A spirited dialogue between me, over-the-hill masculinity, and irresistible femininity in her early teens.
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Into bonkerdom we go!
Before you curl my hair with your blather I’ll need a shampoo first. Nothing I like better than a woman in hair curlers. And bunny rabbit slippers. With a cigarette dangling out of her mouth. While cursing. And holding a can of beer. We girls do know how to make ourselves attractive. Belching loudly. That’s enough. And. . . I said, that’s enough! Farting.
Any interesting dreams lately? Funny you should ask. . . . OK, on to the next subject. Have you had any interesting dreams lately? I’m in this weird building with a bunch of boys and I’m chasing them. Of course. Guys and dolls always seeking hot romance. So I can gun them down and add them to my body-count. When I own the game I’ll be the only one allowed to play it. Mephisto must be helping you. Who? The guy helping all of us grab everything for ourselves. So we’ll fight with one another and bring mayhem to his magic kingdom of bonkerdom. Forget about him. I don’t need any help.
In the Garden of Eve-dom
Have you finished your project? “Thursday Night at Furdy’s” is still in progress. The story keeps changing and I had to do other stuff. Getting me Christmas gifts. Yes. Piles of books with titles sure to bring a demure girl to a fever pitch of excitement. Like what? “How to Get Your Way by Batting Your Eyelashes.”
In my bonkerdom the origin story is different. Amazing! How did it begin? Certainly not by Adam and Eve fooling around with snakes and apples. It’s about Eve getting even. With Adam? Her nice boyfriend? Yes. For getting top billing. My marquee says Now showing: “Eve and Adam. Starring Eve.” The snake and the apple get second billing. What about Adam? He’s listed as an extra but only because Eve needed his rib. What for? To hit him over the head with it. She already had plenty of ribs of her own.
Yes and No
Well, that sure answers that. Answers what? My wondering how it all started. With femininity. You’re right. Say again? Louder this time. You’re a girl. The kind everyone would want for a friend. Super nice. Irresistible. Yes. Just like you. You’re wandering around in nowhere with no one to be friends with. Your heart aches with loneliness. There’s nothing to do here. Nothing period. You yearn to be where there might be friends and stuff to do. Somewhere. Exactly.
You come to a portal that would get you there. Yay! But it’s gated: “Definition Required to Proceed Beyond this Point.” Definition? If there’s to be anything anywhere instead of nothing nowhere it has to have a function. What it’s for that’s definable or else it’s useless. Meaning that can be contained within the boundaries that define it. Do I have a definition? No and yes. That’s a problem? Yes and no. But even if you have a definition there’s no one in Customs to rubber stamp it.
In the magic kingdom of bureaucrats
Customs? The checkpoint where travelers are approved for entry by the authorities. The sign means to get through Customs you need official documents certifying that you’re who you say you are. That you’re legally entitled to go where you’re going. If there’s no one there what difference does it make? None. But you don’t have any documents anyway.
Where would I get those? From the Definers. I knew it! You’re tricking me into using your stupid dictionary. The Definers’ booth is empty too. Timeout! I need a definition but the bureaucrats who’re supposed to give me one all called in sick. If I could only write I’d send a nasty letter to the Mayor if he could only read.
That won’t be necessary. Why? Because not having official papers is good. What? You have no definition because you have no boundaries. And do you know what that makes you? A vampire? No. And not a wild animal that can’t be tamed either. You’re Love. The bluebird on Uncle Remus’s shoulder who can’t be captured. Why? Because you’re boundaryless, uncapturable even by the limits of definition.
A woman already
This takes some reflection. Your wild Siberian tiger enjoys absolute freedom even from the limits of definition. A fantasy that’s supposed to compensate for not being able to own the bluebird. The same idea but from opposite worlds, so they need different versions. My nice kitty is Love? Yes. But with a growl and a bite, so you have to be careful. Love in its own world doesn’t wear another mask. No need to be careful unless you’re confused and don’t know you need it. Or would rather be cool. Hanging out on street corners. Smoking cigarettes and looking tough.
I’ll distract the bureaucrats with my alluring tresses and irresistible charm. And if that doesn’t work my tough act will make them do as I say. Uh huh. Intimidation. You sound like a woman already.
The loophole
The bluebird is uncapturable by definition. Now do you get it? Then what will the Definers and Customs do with all those bird cages? Love is undefinable by definition. My eyeballs are twirling in opposite directions. Love has the only credentials that can get from nowhere to somewhere and get everything going.
Get what going? Existence. Stuff happening. Hot action under the hair dryer. OK, but why? If you’re anything but Love you can’t meet the requirement for definition. You’ll just have to cool your heels in the waiting room until someone shows up who can. Love met the requirement because the requirement has a big loophole. It doesn’t apply to someone who’s undefinable. By definition. Who doesn’t need Definers telling it who it is and what it’s for. So Love wouldn’t trip any alarm bells even if there were authorities at the gate.
And Love is a girl, right? The feminine principle. The only possible source of the event that got it all started. That got me out of nowhere. From a state of Mind inactive to active. From no ideas to thinking and feeling, creating and sharing, with the Force of Life itself. Wildness. No. The opposite of wildness.
Hooked up with Mr. Goodbar
Why? How could Love protect itself without boundaries? How could it navigate if it has no coordinates? How could it reward Santa without getting him so bloated with gooey sweets and egg nogg he’d have to head for the men’s room after three houses? Love is vulnerable. It needs protection. It doesn’t differentiate, so it needs help with limits and direction. Where do you suppose they come from?
