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