It was being carried by a character named Buzzballz Chillersac. I know that sounds very made up. It was not.

***

It read like this.

All things being equal, it is better to feel calm and sage and confident and energetic
than to feel anxious and witless and unsure and lethargic.

But.

What’s best is to remember that all of those things are made up chunks of illusory irrelevance manufactured by and for the alleged benefit of the Narrative Self.

There’s one, in my life, that is fond of asking me variations on the theme of:

Why can’t you realize how [wonderful, talented, amazing] you are!?

Even out beyond the passive-aggression, it’s still a bullshit question.

I often do realize it.

And when I do realize it, I’m making things up, just as surely as I’m inventing when I’m down on myself.

The narratives of the narrative self always seem so perfectly real, just like the dreams of the Matrix.

And everything in the matrix conspires to perpetuate that fiction of realism. The news. The movies. The football game. The ice cream texts. The why-can’t-yous and the you-hurt-mes and the schools and the workplaces and the cool songs and their hip lyrics.

For example, today I have the football games on part of the time.

And I’m mad at myself about it on some level.

I keep calling them a distraction and they probably ‘are’.

I drove by the local theater and noticed that The Odyssey will be playing there the next couple of days, and going the other way, I pulled over and wrote down the times of the showings.

And I’m mad at myself about it on some level.

Fuck football and movies and voting and National Insert-Product_Here Days, amirite?

Yes.

All distractions. It’s beyond doubt.

But being mad at myself; that’s … a worse distraction.

From the timeless perspectice of the minimal self.

And the whole complex of Narratives and putative Selves, mine, yours, his and hers … selves reacting sweetly or violently with selves …

Fluffy little piles of spindrift stranded on the cosmic beach.

Or, putting the best possible spin on it, readings on gauges on the dashboard.

The narrative self looks down at the fuel gauge and panics because it reads ‘Empty!’

The minimal self remembers that the sensor is malfunctioning, and that there probably are six or four or two gallons left.

In … ‘Reality’. Which is itself a dubious construction.

But my god, son, what if the gauge is right?

Well …

It might mean a hella long walk to find a jerry can and fill it, and another long walk back.

Or a sheepish call to the AAA.

Or the AA.

That’s what.

I’ve lived through worse.

And I wish to the Conscious God that I could daily and consistently remember that.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled Narrative Self dog and pony show.