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The Eternity Articles Act 1 Scene 09
__________________________________________________
/ /
/ The Eternity Articles /
/ /
/ Act I, Scene ix -- November 1995 /
/_________________________________________________/
\ \
\ Who am I?: Sanjay Singh \
\ eternity@cyberspace.org \
\_________________________________________________\
"All my life I've wanted to fly
Like the birds that you see way up in the sky
Making circles in the morning sun
Flying high in the sky 'till the day is done."
[Big Pig]
Contents
========
- Introduction
- A New Day...
- Price Ain't Everything
- Just What I Needed
- Citizen Of The World
- Stranger Than Fiction [with Julian Barton]
- A Higher State of Existence [by Greg Webster]
- My Country [by Paul Sheen]
- Random Thoughts [by Paul Sheen]
- First Thoughts [by Michael Duda]
- Mindless Filler...
- Disclaimer
And so another month goes on. So far a lot of it has been
spent sleeping. It seems that living off caffeine for too long
will eventually put you very close to a comatose state. So let
that be a warning to you. I've danced with the devil, and walked
away with a couple of handy tips, useful stuff like 'Thou shalt not
drink four cups of coffee on an empty stomach.'
So what else has been going on? Not too much. Eternity could
be taking its toll on me. The words just don't flow through my
fingers to the keyboard anymore.
Maybe part of the problem is that I refuse to talk about O.J.
It's an easy target, and I'm sure I could squeeze at least two or
three pages out of it, but come on. Do we need to hear anymore?
Or maybe, I'm just blocked. It hasn't happened yet, but since
I'm fairly new to this game, I might just not know what to look
for.
It turned out that I was just blocked for the three weeks.
This entire issue was put together in about a week. That might
explain why it seems a bit choppy at times, but stick with it.
I'll tell you right now that it is, by far, the issue that I am
most proud to have my name at the top of.
So without further delay, hand over your tickets, and climb
aboard. The train's leaving the station, and you don't want to
miss it... Woo Woo.
A New Day
=========
"This is the beginning of the journey. Hopefully,
through this thing, we will be able to accomplish
something. I'm not promising any great questions will be
answered, but at least they'll be exposed. If we're
really lucky we might even find out what our destination
is." [The Eternity Articles, Act I, Scene i]
You now hold in your hands, and on your screens, the last
issue of The Eternity Articles. In the very beginning I promised
a journey. And I think that's what I've delivered. I've made the
journey, and I know that a few of you have managed to grow with me
as we walked together.
I'm not actually going to stop writing, don't worry about
that. I'll actually be here next month, with a new journal called
"Beyond Eternity." I just wanted to change the rules a little, and
the name. "The Eternity Articles" was beginning to rub me the
wrong way. The only really major changes should be in the name and
the underlying message, but I can't even promise you that. A good
chunk of you have noticed that I'm not the same person that started
this, and I'm not sure how much farther these changes will take me,
but to offer a guarantee that nothing will change would be a lie.
Think of it as a clean start.
When we started on this path together, I had no idea what to
expect. If last February you told me that Eternity would have been
the catalyst that rekindled my passion for life, I wouldn't have
believed you. Hell, the purpose of Eternity seemed like it was to
prove that you can't always win, and that some fights weren't worth
fighting. Maybe they weren't, but I backed down from the wrong
ones. Experience and wisdom are two strange companions, but I
couldn't go on without their friendship.
Last week I turned twenty-one, and last month I realized what
it would mean. It's not a measure of how many years I've used up
getting to where I am today, but how many I have left. At the rate
that I'm growing now, I know that the possibilities for the future
extend... well, beyond eternity... (I couldn't resist)
You're all invited to walk beside me on this path, but I know
that some of you will be apprehensive. Originally, I was going to
use the current mailing list... No more. There's a price to go
beyond this point. You have to take the first step. If you want
to come along, just reply to this message and let me know. It
doesn't need to be anything special, it could just be a simple
"yes" or "I'm in." Just try to make it a little more meaningful
than "subscribe eternity@cyberspace.org."
Eternity is waiting.
