“To be a human is to be between dimensions, a transitive consciousness, possessing a ‘narrator’—the Godlike will of the fifth dimension—but lacking the means in the fourth dimension to consciously choose one’s reality. For in the fourth dimension, the human is a pawn of circumstance (external reality), while in the fifth dimension, external reality exists only as a reaction to and context for the desires of the narrator. A great deal of suffering is the consequence of this innate conflict, for the will does not want to simply accept the terms of the reality in which it finds itself stuck, while the bounded consciousness similarly and diametrically shirks responsibility for any decisions made.”

-Dr. Gerard Mann, ‘Discermination’
____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Anyway, even though I don’t understand the dream and its connection to my hand, I am awake and thinking now. I’m thinking about the moment in which the young man and woman in the cars are frozen. I guess all events, all of the moments in all of reality—even imagined ones—are preserved forever and cannot be changed.

The Chain of Events extends in both directions infinitely, and if I cannot change the links to the left of my position—the past—I also cannot change those links in the other direction—the future—because the Chain is stretched out so neatly, and each event is held in tension between the links to its right and left; and that force that bends the Chain slightly is imperceptible to my fragmented self, which can only exist in one link at a time, and which—in its smallness—perceives the Chain and the surface of earth to be flat, and which—even if it could comprehend the force that curves the Chain—is too small and fragmented to wield any significant fraction of such a force upon its reality.

Somewhere in that Chain, Napoleon is marching on Moscow, and somewhere else Tolstoy is writing about Napoleon marching on Moscow, and even if what he writes shapes the perceptions or attitudes of people to the right of that event, even so, the event—the link—cannot be changed; moreover, the event is partly responsible for the creation of the story, part of a host of forces responsible for shaping such an author and such an environment to determine every written word.

That’s the way of the Chain—every action causes a reaction, and every reaction is also an action, and every action is really a reaction—and so everything is held fast by everything else. Somewhere in the Chain, someone is tortured, and even if to the right of that link that person forgets about the pain—even then, somewhere in that Chain…it is. It cannot be erased. Somewhere I am awake, and somewhere else I am dreaming. Somewhere in that Chain, on distant planets in parallel universes, beings far more advanced than I are experiencing joy and suffering. Somewhere I am long dead.

And here I am, living, but this life is not my own; there is no way for me to erase any of the links; I have no ultimate power, no ultimate choice; there is no significance in my respective existence; I have no sovereignty over even my own will. So why do I feel like I do? Why is there guilt? Why do I cling to my pride, my egoism, and refuse to understand that it is absurd vanity? Why must I endure the pain of knowing when I don’t believe? Why must I feel pain at all?

Ah yes, pain is necessary for joy, to give happiness value, just as ugliness is necessary for beauty and slow for fast. Because everything is relative: there is no ultimate beauty, ultimate significance or ultimate fast…isn’t there some theory about the speed of light being ultimate—that anything else to go that fast would turn into light? And maybe that is the ultimate destiny of everything: to be light. Just as it supposedly was in the beginning. But when all is light, do I suppose my light will be able to say to itself, looking at all the other light which is traveling at the same speed, “Finally, I am fast!”?

Where was I? Oh yeah, ultimate meaning. Even now, as I theorize that it is a lie, I believe in it. That’s why I find it simultaneously reasonable and absurd that joy must be bought with suffering and that guilt exists for choices I never got to make. Every deep feeling denies the Chains of physical laws, just as those laws deny the sovereignty of the spirit. That’s why I keep searching, even though sometimes I feel like a rat in a maze searching for poison in place of cheese. I’m doing everything I can to figure out this maze—for what? “Attention everybody, I have figured out the meaning of life…no, I’ve decided not to share my findings…why not? Well, you’ve got a point there…ok, the answer is…” Then maybe I’ll pause, and then if I can arrange it, I’ll fall over dead, for the irony. But isn’t that better than just sitting in the maze obstinately?

Ok, it probably is, but even if I concede this I can’t escape this feeling that no amount of knowledge can provide a way around the pain of living, and so all of this thinking is a meaningless diversion. Or maybe the point is to experience the feelings of living more poignantly. And if this is the only point, then I must love life very much. But I’m not convinced that this sort of sensibility is any kind of benefit. It seems rather that someone might be the fungus under a damp rock and want to go on living for a hundred years, and someone else…well, just look at all those rich, famous people that kill themselves.

I guess I don’t know which type I am. But right now…for now, maybe I’m not ready to sit obstinately in the maze. I think the doctor counts on this; he has ways of keeping me going. Like the narrations—I don’t even know why we’re doing them, but I do them anyway, and they give me something to live for.

Still, I wonder if it’s my decision…I have something called a PI chip in my brain; the doctor put it there; it’s for the recording of my narrations, but it can also be used to stimulate and record dreams. Sometimes I dream instead of going out, but sometimes it’s not good—the dreams are too vivid, and they reveal more than I want to know. Still, I often think it’s better to dream life—even if your pain feels real, you eventually wake up.

Sometimes I try to escape some of the pain of life by telling myself that I’m about to wake up from it and find that it was only a dream, but like those dreams which bleed into your waking life, I know that even if this life is only a dream, it is true; it is the kind of dream which would certainly haunt me upon waking…