Real Me

Interesting question, isn't it. Real me. Doesn't sound like a question? That's because you took it at face value. If you don't question, how will you become good at recognizing questions?

So, real me, then. The answer is either "The fish," or "48." But of course, each of these are simply further questions. And so on. Here we have some slight peeling back of the veil, the mask, the persona, the personality. We find both dazzling brightness and a necrotic abyss. Black and White Holes, you see? In a world where the sky will one day be rolled up like a scroll, drawn back like a curtain, it is no unexpected wonder to find that behind me there is a real me.

Take, for example, the me that calls itself Jack H. A joke. A clown. A whited sepulcher. A dollop of quicksilver. A protein stain on a mattress. An inhalation caught midway through the trachea. A memory of scudding pink and purple clouds falling from of the sky. A smell of sage and horses. A roaring of blood in the ears. A hot wind laden with sand. A caress from a calloused hand. A baby crying through the ribs of a crib. A wet blue eye. A broken heart. A poet. A clown. A joke.

Is it randomness? Well, that looks like a question, but it's not. It may be that to qualify as a question, it must have, somewhere, an answer. Not so much a question, then, as an unbalanced equation. In the real world, every equation is unbalanced. The problem, the necessity for unsatisfaction, is in the idea of real. Real me, real world -- randomness and questions.

As for Jack H, he is basically honest. He presents as true a picture as he can. So it is not lies -- which contains the idea of deceit -- but rather the inherent futility of communication, that corrupts his signal into noise. Jack H, who emerges from the electric void as matter rises from the virtual foam of a quantum universe, is real the way every mask is real.

If you were to meet the author of Jack H, you would not recognize him. There has been no deception. Its just that, in a world where what is solid is mostly void, and where emptiness is full, it is foolishness to expect any equation to balance, that has reality on one side and appearance on the other.

The answer, then, to real me? Why would you ask me? Ask yourself.


J