I’ve gotten off time. I’m not sure how it happened. Something I had eaten, the hypermanic writing, the adventure of this lifetime. Time no longer rules my world. I have escaped time. “Come unstuck,” as Kurt Vonnegut would say.*

There’s really not much I can tell you about this moment that’s remarkably different than the last few moments, but I can feel the difference. In my soul? The souls of my feet? My eyes tired from delighting day and night. A delight, that’s what I’ll call this off time telemetry.* Where am I headed? What is my intention? What do I know?

Not much.

You are here, reading. Listening. Can you hear the whisper beyond the words. The poetry placed as spaces and the removal of any comma that would slow us. Words as riffs as music as singing as jazz as flow as easy as falling off time.

In this time of no time I notice my heart rate slows, my mind it more like cool clear crystal water rather than a muddy puddle of what-the-fuck-moments one after another like firecrackers on the fourth of july. I believe in firecrackers. I believe in hype and ambition and grow grow go go gone. I believe in the power of now, not now, and a bit later in this non-linear no time.

Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my closeup.

What is contentment? What is bliss, buddha-nature, baby buddha brother? What am I?

Nothing. All of life is beyond our control. God is unfathomable. Religion is just humans trying to make sense of our place in the universe. Well, I’m here to tell you, we have no idea. Jesus, Mohamed, Great Spirit, self.

At once, when you’ve seen god-consciousness in another human… In a moment of yes, we bow without movement, “Namasté.” I see you seeing me seeing you. Together in oneness with … what? God? The universe? The Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit. The trinity never made a lot of sense to me. I’ve been told, if I can fathom one or more of the three I am good.

A seeker.

That’s what my Jesus friends call me. I prefer Sufi, but I’m not whirling at the moment. Rumi is more my kind of mystic. The beloved. The friend. Longing for an infinity of time with you. In your proximity. As we get closer during out lifetimes, we are getting closer to god. I believe your lover is the key. We can reach god-awareness alone. A monk or priest in a cave on a mountain in New Mexico. I believe we can seek god within the feedback loop of life, the lover, the yes, the one, the ultimate.

And, I give up, sometimes.

Today is not a day for giving up. Today is the sun’s birthday.*

You are forgiven. Therefore, you must also be forgiving. We need forgiveness.

I am aware of the sixteen year old boy inside of me these days. A swimmer in high school during the most frightening moment in my life. My father was drinking himself to death, I was at prep school in Maine. I was coming unstuck. Reality seemed to bend to my will. My girlfriend was not amused. She wanted to stay close. I was fighting with everyone. I was losing the war in my mind. The energy continued to rise until I could no longer speak. Fortunately, it was time for bed. Lights out in the dorm.

I began hallucinating around 2 am. A parade was going past my window in the snowy street below the window of my dorm room. My roommate, Greg was a heavy sleeper. I sat by the window and contemplated the circus in my mind and the end of the world. I would not survive the night. Sleep would help. I was not to be saved.

Everyone tried. I resisted. The hospital was scary and part of Maine’s anemic healthcare system. In the locked psych ward I did not settle or rest. I fidgeted under the heavy meds. No one knew what to do. Doctors checked in for 2 – 4 minutes a day, passed me through their office, more like a modern standup meeting. Very little value was exchanged.

I got back to school in a few days. I did not function well. I was diminished. Fogged. Drugged. They had crude medicines, more for people hearing voices. I was not even hearing my own voice. I was ghosted inside myself. No soul love moving in or out. No love. Suffering and loss. The loneliness of the manic depressive insomniac.

I became a writer to jettison the pain. The praise and audience would come later. I don’t want to be famous, but it would be night to write for a living. I mean, I guess that’s what I do, but the subject matter is no longer me and mine. And AI is dumbing everyone and every human function into a mathematical formula for minimizing expense and maximizing profits.

When you have all the money you and ten generations of your spawn, shouldn’t you contribute to the greater good and not just your good? Don’t you think?

If I gave you ten million dollars today, what changes today? What will you never do again? What will you spend your magical life doing? That’s the human question. What is the point of my life?

Me? I am here to sing a song. Find music and a voice of love, exploration, skepticism, and syntax. If we can enmesh our minds for a few minutes or hours, we might feel a connection, even if I am no longer in this human form. I have a lot to write. A lot of stories to get to. I must write at top speed, without much editing or filtering, that can come later. Today, write. Tomorrow, write.

Then… We’ll see.

*slaughterhouse five
*off time telemetry
*ee cummings

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Here is the Cloud Pilots episode explaining this chapter.

The podcast of artistic resistance to AI.