Part 1
"This is the most delicious beer I've ever had in my life." It was damn good but I knew it could have been watered down piss and he would have felt the same.
We ate in silence. I imagined how good his meal tasted. I felt excited knowing that before long I could enjoy my meals the way he was enjoying his that night. "Why not start now?" I asked myself. But that would require me to be 100% in the moment, something extremely hard to do when you are living your life on terms set by someone or something other than your self, be it a company, parents, war, poverty, prejudice, or a predetermined role society forcefully pushes you to play. But maybe "in the moment" is human nature at its core, stripped of everything that you think is you but isn't. As these thoughts swirled around in my head, as thoughts often do, I forced them out. Stop thinking about being and just be. Suddenly the food was sublime.
I paid attention to every nuance in the taste and texture of every bite. By the end of the meal I was in the same silent bliss. He sat with his eyes closed. I did the same for a while, knowing that there might be people who felt uncomfortable by our slightly unconventional behavior. Even the chef probably never imagined that two people could enjoy his cooking enough to go into silent meditation afterwards but at that moment it seemed absurd that I would ever bother myself with these worries.
I opened my eyes to find beautiful landscapes in the shape of tables, and chairs. The people around us, engrossed in their own conversations or work, suddenly looked so perfect. They all had hopes and dreams and desires and faults and if you watched them long enough, you could see right through them because as much as they might see themselves as less than incredible, they were all works of art. If only they could realize it. I caught myself worrying that someone might have put something in my drink, but quickly realized the idea was nonsense. This is what the world looks like with a clear head.
"Uh...sorry. Are you finished with all that?" The waiter asked, completely oblivious to the beautiful sights and sounds around him.
"Huh.....?" My friend answered, with one foot still in paradise. I answered for him. I was still close enough to earth to know what was going on around me.
I thought I'd leave him to his own pleasures for a few minutes and try my own opened eyed meditation. The staff would probably just think my friend was sleeping and leave him alone.
I got up and walked over to the exhibition at the entrance. I noticed there were far fewer customers than before we arrived in this other, euphoric dimension. On display were cell phones, a computer, a coffee machine, and other various technology as it might appear hundreds of years after the end of the human race. Everything was covered in rust and mold, cracked and dirty.
I imagined how the artist might have made it that way. I could see clearly a variety different statements or lack of statements the artist might be trying to make; an argument against the control technology has over our lives, or one against consumerism, a reminder of the impermanence of all life, an attempt at impressing people with what might be perceived as unique or mysterious, or perhaps just a game to see if an artist could get away with selling garbage by setting it at an insane price.
There was real moss growing on the cell phone. I wondered what kind of a person would present this as art and what thoughts were going through their head. There was no way to tell for sure but you could narrow anything down to a few possibilities. My thoughts turned to my first computer, the CD player I used to have when CDs were still a thing, my first cell phone which would glow blue when you pushed the buttons and could hardly do anything besides make calls. Where were they now? Were they intact? What did they look like? Could any parts be recycled? If you think about it, each piece of garbage has a story with no one to tell it.
My thoughts continued drifting. One day I'd be gone and so would everyone I knew, but these things, they might still be here. What kind of ideas would people have in the year 2500, after digging up a first generation smartphone? What would they say about us? Would they be able to extract any of the data inside? What would my descendants look like? Would I have any descendants? Would any of us have any descendants?
Everything is connected. All is one. The words echoed through my mind and seemed to move beyond me.
Check out Confessions of the Damaged to read the rest of this story.
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