Friday, September 24, 2010

Crazy



I was with a friend a few years ago, eating white cheddar fries in Chimara, when, all of a sudden, I had an out-of-body experience. Nothing supernatural, mind you, only a vague but still weirdly acute sense of perspective I have never felt before. Everything just seemed so...arbitrary...and absurd. Does that make sense?

The closest analogy I can think of that approximates the feeling is when you stare at a word long enough that it stops making any sense. Except it has not changed one bit; the thing that changed is your perspective.

Only this time, it was not one word, but the whole world, and in a freaky, fleeting instant. Everything just seemed really, really absurd. I suddenly realized I was eating a root crop fried in a vat of oil squeezed from vegetables, and then sprinkled with a liquid squirted from a fat animal that is left to basically rot before it was turned to powder form. But with no words, and not just with my fries, but with everything else. It was as if all intellectual barriers had been destroyed, and I was left with nothing but a clear perspective of how absurd everything really is.

Then I started to laugh. My friend asked what I was laughing about and I tried explaining it to him but I couldn't so I let it go at that. He understood, he said, but I don't think he really absolutely did, because, well, I didn't.

It was strange. If it wasn't as fleeting as it was, I probably would have difficulty finding a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

I wonder if there are people who live like this everyday. I wonder how they cope with it.


Photo taken here.

35 comments:

  1. Hello Fickle Cattle. I am Megansquared.

    I know what you're talking about. For example. Paper money. ....Why? It's only of value because we SAY it's of value. It used to be backed by precious metals...but who says a precious metal is precious? Just cause it's shiny and not as common as, say, rocks.

    Oh yes. I think about this often. I prefer not to, though. It makes everything seem ridiculous.

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  2. I get like every now and then, but it's more of a engulfing panic about how short life is and how I will one day be nothing and no one will ever know I existed. Not in a bad way, just an eye-opening way.
    motherhoodmusicandbeer.blogspot.com

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  3. I too have actually experienced this, and I did as you did, just laughed at it. It brings a whole new perspective to light, well it did for me any way, and you just go on and live life to the fullest. I do feel for those who do not see the positive side when they go through this, and just feel like nothing.

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  4. They either become mystics or we lock them up in restraints.

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  5. I too have felt this - that life is arbitrary and absurd - and yet at times I feel an overwhelming benevolence that has nothing to do with luck or fortune.

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  6. the moment of truth I don't experience it often enough.

    I really enjoy your blog
    thank you

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  7. I've felt that way more than once. I call it, as well as a few other things, a Glitch In The Matrix.

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  8. It's funn, but I know exactly what you mean.

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  9. I feel that way all the time. I don't know if it's some weird disorder....I can't express it....It's just....I look at things from my perspective, and I feel like I'm looking at it from someone else's mind. I'm in my head. Looking out. At this stuff. Sort of like a camera in the Truman Show, or something....Or that Alien in that guy in Men in Black. I feel like I'm just someone inside a skin looking out. I'm me, but someone looking out through someone else.
    I can't explain it.

    I think I just grew up so isolated and alone and friendless that I just stuck in my head. I'm still in my head, all the time. So, for me, I'm always having an out of body experience. There's a quote from a movie that -kind- of sums it up "Ever wish you could freeze frame a moment in your day, and look at it and say "this is not my life"?" You know?
    Oy.

    I think this just further confirms what a freak I am. But I think I'm okay with that.

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  10. Crazy world out there and we eat crazy stuff we like to call food..we are what we eat!
    I just metaphorically lock the gate and look at my immediate and sane environment where the birds, animals and trees are all sane and not interested in money,profit, exploitation or who has the biggest whatever.Works for me!

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  11. It's funny when those "out of body experiences" happen because they always happen at the oddest moments. I don't remember the exact circumstance, but I had one of those. I'm not sure how many of my posts you've read, but I have been a waitress for almost five years. One relatively normal day I realized all that stress/anxiety/anger/worry of messing someone's order up, taking too long to bring out their drinks, or someone literally yelling at you because they had to wait an extra five minutes to sit down is simply NOT worth it. It's f*cking ridiculous, and ever since that moment of clarity whenever I feel myself lose it, I say to myself, "it's just food. These people won't remember you a month or two down the road." I just wish people wouldn't let themselves get so worked up over the inconsequential.

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  12. I haven't had the body experience... but definitely the word experience.

