I spent a lot of time wondering what problems I was trying to solve. I mean, I spent a good lot of that time worrying that I couldn’t figure out what the problem was to begin with – maybe I should have taken into account the possibility that the problem I was trying to solve was how to find a problem. But anyhow, I don’t know. I think I’ve stumbled on to something. See the other day I was walking down the mall and - I know, I know get it out, real funny Jess, real good real cool, a mall but- ok stop for a moment and think that maybe life scientists are supposed to take every aspect of life seriously. I was walking around the mall with my mom and aunt and we were looking for – no we were looking for shoes, thank you, and it was their call not mine. Do I look like I care about shoes? What I care about is finishing this thought. Anyway I was walking around with them and for a second I felt like I was falling out of this world, into the earth one could say. It felt like the only real things were my eyes, my dark, dark, dark, brown eyes and everything else was some weird, I don’t know, coating? Like look at your pupils. Or well, that’s stupid, look at mine. See the gel over the dark of my eyes? The brown never touches the surface of this world it’s just pressing up as closely as it can against it, like it’s inside some glass casing or tank or something. But the tank extends further than just my eyes, it’s everything! My muscle, my skin, my hair, my clothes, it’s all just some elaborate tank that’s keeping the real thing in and for a second I fell into that realer thing while we were going up near the shoe display case and I saw the glass and I saw this shoe pressed up against the case it had fallen down or something and it was trying so desperately to make contact like. No I know it’s a fucking shoe but it’s the beginning of an idea Jess how about you take a second out of your life to respond to stimuli– because I’m trying to finish this thought and you won’t let me! It’s scary Jess! Or maybe it’s empowering I suppose. Because when I started melting away I was feeling a pull downward, like maybe I was stuck to my glass where my eyes are, so invested in this sensation we’ve been raised to value for sixteen years of our lives? Worse for the older folk. Because it like, brings you closer to people right? So we think? Otherwise you’re just in this…well I’m not sure because I only got a glimpse of it but nevermind first I needed to realize that I was stuck to my cornea and once I discovered I was stuck I started to feel a plop off the eyes and a sink slowly slowly slowly toward the floor, like some lame putty that was unsticking itself from the ceiling. You know those like weird sticky toys we would throw up at the ceiling when we were shitty kids? I was melting and my vision got a little hazy and I started to forget the realness of the world and, I guess maybe I’m thinking about this a little differently now so let me finish, maybe I was just getting closer to finding a true unity. Maybe my self extends further into everyone else and not just me, a little part of me in everyone. And maybe that’s where this whole empathy thing comes from – just being the same weird form that’s filling up these weird flesh tanks and you’re supposed to just try to remember that’s all of us, and maybe even more, like your dog or the TV or this table or this grinder or who knows right and maybe it’s all the same network of brown putty, yeah yeah or I guess blue putty for you and green putty for other people and black putty for everyone but maybe that’s what this all is we’re just one putty.
But