Episodes In, Out of but Never Outside of the Smoke Filled Coffee Shop: The Infinite Abyss

Refreshed a bit, I sauntered back to the smoke-filled coffee shop. I sat down in my usual wooden chair, picked up my pen and took a glance around. There was smoke in the air as usual, but something else--something strange.

After a bit, I began writing--thinking--trying--as usual. Swamped in the sea of smoke and text, I was uneasy. Something was happening around me, something unusual, but I couldn't figure out what.

And, then it happened. I saw them. All three, sitting in a corner laughing over nice cigars and espresso. I couldn't believe it, had they been there the whole time? What? How? Sat there, naturally, confidently, at ease--Zach Braff, Emmanuel Levinas and Nelson Mandela. How did this happen? Nervous now, butterflies everywhere, my mind was on skates and my thoughts shocked by my passive role--my nonintentional participation--in this event. It was like the Transfiguration in reverse. James and John were nowhere to be found, but these three sat before me aglow in dim light, smoke-filled air, and grateful laughter. Shocked I walked over and said, "It's good your here, can I get you a muffin?" They laughed quietly, smiled disarmingly, and Levinas told me to sit down with them. It was like a moment out of eternity or something. I don't know how long we sat and talked and laughed and discussed, but it felt so easy.

After some time, I was comfortable or at least at ease. I was curious as to why and how they were here, but I knew asking about such things would ruin it all. So, I asked, "What is it all of you see yourselves as trying to accomplish in this world?" Pretentious? Presumptuous? I don't know, but it seemed like a natural question at the time.

Braff jumped at the question, giving an immediate answer: "Well Onietzsche, I wrote and directed a movie once called Garden State," he said in a semi-cocked, Hollywood voice. A bit of strange tweak in his demeanor appeared, but nothing to prevent the conversation from going forward. He continued, "And if you remember, in a critical scene near the end of the movie my character wishes a man who lives on the edge of huge underground cave good luck in guarding the infinite abyss." I nodded in remembrance, trying to convey that I remembered the exact scene. "Well, the man then wishes my character good luck in doing the same, that is, in guarding the infinite abyss. Strange as it sounds, I see my role as an artist as just that--helping people to somehow understand what it means to guard the infinite abyss. After all, isn't that what it means to be human? Isn't each 'person' an infinite abyss to be respected, communicated, explored and finally appreciated."

Taken aback at the heaviness of his answer, I thought for a moment. Surreal--sitting here with these three and having the hollywood actor explain things this way. I thought maybe Mandela would be offended. I thought maybe Levinas would smirk in disapproval. I looked at both, and speechless, they both nodded as to say, "Me, too."

Strange.

Episodes In, Out of but Never Outside of the Smoke Filled Coffee Shop: Beauty and Transcendence

A few days or weeks or years went by, and the smoke-filled coffee shop took its toll on me. Gagging on smoke and text, I couldn't ingest anymore. My lungs burned from the combination of sea water, smoke and dirty, precocious, esoteric air. My heart beat rapidly at times--inflated by the adrenaline that comes with ideas and the same (different) adrenaline that comes with difficulty in breathing.I pulled myself up--raised out of the nausea of that coffee shop--the sea of text and smoke. I had no reason. I had no purpose to do so. There was no revelation. No epiphany. It was a pre-conscious, instinctual movement. At some point, something said it was time to go. So I walked.

On the boardwalk--between the sea and the shop--I saw a girl I knew once, walking. As always, she had one eye on the water and one on the people all around her. Everyone she saw, contacted, met, or just smiled at had a better day because of it. She was unique in this way--a revelation. She seemed to have an energy unfounded and an enthusiasm for breathing unjustified. But, don't get me wrong, this wasn't an annoying, cheery person, equivalent to human cotton candy. No, within the enthusiasm there was charm. Supporting that smile was wisdom. I couldn't take my mind off her. It was uncanny how the water came so close to her, yet the people remained all within reach. No one else is able to walk between both, so finely, so delicately, so preternaturally. It all seemed to balance in, on and within her. She seemed so beautiful because she seemed so human--so vulnerable, yet so whole; so enthralled by the water, but never enough to lose her way on the boardwalk; so magnetic, so enthralling--transcendent and immanent all at the same time.

I wondered if within-on-through-by her if an-other could be. I wondered if an-other--in an I-Thou, not I-Other, relationship would unbalance that balance, undo the harmony.

Most of all, I wondered if she wondered the same.

Funny. I woke up from that dream of reality, or the reality of that dream. The next night I dreamed again. The Old Man was walking in a quaint neighborhood park. In his checkered jacket and old man hat, he said: The smoke-filled coffee shop isn't worth it apart from the dream for that impossible meadow. Derrida was there with him, and he nodded his head in agreement as they walked on.

