Infinite Possibility

Email, like many things, seems infinitely possible. At any moment, the right email will arrive -- the one that contains the secret I have been waiting for, the story I am longing to hear. I have no idea what that secret or story might be. I don't even know why I should think one is out there, circling me, about to land. Still, I have faith. Which is completely ridiculous.

Bookstores have the same feeling. I prefer used bookstores, with books stacked in awkward piles up to the ceiling. Shelves spill their contents on the floor. Everything is disorganized. They count on you being lucky, to find the book you want. Let your finger run along the spines, and then stop when it feels right. Dowse your way to literature. Ask the universe to give you what you need.

Alphabetizing is offensive to me. Order is offensive. It implies that people know what they deserve. They don't. None of us know what we deserve in the slightest. Whether we deserve to be rewarded or punished -- it's our own hubris that takes us down that path.

"I think I need just something light and fluffy, to pass the time."

"Shut up, bitch. You'll read Moby Dick and you will fucking like it."

If I can't make it to a used bookstore, I'll settle for a new one. Box stores are the worst. Chapters is a nightmare. The worst of bookstores and the best of a shopping mall -- bad music, and all the books are as clean and sterilized as scalpels. As eager to be read and loved as an old whore trying to pass herself off as a virginal school girl. I see your wrinkles, your fake pigtales, you goddamn paperback. You can't fool me.

Somewhere, out there, is something that will change everything. Whether it's a book or an email. It's going to arrive in my mailbox with a DING! Or my hand will fall upon it on a bookshelf. I'll open it up and...

And what? You can't imagine what enlightenment looks like before it happens. It's like... Well, is there anything like it, really?

It's like trying to imagine who you'll be before you're born. It's like knowing what your favourite TV show is, before television is even invented.

"Oh, that Gilligan!"

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

Is that what I'm waiting for? An email or a book that enlightens me? I don't mean enlighten as some kind of metaphor. I mean it literally enlightens me. BLAMMO! And now I am one with the universe, thanks to that perfectly timed information that came to me just as I needed it.

Any asshole on the mystical path will tell you that enlightenment doesn't come from out there, it comes from within here. And then he'll tap himself on the forehead. Or if he's particularly assholish, he'll tap me on the forehead, and smile condescendingly. Then, if I have the courage or the sense, I'll punch him in the face.

"In there, you mean?" I'll say, and punch him in the face one more time for good measure.

Not that I'm a violent person or anything. I'm not, really.

But that line of enlightenment coming from within is bullshit. There is no "in there" and there is no "out there". There's just "there". Or so I have heard.

When I think about enlightenment, I remember hearing of a monk who became one with the universe -- who finally understood everything -- while taking a dump. It was the sound of his shit, splashing into the toilet bowl. Infinite wisdom through fibre.

"I get it now!" he probably exclaimed.

Did he bother to wipe? Of course he did. What, you think enlightened masters don't wipe their asses, just because their asses gave them enlightenment?

That one email. That one book. Circling me. Readying to land. My version of the turd hitting the water.

Sometimes I think I'm trying to sneak up on that book. Looking without really looking for it. I'll catch wind of what sounds like a really bizarre piece of writing, and without delving into it too deeply, I'll request it at the Ottawa Public Library, or order it online. Some obscure historical text about monkey testicles. Or some medical textbook about rotting corpses. Psychopathia Sexualis or Sexual Deviance: Theory, Assessment and Treatment.

Only who actually reads Psychopathia Sexualis from cover to cover? Krafft-Ebing gets all bogged down in describing the millions of different ways you can be a homosexual. Makes me want to invent a time machine.

I'll step out the time machine door and scream, "Krafft-Ebing, you stupid shit! Stop writing about faggots! In 100 years scientists will consider it perfectly normal. What, are you queer or something?"

No, there's no enlightenment in Psychopathia. It's just another trophy book on the shelf to creep out the normals. I put it next to Bind, Torture, Kill and Amputees and Devotees. It makes watching people look at the bookshelves for the first time kind of fun. That's about it.

They scan the shelves and then turn and look at me and say, "Uh, do you need an intervention or something?"

We can't all have Stephen King books, now can we?

And emails. Fucking emails. Coworkers bored, sending me emails that read, "I am bored," hoping that I will write back, "I'm bored too," and we can revel in boredom together. Emails that advertise companies I once bought something from, because they hope I'll come back and buy something else. An email newsletter from some website where I filled out a survey once. Someone wrote on my wall on Facebook, and an email arrives to let me know.

Did people feel this way about the telephone, back in the old days? Some day the phone will ring, and God will be on the other end, and he'll say:

"Here's the answer, stupid. I'm sick of watching you scramble around trying to make sense of everything, so I'm just going to hand it to you. And boy, are you going to kick yourself when you finally GET it!"

I don't know. It's stupid, really. I have no idea if anyone else thinks this way -- that the perfect email is out there, circling. Or the perfect book. Or the perfect phone call.

I do try to make such things for other people, you know. The Perfect Email. The one with the answer. I write them all the time. Something all twisted and strange and confusing, sent at random, meant to slap a person gently across the face. So they'll go...

"What the hell? Who sent me this? I don't... What is going on? It's funny, but... Something isn't... I can't just be complacent anymore. I'm going to get up out of this chair, go out, buy a notebook, and sit naked in the park, on a picnic table, just writing down everything as it comes to me. And then I'm going to get it published, and it will change EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE, for EVERYONE."

Only I suspect most people get my Perfect Email and say, "What the? Must be spam." And then delete it.

There are picnic tables out there, just waiting for naked people with notebooks. Don't any of you realize this?

To be fair, I probably do the same thing -- delete Perfect Emails because I think they're spam. Maybe some prince in Mozambique really does need my help transferring his millions to a Canadian bank account. And I just delete it, instead of seeing it for what it really is -- enlightenment.

Really annoying mystics will tell you that you can't find enlightenment when you're looking for it. You have to give up, and that's when enlightenment will arrive. Enlightenment can smell your desperation, and it's unattractive. So it hangs out someplace else -- with tough guys in leather jackets who own nice cars.

I sometimes think I will have to write the book that brings about my own enlightenment, and might enlighten others. Something incredibly offensive and perverted and wild, like a pornographic version of Catch 22, where zombies attack, and there's a nuclear war, and angels descend from Heaven -- all at the same time.

Picture naked angels who are filming porn videos, as zombies tear them apart, and mushroom clouds sprout up all around them. Wouldn't that enlighten you?

The email, the book, circling. Maybe a song? Sure. Why not? Maybe a person. Or an idea. Or a joke. Or just a hand gesture made by a stranger on the street. Why limit the possibilities? If a turd falling in toilet water can do it, it could literally be anything -- the key that opens my own mind.

Until I find that key, I may as well sit here at this keyboard, typing away. It feels a little like attacking the lock with a hammer. And that might work too. You never know.