FORGOTTEN BUT NOT LOST

Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Last week my bike was stolen by an imaginary thief. Like something out of Memento, I 'forgot' which particular rack I had latched my bike to and somberly took the bus home, no doubt in my mind that it was gone. Forever.

But the bike hadn't moved at all. In my mind, it had traveled to a distant, shadowy Seattle neighborhood and was promptly sold on Craigslist (for which $50 would be pushing it ~ really pushing it). In my mind, it was already in another state. I grieved and moved on.

When, weeks later, a friend called me to say she had seen my bike locked outside a bookstore I frequent, I still wasn't ready for the truth: my first thought was that the thief happened to visit the same used bookstore I did. Then, after a moment, things came into rapid focus.

Certainty is simply certainty and has no innate bearing on the actual state of affairs. A mind fixated victim to certainty will have its bike stolen by imaginary thieves, its ailments caused by imaginary spirits, and its life inhibited by imaginary barriers. Skepticism is not, like many say, a door that locks out beauty; it's more of a net that captures foolishness and holds it accountable.

Some From The Book

Recent sketches:



Yesterday the neighbors were clearly, although beyond the grasp of reason, smashing in a window with a large knife, and for those peeking over the fence the scene looked and sounded more or less like this.

YES / NO

The health care debate is madness. Joe Wilson's (R-S.C.) outburst at last night's joint session is indicative of the fever-dream this debate is for many of reform's opponents. Wilson's shout, 'You lie!' was irrational and wholly reactionary, a posture assumed from ten consecutive months of consumed feartalk.

With fear replacing reason, just about every visible curve transforms to a sharp, threatening edge. Skepticism transforms into paranoia. And those so riled, like Wilson, feel a desperate sense of duty in the face of their terror. One can imagine that his colleagues + news providers passively set him up for this moment ~ that Obama is lying, he cannot be trusted, he is vexing the public with charisma, that it is terrible, that it spells doom, and every word he utters into a microphone brings national collapse ~ Obama's ultimate agenda ~ closer and closer to hand.

I hesitate to call this imagination. But one could easily compare Wilson's fears about health reform to Orwell's fears about the all-powerful State. I'm biased here, though. I would describe Orwell's dream, though it could be called paranoid, as much more rational than Wilson's terror ~ I imagine he came to many of his severe conclusions independently, from calm observation, whereas Wilson was stirred into a frenzy that seemed to him the only option outside surrender.

Which isn't really an option.

Just try to click it.

[ Note: Yes is also unclickable. }