The Parallel Life: 1-3.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010 15:581. I’m an hour off. I should’ve been up by twelve.
I’m now looking at the fantastic backlog I’ve created. What a mess, what a happy birthday present. Except it isn’t my birthday yet. I have to treat it like it is, though, if I want to accomplish something by the time it comes around.
I’m ranting. I’m not supposed to rant at all, I think.
Perhaps I should credit two and a half decades of wanting something and not actually racing to get it for this logjam at the milestones department. Where’s the success, I ask me, and right there, stuck in the funnel, I answer. Inexcusable.
There’s a gun in my drawer. There’s a bang in the office.
This pile of work’s shot, and I say let’s start from scratch, eh?
2. To the bartender, I said:
I was talking to this poker chip and he said he wanted out. Told me that he was filthy and beaten up and thrown away worse than a rag doll. He was a trophy, and probably of the dirtiest kind, both in worth and function. He told me he has had enough of his life and he wanted freedom.
So I pocketed the chip and told him about the stories of the hamburger who got devoured minutes after he was prepared by this small-fry cook at a fastfood joint. I told him about how lucky he was, how he needed not be afraid of hungry women who would kiss him first with lipstick before chewing him to death.
He told me he would rather die in someone else’s stomach than be thrown around as a representative of money for eternity. I disagreed, for this poker chip had the capacity to think, and when there is that capacity, there is always a positive upside to immortality. There is a benefit for the rest of Creation.
And the poker chip told me that he is of the selfish kind, and that he does not care about any gambler, any dealer, or any goddamned casino owner. For him, the world revolved around him, that the world without a tool like him to throw around would never survive.
He asked for his freedom, and in response I dropped him through a manhole, which to him was the equivalent of hell. At that point, I realized the only way the poker chip would be free: a great flood that will wash him away into the land above him now.
The bartender asked me, “How could you do such a thing to a poor fella?” to which I answered:
I had a great idea, and it does not have anything to do with anything we talked about. I simply had to drop him. It does not matter whether he had his freedom or not. What matters is that he is insignificant and I had the chance for an experiment that will bring me excitement.
Adversity forces evolution. Imagine a poker chip with the ability to act on its own. Now, would that not be a sight?
In the likely chance that he would not evolve, I have already forgotten about him.
3. I sat down with Jale and told him that I’m interested in traveling through time. He asked, “And if you could venture into the past, what would that thing be that you would correct?”
The explanation was supposed to be brief, but what I told him was this:
Nothing.
I would very much like to see the future. I’ve read somewhere that life, technology, and business opportunities, they’re like bouncing balls. Today, the ball bounces and hits this spot right here. This is the wave of the present. This is what we do. This is where we are, what we are about.
To capitalize on future opportunities, one must predict where the second bounce will hit. If your direction is to the west and the ball bounces to the east, you’ve lost that opportunity for success, and in addition, you’ll have to work double-time to make up for lost ground. If your direction is to the east where the ball would bounce, you could perhaps catch it and find success.
The ability to see the future would mean an advantage over everyone else who cannot.
“But that’s not fair.”
Give me a book that says it is unethical to look into the future for whatever advantage and I’ll agree with you.
This isn’t boxing. I can kick anyone’s balls and tell him he’s the weak one for not covering it with his two hands when I attacked him. The last rulebooks I’ve seen people respect were holy texts and “covenants” between God and us.
I’ve never seen anything about kicking balls or time traveling in those texts.













































