Tale of Caution:
Peace is nonchalant ghost and disarming whisper
Demeaning dreamers to normal ancestors
Whereas, if all peace, the guru surrenders
Their dream may come true, and life may get better
(poesia II)
• • •
The stranger slammed his door shut as a puddle of rain released onto the wooden floor. His unit was a one-room space with a small bathroom adjacent, old plumbing included. Across the small room, his bedside analog clock read '22:19'. The loner would forego decaf coffee for the night and chose to grind caffeinated beans instead. He anticipated a hellish night.
The night rider thought back to the lifeless streetlamp he passed on the way home. He couldn't tell if the bulb was switched off or if it had burned out...
Did the health of the bulb even matter, if the bulb still gave off the same effect to the viewer? Does it matter whether I dream or not, or whether I am at peace or not, so long as the people in my life believe that I am?
The burn out, the person who daydreams too often, appeared lifeless just like how the peaceful one, whose bulb is merely switched off, appears lifeless. The outcast thought back to when he denoted dreaming a state of death...
If dreaming too much and if being at peace both make one appear dead to the world... can peace also be a state of death, just of a different kind?
He pulled further on the rope...
Dreamers are in the future, dead to the present.
The peaceful are in the present, dead to the future.
Where am I, however?
Am I a being of the present and the future?
As the future will soon become the present, the future must merely be the present's extension...
therefore I am of both the future and the present, as the future is an extension of the present. This must mean that my duty is to both future and present, as this encompasses all future presents from here to death. Thus, dreaming may have relevance, as it allows my mind to reside in the future; my next present. Conversely, however, to be at peace is to forefeit the future's present. When one is at peace, they are only now, and if one is only ever at peace, then the future will barbarically come at random if a strong enough dream does not act as a shield to entropy. So thus anxiety is necessity to life, and one cannot always be at peace...
So...
Death renders us to the past,
Peace places us in the present,
Dreaming places us in the future,
which is the extended present...
and I suppose addiction removes us from time altogether.
Maybe this is why I crave all of the above... because I am a creature of time. I crave death, peace, dreams, and my addictions. I have a simultaneous commitment to the past, present, and future, and all constantly weigh on me, such as the sun punishes the earth with its heat. Addictions are what I use to escape my past, present, and future, and addiction operates as a form of peace which ignores the present moment, whereas peace acknowledges the present moment.
If these four options are the confines of my fate, I would rather dream and find peace than to die or become an addict. However, I am becoming aware that my dreams and my peace are as dead as that arid rosebush and its corresponding streetlamp. I wish for dreams and peace, but I am hopeless and beyond repair.
As for these thoughts... have I currently made progress in life's efficiency, or am I merely avoiding my work...
Danny decided to set the thoughts to rest, and left the topic in tangle for the night. He was busy, after all, and his subconscious prioritised his duty to work above most other things. He unrolled poster paper onto his desk and conjured a black pen.
His work for BrainSafe was a mixture of duty and passion. Danny allowed himself to enjoy his work, which he genuinely found happiness in from time to time. In fact, Danny had at least five passions he was excellent at, but he was careful never to attach a dream to any of them. Whenever a dream attached to a passion, he found that it began to rob the joy out of the passion, for Danny would then try to make his passion for some purpose in the future, rendering it as mere work. Passion was work that was for the sake of enjoyment, as enjoyment exists only in the present and is devoid of future connotation, unlike work. Thus, he took his passions in stride, never focusing on the future and which successes his gifts could provide him.
And his passions were pure, being completed with no motives of selling, pandering, or being dishonest to himself for another's sake. His work with BrainSafe, on the other hand, did pander to an audience with expectations. That work was indeed completed out of a duty to the inescapable present. Work was expected to be tedious, and that was a good expectation to set, for any joy experienced during work was exponentially magnified due to its unexpectedness. Thus, any joy experienced was a gift. During work, he forfeited his own peace to fulfil another person's dream. That was the definition of work to Danny...
He armed his brain against the oncoming anxiety and began to touch pen to paper...
and then it started.
IT CAME UNEXPECTEDLY
BUT IT WAS PREDETERMINED
IT WAS NATURAL
like
a
leaf,
falling
from
a
tree
THE THOUGHT STRUCK HIS HEAD
it was a dream
If I am to change the world, I must manifest that change within myself first. I must be the proof of my methods. I must perform the surgery on myself, here, at home. It may take weeks, but if there is the slightest chance it can be done, I would be able to cure my ailments and further my journey to peace and enjoyment. All emotion would be accessible to me at will. Peace and desire can simultaneously be mine.
By choosing allegiance with a dream, Danny had escaped his previous death, in which he had not aligned with either peace nor a dream. By choosing to align with a dream, he had also chosen to forfeit peace. However, it mattered not: Danny had finally decided that he was alive.
That night, Danny began writing on the large blueprint below...
His thoughts became penstrokes.
His penstrokes became duty.
His duty became actions.
His actions compiled over time to become something miraculous.
ČTEŠ
THE STRANGER'S DESIRE
Sci-fiWhat would an outcast do with complete control over the synaptic regulation of their brain, allowing them to feel what they want, when they want? Inspirations for this story are rooted in 1984's subversive societal ideology, the sci-fi world buildin...
