Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Beyond Eternity 02
BEYOND ETERNITY ISSN 1203-5416
Episode 02 <--> January 1996
Sanjay Singh eternity@cyberspace.org
_______________________________________________________________
"We believed -- and I personally still believe -- that
the so called Voice of God narration, ubiquitous in
documentaries destined for PBS, is insulting to the
audience. If you believe in the intelligence of your
audience, you don't need to tell them what to think and
how to process the material they're seeing." [Jayne
Loader]
With a little luck, it's now Christmas Eve, and I've managed
to send this out on time. You might not be reading this until the
new year, but I just wanted to get it out on Christmas Eve. No
other day seemed as ... appropriate.
I'm not really sure why, but I'm not a huge fan of Christmas.
I never understood the idea of giving someone a gift to celebrate
someone else's birthday, but if that's the way it works, then
that's the way it works. I'm not a Christian either, so there's
another reason for not 'getting' it, but since no one else really
thinks of it as a religious holiday, why should I?
Oh, and New Year's. I don't understand that one either. I
suppose you could say I'm not really a holiday person. I hate to
say it, but what difference does it make? I know, it's one of
those party holidays, but why not put it somewhere when there are
no other holidays? You don't need another party night after
Christmas Eve. Why not use the astrological new year? There's
never anything special around March 21 anyways. And at least it's
a little warmer outside then. Or you could just accept that it's
just another day. No one gets that excited at the end of any other
month.
Anyways, my point is (if I really have one...) that I don't
normally do the New Year's resolution thing. I usually set my
goals on the fly as the year progresses. So instead of telling you
what I plan on doing to make my life better, I decided to just tell
you what I believe in, and that really represents what works in my
life. I'm just one of those 'live in the present' kind of people,
you could say.
Anyways, since just about everyone is going to be on a
vacation from work or school, enjoy it. That's way of saying happy
holidays. Let's go...
Contents
========
- Introduction (you just read it)
- I Believe...
- Phone Sex, The Perfect Gift
- They Didn't Even Give Us A Chance
- My Confession
- It's Back...
- Turning Point
- Family Legacies [by Mary Lynn Schroeder]
- Administrivia
- Rules Of The Game
I Believe...
============
"When we reach, we believe in eternity." [Yes]
I believe that the pen is mightier than the keyboard. A cheap
keyboard is about fifty dollars, and with the much money I could
easily create an army of pens that could destroy a keyboard.
Sometimes, there is power in numbers.
I believe that reading a book on paper is a lot more
comfortable than reading a book on a computer screen. I believe in
printouts, and that the paperless office is not where I want to
work.
I believe that "based on the screenplay" is almost always
better than "based on the novel".
I believe that people who ask for honesty, are afraid of it,
and people that demand it, have earned it.
I believe that the internet will never replace the television,
because people want passive, not interactive, entertainment.
I believe that anything that I've ever done for myself is far
better than anything I've ever done for anyone else. I also
believe that anything I've done for a friend, is better than
anything I've ever done for money.
I believe that dishwashers are the symptom of a deprived
society. What ever happened to the glory days of sponge and liquid
soap? Do we really need to abandon the smoothness of liquid soap
and accept the coarse grain that is dishwashing powder? How many
great ideas have I had while washing the dishes? How many
introspectives, how many revelations?
I believe that laundry is a great hobby. If for no other
reason that it guarantees you an hour each week, which you can
spend doing whatever you want. No one can accuse you of not doing
anything, you're just waiting for the laundry to finish. It's like
a one hour date with yourself every week.
I believe that capitalism is the only form of government that
cannot be turned against itself, and that is not inherently self-
destructive.
I believe that the only thing that freedom and geography have
in common is that they are both choices. (This one occurred to me
when someone said that I should move to Iraq because I "obviously
don't believe in freedom." [sic])
I believe that ending my torrid affair with Lady Insomnia was
a step in the right direction, and that there's more comfort in
hugging a pillow than lying on the couch watching late night
television.
I believe that Oliver Stone is a frightened little man, and
that he's all too happy to pull people down to his level, instead
of rasing himself to theirs.
I believe that chocolate covered expresso beans are a bad
idea.
I believe that there really is a difference between two-ply
and one-ply, but that three-ply is a waste.
I believe that history's most important lesson is that one
person can make a difference.
I believe that anyone that believes in themself, is worth
believing in. Everyone else is just an accident waiting to happen.