Episodes In, Out of but Never Outside of the Smoke Filled Coffee Shop: Interlude--Dreams

Walking in a meadow, I grimace, smile, and worry all at the same time. Taking in the Sun and the horizon of existence it floats upon--I wander through the weeds, the shit, the flowers, the butterflys, the chirping birds. The sounds, the smells, the sense! All overwhelming! Something has changed, however. Something is different. When I used to walk like this, I was dreaming. And, in those dreams the meadow was beautiful, the flowers transcendent, the birds harmonious; but there was no weeds, no shit and no screams to match the chirping. No, something has changed. Now, they all reside together. And, now, I am not dreaming. What now? In this world beyond dreams, are the flowers less aromatic? Has the Sun rescinded a portion of its life? Do the sounds, the colors, the Present of this life carry any less beauty? Less wonder? Less hope? No, smelling the shit, seeing the weeds, being stung by the needles--they haven't lost their luster. I hear the birds less often, the flowers bloom only in Spring (if then), the Sun shines and the skies bear blue occassionally, but, now, when they do, they seem all the more luminous. Walking in a meadow, I grimace, smile, and worry all at the same time.

Episodes In, Outside, but Never Out of the Smoke Filled Coffee Shop: The Old Man's Funeral

A few days or weeks or years went by, and that old man died. Part of me was torn. I didn't know him that well. I hadn't spent that much time with him. But, for some reason he was deep inside me--somewhere--creeping, crawling, disturbing. At his death, I felt vulnerable and depressed. Yet, part of me was still stung by his pretentiousness. How could he take himself so seriously? Swallowing the ocean? Everyday? Who does he think he is? How could he consider himself so existentially important? What drove him there everyday? Overall, it plagued me--not a question, but the question--why? why? why? Upset, confused, disheveled--I went to his funeral. Something strange struck me as soon as I walked in to that dilapidated old social hall: half the people were of a different generation than me. They were his contemporaries. Some were at the end of their lives--mentally and physically weary. Others were still very alert. They were robust. They didn't smile, but they were proud. They had the looks of those that tried--that attempted--that believed. It was easy to see that some did so naively. Some did so because they didn't know any better. But, some had the look of the Old Man. Some of them grimaced while they laughed and thought while they listened. Strange. The other half of the room look much like me--young, precocious, ratty and disheveled. Most smoked ceaselessly and rambled on and on about cigars and the breath of life. Boring. Others stood in silence, trying to fit in, but not really. Who are they? And how do they know the Old Man? I walked over to the bar, more confused now than ever. Muttering to myself, I leaned and sipped my Jack and Coke. 'Ocean, shore, bullshit, all of it' I sipped and muttered. And then it happened. An Old Man in wearing the shiniest, cheapest jewelry all over his person, wearing an incredibly gaudy jacket and smoking a cheap cigar, put his hand around my shoulder and told the bartender to get me another. 'So he got you?' he said. 'What?' I replied, intrigued, but wary at the same time. 'He got you with all his business about the ocean, and swallowing it, and trying. And now you are bothered--confused--bottled--and trapped. You are haunted by the desire to try, but frustrated by the hopelessness of it all.' Angry now, I took his hand off mine and tried to walk away. Stopping me, he pulled me close and said, 'Look, my brother didn't get it. He was caught, with all these other fools our age, in a dream with no reality. Let me tell you something--the answer, the key, whatever it is you are looking for--is not in swallowing that ocean everyday. It is not bearing the weight of the cold seawater as it burns your throat and holds you under. No, son. The key isn't subsuming it, it is playing on the surface. Listen, you go down to that shore tomorrow, and the next day . . . and instead of doing what my naive old dead brother said--instead of killing yourself for it all--you find something to float on, a raft, a surfboard, a piece of wood, anything. You find something to float on and you manuever, manipulate and enjoy the surface of the water. Somedays it will be cold, others glistening in the sun; somedays it will be clear blue so you can see the fish below, others brown with the stuff of life. The point is not in figuring it out, the point is realizing that the movements, the shapes, the waves, the tides--all of them move and shiver endlessly without anywhere to be. The surface is all there is and you can ride it as long as you like. ' And with a kitsch wink, he shuffled off to pull the old biddies who had come to mourn his brother's death.

Its funny to me that you fell in love. Its funny to me that you think you are the only one. And, it is funny to me that you are the only one that measured said love by your-self, rather than in, through, or for an-other; especially considering, you know . . .

