The Lesson Plan
Sep. 14th, 2022 07:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraThey’re dropping like flies, that cohort of mine and those figureheads that defined our moment.
Yesterday, I found out that Cliff F______ had died—someone I hardly knew at all personally, but someone who loomed large in the WELL creation myth. The WELL certainly played a significant role in my own creation myth.
And Ken Starr, the Clinton impeachment counsel, died.
When RTT was the tiniest of tiny boys, I used to make up stories about a trio of naughty creatures called Grumble Trumble, Wicky-Woo, and Ken Starr who were always doing the wickedest things—like trying to stick their fingers in electrical sockets, ripping pages out of books, and attempting to ride on the back of poor, beleaguered Sandinista the dog.
RTT actually shocked me a few months back when Ken Starr momentarily bobbed up in the news: “Wait! Didn’t you used to tell me stories about Ken Starr? You mean he was real?”
###
I think about death a lot these days.
I suppose I am trying to get comfortable with the subject.
Mostly, I wonder how much it will hurt. Like how could it hurt worse than childbirth, which is the most excruciating pain I have ever felt? I don’t actually mind the prospect of extinction of this self; what I mind is that it’s gonna hurt unless I can arrange to die in my sleep or be completely zoned out on morphine.
Sometimes I wonder who’s gonna come out to greet me when I finally make it to the other side. Normal people are greeted by their families: Dad! My God! You’ve lost so much weight! And Mom! Your hair looks great!
But nobody in my family ever liked me very much. I doubt that any of them could be roused from their nectar quaffing or harp lessons to trot on over to that great shimmering, disturbingly womb-like tunnel of light and watch me emerge.
I’m kinda thinking after this most recent incarnation, I’m finally quits with the entity that coalesced as Ben this time round. He was an asshole; I was noble. If ever there was a debt, it’s settled. I never have to see him again. He won’t be there (praise Gawd.)
So, who will?
Maybe Mark?
Maybe my grandfather? (He was the only family member who liked me a little bit.)
Maybe Rik?
Maybe Tom?
Certainly, my companion animals—Sandinista, Fritz, Milo, the Meezer, Rutger.
They will be happy to see me.
And for the first time, we will be meeting as equals.
###
Jean-Luc Godard, as it turns out, died by assisted suicide.
I guess he was in a hurry.
The dude was like 91 years old. It’s not like he was gonna last very much longer, right?
I’m ambivalent about assisted suicide.
I mean, I totally think people have the right to kill themselves. Not even the option to kill themselves. The right.
I don’t get why suicide prevention is such a big institutional push in this culture.
It’s not like there’s any analogous institutional push to help people get more out of their lives.
But you’re just gonna have to repeat the lifetime if you kill yourself.
The metaphor I use for reincarnation is school—like each lifetime is a class where you’re supposed to learn something, and if you kill yourself, you’re gonna have to take the class over, and who wants to do that?
Suffering is hard karma. But it’s part of the lesson plan, no?
###
Plus on the strictly legal end of things, assisted suicide is the first step down a slippery slope. It sets a precedent for taking a life when the right types of red tape are applied. Once that precedent has been set, red tape can be applied in any number of interesting ways. (Yes, I have seen Soylent Green! Why do you ask?)
###
What else?
I came within 3,000 words of finishing the Remunerative Project yesterday, and then my mind went Pftzzz, and little sparks started coming out of my mouth.
I should finish it this morning.
It is presently 27,000 words long. Sixty-two pages!
Yesterday, I found out that Cliff F______ had died—someone I hardly knew at all personally, but someone who loomed large in the WELL creation myth. The WELL certainly played a significant role in my own creation myth.
And Ken Starr, the Clinton impeachment counsel, died.
When RTT was the tiniest of tiny boys, I used to make up stories about a trio of naughty creatures called Grumble Trumble, Wicky-Woo, and Ken Starr who were always doing the wickedest things—like trying to stick their fingers in electrical sockets, ripping pages out of books, and attempting to ride on the back of poor, beleaguered Sandinista the dog.
