Part thirty of the Ishmael Gradsdovic papers brings us into Paranoia...
I got a taste of my peculiar paranoia one night. I can't go into any juicy details because I'm composing this on only a few hours of sleep over a couple of nights and I can hardly keep my eyelids up, but the short version (it actually isn't too short) goes something like this:
I'm getting good and stoned (in fact too stoned for comfort, as it turns out) with a couple of friends, and I'm feeling some strange dynamic going on between the three of us, the source of which is unknown to me in the specific but I can guess in general what is at the bottom of it. At first it is very subtle and I think to myself that maybe I'm imagining things. But each alternative explanation, as appealing as it is in the short term, fails to pass the test of time, until before long, none of them even come close to passing Occam's Razor.
But still I'm unable to pull up above personal theory to actually communicate my intuition. I have a hard time finding the words, and picture the scenario in which I say "I have to confess that I'm getting some weird vibes tonight," and they say, "I don't know what you're talking about."
Besides, I'm suspecting that I'm getting one of those rare and unwelcome bolts of marijuana paranoia. I watch it develop, writing its mystery novels in my head, spinning terrible tales, and I think, "Occam's Razor or no Occam's Razor, I think I must be making it all up. After all, they don't seem to notice anything."
Then it kicks into overdrive. I catch some cosmic double-entendre and suddenly I realize that B----- and C----- are trickster-gods having what might be good-natured fun at my expense. Didn't C----- call B----- a god earlier tonight? It seemed kind of like a non-sequitir, although it could with difficulty have been placed in context. Maybe she was just fucking with my head by being totally obvious about the thing she is trying to hide. They're provoking anxiety in me as a way of teaching me something or of testing my mettle.
All of a sudden things get clearer. I listen to the small talk between them and hear all sorts of in-jokes between the two gods. They'll say something casually, referring to something forgettable, but underneath the obvious meaning of the words, they're referring to me, making jokes about my failures in the test so far and trying to think of ways to make it more sporting. They don't seem to know that I'm on to them, so I'm more convinced than ever to keep my feelings about the evening to myself to see what I can glean from them before they realize I know what's up.
They're getting careless, thinking I'm either too stoned or not stoned enough to get a hint of the code they're communicating in. I never knew they were so sophisticated! How can they keep this up while they're high? Gods in human form come into my life, I should have known it would happen like this and not like a burning bush or voice from a thundercloud. They come in disguise and grab you from your weak side.
It's like the story of the grateful dead or of Phantom 309, where you don't know your companions on the journey are from the spirit world until they've vanished leaving you with uncertain memories and plausible deniability. How can they be so cruel? It's not really cruelty, I guess, just the most efficient way to teach a lesson. It sure seems cruel at the time. Could be worse. Look what they did to Job.
I suspect, though I'm not completely sure, that they have my best interests in mind. Maybe they're just playing tricks for their own laughs, but I think maybe if I can pay attention over the stony fog, they're trying to teach me something valuable in a round-about way.
I bet the lessons get harder and more painful the further along you've come, so if life deals you a particularly nasty blow you should take it as a complement. Job was the best of the best, and look what he got saddled with.
I smile as if to say, "I know what you're up to, Tricksters." And I pay attention for as long as my short attention-span allows. And I try not to get bogged down in an emotional quagmire although the tricks and the whole surprise of seeing the divine reality behind what I thought were just casual friends is making a frontal attack on my emotional insecurities. But I'm having a hard time keeping track of all of the threads of the conversation and the secret conversation it hides.
B----- keeps offering me more dope and I keep refusing, saying I'm stoned enough already. I wonder if I should trust his judgement. On the one hand, he's a god; on the other hand, maybe he's just trying to trick me. I continue to refuse.
We go inside; suddenly C----- isn't feeling at all well. She's dizzy and her fingers are numb and she feels sick to her stomach. We wonder if it was the weed, but I've smoked gargantuan quantities of pot on occasion and haven't had symptoms like that. Marijuana is usually good at getting rid of nausea. She may be feeling disoriented and having a panic reaction, or she may have just had something rotten for dinner. We're not sure.
(This morning, after a few hours of sleep, I still feel zoned and am myself slightly sick to my stomach. I don't know if this is some lingering effect of the marijuana -- maybe the residue of some pesticide? -- sleep deprivation, or just the physical symptoms of the weird feelings I'm having about what happened last night.)
She says "I just wish it would stop," talking, I think, about the spinning room and the fingers and the nausea.
B----- asks me if I have any advice on what to do. I feel paralyzed, like I shouldn't give advice, but I don't know why. I make some humble suggestions: maybe she should lie down, take some Pepto. B----- keeps asking me for advice: "What should we do, Ishmael?" I suddenly suspect that this test has reached its final hurdle. But I don't know what the right answer is. My first guess is that maybe the awkwardness I've been feeling all night is at the core here, spinning off tentacles of discomfort that are causing the nausea.
I spin off a speculative fantasy whereby my anxiety has taken material form and is occupying C-----'s body and causing her distress. I don't have any evidence to back this up, so I drop this line of thought, thinking maybe to pick it up later.
I say that maybe C----- is uncomfortable having me around and that it might help for me to leave. He doesn't know if that's true. Later he checks and says that she definitely doesn't want me to leave. So I'm back to square one.
I never did figure out whatever I was supposed to figure out. Or maybe I did and it just didn't have an accompanying epiphany cymbal-clash so I would notice it. Today I'm very tempted to say it was just paranoia. It sure seems like paranoia to me. But it seemed so very real, and I've seen so many of my rationalist biases about the universe shattered in the last several months, that I'm not yet ready to discount the possibility that I've met a trickster god face to face and known it. I don't know if the trickster was just occupying my friends' bodies or if my friends are always gods masquerading in human form, but I'm going to pay closer attention to them from now on.
I'm starting to wake up, finally, and I feel physically better if not 100%, but I ache all over and feel hurt somehow inside, as if the fragile membrane of my emotions has been bruised and torn in some psychic battle. I haven't felt like this except maybe a handful of times before, all but one having to do with the pain of a romantic relationship ending, the other when my pet guinea pig died when I was a child. But I can't put my finger on an event of such magnitude happening right now, at least I don't think so.
I'm reminded of when I was feeling so torn up about D-----, feeling things I'd always associated with romantic and sexual attraction, but somehow different, not knowing where they were coming from or what they signified, but very aware of their power. This is like that in a way. A new set of promptings for powerful emotional feelings opening a new door in my mind to an unexplored courtyard. It would be nice if I could keep my excitement above my apprehension.
Saw a bumper-sticker this morning: "I've felt much better since I gave up hope." I can relate, but I either don't have the faith to give up or I have misplaced faith in whatever it is I'm not giving up. Either way, I don't see an easy path from point A to point B.
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