Funny Old Thing, Life

The Inane Textual Meanderings of a Frightfully Ordinary Individual

I resolved earlier to write a book. But it was quickly drawn to my attention that I have nothing to write about. Nothing with which to fill the pages of a book. Rather a conundrum of existence. Only for once it’s not my existence being called in to question. My existence is well grounded in fact. I’m here typing this aren’t I? Yes, would be the answer, for those a little slow off the mark. But is it the right answer? At the time of writing it was, and since literary works are always considered to be in the present, then it maintains its immediacy. But the real moment within which it inhabits is… now. The moment you read it. And I, who was very much caught in the act of typing this, am naturally, now not typing it. And until the moment you can watch a book being written, we’ll be caught in some sort of temporal flux, whereby my present is not your present. Following me on this? Good. We’ll come back to it later.

The point of this, which I am vainly trying to make, is that I feel faced with a dilemma. There is on the one hand my strong urge to write, and on the other, my lack of substance about which to write. So what to write about?

Life? I definitely have one of those, in the broadest sense, despite being constantly told to get one. Which implies a decided lack on my part. And so in those instances, I mentally add the word ‘new’ between the words ‘Get a,’ and ‘life.’ And then I don’t feel so depressed; merely the higher call for change.

The Universe? Is undeniably there. Or what we perceive to be a universe does in fact inhabit the space that we suppose a universe should inhabit. Too vague a topic though. Where to begin? Bang! Yes. That would be the ideal place to start, if you go for that sort of thing. I personally think that when ‘Science’ starts talking about the Big Bang and dark matter and other such incomprehensibles, it borders dangerously on religion and, closer, faith, and, despite more than a few billion people claiming to the contrary, I feel the world would be a better place without either of those concepts.

Everything? Ahhh… we have discovered the rub. There. What grander, more eloquent topic could be landed upon? Except that, in a peculiar, cyclical arrangement, it once more encases the two previously discarded topics. And on those grounds, it really has no legs to stand on. Supposing it had legs to begin with, which requires a representative tax on the imagination, but I’m sure once you come to grips with the phenomena of standing abstract thoughts, you’ll feel remarkably well-adjusted to what was previously described as the universe, and can kick back and have another drink.

And more importantly than anything else, if I am to write a book. Anything else at all really. Or everything else maybe. I must express an incalculable debt of gratitude to Douglas Adams, Bill Watterson, and Eddie Izzard, without whom these would all be my words, and not plagiarized.