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---
title: Moving Sideways
genre: prose
project:
title: Book of Hezekiah
css: 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
|
