Critiquing Critiques

Whitetrash found himself suddenly struck with the very clear realisation that everything he saw and heard meant absolutely nothing. All that really mattered were the ones he was with at each given moment.

So what about being with no one? Was that okay too? Was all that really necessary or was this okay too? He pondered over the possibility that he might well actually be okay, that there might just be a place in this world for a Jungian introvert, well of course there was, it was here, it had managed so far. He was just another side of the coin, keeping everything in balance, maintaining that supposed dualism known by so many names.

And was all that dualism business really true anyway? What evidence was there?

Men and women: so there was obviously quite a definite distinction just in all shapes, sizes, shades and textures in between.

Day and night: was more of a gradual, cyclical motion than a sudden off and a sudden on.

Matter and space: well there was either a thing or nothing, and nothing really in between although he had been told that nothing and something was actually the same thing. Well he’d just have to wait and see about that, if indeed he would ever be able to see and would that really change anything anyway? Would he actually do anything any differently? Would it be good to know? Would he even fully believe it anyway? How exactly would it alter anything of any significance?

They’d probably see a lot more happiness and less ugliness and generally enjoy the present a lot more, such discoveries may have the power to alter the course of history while at the same time the course of history may well have been already plotted and these discoveries were just another part of it. History, he realised could even have been the only possible way and there was no way of changing anything. Even collective efforts were only ever of limited success. The march of fate was relentless and unyielding. The only thing he’d ever had any control over was where he was and he could only ever be in one place at once.

Would he really be better off over there? Better off as in less likely to die which just maybe, at the end of the day, might have been the most important thing. Could that be true? Survival? Putting it off for as long as possible in the way you knew was best.

But did he really know what was best? There were no real dangers over there whereas all of this business could be a little bit harum at times, flying machines and poverty to name but two.

Were all of these rituals really necessary? Well, the new ones he’d recently adopted anyway, not the old ones he’d inherited from the ones that made him. Was that really the right way to go? Was it even possible?

He realised that this may not go down too well with his fellow eggers-on. He might well have quite successfully critiqued himself or at least the one who had been thinking all of those strange things recently. Were any of them actually valid or necessary for his own well-being?  How exactly would putting his own well-being at risk benefit him in any way whatsoever?

Maybe the older you are the more ready you are to face what’s coming next which would then make the key to all-round well-being concurrent with extreme survival tactics.

He wondered why older people didn’t just tell the truth before reasoning that they might not even realise it themselves, or that he’d just yet to meet someone who actually would, or maybe they were actually trying but didn’t want to come right out and say it as they weren’t even sure about it anyway but just had a vague gut feeling. And if he mentioned these fears to them they’d probably agree.

Where he was might well have been his number one priority and the place with the least amount of risks should have been where he was aiming for. In that case if it was possible to be over there, he very really should. Never mind the experience and the good deeds, all of that might be nothing more than temptations and distractions, traps laid by a hidden force designed to lure him this way or that and only he could tell himself, only he had any power, authority or even the ever so slightest influence over what became of him and what became of anyone else was only ever of secondary importance.

Anyway who was he to decide what other people would really like to do? They all seemed quite happy to him, quite content to let things continue and they might even have been right, or at the very least unconsciously following something else that was.

Was all of this just total rubbish? Was it all actually okay? Was there nothing to talk about or say, only do or enjoy?

Did the computer generated 3D image of a computer virus mean or change anything? Was it just yet another trap? Or could it be on the other hand a guide, a signpost, an attractor, the way he should definitely be going? The answer to that would have been very handy.

Well it seemed as if some people were creating basic digital life, flowery, wormy, colourful grubs, floating crustaceans, hypnotising away from the truth or a lie, leading him back to the right or wrong path. He could very easily imagine these images to be cybercosmic planets or galaxies or the next thing up. They could, at a much lower level be teaming with self-reflecting cyberlife spread evenly throughout their being like the glowing luminescence of a digital jellyfish. If that was true, then worlds had already been created, only no one realised it, or maybe some did but then surely everyone would know?

This then led him to the suggestion that all of this was also, at some level, a simulation which was gazed at in wonder by starry-eyed overcurious brains. Everything created on a computer was an act of creation. Viruses were created by programs so every cold he’d ever had was a program, every bit of a sore throat had evolved out of informational manipulation, every form of matter in fact, since everything was, at one time and in one way or another, organic.

If they were viruses, he thought, then so were flowers and so are we, everything in fact he suddenly decided was a virus in nothing, a beautiful virus, a non-thinking virus, an unconscious virus in both being and non-being where the property of self-reflection was merely accidental, not particularly necessary nor in fact desirable, in which case the flowers had it so much better!

Had he been a flower before? That might, maybe, somehow have made some sort of sense. So what was he going to be next and would it be any better or worse or were such distinctions even appropriate or relevant to the situation?

If he didn’t even remember ever having been Whitetrash wouldn’t that actually stop him from being anything like Whitetrash again? And if he was still Whitetrash what good would it do him, right now, that he should then remember? What part of Whitetrash would remain if he didn’t even remember who Whitetrash was?

Was it all really being used in the way they said it was or were most of them using it all rather mundanely? Would they ever make the leap into purely digital existence and was it actually possible or desirable?

When all was said and done all of this was nothing more than entertainment where the entertainment itself was in actually taking it all seriously. A hobby, just like any other only for some it had become quite lucrative and they might even have convinced themselves.