Episodes In, Outside, but never Out of the Smoke-Filled Coffee Shop: The Old Man, the Ocean and the Shore

Some moments, days or years passed. Randomly, but I think somehow cosmically . . . Outside of (but not out of mind you) the Smoke-filled coffee shop . . .

I met an old man, one at the end of his life. This man was wily. He had the look of one 'who knew', coupled with the eyes of one who 'still believes'. It was evident that his old age had not left him bereft of thought. His body meager, his intellect remained alive. I don't know if it was all the people that continued to visit him, all the walking he told me he did, or all the books he continued to read, but he was still all there upstairs. After some BS, he seemed ready to 'let me in'. So, he told me a--in his mind, the--secret.

'Come here,' he said, 'come close and listen': "Here's the secret. Wake up each day--don't worry how you feel, how tired, how exhausted, how happy--wake. That is the first step. Then, walk to the shore and watch the sunrise. Don't go with anyone. Don't speak. Just watch. But, don't watch as if you are watching a screen. No, watch as if you are in the screen. And then, when the sun is just over the horizon, the signs of a new day fully bloomed and the people beginning to scurry about, then go down to the water. Let shock of the immersion set in for just a second. Then, bend down and swallow it--the ocean; all of it. And, this is the key--don't drown. Feel the heaviness, allow yourself to be overwhelmed, get to the point until you almost can't stand the absence of breathe--and don't drown. Drowning is bad. After, walk home silently and be. This the key son, swallowing the ocean every day without drowning." With a satisfied, smug smile he lay back down. Caught off gurad, I told him he was crazy and deserved to die alone.

Walking now, perturbed, angry, disillusioned. And, thinking: 'The ocean. Stupid man. Spent his days, his worries, his breaths, caring enough to swallow that ocean every day. Cared enough to walk down there every day and take it all in. Cared enough to take it in and then to live the day. Stupid old man.' I resolved that he could take the cares and the ocean with them to his grave. I would have no part. I would waste no more time. That night, I went to the smoke-filled coffee shop. And, then, it happened . . . The next day, bewildered, tired, empty, I rose. I staggered the short distance to the shore and stared. No thinking. No thoughts. Just silence, peppered with the crashing of waves on that goddamned shore. The energy that sent them seemed never-ending, maddeningly and beautifully so. The force was overwhelming and inspiring all at the same time. They kept coming; I kept staring.

Important Notice

I have received thousands upon thousands of questions about the Smoke-Filled Coffee Shop. So, I will post all the parts in order, starting with the first one (which is below).

As a result, my hope is that someday this will be the most-read blog in the world.

Also, I am looking for a corporate sponsorship, so if you know anyone from Honda, Ikea or any local antique shops please pass along my details.

Also, leaving comments on the blog like, 'Onietzsche, I am sure the blog will be the most popular in no time!' or 'Hey man, I don't hold your breath on getting a corporate sponsorship,' or even 'Did you really get thousands of requests?' would reveal that you might care about this blog too much. But, it would show Onietzsche that you care, and in this day and age, these gestures are always nice.

Episodes In, Outside, but Never Out of the Smoke Filled Coffee Shop: Sitting in A Smoke Filled Coffee Shop

Sitting in the corner of a smoke-filled coffee shop, watching in silence as life slips by once again, my heart beating with the vapors of meaning evaporating into the endless play of images, people, and memory. Watching grown-ups pretend they aren't children, as we careen through the rubble of what was never simple, or sensical. Writing thoughts that reflect the cynical and semi-hopeful feelings of a pretender trying to make sense of the mystical, the commodified, and the inhumane. Drinking caffeine laced thoughts to get through the night of logos, slogans, and ads. Dancing to the beat as our existence floats--no, crystallizes--into photos, videos, and tattoos that will define the illusion that is to become our memory and existence. And, then, it happens. While the smoke still in the air--floating in waves of creativity never before seen, never after repeated; while aimless conversations go on, perpetuating the endless flow of endless information; while lurkers sit as open-air voyeurs, watching others to make sense of themselves; while cosmopolitans desperate for attention sit legs crossed, face shiny, physique seductive; while workers work; while consumers consume--the lights are turned off and it is time to go home. The neon doesn't even dim--no, it just disappears. The buzz of the flourescence doesn't simmer, it simply ceases. And, then, it happens. The identities created in this lit interior--this 'dimly lit place'--go dark. The endless play is revealed to be nothing more than . . . ended play. The 'people', now unable to see one another, have no means to make sense of what was always non-sensical. The 'people' recognize in one moment that they have no memory of what existence was like in the light, and in the same moment, forget what they were thinking of. Yes, the surface disappears and there it is not time to go home, not time to move on, not time to try something new. No, the surface disappears and there is nothing more. The dancing is not even a vapor. The smoke not even a memory. The images not saved on a hard drive. The tattoos obliterated along with the body. Where to now? Not home. Not here. I guess we'll wait.

