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1---
2title: Moving Sideways
3genre: prose
4
5project:
6 title: Book of Hezekiah
7 css: hezekiah
8 order: 5
9 next:
10 title: Problems
11 link: problems
12 prev:
13 title: Proverbs
14 link: proverbs
15...
16
17A dog moving sideways is sick; a man moving sideways is drunk. Thus if
18you want to be mindful of the movings of the universe sideways, become
19either drunk or sick. By doing this you remove yourself from the
20equation, and are able to observe, without being observed, the universe
21as it dances sideways drunkenly.
22
23Shit wait. The problem is not that by observing you are observed
24(although quantum mechanics may disagree[^1]), because obviously dogs
25don't know we're observing them when we watch them through cameras in
26their little yard while they play and eat and poop---who poops knowingly
27on camera? The problem is *the actual act of observing that distorts the
28world into what we want it to be*.
29
30What I want to know is this: Why is this necessarily a problem? The dog
31is made, by mankind, to frolic and poop and sniff and growl and dig. Why
32cannot the man be made to observe the world incorrectly around him, and
33worry about it? Men have always wandered about the earth; does it not
34make sense that also they should wonder in their minds what makes it all
35work?[^2] In fact this is the very center of the creative being: the
36ability to move sideways, to dance with reality and judge it as it
37judges you, much like teenagers at the junior prom.
38
39Of course, reality doesn't judge us back. But that doesn't mean that it
40doesn't! If you think it's judging you, then *observe in your
41surroundings your own insecurities*. It is obvious that this way of
42doing things is far from vogue; usually projecting [inner pain][] onto the
43outer world is classified as pathology. However, this is because it is
44assumed that the outer world is *on its own terms*, which it obviously
45isn't, as far as we know. It follows that as [there is no backdrop][backdrop]
46against which to judge our quirks, the quirks must not exist. Thus all
47is right with the world.
48
49[inner pain]: telemarketer.html
50[backdrop]: philosophy.html
51
52[^1]: Quantum mechanics, as is well known, are the most hornery and
53 least agreeable of all mechanics. The cost to get one quantum
54 serviced is usually at least eight times more expensive than the
55 cost of an average automobile tune-up, for reasons not clearly
56 known. The quantum mechanics themselves claim it's the smallness of
57 their work that justifies the price, but it doesn't really look like
58 they're doing anything, and besides, my quantum always seems to
59 break again within six months---maybe I'm just driving it too hard.
60
61[^2]: I attempted to strike this terrible pun from the account, but
62 Hezekiah demanded I keep it if he were to continue the relation of
63 his prophecy-slash-advice column