A MAN IN A COMA lived out a whole entire life in utter darkness but then he had twins within the dark dream and it made him happy. When his consciousness returned, he asked his wife,
“How are the babies?” to which she replied,
“What babies?”
He told her about the twins he’d been raising in his other life on the other side of the coma. The reason I even know about this is because BBC did a story about how he actually did end up having twins, leaving many to wonder what might be happening when we’re not conscious of this life but live out others in such vividness as to feel real. He claims he predicted his twins while living another life in the coma.
A woman in the comments talked about time using the record metaphor. That each life we live lines up with that exact point where the needle touches the groove of that one song. We live out that song—but there are many other songs spinning on the same record. And if you lift up the needle and place it on another groove, the song may be just as good if not better—or at the very least different. I’ve had visions of time as a record spinning when I’m high and the big question I ask myself is about god. Is god the one playing all these songs, lifting the needle up and placing it down again on a different groove, as some kind of whim?
Sometimes we wish we could lift our own selves out of one groove and place ourselves in yet another, hoping the song is sweeter, the mood lighter, the friendships, easier, the love, deeper. Moving can give us the approximate feeling of another life—I picked myself up out of the Chicago groove and lived in the Zanzibar groove for a decade. But I was still me spinning my inner song on a record that kept playing regardless of place. So I’m not quite sure how far to stretch this metaphor or where it lands in terms of “selfing the self.”
I just finished reading a short story called “Pic,” a biting tale of a young woman who eats herself alive with envy and longing for love. The story is part of a collection called Rejection, by Tony Tulathimutte, and he holds up a mirror to contemporary interpersonal chaos by tracing the inner contours of self-doubt. We think we have to choose between self-respect and peace of mind, as if that’s some choice that doesn’t depend on the other. Our earliest relationships with friends and lovers seem to test this choice—until perhaps we realize that self-respect is the peace of mind, period. That takes a while—and several leaps to different grooves to hear different songs—to realize.
Any time I’ve felt rejection—the piercing provocation of it—I’m glad to say it’s been fleeting. I’ve submitted myself to countless requests for consideration, poetic or romantic, financial or circumstantial, and each time the answer has been no, I’ve found a way to translate that no into a yes in the present tense. Unlike the young woman in the story, I haven’t let myself wallow for too long, or adopt a vicious bird that smells like shit, but I have let myself wonder what part of me inspired the no—and then found ways to make contact with her. In this way I’ve found momentum to keep doing my things, whether they’re photographed for public consumption or not.
Find me braiding bread, walking in the woods, writing new words, calling old friends, listening to dad’s old jazz records, sorting and sifting through the archives, beginning again and again and again. That’s all there is to it, really: to keep on playing my song.
“How are the babies?” to which she replied,
“What babies?”
He told her about the twins he’d been raising in his other life on the other side of the coma. The reason I even know about this is because BBC did a story about how he actually did end up having twins, leaving many to wonder what might be happening when we’re not conscious of this life but live out others in such vividness as to feel real. He claims he predicted his twins while living another life in the coma.
A woman in the comments talked about time using the record metaphor. That each life we live lines up with that exact point where the needle touches the groove of that one song. We live out that song—but there are many other songs spinning on the same record. And if you lift up the needle and place it on another groove, the song may be just as good if not better—or at the very least different. I’ve had visions of time as a record spinning when I’m high and the big question I ask myself is about god. Is god the one playing all these songs, lifting the needle up and placing it down again on a different groove, as some kind of whim?
Sometimes we wish we could lift our own selves out of one groove and place ourselves in yet another, hoping the song is sweeter, the mood lighter, the friendships, easier, the love, deeper. Moving can give us the approximate feeling of another life—I picked myself up out of the Chicago groove and lived in the Zanzibar groove for a decade. But I was still me spinning my inner song on a record that kept playing regardless of place. So I’m not quite sure how far to stretch this metaphor or where it lands in terms of “selfing the self.”
I just finished reading a short story called “Pic,” a biting tale of a young woman who eats herself alive with envy and longing for love. The story is part of a collection called Rejection, by Tony Tulathimutte, and he holds up a mirror to contemporary interpersonal chaos by tracing the inner contours of self-doubt. We think we have to choose between self-respect and peace of mind, as if that’s some choice that doesn’t depend on the other. Our earliest relationships with friends and lovers seem to test this choice—until perhaps we realize that self-respect is the peace of mind, period. That takes a while—and several leaps to different grooves to hear different songs—to realize.
Any time I’ve felt rejection—the piercing provocation of it—I’m glad to say it’s been fleeting. I’ve submitted myself to countless requests for consideration, poetic or romantic, financial or circumstantial, and each time the answer has been no, I’ve found a way to translate that no into a yes in the present tense. Unlike the young woman in the story, I haven’t let myself wallow for too long, or adopt a vicious bird that smells like shit, but I have let myself wonder what part of me inspired the no—and then found ways to make contact with her. In this way I’ve found momentum to keep doing my things, whether they’re photographed for public consumption or not.
Find me braiding bread, walking in the woods, writing new words, calling old friends, listening to dad’s old jazz records, sorting and sifting through the archives, beginning again and again and again. That’s all there is to it, really: to keep on playing my song.
