of course I still had fun but sometime I think I persuaded myself of their ejoyability, told myself that I liked it or else fooled myself with alcohol. In fact it seemed everyone I knew needed a lie of drugs and alcohol and sex and religiosity to help the pretense of life. The lies seem to be necessary for enjoyment and as hard as I had worked to attain truth I knew I must accept some dishonesty and illusion if I were to truly enjoy myself.

I grow ever more wary of speaking to a Pastor about such things but I think you are also reasonable in understanding what I mean here. I live a life of sin. I chose to do this. I am aware of the consequences and have endured them and now wonder if I might not have been better off just clinging to rules and structure given all the heartache, confusion and madness my choices have brought me. The only solace available to me is the fact that I am living fully. I am doing as much as I can and this is good enough. 

The world is a mouth opened wide, it is pain and pleasure and awful, sensual experience. Itisme, itisme, IT IS ME. Agnus dei, Hail Mary's and prayers are but an elaborate way of throwing salt over your shoulder. I cannot live in fear of bad luck. I must instead persevere in finding experiences that I can then translate with my art in order to help others with the ordeal of living, the fantastic blurry adventure, the absurd unlikelihood of being.

I would rather spend my time as a firework. I blink, I blink, I sparkle and then BOOM! I erupt in flame and terror upon the world and then leave it just as soon in beauty. A full experience. An incendiary one.

There it is. My truth.

Good day and Adieu.