Price Ain't Everything
======================
"The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life
which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or
in the long run." [Henry David Thoreau]
The age old dilemma of service seems to be at hand again. I
have a friend, who when forced to wait in line for extremely
lengthy periods of time in the convenience store of our our first
year residence, would proudly start to eat their licorice. His
philosophy was simple, "I don't like to wait in line, and they
should have it set up so I won't have to." Which is true. I
wouldn't go as far as him to make that point, but I see where he
was coming from.
Ever heard the saying "the meek shall inherit the earth"?
It's a lie. The meek won't be able to inherit anything, because
they'll be buried under all of the crap that they willingly put up
with every day. In the student village, they had us all
headlocked. We were forced to buy into prepaid meal plans, and so
it was either shop with them, or spend your own cash. They also
tossed in a nice little clause about any money left over at the end
of the year was their's, but that's another story for another time.
Last month, about a week before the last issue went out, I
took my computer into a local computer store to get it fixed. So,
naturally, I went into the one just off campus that I pass on the
way home to find out how much it would cost me. The estimate that
I got was for about a hundred dollars, which seemed reasonable, so
I got a friend to drive me down with my computer, and I left it
there. They said that it should only take three days to fix.
(This was a Thursday, incidentally.) I went home for the weekend,
and on the following Tuesday I called them. Now remember, this
would be four full working days later, and the service guy said
that he hadn't had a chance to look inside it yet, but he would
that night, and since he was pretty sure that it was a standard
part, he wouldn't have a problem putting it in. He assured me that
it would be ready on Wednesday. I got a little concerned at this
point. After all, I had an issue to put out, and the month was
going to end on Saturday. Things looked bleak.
On Wednesday, I was caught up in an assignment, or something.
The point is that I didn't get a chance to give them a call, but I
stopped by on Thursday. I figured that certainly with the extra
day... Foolishly, I gave them the benefit of the doubt. I stepped
in, and had to wait... and wait... and wait. And eventually, the
service guy came out from behind his little wall. He apologized
and said that "two new cases" came in on Tuesday night and he
hadn't had a chance to look at it yet. Fine. No big deal. It's
not like I should expect them to stick to their estimate. So I
picked it my computer up, and walked out of the store.
Now, it's almost a month later, and I finally get around to
calling a dozen or so computer stores around the campus. I found
a place that for an extra ten dollars, would get it back to me
within the same day. They actually promised that. So the lesson
is, don't worry about monopolies, and being forced to deal with
someone you don't want to. Just back away, and then find an
alternative. I didn't think that there would be one, but I still
found it.
Just What I Needed
==================
"I think the lights go out every time I close my eyes,
and then come back on again when I open them. So if you
see the lights start to flicker, you'll know I'm out of
my blink set." [2nu]
Last week was just a little more than just a little strange.
I could say that if I had a week like last week a year ago, I would
have slipped back into a very depressed state, and would have spent
weeks wallowing around down there. But, this is a new year, and a
new and improved Sanjay. I have 5000% better cleaning power now,
so dirt just knows to stay away... Or does it?
I'm winning the race again. I'm in the lead, and I'm in
control of my life now. Now the only things I need to beat are the
fates and myself. The latter isn't really a concern, since I know
my own arsenal, so I'll know when to duck. It just seems that fate
has other plans for me.
All this week, I've felt that there were a hundred hands
pulling on the back of my shirt. Trying to drag me back into the
pit that I had just emerged from. But every once in a while they'd
let go, or at least the pulling had stopped. But when it was
there, it was pretty disturbing.
I won't lie and say that ever since I took control of my life
back, that it's been all rosy, but it has been better. Ever since
I started writing, the depression has gone. The anger and
frustration are still there, but one of my greatest enemies has
fallen away.
The beatings that I endured took their toll, but I think I'm
back to being myself again, and a couple of the doubts and second
thoughts that I had were merely frustration's way of wooing me
back. It's incredible how easy it is to be tempted by promises of
your own pain and torture... But that's another story...
Citizen Of The World
====================
"An alternate reality might be fun to visit sometime, but
I wouldn't want a summer home there or anything." [Mark
"MEB" Baldock]
I have a friend that I used to talk to a lot. Not about
anything, but we'd talk. Every once in a while (almost daily) I'd
run off on one of my tangents and I would end up turning the
simplicity of 1 + 1 = 2 into quantum mechanics. My imagination has
a wonderful habit of doing things like that. Once a conversation
gets boring, I just change gears, and go somewhere else.