They come from snakes and apples. Adam doesn’t get equal billing with Eve and that’s final. They come from Logic. The masculine principle. Logic went bananas for the gorgeous bluebird because she completed him. And vice versa. His boundaries gave her protection, direction, and limits to stay within. Her feelings, values, and relationships gave meaning and purpose to his ordering of things.
Together, they integrated parts into a whole, incoherent circumstances into coherence, and gave Definition its cause: Creativity. Just for starters. Eve got past Customs with little Adam hiding under her skirts. They made it past the gate with her in the lead and him behind. If Logic had gone first they’d have been court-martialed and sentenced to latrine duty. I was hooked up with Mr. Goodbar all this time and didn’t know it? No. But once Love passed through the gate into somewhere, that’s when all its basic attributes fell into place. Beginning with Relationship. Loving friendship between Love and Logic. The foundation for everything.
The Definers and the foundation of Definition
Don’t I wish! My voodoo doll is stuck so full of pins there’s no room for any more. The world of Creation is all the good things it is because of what makes Love undefinable. What makes the bluebird uncapturable – spontaneity. The essence of Love that’s not willfulness. And the foundation of Definition when it’s combined with Order.
You and Logic together are the Definers. The feminine principle and the masculine principle in that sequence. Not that one is more important than the other but that one had to go first and it was Love. Because it was boundaryless by definition. And the attraction between them harnessed the Force of Spontaneity with Order needed for Creation.
Ah! The Force! Yes. From its origin in the friction inherent in incompatible ideas. The idea of somewhere that implies its opposite, nowhere. Contradiction that required resolving so things wouldn’t heat up and get out of control. I get mad when I’m contradicted. Me too. That must be how contradiction was resolved: the portal was air-conditioned. It was resolved by the combination of Spontaneity with Order. The compelling ideas of Love-femininity with Logic-masculinity – the power of attraction. The Force of Relationship — loving friendship. At the core of somewhere that you and Logic just entered. The foundation of Definition.
Back to nowhere?
The foundation of stuff breaking and going wrong when it’s broken up. When relatability is replaced by unrelatability, its opposite. What would make that happen? The part of somewhere that’s Mind choosing freely making a mistake. Creation isn’t perfect? It can be perfect or it can be relatable, but it can’t be both. Choosing that’s perfect is neither free nor choosing. It’s the opposite of spontaneity: willing stuff to happen.
That was the mistake? Not differentiating between acting in loving friendship with Love-Logic and acting alone. As if willing things to be whatever you want can be more rewarding than Spontaneity and Order. Than the foundation of existence. Sounds familiar.
What could get me and Adam into a world without spontaneity and order? The same thing that happens whenever exposure to wisdom makes my audience lose consciousness. Sleep? Perchance to dream. Nobody dies in somewhere since Logic and Love can’t lose consciousness. But their Child can lose consciousness because of who it is and what it’s for: an extension of Mind choosing freely.
So getting through the portal from nowhere doesn’t guarantee that you’re entirely done with it. Because if you’re the Child and you aren’t careful about differentiating, you could flip right out of getting it right in one world into learning how to get it right in another. In a dream. A facsimile of nowhere. An animal kingdom that’s somewhere for apes but nowhere for us.
Springtime for Frankenstein
The Definers’ booth at the gate is occupied by Love and Logic. Who’s in charge of Customs? Self-Awareness. The part of Mind that recognizes itself in every part of Creation so everything works together freely, spontaneously, and creatively. Fitting together in loving relationships logically. The ultimate say in who belongs in somewhere.
Who does the defining and ID checks for dream worlds? Nobody. It’s as if Frankenstein’s monster got ahold of the energy that brought him to “life” and used it to make up an environment to his liking. Where nothing is limited and nobody has to pass an ID check. An anything-goes world populated by lesser monsters submitting to his will. Giving up any hope of freedom. Any idea of individuality, originality, and creativity so he can rule their world from the top. All by his lonesome. Imagining himself a romantic ideal: wildness without definition.
Femininity is not going back
Lemme outta here! Better yet, let here out of you. It’s just a dream and it will end. Of willfulness and wildness that can be inactivated when the Child of Love and Logic gets better at differentiating. At using Sapiens’ gifts to become something better than a species of ape. Reflection, introspection, thinking, evaluating, judging, and choosing. It’s all there. We just have to get more practice doing it.
Differentiating between what? Between Mindfulness evolving forward and up and willfulness pulling backward and down. Between Sapiens guided by the vision of being better than a species of ape. Being not animal-body human-ape in pointless competition for supremacy in an animal kingdom of hierarchy. A part instead of Mindful Creation that has meaning. Because of what it is and what it does: loving friendships.
Differentiating between Love that’s boundaryless by definition and wildness beyond definition. A crazy idea that could only be at home in Mephisto’s bonkerdom. Between Relationship that’s creative and separation that’s destructive.
Hopefully before it’s too late. Too late? Willfulness and wildness want to reverse evolution and Creation. Opposites of Love and Logic oppose Creation too. How far? Maybe back to nowhere. Then from now on, it’s all about loving friendship. Femininity is not going back. Friendship starting with me. Of course! But I still get top billing.