Alone In The Machine

Subject/Object

"Philosophical", if you are anything like me, you will have heard that word banded about by people going through hardship, and who have thrown that word out at the end of a sentence after an outpouring of negativity, as though it meant something. I'm trying to be "philosophical" about it, they will say. As though it wasn't simply a full stop. You will agree, though neither one feels it is particularly deep. Yes, you will say, and move on, though nothing has been said and nothing is solved.

You may find yourself on autopilot, in common place situations, mouthing the dead words, doing and saying common place things, all the while feeling at odds with it. Yet you will do it, you will obey the social conventions and the day to day trivialities. The day to day realities. What else is there to do? Superficiality trumps depth, because  people can simply choose not to go with you, and talk about the weather instead. You cant bring up Socrates or Plato to some old crone in the discount section of a supermarket, who is just desperate to tell you how lovely the 25 pence southern fried chicken is. These are the constraints and the reality of the situation. It's hello, how are you doing, so and so is doing this, did you see the football? And so on. The surface drowns the depths and the meek have inherited.

So i decided to get something down that was in me, but never gets the opportunity to come out. Something to balance the weight of all those none conversations. To write down thoughts and ideas and feelings. To try and get to something universal, rather than hearing from some stranger the details of another strangers life. To capture something in the heart of me, something that may be in the heart of so many, but so rarely gets the opportunity to come out in everyday life.

Walking around any shopping center, in any town, in any part of the world, can be an isolating experience. It's astonishing to think that any of these people wandering about with their shopping bags, their jobs, their daily rush, have any inner life whatsoever, yet they must. Each one of them has eyes, they all have hands and faces like you. Each one has a story, a perspective, each one is a life, each is a center of consciousness that places itself at the center of the universe. Each one is a center of consciousness that will evaporate and disappear from this world,  each is a person never to be repeated again. Each one of them experiences existence through themselves, and is the only mode of existence they have ever known.

I am looking out at a sea of hands and faces. Do they know they're the walking dead? A young couple passes, smiling and oblivious, seeming untouched by the thought. A woman with a pram. A chav walks by with his hands down his tracky bottoms grabbing his dick, as though to check it is still there. Soon it wont be. A business man walk by. A mother with a pram, and a baby staring at me, knowing nothing of this pain.

Does the mother know that to give birth is also to create death? That life itself is a death sentence? Nothing on her face seems to indicate it. She strolls by and goes about her day. I wonder if she has ever had that thought, or if like so many, she has never even considered it. Maybe she was just like the others, doing it because it was the thing to be done, because it happened, because she was bored and she wanted a cute little miniature version of herself she could carve into the image of all she had failed to be. Maybe she was naturally maternal. Maybe she wanted to continue the human race. Maybe she wanted someone to look after her in old age, like some kind of biological pension scheme. None of these seemed like particularly good reasons to me, but what can i say, I'm a pessimist.

Does the business man know that money is an illusion? When he tells people to live in the 'real' world, does he know that he is occupying the heart of abstraction? Do the young smiling couple realize that in a hundred years time the only smile left will be the skull and bones?

"That'll be four pounds, please" the cashier says. He is one of those millions of men and women that seem to be entirely comfortable with everyday human interactions. " I'm addicted to these too" he says, pointing at the four bags of crispy M&M's  i have just bought. I laugh and smile "me too, they're pretty addictive". He hands me the change, "thank you", i say, and leave. We have smiled, we have bonded over so little. I consider it a success. Once again i have walked in their world. I have pretended to be one of them and not found it too painful or been found out.