He has this deliciously predictable way of handling the
situation. He always asks "what colour is the sky in your world?"
And, always obliging, I answer back "pink."
Maybe at one time, we could get somewhere with that, but we've
been playing the same game for about seven years, so it's just
become routine. A lot like tic-tac-toe actually. Habits are hard
to break, and they just get so comfortable that you don't want to.
Of course, sometimes you realize that if you throw out the old
ones, you'll get some new ones that are even cozier.
I never really felt at home in the world before. I was a
second class citizen in a third-rate society, and we were all
doomed anyways, so what did it matter? Nothing ever really seemed
to click for me. There was always an eerie feeling of discomfort,
a nauseating feeling that I didn't belong, and there was always a
paralysing fear that something back was going to happen lurking in
the back of my mind. And of course, if you look for something in
everything around you, you will find it. You might need to create
it, but it will soon be there. And that's when the chain snapped,
and my life fell apart.
I always thought that the road to success was paved not with
the bodies of the people that I'd need to break to get there, but
by pieces of myself that I'd need to sell to be able to properly
integrate into the rest of the world. Want to know what I really
learned? The road to hell isn't paved with good intentions, it's
paved with the people who were too blind to see that they didn't
need to even walk along the road.
I guess I'm just one of the few that was lucky enough to
notice that I didn't need to follow that road. That journey would
have consumed me before I even got to see where my destination lay.
I'm glad that I noticed that it wasn't worth it.
Did I find a new path to success? No. I don't even know if
there's a path anymore. It just implies too much linearity. I
found something much better, I found a different goal. Happiness.
Strange, huh?
If I ever speak to him again, I'll have to tell him that they
sky is blue. I'm home.
Stranger Than Fiction
=====================
"A bizarre sensation pervades a relationship of pretence.
No truth seems true. A simple morning's greeting and
response appear loaded with innuendo and fraught with
implications... Each nicety becomes more sterile and
each withdrawal more permanent." [Maya Angelou]
written with: Julian Barton <st9541c1@pilot.stu.cowan.edu.au>
I was doing the dishes last night when I was hit by a thought.
Truth. Here I was, running around in a desperate attempt to
actually have something written for this issue, and there was a
topic just lying in wait for me. So, now that we have a topic, why
not try to explain it.
For as long as I can remember, people have told me that they
value the truth. That the truth was our friend. That if we hold
onto it tight enough, we could do no wrong. Well, somewhere along
the line, the truth broke down and sold away our secrets... or did
it?
What if there are two truths running around out there? Maybe
we have the real truth and the theoretical one? Wait a second,
that might actually make some sense. We all know that theory is
very different from reality. I could tell you that "theoretically,
I'm immortal," because no one has proven to me that I am not. Of
course, we all know what happens when reality shows up... needless
to say, a bullet in the brain beats my version of immortality every
time. Theoretically, it wouldn't, but I think we're smart enough
to know better.
So we know what the real truth is. It's an absolute. It's a
big slab of concrete right in the middle of our path. It gets in
the way, it obstructs our vision. We can't see past it, through
it, or around it. Who wants that? Who needs that? We don't want
walls, we want freedom. We don't want logic, we want abstraction.
We don't want objectivity, we want subjectivity. Why buy the cow
when you can get the milk for free? Why tell the absolute truth
when dancing around it is so much easier?
We want the theoretical truth... It's more or less the same
thing, isn't it? It's like Diet-Truth, half the reality, half the
guilt. A softer, warmer, fuzzier version of the actual events in
our lives.
We can forget that the theoretical truth is simply the real
truth, with the premises altered and manipulated to create the
appearance that we want to end up with. It's a twisted version of
logic -- "Decide upon the conclusion, and build premises to support
it." Challenging it is hard -- this is an idea which offers us
exactly what we want -- a way to 'moderate' reality into something
nice, light and safe.
