Save It For Later (excerpt from The Constant Sea of Night)

Let me ask you something: If you were being lied to every day, by everyone you know, about every single thing you have ever thought or believed to be true, do you really think you’d know the difference? Do you really? Because, isn’t the point that you would never have known it to be any other way? We don’t think that happens in this society, in the western part of the world we call Earth. We don’t, even though we know that, for instance, East and West are really only ideas of direction that we invented ourselves, to explain and understand the world around us. We all learn these sorts of common facts, to help anyone coming in from the outside to understand some of the simplest measures and tools we have all agreed on, or at least consented to in absentia. They give newcomers context by which to compare and contrast. We know it makes our lives more complicated, but it also helps to make life run smoother for everyone if we all learn to accept and apply the scientific method to improving our lives and perspectives, and perhaps actually understand and see the solutions to problems that have vexed us for generations, if not millennia. This is the evolution of human society into something more flexible, less precious, more experienced and knowledgeable. Less hung up. Less limited. Less scared. Less impotent. Less dangerous. Less infectious. Less virulent. You know, Civilized. Maybe we really are an accident; A random event, which sparked off a chain reaction that, to this day, still beggars most peoples’ comprehension. But for my money, it’s still a great deal easier to swallow than choking down another stanza of that old time faith hymn about the loving, nurturing sky father who laboured (for six ages, which we call days in some book that has us all a bit confused, in this day and age), and on such an infinitely intricate series of modular, interconnected, seemingly interchangeable ecosystems and organisms (that would themselves create societies and schools and art and culture and communication and pornography and all the rest of that wonderful, tedious exhaustion), but whom nevertheless insists that death threats and severe punishments are the sole, most economical way to teach us pattern balding monkeys how to stop beating one another up and raping each other to death. And yet, this same sky father asserts that he and she alone is morally fit to teach us manners and civics? Maybe we really are just a divine off-Broadway tragic comedy. Quiet down in front! Lady in the hat? Lose it! Or maybe we are all these things and many, many others. Maybe none of it’s true. Maybe some of it is. I don’t know. Maybe even most of it’s true. Maybe it’s ALL true. Think about that. What if every line, every myth, every lie, every obfuscation or justification or rationalization or revelation is not merely metaphorically or psychologically significant, but is actually the objective, verifiable truth, for one or more of us. That’s not actually discounted by science or the objective truth. Only two people are needed to achieve a consensus view (if one is even needed). More is generally better for more accurate results (’Less is More is a modern concept that is more of a maxim-as-guideline than an actual code of conduct or universal law, per se), but it starts when we figure out that 1+1≠1. Also. And perhaps more importantly, that 1-1≠1. Some of you are already getting irritated, perhaps even angry. You probably want to slam this book shut, throw it across the room, and perhaps kill it with fire! To you I say this: wait. I’m not finished. You can burn it later. Or recycle it. Or delete it from your eReader. I’m not here to put big bad scary ideas into your virginal, defenseless mind; I’m here to tell you this story. But the thing about that is, some stories have their own reasons for being, and it’s only a small subclass of authors who are deemed suitably cracked enough to accept and receive the suggestions of a particularly licentious grade of story idea. I’m not casting aspersions as to what sort of story this actually is (yet). I promise that my intentions are nothing but noble and self-sacrificing. What I’m trying to tell you is NOT that society is all a lie. Well, it is, but not in the way the grizzled 70s anarchists insist it is. It’s part of our social contract (in essence, the unspoken codes and understandings of which we in the western world all share and by which we all abide (well, except criminals, anarchists, libertarians, survivalists, and Ted Nugent), not by chance or coincidence but by deliberate human design). You may have heard of social contracts before, though not in this context. That’s probably because it was a labour movement staple back in the 1990s, and these days, in this part of the world, the labour movement is laid up in the hospital in traction. Proposing that there is still strength in collective bargaining may still be true in some circles, but the idea of unions has also become something of a broken promise for many of us who call ourselves Generation X; however, it’s also a manifest reality for the younger generations, who are learning through the power of the internet to help mankind bridge gaps in our understanding of the nature of the world. We typically pick up a few neat facts as we grow up, and then we rush outside and start bashing anyone we meet over the head who says, wears or does something different, especially if it contradicts our understanding of those neat little facts we were drilled on as kids. You’re getting that look of anger again. I apologize. I’m not saying our education was akin to brainwashing. I happen to be proud of what I learned as a child. So trust me, there is a reason for all of this blather and insult: I’m preparing to remove that dirty old bandage you’re nursing, and you’re not going to like what comes out of the wound after it’s uncovered. And just why am I insisting on doing this to you, unbidden? Of course, you already know the answer: because it’s your turn. I already removed mine, earlier this year, so I could finally write this novel without flinching. I had to abandon all of my other pursuits and commitments to reshape my nervous system enough to confront the things this particular story insists on me showing you. I really think it’s an old, familiar gift we all possess, this storytelling thing we do. It’s also fast becoming time when we have to have another social contract drawn up, or at least a gentle-person’s agreement to amend the constitution of the contract, to better fit our newer, more complete understanding of the problems that our wise and learn’d ancestors nevertheless had no way of understanding, let alone dealing with. That is all that progress really is. It’s about knowing how the stories that make up our lives ought to go, and showing people what these stories are trying to teach us about ourselves, without getting up our noses about it. Don’t get me wrong: there IS a plot, and characters, most of whom I hope are fairly likable, if not lovable. Maybe even fuckable. It’s a strange world we live in. Anything is possible. Except that, really, it’s not, is it? Let’s face it; most of us know that we are very likely to die with little to show for our efforts. We’ll be broke and hungry, sitting in a pool of our own incontinence, carefully contained in plastic pants, so as not to stain the furnishings. Or worse: maybe our children will do to us what we ended up doing to our parents, as they had taught us by doing the same thing to their parents. We don’t actually have a choice, either. We put the invalids of our society out to pasture. We need to take a big step back, and look long and hard at where we are right now: Multiple careers in our lifetimes, or juggling multiple part time jobs from day to day, or living on social assistance in a dilapidated old apartment, or broke at a higher lifestyle in one of those awful, drafty modern mausoleums, with a bare minimum of two incomes to maintain one household with two earning partners and all or most of their dependents/children and assorted pets. A few families are trying different arrangements. Some are staying solo, while others are entering into polyamorous relationships with multiple partners covering the slack for each other, as needed. Some are still messing around or swinging for the ego boost, but the rest of us are barely competent enough to circumnavigate a relationship with one family at a time. We have many different types of living arrangements, today. It’s long past time we called the Nuclear Family concept what it really is: a huge, monumentally privileged lifestyle that lasted for about two or three generations, and now has run its course. The train has pulled into the station. The kids have all left the train. Time to disembark. These words may sound pretentious, but a few of you may have seen what I just did there (Spoilers, sweetie). This is a very meta chapter, and probably immensely off-putting, this soon in the novel. I’d apologize, especially as it’s reflexive to us Canadians. However, my wife was born and raised in New York City, perhaps the greatest city of the 20th Century, where she spent several years in customer service (more specifically, transportation), and with credentials that impressive, I bow to her wisdom when she says it’s hypocritical to apologize for mistakes and accidents that you cannot--or perhaps will not--promise never to repeat. I can’t and I won’t, so I refuse. You’ve been warned. ©2018 Lee Edward McIlmoyle