RTT actually shocked me a few months back when Ken Starr momentarily bobbed up in the news: “Wait! Didn’t you used to tell me stories about Ken Starr? You mean he was real?”
###
I think about death a lot these days.
I suppose I am trying to get comfortable with the subject.
Mostly, I wonder how much it will hurt. Like how could it hurt worse than childbirth, which is the most excruciating pain I have ever felt? I don’t actually mind the prospect of extinction of this self; what I mind is that it’s gonna hurt unless I can arrange to die in my sleep or be completely zoned out on morphine.
Sometimes I wonder who’s gonna come out to greet me when I finally make it to the other side. Normal people are greeted by their families: Dad! My God! You’ve lost so much weight! And Mom! Your hair looks great!
But nobody in my family ever liked me very much. I doubt that any of them could be roused from their nectar quaffing or harp lessons to trot on over to that great shimmering, disturbingly womb-like tunnel of light and watch me emerge.
I’m kinda thinking after this most recent incarnation, I’m finally quits with the entity that coalesced as Ben this time round. He was an asshole; I was noble. If ever there was a debt, it’s settled. I never have to see him again. He won’t be there (praise Gawd.)
So, who will?
Maybe Mark?
Maybe my grandfather? (He was the only family member who liked me a little bit.)
Maybe Rik?
Maybe Tom?
Certainly, my companion animals—Sandinista, Fritz, Milo, the Meezer, Rutger.
They will be happy to see me.
And for the first time, we will be meeting as equals.
###
Jean-Luc Godard, as it turns out, died by assisted suicide.
I guess he was in a hurry.
The dude was like 91 years old. It’s not like he was gonna last very much longer, right?
I’m ambivalent about assisted suicide.
I mean, I totally think people have the right to kill themselves. Not even the option to kill themselves. The right.
I don’t get why suicide prevention is such a big institutional push in this culture.
It’s not like there’s any analogous institutional push to help people get more out of their lives.
But you’re just gonna have to repeat the lifetime if you kill yourself.
The metaphor I use for reincarnation is school—like each lifetime is a class where you’re supposed to learn something, and if you kill yourself, you’re gonna have to take the class over, and who wants to do that?
Suffering is hard karma. But it’s part of the lesson plan, no?
###
Plus on the strictly legal end of things, assisted suicide is the first step down a slippery slope. It sets a precedent for taking a life when the right types of red tape are applied. Once that precedent has been set, red tape can be applied in any number of interesting ways. (Yes, I have seen Soylent Green! Why do you ask?)
###
What else?
I came within 3,000 words of finishing the Remunerative Project yesterday, and then my mind went Pftzzz, and little sparks started coming out of my mouth.
I should finish it this morning.
It is presently 27,000 words long. Sixty-two pages!
Tags:
- death,
- fritz,
- jean-luc godard,
- mark,
- meezer,
- milo,
- reincarnation,
- rik,
- robin,
- rutger,
- sandinista,
- tom mandel,
- work
no subject
Date: 2022-09-15 09:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-15 10:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-15 12:08 pm (UTC)As I'm sure you know, many of them are supposed to have originally been political or social commentaries about events now shrouded in the mists of time—Mary, Mary, quite contrary=Mary Tutor (a/k/a Bloody Mary); Ring around the rosy=a commentary on the Black Death etc.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-15 05:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-15 11:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-15 10:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-15 11:43 am (UTC)I will cheerfully acknowledge that those memories could just as easily be the dissociations of a deeply neglected and abused child as any proof of reincarnation. But I prefer my narrative. 😀. It protects me from that dreadful existential anxiety.
By the way, I dreamed about your father last night. Weird, no? I've never met the gentleman! But there he was, and he gave me something to give to you, intoning in a grave voice, I am entrusting this to you now...
Don't ask me what the gift was! Even in the dream, it wasn't clear. 😀
no subject
Date: 2022-09-15 05:25 pm (UTC)