Phone Sex, The Perfect Gift
===========================
I've noticed a commercial that seems to be popping up a lot
lately, and I can just see little girls jumping up and down
desperately trying to get their parents to get them one of these
great new toys. I think the company calls it "Dream Phone" but any
rational person can see it for what it really is, phone sex for
kids.
It's one of those great 'new generation' board games. As far
as I know, you get together with some of your best friends, and try
to identify which boy wants to go out on a dream date with you.
Choose the card of the boy you like, then pick up this pink,
plastic phone in the centre of the board, and then he'll tell you
if he wants to go out on a date with you.
It sounds innocent enough, but then again, my sister used to
worship New Kids on the Block, so I've seen how easy it is to hold
adolescent girls in orgasmic rapture. If five kids from Boston can
do it, I'm sure thirty Luke Perry clones can.
Now this is the interesting part... This doesn't actually
bother me. No, I wouldn't get one of these for anyone I know, but
I wouldn't stop someone else from buying one. What bothers me, is
that no one else seems to have noticed what this 'toy' really
represents. Angry parents are uniting to fight against the
mindless violence of the Power Rangers, but when it comes down to
introducing the youth of today to 'phonography' no one seems to
care.
Why is it that no one is willing to stand up and say "this is
wrong"? I personally know several people who have said "that is
stupid" but it's not quite the same thing. I know a lot of people
out there have huge amounts of free time on their hands. Read the
'letters to the editor' column for any newspaper, and you'll see
just what I mean. And so if we just add up all the people that are
willing to write into a local newspaper together, we have a team of
millions of angry people, who like to be heard, but no one is
complaining about this. It seems that the hot topics are "why we
hate our government" and "a thousand and one reasons why Pamela
Anderson should not be the most famous Canadian."
Maybe I'm just tired of listening to people complain about the
usual things. Besides, why protect your kids, when you can be off
chasing windmills?
They Didn't Even Give Us A Chance
=================================
"Every time you get up you get kicked in the head,
Sooner or later you learn to play dead." [me]
Today's just off to a rocking start. It's Saturday, it's too
cold, it's far too bright, and there's too much snow on the ground.
I've got two brutal exams on Monday that I should really start
studying for. Sounds like the perfect day to go grocery shopping.
So that's what I did.
The super market was nothing new. Standard food, you know how
it is. I managed to get into an heated debate with a friend
because he insisted that one tomato would work in a meal for three
people. He refused to back down, and we started getting into this.
Until some woman decided to join in and reminded me of the bacon
and tomato sandwich. Oh well, I guess I lost that one. But then
again, the only real use for a tomato is when it's cooked in a
sauce, so I still think I'm right.
On the way home, we passed by this sign on the side of the
road. I think it was by some school or church, but that doesn't
really matter. The sign said "Adult education, our only hope for
the future." (Except that it was in big block letters on one of
those 'plug me in and I light up' sign boards.) They didn't even
give us a chance.
I guess I should start with a little bit of a geography
lesson. Waterloo, nice town. It's got a population of under
ninety thousand people. We could say that on top of that, there
are about thirty thousand university students. So we make up about
a quarter of all the people floating around the city. There are
two universities on the same street about a five minute walk apart.
Now this sign was on the same street, just east of the two
campuses. Obviously, whoever put this sign up, must have known
that a lot of students would notice it.
Think about what this sign is saying. Don't depend on the
students, they won't help us. It's kind of hard not to take that
personally. We pretty much support a lot of this city ourselves.
Hell, there's five (soon to be six) night clubs in between the two
campuses. Forget the "we're poor students" routine, we pump a lot
of cash into this town. I'm not saying that they owe us anything,
I don't think they do, but that doesn't mean that we're worth
ignoring.
Remember buying things at department stores when you were a
kid? Salesmen would just ignore you, since they couldn't possibly
get a big enough commission off of whatever it was that you wanted
to buy. So forget the fact that you were there first, you'll get
passed by. Then comes those wonderful teenaged years, where the
same department store decides not to ignore you anymore. They just
make sure that every available eye in the store is watching you
carefully, so you can't slip anything into your pocket.
We're not all bad! Not every ten year old wants to waste your
valuable 'sales man' time by asking where the bathroom is; not
every teenager is a kleptomaniac; and not every university student
is a horny, apathetic drunk. A lot of us don't want to live Ridley
Scott's vision of the future. I know I don't.
