You just want me because i’m there. “I want you all the time.” Anyhow, I must’ve been talking to Ursula at some other point in time, because she certainly wasn’t here, at least not in the way I imagined she was describing. But maybe she meant something else. That I only wanted her because she communicated with me telepathically, and, once she was in my presence, and I didn’t have to rely on telepathic communication for interpersonal contact, I might lose interest. Was i more in love with the idea of telepathic connection than I was with Ursula? Nonsense. I never had to lose a telepathic connection, and, even if i could interact on a physical level, i wasn’t going to wind up looking back in preference of a time in my life when telepathic communications might have been seen as somehow more pure—in that I had to rely on it and it alone. I could always rely on it even if I was in a relationship, and if I didn’t use it as much, well, then, that was because I didn’t need it as much, at least not in the same way, which would have been perfectly fine. There’s no sense in being telepathic just to be telepathic—just to say you’re telepathic, which is what that would boil down to. You have to need it for something.
Otherwise it doesn’t work, does it? Because you’re not really listening if you’re not waiting for something to happen. Now you see me, now you don’t. But, no, you didn’t stop being telepathic once you were telepathic—interacting across time and space added a whole new dimension to personal interaction—it went along with it just as well as it might, for a time, consist almost solely of it. Now you can play. I was currently grappling with the idea that the universe was finite, and i had my ideas, but I wondered a little what that might mean. Was I thinking from an immature perspective, like people did when they imagined earth was the center of it all? Why would the universe be finite? What would determine the size of the universe if it were finite? You want me, good. I determined the size of the universe is related the zeta function and the mass content of the observable universe, which, in my model, was extent of the universe, but I couldn’t say exactly why we had a particular amount of mass and not some other amount of mass. I just had it in my mind that the mass content was related to the circumference of the universe divided by its diameter.
It was nice that I was finding errors in my understanding of the universe and how it works—and that i was able to correct those errors—but it was dominating my day in a way that I thought was unnecessary, considering all the things that i do, that, realistically speaking, are at least equally important. I wasn’t exactly integrating my emotions—it was more like I was avoiding them, and trying to ignore them, by flooding my mind with questions that, honestly, might go on forever. Do it right this time. But what other time was there? Was I the reincarnation of some other soul? I didn’t think so, but I did believe that souls were composed of each other—that souls overlapped, so, I tried to imagine what might have gone wrong, in the past, and there were a limited number of people that i believed contributed in a major way to my soul—so I asked, what, in the lives of these people, went wrong? And i concluded that a couple of my compatriots seemed to ignore the influence of a God—or, at least, failed to address the question, whereas others, perhaps, did the opposite—they failed to build a philosophy—or an understanding of how things work when there is no God to serve as the answer to every question that we cannot otherwise answer. Deeply religious people, it seemed, often failed to live a life that went beyond the bounds of who and what they imagine themselves to be—they seemed to suppress themselves, and, as such, an understanding of how people operate on a deeper, practical level.
I’m standing right here—yes, i’d come across Anna’s real name in the book I was revising, and, while I’d let it exist, in a few places, in a book I’d just published, i decided I didn’t want to do that anymore—and I should stick to calling Anna Karenina Anna Karenina. So i was going to go back and change that, after initially thinking, well, maybe it’s okay, when, in fact, i think the character is more effective as an entirely fictional character—which is what Anna will become, as time goes on, and people lose track of current events. I doubt she wanted to be mentioned, anyhow, which, although i might have once thought she’d at least be indifferent, i had some greater clue, now, that even Elvis might have gotten a little peeved when people that looked up to him ended up using him to get attention. But—you know what, Elvis has to get real, too, and know that getting used to get attention goes with the territory of being famous, so if I thought using Elvis might add something to what I was doing, I’d consider it, still, but, in my case, it seemed that Anna would live longer if she didn’t have a definite, dated identity.
Hang it up, hang up you cleats. I reflected on how I once channeled my belief in myself and a destiny into becoming a marvelous athlete—particularly a baseball player that would eventually outstrip Hank Aaron, the home run king, minus the steroids—a man with a good life story, a good biography. But I didn’t know myself very well, and what my talents, truly, were, and, frankly, spending so much time on sports, while it may have fostered both drive and passion, ultimately did nothing to sharpen my skills as an artist—which is what i realized, i think, as my true purpose, a little late in the game. Now you can see me. Indeed, i’d dreamed of a woman, and nothing was out of place or wrong—there were no feelings of inadequacy, there was no resistance to what was happening, and feeling good, as, i think, it should be, at least once, that is, you become an adult. Even if you’re like me, and the mission takes priority, the mission remains if, God forbid, you get someone pregnant. You just have different things to talk about than you otherwise might—and those experiences would be no less important. I may not be able to work a job, but if, God forbid, I got a girl pregnant, I’d find myself in a position, perhaps with a disability check, to pay, in part, for the child.
Things would work out—things always do when you believe in yourself and treat others with kindness, respect, and dignity. But in this dream, another man sought to win the attention, in part, of my partner, and i realized: the bigger the orgy the more divided your partner’s attention is, so you don’t get as intense a feeling, in that way, as you otherwise might—which made me realize that everything is a tradeoff, that an orgiastic experience wouldn’t make every other sexual experience second rate, and, also, I considered—perhaps this other man represented my shadow—parts of myself that I had yet to integrate and accept, and that, indeed, the point that I was trying to make, to myself, was that there is nothing to fear, one way or the other. That I am what I am, and that, in time, once I fully integrate with myself and the world around me, I should, given the chance, pursue the orgiastic experience—especially since, as I’d just proved to myself, it wouldn’t be able to outshine the intensity of two people being together, focused on each other. I was well aware of how rare such an event would be, but I don’t think i was wasting my time thinking about it, since the point was to integrate with my true self, even if that self never acted on what, in part, would define it.