real is what?

real is what?

Mortal: Hey.

God: Hey.

Mortal: So.

God: Yeah?

Mortal: I feel like I’m in the wrong. Like I’m doing things wrong.

God: How so?

Mortal: I don’t know. I have problems with real and not real.

God: Oh?

Mortal: Honestly, I blame my metaphysics. I say that we cannot have literal knowledge of “Real”, but we can poetically relate to “Real”. And from there I seem to reason that my relationship to “real” should be some kind of a free-write.

God: Can you explain the reasoning that takes you from a poetic — not literally precise, clear, or accurate; but still adequately precise, clear, and accurate — relationship to Reality to turning life into a free-write?

Mortal: Yes. Well, maybe. Basically, “Real” is more important than “real”; so the foundation of my life should be “Real”, rather than “real”; so the foundation of my life should be a constantly self-critiquing and -correcting poem relating my thinking/feeling/acting to Reality; and so off of that Reality-centered poem, my day-to-day — my “real” — should flow.

God: But what happens in practice?

Mortal: In practice, I walk around talking to myself, and/or pretending talk to you or to people who aren’t there. In practice, I slide around in fiction and don’t seem to make much progress in either Real or real. In practice, I am lonely; probably because my relationships lack enough reality for us to know each other enough to share Reality. So am I doing everything backwards?

God: I don’t know. What do you think?

Mortal: No! Well, I don’t think it is that simple, anyway. What should I do? I mean: You’re God — you should have some good advice for me.

God: Yeah.

Mortal: Well?

God: I think you should relax and try to remember that drive you took through the mountain passes of Arizona twenty-ish years ago.

Mortal: Oh yeah. Where was that? Jerome? Who was I with? What were we doing? Was that when my sister and I were visiting our grandparents? I can’t remember. Just the sun and the pines and driving. Roads winding up and down through the pines and slant-roofs and then a tiny downtown? Why were we there? Did we visit someone? An artist? Or did we just stroll through some artist’s shops? Why were we there? Who were we? What does it remind me of? Winding up and down through the bright sun and dusty pines and (abandoned?) homes and shacks: what does it remind me of? I mean, besides a hundred other such drives in Arizona and Idaho.

Comments are closed.