We all have our personal history, the epochs, the highs, the lows. And then there are the sideways times, the ones that are really interesting... you know, when reality turns into jello and just about all you can be sure of is the fact that jello doesn't do a very good job of representing reality. You get tired of orange, you get tired strawberry, you run like hell from the lime and treasure the little slivers of peach, and most of all you're always looking for the edge of the bowl hoping there will be enough of something dried onto the glass for you to climb back out and have yourself an escape. Been there, done that, don't eat all that much jello anymore.
Yup, you guessed it (not like the title doesn't just flat give it away), the class jumped from Socrates, First-Shirt of the SoulMarine, to deal with the ponderings of Renè Descartes during what had to be one of his traverses of the jello bowl. Not like he didn't have good cause to be keeping company with the fruits and nuts in the jello bowl, good lord. The sixteen hundreds, peak of Roman Catholicism's theocracy, the peak of their degenerate and perverted days, the days of the black plague and witch hunts, yea, there was plenty going on to put a thinking man in the jello. A man needed some serious faith to make it through those days, the more of the hype and bullshit he'd been exposed to the deeper a faith required.
I can sympathize with Descartes, I can. We had to cover his meditations, the one home turf for the classic "I think, therefore I am" thing so often found drinking in some cheap dive keeping company with a washed up fat dj calling himself meaequal emcee squared and flirting with a hapless barmaid home to that whupped puppy optimism, the sort usually sporting an IQ to match her bra size, a soft hearted sincere gal who really doesn't give a damn as long as the tips are bigger than their dicks. Yea, I can see how Descartes came to the conclusion it was time to drop kick reality and start from scratch.
The funny thing is this: he grabbed onto God to help him hang onto reality, and that's not a bad thing, not at all. But if you want to turn his arguments just a little sideways what you come up with is a line of reasoning that puts you sympathetic for God as well, because hey, no one should be as alone as Descartes put himself in the beginning, not even God, and He really can't make a habit of flirting with the barmaid, not really. From Descartes' line of logic you can actually construct a reason, a good reason that holds water, for the Almighty to create creatures such as you and me and the barmaid in the first place.
The nightmare is called solipsism, the idea that you're the only thinking thing in all of reality. Not a good place to be, and if you're God a very real thing for you because hey, you are reality, it's all you baby. So what do you do? You know you're all there is, nothing is new, nothing is unique and surprising and delightful, it can't be, it's all you from the get go. What do you do to stay sane?
The answer is of course you create mortals, you give them free will but not enough real knowledge to barely pour water out of their boots, and you turn them loose in your own dreams. They're going to fuck it up, of course they are, but that's no biggy, not really, they're not smart enough to do enough harm to really matter, and hey. They fucked it up, they did, and that is worth all the repairs they cause because now you know you're not alone. You're God, you're perfect, you don't fuck up because you literally know it all, you're omnipotent, omniscient, it's your universe and hey there's no way you'd do that, you couldn't and still be God, but... it did happen and that is proof positive you're not alone.
Which is why when the barmaid goes home for the fourth time this week to bathe and douche twice and dry cry on her pillow with the loneliness then you can go to her, slip into bed behind her where she couldn't really see you even if you were bouncing enough light for her eyes to pick up on your presence and give her a hug, be that soft warm presence that feeds her with hope for tomorrow and leaves a thought in her heart to shield her from the empty night: no sweetheart, no, you're not the only one who feels things, not at all, stay kind and stay sweet, be strong for me and know you're not really alone, and neither am I as long as you're you...sleep sweetheart, sleep, it will be better tomorrow. Motive enough I should think.
