magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

since it's been over a week and i've been too lazy/busy/bored/boring to write something new for this spot, i'm going to rerun a piece of old email correspondence that i had with john, just cause i feel like reading it again. enjoy.

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Date: Thu, 30 Oct 1997 13:38:29 -0500 (EST)
From: "rev. bean amerika"
To: nilknarf
Subject: Re: your mail
Keywords: reality, memories, dreams, quantum universe, parking faery

how much is real enough to be distinguished from not real? especially in beantown. it's one of those meaningless words, no? [...]

well basically. i think i was getting at the fact that i have what appear to be _memories_ of my own unadulterated, confirmable by consensus reality, past, except for the fact that i _know_ (more or less, and maybe i've only quantum hopped to a slightly different time stream, and hence am trying to merge two whole differing world views within my own (relatively) puny brain), that these "memories" are in fact scenes from movies that i've seen or books that i've read. which are, in virtually every sense of the world just as real as those memories which are confirmed by other "outside" identities, but they're not really "my" memories, insofar as the memories that this entity believing itself to be me has of the time-stream that i have s'posedly traversed from (at least) birth (or early consciousness in any case) to this present point.

because they're clinging to the illusion of identity. but we really know that it's an illusion, as proven by our dreams, which are every bit as real as my thumbnail, only less filtered, right?

well, give or take. on a number of points. 1) at the moment yr thumb- nail is rather unreal to me (even slightly less so than yr physical form is (since i haven't observed you with any of my five physical senses in rather a while (and i'm not sure i'd _want_ to observe you with a few of them, but i digress)), which in turn is less so than yr identity which i have observed to a small extent through this email communication). 2) one possibility for the reality of dreams is that they may be a less filtered form of the same reality that we tend to take for granted in our waking lives (things such as our thumbnails, or in a broader context that the sky is blue, the sun rises in the east and most television is a waste of a perfectly good medium, but again i digress). there is, of course, also the possibility that dreams, unlike the more physical forms of reality (including, but not limited to, trees and flowers and cars and clouds and yr thumbnail and faeries and moss and lightning bolts and every manner of thing (including those that are "mere" hallucinations)), are created entirely _within_ the brain, without any prompting from the basic chaos that informs all else that we call "real". of course, i don't much care for that interpretation, although i think it may be valid in some cases. (to an extent.) the possibility (theory?) that i like much better, is that dreams are really just as filtered as our waking reality (for the most part, as a child i had vivid nightmares of the inner workings of infinite Reality (notice the capital r, i must be trying to say _something_)), but they tend to be filtered with vastly different screens than our waking world-views are made up of. _and,_ even more importantly, the screens of our dreaming world-views are often fluid, changing instantaneously, usually without our prompting, although when lucid dreaming (i was trying this morning, when i realized that the golden gate bridge was not in fact in alaska, but unfortunately despite this knowledge, there was no beautiful woman in the broom closet i sought refuge in) we have more control over the screens, and can filter reality as we see fit; somewhat, because by definition if we are dreaming _lucidly_ there is something of our waking mind involved, and therefor also something of our waking dominant world- view. and c) it may mean that i'm going to be stuck on the plane for a while, but i'm somewhat attached to my ego. not out of fear, insomuch as complacency. although, i might have a leg up on most people, in that i have virtually no attachment to my world-view, and try to keep it as fluid as possible without the use of entheogens (although i've been doing a good deal of research into mushrooms lately).

We have two kittens and a nice but not-yet-unpacked-for-over-a-month-now apartment. the kitchen is set up. so's the TV + vcr. and the bed. and a couch. that's it.

i'll have to come out and visit some day before i move away from new england again.

so what IS going on in beantown these days, anyway? and I don't mean the C.V. sort of stuff you included in you last letter, which exists in my memory, too, and in fact on my account as well. I more curious how goes the entity,

i've been too busy lately for much else to be going on. i did have a great conversation a couple weeks ago which helped me to expand some of my ideas of fate/free-will, the passage of time, higher dimensional entities, quantum universes, etc, etc. i also have not been too busy to quench some feelings of loneliness that crop up from time to time, mostly when i'm doing domestic things: cooking, washing dishes, driving home from work.

and whether you've got a parking faery yet. I've met someone in SF who does, and boy o boy does it do wonders!

as in one that finds great parking spaces for you? unfortunately, no. or, rather, it seems as if there are a number of entities, some working in that direction, and others working counter to it.

bean