So we keep our 'two truths' idea -- much like the 'P.R. self'
that we all hide behind. You know what I mean -- the version of
ourselves that we like to believe is the real one -- the one that
we show other people, the one with the noble motives for
everything... the heroic self that we all like to think that we
are. We keep the parts that bolster the soft, fuzzy feeling, and
discard the rest.
Maybe there is nothing wrong with dreaming of ourselves as
heroic. "It's good to have that vision," you might think. Problem
is that we tend to lose sight of the real 'us' underneath it. The
'us' who was too tired to give up out seat on the train for that
old lady last week.
We lose sight of the real person, the only 'us' that we want
to see is the other one, and maybe for a while that's all we do
see. Then, when we meet someone else, we show them the idealized
us, and they confirm the lie.
It spreads on from there, like a drop of water in a still
pool. The little white lies, the excuses -- they all lead slowly,
in small steps maybe, but inexorably towards that safety of the
'theoretical truth'.
The 'theoretical truth' is a lovely concept. We can use it to
avoid responsibility for our weaknesses, for our mistakes, for our
laziness. We can use it to dodge the consequences of our actions.
A truly marvellous thing, the 'theoretical truth'.
There is only one problem, it doesn't work.
The story that we were taught from childhood is, for once,
true. Truth does eventually catch up with you, we can't dodge
reality forever. Sometimes it's the excuses that don't change the
consequences, the white lies which are discovered. Usually it is
worse, we get that nagging feeling inside.
You know the one, you've felt it before. It comes when your
mind is quiet, when there is nothing to distract you. It's a hard
one to put into words, but it has that dull, hollow feeling that
you aren't quite who you should be.
The person who read the grade sheet, and saw the mark which
was 15% less than it should have been. The person who reflects on
a game, and knows inside that they could have put a little more in
for the team. The person who looks back at their life so far, and
realises that they are not quite the noble hero that they like to
believe they are -- these people are us, these people know part of
that feeling. They have the start of it.
The person who looks at the world, who sees the web of lies
that we choose to call truth rather than challenge the whole world,
and is tired and nauseated by it -- that person knows the rest of
it.
Of course, we don't let ourselves stay in that for long.
There is a simple way out of it -- turn on the tv, reach for a
beer. Distract ourselves, it'll go away.
We spend most of our life hiding from the same truth that we
think we honour. Although it all starts out as little things,
other bits pile up, and we all end up at the same stage, unless we
put in a tremendous effort of will to avoid it. Responsibility is
heavy, and we all like freedom. The end result is the same for
everyone though...
A Higher State Of Existence
===========================
"He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is
enlightened." [Lao-Tzu]
[Greg Webster is someone I have never met, actually I've
only been talking to him for about a month and a half,
but he seems like an interesting person.
Like me, every month, he examines his life, and shares
bits and pieces of it with us. His creation, The
Eidolonica Papers, is similar to Eternity, in a sense.
I think that the key difference is that Greg doesn't
limit himself to his present life, while I would rather
stay in the present than to return to the past. But,
I'll let him explain the idea to you. You can send mail
to him for more information.]
by: Greg Webster <Kick@freenet.vancouver.bc.ca>
I'm just this guy, you know?
Just like everyone else, though it took me one hell of a long
time to realize it. I figured I was just strange, one time had
some weird thoughts that I wasn't actually from this planet. (Am
I sure about this now? No.)
In the past couple years I've went on a journey of self-
discovery that was completely unintentional, as all the best are.
I hitchhiked across the continent simply because I was bored, I
fell in love and got hurt, I got over it as best I could in a far
away place, came back to Vancouver, Canada, fell in love again
(this time with a woman and her child), got hurt again. All these
experiences smacked me in the head hard enough to tell me to look
at who I am.
It was at this point that I finally decided enough was enough
and that maybe it was time to get my life started in a straighter
path.
Right now, I'm deciding all sorts of things in my life,
finding a focus that I've never had, and working towards the hope
that everything is going to work out alright. I'm looking past the
mistakes I made in the past, and getting to the point where I can
really be good to myself and others. The Eidolonica Papers is my
expression of relaxment, doing something I really always enjoyed...
asking questions of things in the world no one has ever managed to
explain. Who knows, maybe I'll learn something? :) (actually, I
think that's a guarantee)
The Eidolonica Papers are being put together as sort of an
experience-relation exercise. I'm picking a topic that hasn't been
fully understood by science or the common-sense, and asking others
in my world to relate some of their experiences on that topic. Not
every issue will have the sort of self-delving I have shown here,
some will have none, some issues will have a lot.
