Butterfly Effect, or Gurdjieff's Prisoner's Paradox
Butterfly Effect, or Gurdjieff’s Prisoner’s Paradox
So I just watched The Butterfly Effect. Interesting movie, especially when once starts trying to discern where “reality” starts and stops.
Hmm.. damned public journal.. seems rather silly to go admitting psychosis in “public” (wtf is that, anyways).
So yeah, sometimes I consider the possibility that I’m in some kind of Truman Show, and everyone’s having some big joke at my expense.
So there’s this gas station near my work. I’ve been going to it for a year now. There was this girl working there, as far as I knew, the only female that worked there. AJ was her name, about 5’, red hair, and a bunch of tattoos (skull and crossbones on both her wrists). To put it simply, I had a crush on this girl.
I knew what time she got off work, so I would time my trips to the gas station to arrive about a half hour before her shift was over. She knew my cigarette brand, and knew that I always bought two 1-liter mountain dews, and if I forgot one of them, she’d remind me.. and she was usually right, I just forgot. Not like I had any deep involved conversations with her (you only have a few seconds before the next person wants to pay for their gas), but talking to her made me happy.
I got this idea into my head I was gonna ask her out for a cup of coffee or something.. something innocuous, innocent. But just about the time I got my courage up to ask, she wasn’t there.. for a few weeks. I didn’t have any relationship to any of the others that worked, other than I was a regular customer. During the time before I asked after her, I spent all kinds of time kicking myself, for the consequences of hesitation, about why didn’t I go for it more in my life. Finally one day I asked what happened to “that little redhead that worked here”. I was told that she was visiting her sister, who was having surgery or something, but that she was gonna be back in a few weeks. I made a mental note, and started going to a different gas station for a few weeks.
Finally I went back and she was there. I made some kind of lame greeting like “hey stranger” or someting.. I never did get around to asking her out to coffee.. but finally, I did invite her to come to a drumcircle at my house. That conversation didnt go where I wanted it to go, however.
She asked me if there would be drugs there. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I said something like some.. She said that she couldn’t do that, she was in recovery. she asked me what, pot? I said yeah, there would prolly be some ppl smokin pot in the bushes or something, but that that wasnt the point. She said she’d have to check with her boyfriend, and I gave her my phone number so if she wanted to come, I could give her directions (boy, did I wish i had a flyer that day). This was a Thursday, two days before the drumcircle in, I think, August..
..and that was the last time I saw her. A couple weeks later there was a new girl working there, who lasted about 2 weeks, and now there’s this hispanic girl working there. I can’t escape the feeling that I fucked it up.. that I should have just left it a little crush I had, rather than try to reach out.. risk.. fuck it up.
It’s like we’re all in the Matrix.. (isn’t it weird how all my metaphors seem to come from movies?) as long as we play our little roles in the game, everything will be ok. But if we wake up in the dream/game, and start acting out of congruity to the movie, the game masters start swapping out the characters (a la the front desk guy in Dark City) when they get too close to the real plot.
So what does this have to do with Gurdjieff? Well, G told this story that basically we humans are each of us in a prison. It’s such an effective prison, we don’t even realize that we’re in it. Most of us will live and die prisoners thinking that is all there is and all we get.
But occasionally, one of us realizes we’re in a prison, and soon after learn that not everyone realizes this. What now? well, the only sane course of action, once one realizes that we’re in a prison, is to want to get out. But how? well, we have to find others who know how to get out, and enlist their help. Nobody gets out by himself, we each of us need each other to remind ourselves of our state and of what we work towards. There’s just one catch. Not everyone gets to escape, because if everyone escaped, there’d be nobody in the prison and someone would notice that and take corrective action. No, if we’re to get out, we only get out with a few others, who have also realized their predicament.
So the paradox is, when do you talk to another, to find out if he realizes the incarceration or not. You can’t just walk up to anyone and say “dude, you’re in a prison, and you have no choice to act like a broken automaton” cuz they’ll just lock you up.
So yeah.. watched a movie tonite. had an interview this morning for a job downtown. It went ok, but I dont think it’s gonna pan out. the interview was too short. I asked my usual closer question, “based on this interview, do I seem like the kind of person you want on your team now?” I only scored a 3 out of 5 on their brainbench test, tho. And they had one of the harder questions on the application they gave me to sign (new spin this time, “have you ever been convicted of anything that hasnt been expunged from your record?”) Supposed to know next week.