If you don't think we can handle it, then fine. Just keep it
to yourself. People tend to be insecure enough as it is without
you telling them that they can't do it. Why not give us a chance?
You've already admitted that the world is screwed up, and that
wasn't our fault. Besides we'd better get used to cleaning up your
mistakes, we're already in it for the long haul.
My Confession
=============
I'm immature. Sometimes I get whiny, and pouty, and I like
holding grudges. Does it bother me? Nope, I like myself just the
way I am, so too bad for anyone who doesn't like it. Know what?
I also like cartoons.
This all started about... I guess a month ago. I was talking
to a friend of mine, and he mentioned "Toy Story," that computer
graphic movie that came out about a month ago. He asked if I
wanted to see it, and of course I did, so we decided to go see it.
To be polite, we asked his roommate, who told us that we were being
immature for wanting to see it, but we've gotten used to that sort
of drivel from him.
The surprising thing was that we got the same response from a
lot of other people when we asked them if they wanted to see it
too. Everyone came up with the same excuse. We heard things like
"that's a kids movie" and "I thought you hated Disney." Well, I'll
give them credit for the latter, I do hate Disney, but this wasn't
really Disney, so I was willing to look past that.
The bottom line was that these people that seem to hate being
labelled were calling us immature for wanting to see what looked
like an entertaining movie. I would have accepted "it doesn't look
that interesting," but that was the one comment that no one seemed
ready to give.
Maybe people just need something to complain about. After
seeing the movie the same people asked us why we didn't invite them
on the night we went to see it. It just doesn't make any sense to
me.
It's Back...
============
"Chance makes a plaything of a man's life." [Seneca]
I don't get it. On Friday I was on cloud nine. High on life
and loving every minute of it. Went out, danced a bit, ate some
pizza. It was a good night. Saturday was good too. Did a bit of
shopping, did a bit of reading, and watched Star Wars. Still on
top of the world. Today everything came crashing down.
I like being in the driver's seat. I like being in control.
I like knowing what's going on around me, and I need to know what's
going on inside me. And it was working too... at least until
today.
Today depression struck, and it hit hard. Mind you, it wasn't
the "I hate life" depression this time, it was more of a "blah"
depression. You could call it 'burn out' (a friend did), but what
do I have to be burnt out by? I'm just numb, and I really hate
this feeling.
There's no reason for it. I was fine yesterday, but this
morning, I just woke up, and knew that it was going to be a long
day. I guess I should have listened to my own advice. The last
time I had one of these premonitions, I promised myself that I'd
just stay in bed until it passed. I should have done that today.
I'm numb. I can't feel anything, I can't think clearly, I
can't focus. I can't even make a decision. Everything is just
grey.
As trivial as it sounds, depression sucks.
Turning Point
=============
[This was printed in the October (1-1) issue of "The
Eidolonica Papers," and that was just a modified copy of
the same article from the September (Act I, Scene vii)
issue of "The Eternity Articles." Personally, I think
it's the best thing I've written in the past year, so I
thought you might like to read it. If you've joined
Eternity recently, you probably missed it, so here it is
again...]
I used to be happy. You know how kids are. There's always
something to do, and you have that strange feeling of immortality.
Nothing can hurt you, and if it wasn't for breaking a couple of the
neighbours windows, and rolling around in the mud after school,
there wouldn't be any cause for fear either. After all, how many
times have we heard, "ohhhh, you're gonna get it now," and then
watched the backs of our friends as they quickly ran home?
After the happiness, came the bitterness. So what was
responsible for my transformation, you may ask? Well, we could
just say that I lost my innocence. I thought that the worm at the
bottom of the bottle, was the light at the end of my tunnel, and
while trying to get closer to it, I managed to get farther away
from the happiness that I wanted to hold.
Then when things were at their worst, and I was as low as I
ever thought I could be, it happened. I became mortal, or at least
I was forced to accept my own mortality. That has a tendency to
happen when your best friend gets killed. But I digress, and this
introduction is getting a lot darker than could be necessary.
The grey cloud of darkness covered my vision, I couldn't see
the future anymore. I couldn't see the past. All I could see was
the present, but it was so grey, that I couldn't bear the sight of
it.
