VECTOR ANALYSIS
Sometimes when I spy the chevron of a Jumbo
Jet crawling like a Windows desktop cursor
across the sky, I go a little weak in the knees
at the thought of all that hurtling, ass-over-
teakettle humanity suspended way up
there in the middle of the air
thundering that winged rollercoaster, all those
Nike soles pressing down white-knuckled and
toe-curled tight upon the aluminum skin of their
winged boogie board… hundreds of front-facing
souls, sardine-parceled and honeycombed
kernels on a cob…
brains-on-board with their videocam eyes
contemplating the claustrophobic a isle,
the overhead carry-on compartments,
a forward passenger’s ear, of course
the ubiquitous barf-bag…rather than
the vectors of their very lives…
yes, hundreds of me’s way up there
turning the pages of the latest best
seller whodunit, and ho-humming
their lives away… right up to
the final page…
way up there in the middle of the air
BRAINS ON BOARD
Have you ever been safety-belted way up there in the middle of the air and paused momentarily in your reading, pressed your forehead up against the Plexiglas, peered down at the patchwork diorama of rivers and men, and wondered if anybody down there just might be following the path of this Jumbo Jet crawling (like a Windows desktop cursor) across the sky and wondering your about your Nikes and your barf-bag? I have. It’s the damnest thing, the things I wonder about.
More than half of the time, though, I’m normal. And by normal I mean, you know, just minding my own business, going about the Eight Functions of Life… plus reading, working, watching Netflix, sleeping, remembering things, having meaningless conversations about the weather, etc. But then there’s this other, philosophical me. And no, I’m no philosophy snob. I took some courses in college that basically covered some of the Great Ones, and yeah, I did get hung up for a while on Existentialism like college freshmen everywhere back then. And I’ve done some classical reading over the course of my life. But honestly? At my age, Socrates and Plato don’t carry a lot of relevance for me anymore.
However, my personal investigation into The Meaning of Life is ongoing. It’s not so much that I want it to be. It’s just that I can’t help it. Get a load of this:
According to my brain, I am the center of the universe. I’m not God. I didn’t create me. Or you. But, see, my brain’s got this bright idea that there was only a vacuous void before I came along on that Sunday, Bastille Day, July 14th, 1946 (a.k.a., the Year Zero). But then, come along I did, with a vengeance, and lo, the universe didst begin to take shape. (By the way, the exact center of the universe was 97 Pleasant Street, located in a little hamlet that called itself Dover-Foxcroft (which was not only the center of the universe, but also happened to be the geographical center of the state of Maine in the U.S. of A.). But I’m sure as far as your brain is concerned, the big C of U is more than likely yourself. So it goes. And what are the odds, the two of us in this conversation both happening to be centers of the universe. I know. Of course, we’ve all grown up now and learned that academically (academically, mind you)this cannot be, and is not the case, but nonetheless…
Let’s imagine for a moment that I’m looking east out my window and spy a girl pedaling her bicycle south up South Street. I’m viewing her right profile. She doesn’t know that, of course, because (A) her brain’s not gazing over here toward me, 900 west of her position, and (B) we’ve never met anyway so as far as her brain is concerned, I don’t exist. There is no me. And you can say that about anyone she hasn’t met, or read about yet, or seen on TV. We’re all just ghostly non-entities.
Ooops, wait! Here comes a car this time, tooling down South Street Hill, heading north. Again, from the west, I’m viewing the driver’s side of her/his car. His/her brain is piloting the vehicle. My brain is piloting this HP PC. (What’s your brain piloting?) Her/his brain is the center of his/her universe. He/she knows right where she/he is going. I don’t. It’s not important of the world I’m the center of. He/she knows everything she/he has ever done, known, and learned. (I don’t, and I couldn’t care less). The knowledge is archived in her/his brain on The Complete Neural Map of His/Her World, a unique map that no one else has ever laid eyes on. Just like mine. Like yours.
OK, so where am I going with all this baby talk mumbo jumbo? (See, my brain has intuited that your brain is becoming rather annoyed. And I get it.) So, all right. Here we go.
All I’m saying is that it’s a point of view thing, isn’t it. And we’re stuck with that. It’s like we’re all centers of the big U.
So my small hometown has a population of about 3500. Think about that. Small and insignificant as it is, right now some 3500 ‘centers of the universe’ are out there futzing about at the same time like electrons. But never too preoccupied about it as we’re mostly living in Normal Mode, taking everything for granted, out of sight out of mind. Some pedaling their bicycles, some roaring through town on badass Harleys or rice rockets. Some hauling lumber through town on 22-wheeler pulp trucks. Some are dribbling basketballs, while other are peeking in other people’s windows. Some are going in, as some are going out. Some are just staring up airplanes, wondering, while some are peering down from them. More than a few are smoking weed. It’s a jungle out there. There goes a little old lady walking a beagle. (Is the beagle also a C of U? Well, it’s got a brain so…probably yes.) 3500 individual brains, the center of 3500 universes all in the same tiny town. It’s a point of view thing, sure, but it’s a little mind blowing.
And jeez, consider the bigger picture. Just stream a replay of Woodstock or the Live Aid Concert of 1985 and try to fathom the sheer power and size of those screaming, shoulder-to-shoulder, brain-to-brain, WE WILL, WE WILL ROCK YOU audiences. If you or I were in attendance at either, sure, we’d be overwhelmed but… our individual points of view would still be in charge, wouldn’t they. And the same holds true whether you’re stuck in my little town of Dover-Foxcroft or living among the big city populations: New York, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Cape Town. Regardless of where you are, the person sitting or standing next to you is the Center of the Universe.
See what I mean? Didn’t I warn you that it’s the damnest thing, the things I wonder about? The fault lies in the fact that Poetry ambushed me at an early age. Nursery rhymes at first. Lots of doggerel. Then Bennet Cerf and Ogden Nash. Mad Magazine had something to do with it. But one day back in the early 1970s, and this day is etched in my mind, I was captured as helplessly as a fly in a Venus Fly Trap. A case of the deer in the head lights. I discovered Leonard Cohen. He was just a random page in one of my high school English anthologies. The poem that rat-trapped my brain is…
I Wonder How Many People in This City
I wonder how many people in this city
live in furnished rooms.
Late at night when I look out at the buildings
I swear I see a face in every window
looking back at me,
and when I turn away
I wonder how many go back to their desks
and write this down.
Unlike him, I wasn’t staying at The Chelsea Hotel but… did I drift over to a window and look out? Yes. I did. There were windows out there. And I wondered a bit at the souls living behind the panes. And something began happening to my vision. Everything was becoming just a tad… refracted… like the ray of light passing through a clear glass of water. Like a prism.
To me, that kind of poetry was heavy, heady stuff. I was permanently bent.
And the rest is history.
NEARING THE END OF THE LINE 