Hostage

Dont hold me hostage. Dont hold me hostage by pinning me in a text, or even worse, this hyper-text. Both of us, if not equally or unequivocally, are indeterminate. Attempts to pin either down will result in frustration, possible hurt and a poor hermeneutic. Dont hold me hostage for your own sake. Dont go looking, inventing or imagining. Let the words reverberate and let the text as a whole disrupt, anger, or dissapoint. But, let it be and I will do the same. peace.

Boardwalk, Beach, Beauty

A few days or weeks or years went by, and the smoke-filled coffee shop took its toll on me. Gagging on smoke and text, I couldn't ingest anymore. My lungs burned from the combination of sea water, smoke and dirty, precocious, esoteric air. My heart beat rapidly at times--inflated by the adrenaline that comes with ideas and the same (different) adrenaline that comes with difficulty in breathing.I pulled myself up--raised out of the nausea of that coffee shop--the sea of text and smoke. I had no reason. I had no purpose to do so. There was no revelation. No epiphany. It was a pre-conscious, instinctual movement. At some point, something said it was time to go. So I walked.

On the boardwalk--between the sea and the shop--I saw a girl I knew once, walking. As always, she had one eye on the water and one on the people all around her. Everyone she saw, contacted, met, or just smiled at had a better day because of it. She was unique in this way--a revelation. She seemed to have an energy unfounded and an enthusiasm for breathing unjustified. But, dont get me wrong, this wasnt an annoying, cheery person, equivalent to human cotton candy. No, within the enthusiasm there was charm. Suporting that smile was wisdom. I couldnt take my mind off her. It was uncanny how the water came so close to her, yet the people remained all within reach. No one else is able to walk between both, so finely, so delicately, so preternaturally. It all seemed to balance in, on and within her. She seemed so beautiful because she seemed so human--so vulnerable, yet so whole; so enthralled by the water, but never enough to lose her way on the boardwalk; so magnetic, so enthralling--transcendent and immanent all at the same time.

I wondered if within-on-through-by her if an-other could be. I wondered if an-other--in an I-Thou, not I-Other, relationship would unbalance that balance, undo the harmony.

Most of all, I wondered if she wondered the same.

A Walk, A Friend, A Heaven, and Hell

I went on a walk today with a friend. We walked into the woods and talked. It was nice. Nice because the woods were beautiful, serene and so alive. Nice also because the conversation was comfortable, intimate and also alive. Life seemed to flow between the life all around us, and the language between us which was an attempt to make sense of the life all around us. The language and life converged. Sometimes I was walking, watching and being (in). At others, I was speaking, listening, and imagining. The moments seem to go back and forth without notice and I never really knew where I was.

We walked, talking, listening, watching . . . I saw heaven, only briefly. I felt it in the world around me. I listened to it--not in words, but in reverberations and echoes of trust and care. Then, I saw it over the ridge at the opening of a clearing--more green, more life than my senses could bear. We sat--at that moment silent--grateful.

The sun had almost left us at this point; inspired, we walked on a bit further. We came to an opening--a long, wide gravel road which seemed imperial, eerie and beckoning all at the same time. Still silent, we went forth. We walked, wondering. We didn't speak, wondering. We came to the end and entered that graveyard. We saw memorials, signs and etches of lives lived--lives lived in the place we saw heaven that day. We heard the quiet--but this time not of life, but of death all around us. We were still silent. It is one of the most sacred and most terrifying places I have ever been--hidden back in the woods, amidst a clearing. At the end of a long road, wide, and narrow--opens a semi-circle with graves around it, and a large memorial at the head. No fountains. No pavement. Nothing but rememberance and death.

Then I realized that I had been duped again. I realized how naive I let myself become. I realized that the heaven I saw that day--and others--was truly human. Why? Because it was temporary--of course. But, also because it ended here--in this place of death. Not only in a passing-away, but in terror, in degradation, in war. I realized that this is where all human heavens have ended thus far--in belief, hope and enjoyment, then humiliation, suffering and war. Strange? more than that:

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The Woods

What I love about you is that you understand something about me. I dont know if it is because we are the same or because we are different. Or, maybe you are just incredibly wise. But, nonetheless, you understand.

What?

