‘So how does it feel to be back in reality?’ I’m often asked since my return.
To be honest, I wasn’t aware that I was out of it. It all felt pretty real to me while I was away, from working in a Costa Rican slum to sitting around a fire in the Canadian wilderness via driving across the Golden Gate Bridge. Is the experience not ‘reality’ because it’s not being stuck in a meeting, or doing the washing up, or dealing with the burdens and humdrum of daily life? But then that’s not everybody’s reality, for some it is, however some people wake up wondering how to spend their billions and others wake up wondering if they will live till nightfall. My reality is everything that I do. So surely the ‘reality’ in the question is not mine, it’s the questioner’s.
‘So how does it feel to be back in reality?’ I’m often asked.
‘I wouldn‘t know,’ I say.
'Christ,' they say, 'pull your head out your sophistic arse, I'm just making conversation.'
The comment 'welcome back to reality' underscores the subliminal jockeying for position in the philosophical race to be the first to pronounce life SHIT and have it stick before some busty bird comes along to change your mind. It reflects the underlying despair of the hoi-polloi forced to eat kebabs after getting the last tube home with a headache, and isn't this chilli sauce just great rather be feasting on fanny though down the familiar road thinking back to previous blips of happiness.
ReplyDeleteYou couldn't let it go, Joel, you just couldn't let it go...
ReplyDelete