I tried to convince myself that things had to turn around,
that it didn't make sense for things to keep on getting worse, when
they had already gone below rock bottom, but then the clouds had
entered my brain, and had become cotton. My thoughts were dulled,
my senses were all but destroyed. I was without aim, without
purpose, and without salvation. And it lasted for five years, and
only once in those five years, did I experience the bliss of
clarity. For the briefest of moments, but I had it, and I spent
the next three years trying to get it back. I had found a purpose,
but it took a long time to regain what I had lost.
I'm not sure what it was that put me at the dome that night.
If you study the probabilities of what it would have taken to get
me there, then I'm sure you could say that it was impossible. But
I was there, and that's when it happened.
A friend asked me if I wanted to go to the baseball game that
night. He knew it was rhetorical, and so did I, but I played
along, and accepted his invitation, after all, how could I say no
to a baseball game? He had won the tickets from a golf tournament
that he had played in a couple of weeks before, and he was entered
into the tournament from his job that he got for the summer, which
came days before he was offered another job. Like I said, if you
want to measure probabilities, then I shouldn't have been at the
game, and more than that, I shouldn't have been sitting where I
was...
There were two girls in the seats behind me. At first they
were annoying me because they were constantly talking, and talking,
and talking. Well, one of them was talking. But at least she was
talking about baseball. She didn't go to the game to just say she
went to the game, she was actually into the game. She was just
telling her sister (I'm guessing, since they looked almost
identical) about the game. Explaining some of the details of the
game, and why they played certain songs when certain batters came
up. Now before you stop reading this, the fact that it looked like
we had another generation of baseball fans being formed right in
front of me (well, behind me) is not what this is even about. But
I'm getting there.
After the sixth inning the two girls come back from one of the
McDonalds inside the dome and this time the girl is talking about
saving the rest of her money so she can buy something that she
wants. Maybe I should mention that the girls couldn't have been
older than 10 years old, well maybe 13... This is why I couldn't
host one of those 'guess your age' booths. Anyways, so now we see
a bit of responsibility. This is a good thing. She probably might
save her money for a week or two before blowing it on something
else, but at least she was going to try. But that's not even what
impressed me. It was what she said next. Her sister asked her
something like "why'd you buy the popcorn then," but that's a
guess. I didn't hear the question, but her answer was beautiful.
She said that "sometimes you have to just treat yourself." In a
time when kids buy baseball cards and comics just so they can watch
them go up in value, and never sell them off, we have a girl that
believes in treating herself. She knows what she wants, and she
tries to make an effort to do it. Living for today instead of a
future that you won't even recognize when you get there. The full
impact of her saying that didn't even hit me until I was driving to
work, three days later. If I had noticed it at the game, I would
have turned around and thanked her. I had been asking for proof
that society had a fighting chance, that there would be something
to look forward to in the future. I found the answer to my
question.
Family Legacies
===============
"Rage isn't simple anger at an unjust act; it is the
natural response to cruelty, callousness and disrespect
for the sacredness of life -- especially innocent life."
[T. Thomas]
by: Mary Lynn Schroeder <marylynn@penultimate.com>
When I was two months shy of my fifth birthday my father raped
me, and it wouldn't be the only time he did so. I still remember
it with painful clarity. I remember which way my parent's bed was
facing, the placement of the dressers, the night stands, the lamps,
what sheets were on the bed. I remember what he did, how he did
it, and what he said. "Don't tell your mother," he had said to me.
There was no malice in his voice, no threat of pain or death, just
an order, and out of fear and shame I didn't.
From my father I learned lessons that to this day I fight to
undo. I learned that a woman's worth was, and it was in the shape
of the women that graced the porn magazines. No brains wanted,
just tits and ass, his dream women were in the pages of his shiny
magazines. When he molested and fondled me, he was literally
looking at the magazines. As time went on I learned how to lie and
to act like the perfect little girl. Heaven help me if anyone
found out what was happening, because I sincerely believed that it
was my fault.
Fear and shame are powerful shackles, and I kept my silence
until I was sixteen years old. My parents had separated, my mother
was about to enter the court phase of the divorce proceedings, and
I was in professional counselling for what I thought to be my
biggest problem, my weight. Boy, did I have both myself and my
councillor fooled. Although he had seen my anger towards my
father, he didn't know what it was about, and the letter he asked
me to write to my father left him pale and shaken. There was
something else I had learned over the years, and it still haunts me
to this day, it was what the councillor saw, it was RAGE.