My love affair with the woods. I love them and fear them both. The woods seem like home to me. Every morning, they are the first thing on my mind. Each day they enchant me. There are alway more trails to follow, more trees to climb, more horizons to pursue. They are beautiful--the sounds there, the quiet, the crackle, the colors, the smell--these are to me the clues of life. They may not be, I know this. They may not ever lead me but to bigger leaves, higher trees, and further ridges--I know this too. But, the woods are me. The woods are where I belong. But, this isnt the important thing. Many people understand this. Many see that the woods are my habitat.

I dont want to live in the woods, however. I dont want to stay there permanently. No. I like to hike out each day. I like to get a distance. I like to go into to town to see the people, to watch the passers by, to laugh over a glass of potion, and to hear 'the talk of the town.' I like coming out mostly to see you. To walk with you. To listen to you. To look at you. I like coming out because there is someone there to gaze into, and someone there who I allow to gaze into me. Your center is transferred to mine, and vice versa. This is just as much or more the clue of life than those woods. This is the source of joy. But, many people know this too. They see me in town, they laugh with me over potion, the tell me the talk of the town. Others I have gazed into, and others have gazed into me.

What then? What? you ask, almost hurt.

You let me go. You let me venture into those woods each day. You know I have to. You know in order to be me, in order to be the me you want, in order to be the me that is sane, happy or free, I have to go. I go not to get away from you. I go not to escape you or anyone else. No, I go to understand. I go to try. And, when I come out life doesnt make sense, but it is at least more than bearable. You understand this. This is unique. This is hard. But, you understand it and I love that about you. Thank you.

A Boy I knew

Dualisms are hard to escape. It seems that much of existence is a passing between two poles; a going from one side to another.

I knew a boy once called Pinnochio. He was a puppet on a string. Pinnochio, due to the string and the way in which it controlled him--made him who he was--was a puppet. His identity was tied to another. His existence was at the end of a string. His movement as pre-defined. His presentation was limited.

Dualisms leave us wanting. The grass is always greener . . . and the far up and far left and far East is always attractive when we are trapped in the far down, the far right or the far West.

Pinnochio was bitter. He was humiliated. He wanted to be free, to move, to act, to present, to make himself how he wanted. He wanted to make himself. He didnt want to be made to . . . He freed himself from that string--cut the string and went running.

The problem with duality is that it is dual. Desire is never quenched, rather, satisfied, by saturation.

When he cut that string, he realized something. He realized he was no longer Pinnochio, for no one called him any longer. He realized that he was merely a wooden box. His efforts to create, to make, to determine were purposeless because they were the end--the only--the horizon. He knocked on his 'body' (which was by this time only wood) and realized it was the end.

Duality is a vicious circle of bitterness and nausea.

He didnt know what was worse--bitterness or nausea.

Earlier

I was happy earlier. I was happy that what I knew all along was betrayal was betrayal. I was happy that even though I knew it was betrayal that it wasnt jealousy. So, in sum, I am happy to be betrayed, but not with jealousy. This seems right to me.

Heaven

I saw heaven today in an embodied vision. I saw heaven today . . . I saw it in a coffee cup not too big. I saw heaven today . . . in cobblestones and a breeze. I saw heaven today in text and quiet. It was temporary, an hour or an hour and a half. But, that is what made it heaven; a human heaven at least. I saw heaven today and it was temporary, but all heavens are (at least the ones experienced by humans. That is what makes them heavens. And, that is what makes us human). I saw heaven today in all my senses.

A Scab

I pulled a scab away today. Picked at it for a while, then it came right off. It was fairly big and had definitely been there a while--not long enough to heal and grow back into healthy skin, but long enough to be bumpy, to be cumbersome and to draw my attention every time I sat down to think. It had been there long enough that I had come to accept it as part of my leg. When I pulled the Scab off, it hurt. It hurt because it was skin--scarred skin--ripping from myself. It hurt because parts of me were exposed to the fresh air that dont usually breathe. But, most of all, it hurt because I remembered where and when I got that scab. I remembered how much fun it was, how helpful, how nice. I remember laughing and crying, playing and trying. It wasnt until the end that we bumped into one another, giving rise to the makings of a Scab for both of us. I am not sure whose is bigger, but in any case . . . Wasnt till the end that the progenitor--the event (which was in the making all along)--of the scar appeared. I knew when I picked that scar that it would eventually scar and then slowly fade. I would see it on occassion, but the memory of how it got there and the story, and its experiences, would also fade. Despite the pain, that makes me sad. I wish a generally good experience like the one that preceded the Scab could be inscribed on my body in a healthier, more permanent way. I wish it didnt have to end with blood and sting. But, here we are--the scab is in my hand--what can we do now? I pulled a scab away today; it hurts like hell.