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.
