Hi, Piya -- I'm a little late, but I made it.

Is that it, then? No external points of reference? That is a kind of Hell, then -- like autism.

I am merely making sounds inside my head -- sounds which connect with notheing, snounds which refer to nothing but themselves. If this is all that I can do, then I don't even want to try to make sense.

And the worst of it is that this isn't even a philosophical point, or a social statement. It isn't even alienation.

It is simply pathos of a very weak sort.

When you get no response from anyone or anything, it is easy to imagine that you are a throwaway, a discard, nothing at all.

Imagine, then, that you live in a world where nobody but you needs to breathe. You would have to assume that wherever you went, they might not -- and very possibly would not -- have remembered to provide any air.

I can not, he thought, understand these people -- and at this point, I don't even want to. They're just cold and uninteresting.

Just saying that is like admitting defeat, but if I tried to have a conversation with a turnip, I wouldn't get anywhere either, so maybe it's no worse than that.

However that works, though, I need to find people who I do understand -- people who have the same poison running through their veins as I've got in mine.

The universal explanation for one's behavior: because I'm too stupid not to.

Another problem with nowhere:

Any hint of somewhere -- even the slightest -- becomes too filled with significance and emotional energy to bear, and one winds up making an idiot of oneself over trivial matters.

All of which does little more than tell everyone that you are, in fact, nowhere.

The difference between being unspeakable and not worth mentioning is very much like the difference between existence and nonexistence,  And the tragedy of it all is that in both cases, so many people choose the latter.

There is no neutrality in human interactions, because we are not by nature neutral.  everything is acceptance or rejection, hostility or friendliness, contact or isolation, or some point in between those extremes. 

But that point is never neutral.

Caught between nonexistent and not right, on one hand, and not-happening and won't work, on the other.

Stand or fall, exist or don't exist, real or not-real  --  maybe it doesn't make a difference.  Maybe it doesn't matter.  Maybe you just do it anyway, and make it work the best you can, whether or not you're a day late and a dollar short.

There is, perhaps, no greater psychological terror than a cold and unresponsive nothingness.

Smiling boldly and confidently at an empty corridor:  not even a metaphor  --  it's just the way things are.

What sort of fool decides to join the human race at the very moment when everyone else is resigning from it?

But how can one rebel against silence and indifference?

At best, one will merely appear to be a child or a lunatic, angrily attempting to draw attention to oneself.

I understand now that I locate myself in the world only by my emotional connections with other people  --  and if I have no connections, I am nowhere  --  I don't exist.

Therefore I am not anywhere, unless I exist in someone's heart.

Not even God knows my name, he thought.  I don't know what that means, but it sounds good.

Falling from a great height while standing on flat ground.  Not much of a trick, he told himself, but at least I'm good at it.

The dark night of the soul is, I suspect, highly overrated.

"You OK?"

"I'm fine."  Hell hasn't suddenly gotten hotter, has it?  I think I'd notice if it had.

What's the choice?

To eat well by oneself, or to be hungry in good company?

That's not a choice  --  it's a cruel trick.  And the cruelest part is that there are people who imagine that they are happy eating alone.

The difference is this:

One is born into it, and that makes it much more than style, perhaps much more.

Underlying it all, however, there is a common world into which we all are born.

It is hard to say that in a way that sidesteps all sentimentality, but it is best said with no sentimentality at all.

Maybe it really is as simple as this:  "Here  --  we'll put you in the retarded box, and put a sign on you saying 'Beware of the Retard.'  That way, everybody will know who you are."

Welcome to the new world. Just like the old world, only harder.

"Is that what this is?" he wondered, Just one more run through the annealing-oven? Was this one enough, or do I need more?"

A practical question:

If the earth was flat, and you fell off of the edge, how would you get back on?

Or to put it another way, how do you get back from the Phantom Zone?

An even better question:

If you do return from the Phantom Zone, will you remember how to behave in this world?

Welcome to the wrong.