I believe that with the way this world works, I'll never run
out of topics.
My Country
==========
"It is a well-known fact that we always recognize our
homeland when we are about to lose it." [Albert Camus]
by: Paul Sheen <pdsheen@uwaterloo.ca>
A certain referendum in Quebec (one of the ten provinces of
Canada, for the geographically-impaired) leaves the future of
Canada as a whole to be decided by less than a third of the
population. Doesn't sound like democracy to me, but that's not
what I'm here to talk about, really.
Quebec politicians have forever whined about wanting to be
declared a distinct society. If you cross the border where I live
(in Ottawa) to Hull, you immediately know this is true. It's far
deeper than just the language, it's a life-style. For example,
French-Canadians are a proud and emotional bunch, while the rest
of Canada is very drab and for the most part apathetic.
French-Canadians are also terrible drivers, but we won't hold that
against them. What I am trying to say is that Quebec has no need
to feel insecure about their distinctness, and nobody is trying to
take that away from them. Why is it that Quebeckers are so
sensitive everytime somebody says something about them? Is the
media being that manipulated?
This whole pride thing makes the French want to be their own
sovereign country, and have all the freedom and power that comes
with that, but at the same time they want to keep the Canadian
dollar, citizenship and everything that is good about Canada. But
this time it really is a case of "you can't have your cake and eat
it too." What happens when the Indians (no not the Cleveland
Indians) decide they have a claim to the land too? Then we have
a lovely little civil war on our hands, but this time the RCMP
isn't going to be there to protect the rights of golfers.
Isn't it ironic that we find out the future of our nation on
Halloween? Seems like good enough a day as any.
I also question the "good" intentions of the leaders of the
separatist party. Yes, Jacques Parizeau, who has the dictator
smile down-pat and Lucien Bouchard who is the real brain behind
this whole thing. It's strangely ironic that this man suffered a
battle with the "flesh-eating bacteria" and lost a limb when this
is a nice metaphor for what he is doing to Canada. Quebec is a
part of Canada that cannot just be broken off without a great
sense of loss. I mean, what will happen when Mario Lemieux and
Wayne Gretzky have to play against one another in the Olympics?
Another question to be asked... There is not an overwhelming
majority of Quebecois that want to separate. It is almost 50/50.
What happens to that half that don't want to leave Canada? Do
they become stuck in a place they are unhappy or do they have to
uproot their entire families and traditions to stay a part of
Canada?
This brings to mind what I actually wanted to talk about...
What happens if there is a no vote? Parizeau has said time and
time again that if they vote no (incidentally, if they vote no to
separate) he will just keep calling more referendums until there
is a yes vote. Sounds to me like we should make them leave just
to spare *us* the angst of watching them decide what's going to
happen. But that's not what I want.
This reminds me of a certain situation in Seattle, Washington.
The baseball team, the Mariners, had their most successful season
ever this year and at the same time, the owners were threatening
to leave Seattle if they didn't get a new stadium. So they had
what was, for all intents and purposes a referendum to decide if
the taxpayers wanted to pay for the stadium. The taxpayers said
no in a very close vote. But now I'm reading how the town council
has voted to build a $300 million stadium anyway. Perhaps I
missed some details, but isn't that ignoring the democratic
process? (Not that I'm promoting the democratic process either,
but that seems to be the dogma of choice in North America.)
So will it be the same in Quebec? Will there be a 40-60 split
or something to that effect where 60 percent of people vote no,
but then the premier (head of the province) decides that all that
was really needed was 40%? Who knows. I guess we will in a few
days.
Random Thoughts
===============
"I have this little theory..." [Paul Sheen]
by: Paul Sheen <pdsheen@uwaterloo.ca>
Men: Ever wonder why bathrooms are designed with odd numbers
of urinals? I have this little theory that it's because men prefer
the outer urinals and at the same time, do not want to be beside
anyone. So, for example, with the 3 urinal bathroom we have here
at work, you can have two people there, each with an end urinal
and not beside each other. If you had two urinals, you'd both
have end urinals but then you'd be standing beside someone. If
you had four, you'd have two on the end, and then two empty
urinals in the middle because people don't want to be beside each
other.
