There’s an element to this, these pages, that may be like the notes we write ourselves out of dreams, or midway through drug trips — both those notes as we write them, in revelation and righteousness, and as we read them, in rationality and regret, and try to figure out what we were on about.
I, the night-time me, may have been wowed by an opening into a different way of thinking about everything but you, daytime you, are quite likely to see nothing special here.
If that’s so, I’m sorry, but could you then please devote a bit of today to remembering your own mind-expanded moments?
Nothing is so likely to underwhelm someone else as telling them they are about to be amazed, more amazed than they have ever been before.
Something inside them, presented with this or a similar proposition, rolls up its sleeves, leans on its spade, spits onto the grass at the graveside and says, ‘Do your worst.’
Look at my face, the sexton implies. Watch it not move. I’ve seen life and death, and I’ve seen nothing special in either.
And you continue talking, and you hear your own voice becoming the sound of someone awkward and unconvincing — some complete idiot — who just happens to be broadcasting into the same space you’re in.
I’m glad I’m not them, you think. How embarrassing to be talking that load of old cock.
There are few things worse than losing faith in one’s argument halfway through making it.
But my — but this — all I’m trying to do here is admit, let in through the door of the page, the possibility of other possibilities.
If I haven’t blown your mind, it doesn’t mean you’ve been gravedigging your entire life.
Sometimes you’ve tripped.