Ah, yes, but perhaps it's a new kind of wrong.

That moment when you discover that the childish and embarrassing things that you thought you were doing inside your head are actually clearly visible to everybody around you.

This isn't life. This is an empty building with people in it.

Ah, what do we know of this foolish universe? We ourselves are the fools.

Welcome to the Kingdom of Infinite Wrong.

Intelligence and grace>>>>>craziness and spite.

The universal language of nothingness.

By convention, we are all distinct individuals.

By convention, we find that convention acceptable.

The first rule of this place is silence.

The second rule of this place is silence.

The third rule of this place is silence.

What is the fourth rule?

The cage is not the jaguar.

The jaguar is not the cage.

Neither heaven nor sky above, neither hell nor earth below.

"Expect?" he thought, "It isn't even a matter of expectation.  I have simply come to the land where there is neither heaven nor sky above, neither hell nor earth below."

The cubicle in which I work is not my home, and I will not pretend that it is.  My home is in other people's hearts, and if I have failed to make a home for myself here, it is a failure of the heart.

"You imagine yourself to be cruel," he replied, "but I have never seen anything but fear and lonliness  --  that, and the belief that the world is a cruel place."

The moment when you realize not only that you have nothing, but that there is nothing to be had.

In a world where love is not possible, everything is s substitute, and nothing has substance or value.

What goes on in our heads may be nothing more than brain-chemistry and raw experience, but we are the ones experiencing it, and that makes all the difference in the world.

"This is a damn sad world," he said,  "but it's the only one we've got, so we might as well have a party."

"Am I," he wondered, "the stupidest creature in the universe, or is there something that manages to be even dumber?  A virus, maybe  --  a virus that isn't smart enough to have a protein coat.  Stupid thing."

An "acceptable" amount of damage to the heart, I suppose, is that which it can sustain without actually being destroyed.

What if this is all that is possible?  What if the world or I have changed so much that I can expect nothing better, nothing more?

I am sitting in an otherwise empty room in an otherwise empty building in an otherwise empty universe.  All objects, situations, and events are therefor without significance or value.

Nowhere negates all somewheres.

The most overwhelming kind of nothingness imaginable is an emotional vacuum.

And what then of the moment when you say to yourself, "Only and idiot would do what I am about to do," when in fact, you are about to eat lunch, or something equally normal?  In subtle things, it is by intent alone that we may know if we are being foolish.

It is difficult to escape from one's own lack of common sense.

Emotional starvation produces grotesque and even terrifying aberrations of behavior.

If one's own heart is a half-mystery, what can one know about anyone else?  Or is it all just stories, layers of stories, and stories about stories?

Are we just sad islands, then  --  lonely and desolate rocks in a cold sea, with gray water and gray sky our only comfort?

To open up to another person is not just a leap of faith  --  it is an ongoing struggle against fear.  To exist, one must be brave.

How do you communicate with someone who is too frightened to speak?  The fear itself is contagious, and you may too easily become infected.

It is much easier to accept the abstract possibility of an indifferent and unresponsive universe that it is to accept being surrounded by indifferent and unresponsive people.

I do not believe that the universe is inherently evil, but that skepticism may itself be a kind of faith.

The walls of the heart are not impermeable; if you try to keep it empty for too long, sorrow and fear will seep in, until you imagine that there is nothing else with which it could be filled.

In my cubicle, I feel as if I am an animal being quarantined for reasons which I do not understand, and all I can think is, Break out. Contaminate them all, Infect everyone with your touch!

But do I feel more like this:

What do you do, then, with those moments when, without there being obvious, identifiable constraints on your actions, nothing seems possible?

It hardly makes sense to complain, and in any event, complaints are rarely worthwhile.

A brisk and businesslike plan of action means nothing, when you cannot even characterize the situation, let alone identify those elements which would lend themselves to action.

It is, I suppose, always possible to say, Hey, world, Kiss my ass! But then again, if you do that, the world is going to know that you're really just begging for it to notice you.