I find that at least in my case, and probably in most other
cases, people prefer that personal space. Perhaps it's different
in other cultures, but here, people like to urinate as anonymously
as possible. That's why you never turn your head when you're
standing there... Just sort of stare blankly at the wall.
And think about it... If you were smart, you would you use
that middle urinal, because it's never been touched... Probably
crystal clean.
The reason I'm actually writing this today is because I was
shocked when somebody came in to the washroom while I was at one
of the end urinals and took the middle one. I can't believe he
had the nerve to violate the urinal buffer! Especially when an
end was free. Go figure. I think it's just good etiquette to take
that end stall when it's available. Maybe I'm just a freak...
First Thoughts
==============
"Intuition and concepts constitute... the elements of all
our knowledge, so that neither concepts without an
intuition in some way corresponding to them, nor
intuition without concepts, can yield knowledge."
[Immanuel Kant]
by: Michael Duda <mduda@uoguelph.ca>
I used to have something wrong with me. Not that this was the
only thing wrong with me but it was just one of them. It was not
a big problem, but not a small one either. I don't know how it
started but it was with me for a very long time and it was only
recently that I think I got rid of it. What was this problem? Was
it alcoholism? Addiction to cigarettes? Not even close to those.
I used to judge people on the what I thought of them the first time
I met them.
I think everyone does it at times and I now know that it is
unfair to do it. I would meet someone and I would jump to a
conclusion about this person. I would suddenly have an opinion on
them and a complete diagnosis of who they were. I was being a
jerk. I was an ass-hole. That person might have a different
opinion then mine on one subject and I would immediately not like
that person.
How did I change? Well, I don't know how it happened
really... in fact, I don't even have a clue. But it did happen.
Sometime over the past year I started giving people a chance. I
started giving people more then one opportunity to prove themselves
to me. I think this really became evident recently when I realized
I may have never gotten to know my best girl friend (not girlfriend
type thing, but good friend who happens to be a girl) if I didn't
give myself a chance to get to know her. Thank God I did give her
a chance.
It started in september of last year. I moved into residence
here at the University of Guelph and started hanging around with a
few people on my floor. One of these guys only hung around us for
a little bit for the first couple of months. It seemed like
everytime the rest of our gang were going out somewhere and we
asked him, he had to stay around because he had to wait for a phone
call from someone named Vicky. There were a few nights we were
going out and we would ask him if he wanted to go and he would say
something like "sorry... i gotta talk to Vicky." After a few times
that this had happened I finally asked one of my co-gang members
who this Vicky was. They told me that this was this guy's
ex-girlfriend and that they had just broken up just before school
started and she was being a real "bitch" and wouldn't let things
end. So what did I do? I started believing that she is a bitch.
I even started to refer to her as "the bitch" when her ex-boyfriend
wasn't around. That went on for a few months and by December
things between those two had calmed down and this guy hung around
us a lot more. At the end of December exams, everyone on our floor
went out and got extremely drunk at a local bar. We had a pretty
good time and I was introduced to Vicky. The first thing she said
to me was "When you get married, are you going to make your wife
take your last name?" This can be explained by looking at my last
name, apparently she had a problem with it. I asked her what she
meant and she told me that she thought my last name was weird and
anyone having to take it would be made fun of.
Well, I knew then that she must be a bitch. How dare she say
that! I wasn't in the mood for an argument, so I let the
conversation end there. Time passed and my opinion did not change
of her. A few more things happened and I met her a few more times
my opinion changed very little. The only common factor to all of
our meetings was that she was drunk each time. This might be
meaningless but I think it was a big factor. One night at the end
of february the gang I hung around with went to a bar and got drunk
(again) and there was Vicky. By the time last call came, myself,
Vicky and Vicky's ex-boyfriend were the only people in the gang
left there. When we were leaving, Vicky told us since it was a
long walk home (25 minutes, but when your drunk 25 minutes can be
a long walk, especially when you don't know your way home well) we
could sleep at her apartment. I at first said no but agreed after
minute or two. I slept on her living room floor and her
ex-boyfriend slept in her roomate's bed. The next morning I woke
up and found Vicky was up already sitting in the living room.