    However, I can say that I won't look at cheese the same way :-)

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  13. Hm, since I'm still young I've never experienced that before, but I will tell you something weird that happened to me.
    I was at a Healing Mass at Church (where the Holy Spirit is supposed to go through you). It''s a very weird experience, sometimes you laugh, fall, it depends. I went up to the alter and the priest prayed over me, and then I just felt SO weird. After that I was crying for two hours straight. No idea why, I just couldn't stop. It was so weird.

    Sorry if this offends you because I'm talking about religion!

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  14. Hahaha!! Itotally get what you are saying. I had one of those vague, weird feelings about the word "gnaw" once. I just couldn't remember if it really WAS a word. It was so odd. Gnaw, gnaw, gnaw. I loved how you wrote about this out-of-bodyish feeling. You should write a blog or something!

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  15. I feel alone in my confusion, but the way you described it, it makes fairly logical sense. I understand basically what you felt.

    I very much enjoy your writing style. Thank you for contributing to the world in the way you do.

    -nick mapes
    Omgitsartsy.blogspot.com

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  16. I have something where I feel like I'm seeing whoever I'm talking to for the very first time again, or catch myself off guard in the mirror and wonder who that was. "Glitch in the matrix" indeed.

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  17. One time, I had said the word grateful so many times that I questioned if it was really a word. It felt different than how I'd said it before.

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  18. i get this quite often, & have since i was a child! it is kind of weird, but totally amazing. apparently i used to ask really strange questions when i was little, about the most arbitrary things that my parents had never even thought of.

    ALSO when i was at highschool i used to get bored & end up (accidentally) staring at one word on the whiteboard for ages until it got so weird it freaked me out.

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  19. I experience something similar every now and then. Either in a form of a anxiety attack, sudden clarity or both. :D
    I find that I write my best prose after such an experience.

    *whisper* it's all those mind altering mushrooms they put in our burgers and pizza. (crazy eye look) *nod* *nod* Shhhh.

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  20. yeah, I have had this type of experiences a few times... its all a blur... but it feels good afterwards.

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  21. is the world even supposed to make sense? ;)

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  22. I don't think I'll ever eat white cheddar fries...actually, I don't think I'll ever eat fries now!! I've never had this sort of an experience, and I think I'm good without it...I would lose my love of life!!

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  23. I experience this, too, sometimes. Mostly when things are so vivid it's impossible to notice everything and anything in particular.

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  24. I find it quite amusing how you find ways to describe the indescribable … I had something that can be described as a similar experience where … examining and “staring” into self for too long, senses kinda flip inside out and … the only thing I could say was “wow, you know that this is THE TRUE you!”. After that, nonsense settled in my gray matter chasing all kinds of possibilities in other dimensions, and I could only giggle to break it off …
    p.s. – thank you for your comment on my blog the other day. I enjoy reading your quirky consuming paragraphs of interesting unrelated matters!

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  25. I do the same thing sometimes, for instance why do we pay athlete millions of dollars to play a game, but the average salary of the people giving our children an education is only 30,000? Great blog...

    www.amberlashellrants.blogspot.com/

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  26. Um don't think I'll be eating French Fries w gravy for a bit!

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  27. You've managed to make me reconsider my outlook on life and make me worried to eat cheese ever again, all in the space of the 2 minutes it took me to read this post.
    I don't quite know if I should thank you... But I will anyway.
    Thank you,
    Jessie.

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  28. Yes, life can indeed be absurd.

    On another note, I am bestowing you with a blog award so please stop by my site to pick it up.

    Happy Weekend, The Empress

    http://rantersbox.blogspot.com

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  29. I think people that are high experience this more. . . or when we're unguarded - it's almost like de ja vu. . . unwanted, but totally revealing. How are you feeling now?

    http://lookingforloveinla.blogspot.com

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  30. I think I'm one of those persons who live like that almost every day...

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  31. Whoa.
    Yes, this has happened and it's too weird to explain! I think you did a good job explaining it.
    Have you ever had the thoughts like, "Whoa. I am a person right now. These are my arms. This is my face. I don't even feel like this is my face..."? It is SO strange.

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  32. wow, a really intriguing post... our world is so amazing and so mysterious and things happen that we don't understand... :)

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  33. Hey guys! Thanks for the comments. :-) Good thing I'm not the only one going a little bit crazy after all. Hahaha.

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