There are other things that I was taught, though, other things
that kept me from becoming another Susan Smith (there but for the
grace of my Higher power go I), and they were taught to me by a man
that to this day I love and respect. He was G.G., my great-
grandfather.
G.G. was born John Joseph Noonan to a successful Irish
immigrant and his wife. At the age of 20, he served on the front
lines in France in World War I, its legacy leaving him with a
terror of flying that lasted him until death, and the scars in his
lungs left from the burning effects of mustard gas. During his
life he was a Teamster, a job that eventually left him with a
crushed right arm (it never healed properly), and an illegal beer
brewer for the family during prohibition (and he almost got
caught). He eventually became the father of my maternal
grandmother, the grandfather to my mother, and the great-
grandfather to me. This was the man who in his 80's taught me how
to be a child.
In a neighbourhood where retirees were many and children were
so few as to only number three (and all of them were siblings), and
G.G. was not only my best friend, but my next door neighbour. From
him I learned how to play hide-n-seek, how to set up dominos in a
row so they'd fall down just so, and how to play pool on his pool
table with my bare hands; he eventually taught me how to use a pool
cue. I learned how to play checkers on a large, shaggy carpet with
plastic pieces almost as big as my hands. In his small kitchen we
would enjoy neapolitan ice cream, and windmill shaped almond
cookies. On his back porch we would enjoy the summer, talking as
I sat and watched him water his hanging plants. While my parents
wouldn't trust me to pick out my cloths, he let me handle his
fragile china, as he showed me his old medals. He died shortly
after Easter in 1980, and it wasn't until years later that I
realised his quiet influence on me.
It was this fall that I decided to do my G.G. an honour, and
remember him by tracing his family tree. And I had gotten no
farther than his own wife when I had something of an unfortunate,
and sickening surprise.
Genevieve O'Connell was married to John Noonan, and it was
known that she had had something of a rough life, but no one knew
just how. In family photos she is a petit thing with dark hair,
and a quiet, almost lost look on her face, and I know why. Her
father was something of a drunkard, and Irish immigrant with a very
large family, and not doing well to make ends meet. In a drunken
stupor her raped the teenaged Genevieve, and when she went to tell
her cast-iron mother, she was thrown out of the house as a liar.
It wasn't much later when the father entered into another one of
his drunken stupors, and told his wife what he had done to their
daughter. He was promptly tossed out onto the cobble-stone
streets, and Genevieve was brought back home. By this time
Genevieve was found to be pregnant from the incest, and when the
child was born to her, the family agreed to cover up the disgrace
by declaring the baby girl as being one of Genevieve's sisters.
I now know that I'm not the only one in my family, and that
incest passes down through generations. I sometimes wonder if
Genevieve told my great-grandfather what had happened to her, and
if he suspected what was happening in my house. I'm almost sure
that he didn't, but I am very thankful to have had him in my life
if but for a short time. But when all is said and done, I am left
with these unanswered questions.
When will the incest and rape across generations stop?
And when will the RAGE go away?
Administrivia...
================
Beyond Eternity (ISSN 1203-5416) is a monthly serial that is
written (for the most part) and compiled by Sanjay Singh, and then
edited by Paul Sheen and Sanjay Singh. You can find older (or even
current) issues from any of these places...
mail: eternity@cyberspace.org
web: http://www.interlog.com/~vash/eternity.html
ftp: ftp.etext.org: /pub/Zines/Eternity/
usenet: alt.zines
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
"Beyond Eternity...", and you can even mention how
you found out about it. It's a small price to pay,
but that's all I ask for.
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 outside contributions. When
I say that one person can make a difference, that includes you.
Rules Of The Game
=================
I take full responsibility of the overall content here. There
might be other writers but what goes into this is my choice.
Copyright is held by whoever wrote the article, and if it doesn't
say who they were, then it was me. I'd strongly suggest asking
them for permission before you reprint anything that was written in
here (this includes my stuff). Chances are that I won't object,
but I'd still like to know.
In past issues of The Eternity Articles, I was asked if what
I had written was true. I'll state this for the record now,
"everything I write is true to me". As for the other writers,
well, you'd have to ask them. As a general rule I'm not going to
print pure fiction anymore, unless I think that it has a message
that's worth relaying.
I think that's all that needs to be said. Talk to you next
month.
Sanjay Singh (12/24/95)