I thought to myself, "Great, now i got to talk to the bitch
until Greg <the ex-boyfriend> gets up." Well, I talked to her for
a while and I was in for a deep surprise. She turned out to be a
nice person. Actually, she was a really nice person. We talked
for a few hours and after that my opinion of her was different. I
still thought she was a bitch, but a bitch who was nice.
Well, I ended up sleeping on her floor a few times in March.
And each time I slept over we would talk the next morning for a
while and I learned more and more things about her. I asked her
about her roommate and as it turned out, she and her roommate had
not gotten along since September. I also found out that her mom
had died in August right after Greg and she had broken up.
Suddenly things made sense to me. All those phone calls she
made to Greg made sense. Her mom dying, she and Greg breaking up
as well as a bad roommate would put anyone in a foul mood. As for
that last name thing, I think she was just drunk at the time and
being silly.
When school was over at the end of April, we were just decent
friends at that point and I knew a few things about her. We wrote
to each other over the summer but did not have a chance to talk
(she went to England and then a trip around Europe in July and
August, so contact was non-existent) until September. Things
picked up right where they left off in the first week of September,
and have accelerated at an incredible pace. My roommate and I
started hanging out with her and her new roommate and we even went
out drinking with each other. Each weekend when we are going out,
we call each other and see what the other is doing. Every couple
of nights one of us will phone each other and we will talk for a
while and see how each other is doing. I live on campus and once
in a while she will stop by between classes and we'll talk about
things. Neither of us have any intention of taking our
relationship beyond friends but that is just fine. Who can't use
another really good friend? (If you ever think you already have
enough good friends then I think you need to take a look at
yourself.) If I ever did make a move on her, I wouldn't be able to
forgive myself for putting our friendship at risk.
She even told me one day that I was one of the few people she
truly cared about. We have had a couple of arguments, normally over
stupid things but all it takes is either of us to say that we are
sorry, and the fighting stops there. She and her ex-boyfriend and
now the best of friends and I think any anger between the two that
developed when they broke up is finally gone. Both of them at
different times have told me that I was the one who made them
really good friends again. I don't think I caused that, I believe
that really good friends are friends forever.
What's the moral of this entire story? Don't ever think you
know a person by the first time you meet them, not even the second
time, not even the third time. Give everyone you meet a chance.
Its hard to do and it can't always be done, but at least try not to
jump to conclusions. I think if we all did this with everyone we
meet, the world would be a better place and more people would get
along with each other.
I have heard the saying "Don't judge a book by its cover,"
many times. Now I finally know what it means.
Mindless Filler...
==================
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information upon it."
[Samuel Johnson]
Well if you have this then you probably know how you got it,
but in case this was passed on to you, then I'll just let you know
where you can find it.
mail: eternity@cyberspace.org
web: http://www.interlog.com/~vash
ftp: ftp.etext.org: /pub/Zines/WhyMe/
gopher: gopher.etext.org (follow the prompts)
newsgroups: alt.zines (happy hunting)
subscriptions: Just send me mail, I'll add you to the list. All I
ask is that you let me know what you think about
this 'zine, and you can even mention how you found
out about it. That's not asking too much is it?
You can also ask for back issues, if you want to
find out what Eternity was like before you got
there...
As always, if you have a question, comment, statement, rant,
or anything, feel free to let me know. (Who knows, you might even
feel better that you did it.) There's always room for me to
improve, and there's always room for an extra page of whatever you
have to offer.
Disclaimer
==========
I take full responsibility of the overall content here. There
might be other contributors (and what they say is their own
intellectual property which I won't hold any claim to), but what
goes into this is my choice. Truth is subjective (if you believe
something then to you it is fact, and if you don't then it is
fiction, simple enough?) so I won't make any claims about
honesty... believe what you want. If you're going to use something
from here just make sure that you cite whoever wrote the article.
If it doesn't say who wrote it, then it's probably me. I'd also
like to be told that you're doing it, if for nothing else, than to
satisfy my ego.
Sanjay Singh (10/26/95)
