Common Walls

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

There once was a young man who was born in Texas.

He hated it. He hated the anti-intellectualism, hated the casual attitude towards the destruction of the planet, hated the way the word "nigger" rolled off the tongues of his family members, hated the music, hated the religion. He didn't want to be in Texas. He didn't want any part of himself to be Texas. He was going to jailbreak, if it was the last thing he did.

He moved away. He avoided contact with his family. He educated himself and argued for atheism loudly and often. He took speech lessons to remove his accent and never once allowed himself to slip. He never owned a handgun. He became a liberal figurehead in his community and marched for the environment. He married a pretty black girl and raised three beautiful mixed-race atheist children. At last, he though to himself, I have freed myself from my prison. He removed the last mental brick from the Wall of Texas inside his mind.

And behind it was the Wall of Raised in Texas.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Very nice, QG.  Deliberately flouting convention for the sake of flouting convention means you're still allowing convention to rule your life.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Really great pieces, Rat and Gogira!

[ThatGreenGentleman]

   The Black Iron Prison is the only place where everyone is a lifer there at some point. It doesn't matter whether you read the terms and agreement because there are none, there is no loop hole to get of there. Everyone is born there, and everyone dies there. How you choose to live there, however, is up to each individual person. You can isolate yourself in your cell, or you can explore the Prison, but beware, for there are many dangers of which you may not know of. There is one danger you must be cautious of at all times. It is whispered amongst the inmates, a being which is so monstrous that he is no longer considered human. No one knows his name, or how he ended up the way he is, but they all know to avoid his cell. His hair is black and encrusted with dried blood, his body is nothing more than a hulking mass of muscle, and he wears a mask to hide his face, though you can see his eyes. His eyes are bright yet dark, and they capture prey who wander in carelessly. And what exactly is his prey you ask? Why what else could it be other than humans? Many have met their death in his lair, and few have survived. Bones litter almost every corner of his cell, and he carries a butcher knife, which is how he came to be called The Butcher. He welcomes one and all with a charming devilish smile.

   His complete opposite would be Dave. Outside the Prison, Dave is an accountant, but he is very plain and boring. But within the Prison Dave isolates himself within his room. He refuses to allow anyone to enter, and all he does is mutter to himself, or rather to his wife's head. You see, Dave couldn't take the Black Iron Prison any longer, so while his wife slept he chopped her head off. He buried her corpse in a park or something, but keeps her head in the freezer. You see, Dave tends to mix reality with the Prison, and can never tell which one he is in. In reality he pretends to be a man who tries to be happy even though his wife supposedly left him, but in the Black Iron Prison he can keep his wife forever. He'll hold her rotting head lovingly in his arms and whisper about how someday he'll get them both out of there, and that they'll be free. Poor Dave, he'll never be able to leave until he casts off the mortal coil. Perhaps someday he'll realize that.

   Now don't get me wrong, there are other people who aren't crazy within the confines of the Prison. In fact, probably the most sane people in there are a pair of twins. The twins, James and Sophia, they explore the Prison and know almost everyone in it for they have quite a good memory. They've even gone so deep into the Prison that they've found the older ones that no one uses anymore. The cells that have fallen into disrepair and crumble at the slightest touch, and something like a moss grows on the walls. But the farther they venture in, the darker it gets, until they may never be able to find their way back.

   A dream you can't wake up from, no matter how much you want to or don't want to.
THE END.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

That's daddy's little psychotic!   

[Cramulus]

x-post

We're immersed in time. So we rarely notice it or think about it. It's a forbidden topic -- the ellipses following a euphemism. We pretend that we're not drowning in time. We just doggy paddle down the mysterious river. Some photographs remind you. They show you a moment that has passed. A snowflake that has melted into a drop of water, refracting the light into a spectrum. The colors of buildings. The costumes of the actors. The shape of a car. The fonts on a sign. You don't have to go back very far before everything starts looking foreign. If you were to travel through time, even if you remained in the same city, you would be a foreigner. Sometimes that thought makes me very lonely. We have to face the mystery alone. The faces in the photograph look at you with knowing eyes. But they don't know, you know. Their mystery has melted. My mystery is now. I am writing it as I'm solving it. Mystery novelists say you should start with the ending and then work backwards. So I take a mental snapshot of the future. I'm looking at the fonts, the shapes of cars, the spectrum of color hidden in the white light. When you look at a photograph of the future, does it make you nostalgic for the present? Let's take a moment to drink it in and reflect. A bunch of foreigners gripping umbrellas form a line to immigrate.

..................................................................................

[The Good Reverend Roger]

On Joining The Church:

I always knew everything was screwed up...Like this was the test-run, prototype universe that was never actually intended for actual use, right?  But the funding for the finished product ran out, and we got stuck here.

Then I found The Book of the Subgenius in the early 80s, and I liked what I saw...But it wasn't QUITE what fit the bill.  Then I came across the PD a year or so later, and IT wasn't really what I needed.  But taken together, they made a hell of a lot of sense.  In fact, the only thing I've ever added to it in my head is some of Warren Ellis and HST's weirder stuff.

I don't worry about what the atheists say, or the Christians, or even the Buddhists.  They're not my people.  My people are on PD and in the pervert bars and the low streets of the Holy City™ of Eris.  I may holler, I may rant and screech obscenities at you, but that's not necessarily because I think you're wrong or you're a bad person, it's because I am a very, very angry monkey who feels better when he roars, because it reduces the pressure of the endless hate & rage that is in my head, put there by a planet full of monkeys that never learned the old axiom "Just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD".

[Telarus]

Really love this thread.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

So, editing people, have you already got a layout person lined up, or is that something I can help with?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

So, editing people, have you already got a layout person lined up, or is that something I can help with?

I am totally down with this, and I believe I saw that LMNO said that he is too... that would be awesome!

[LMNO]

Part 3

So, we've seen common walls that occur naturally, and we've seen those that are created in collaboration; and we've discussed what happens with the inevitable differences that arise, but the subtle and the major.  But consider this: The differences you see in your shared wall could very well be merely a shadow case by one of your very own bars.

For example, Joe and Sam both love the music of the Delta Blues; both love barbecue, and both want to work together to improve the civil rights of women.  But for some reason, they simply can't agree on anything, and their attempts at conversation always end in acrimony and bitterness.  Because as it happens, Joe is white and was born in South Africa in 1942, and Sam is a black American born in 1984.  Obviously, Joe's biases are getting in the way. 

Now, while this is an obvious example, follow the trail to its conclusion.  Since your cell is made up of your experiences, the differences you see in the common wall are not just your neighbor's, they're yours, as well.  It's very easy to fall into "Right Man" syndrome when encountering something familiar and different at the same time.  Your brain clicks into the familiarities being "right", the unfamiliar things being "wrong", and you find yourself simply unable to stop and self-analyze the situation.  Because maybe, just maybe, you're the "Joe" character in the above story.

But if we're trying to both set the bar high enough for other's differences and at the same time make allowances for our own potential biases, we again run into problems.  There's a saying, "Do not understand me too quickly."  That's what happens when you only focus on what's familiar.  If you ignore everything that someone is sharing with you except for the familiar things, then you will completely misunderstand any message that adds something new to the signal.  You'll think you understand what is being communicated, but in no time at all, you'll be stuck in your own cell again, and eventually fuck something up.

The point of common walls is a focal point, a foundation; they're too unstable to support anything of value on their own from the very start.  It takes work, effort, and an understanding of both yourself and your neighbor to transmit information and work together to build more familiarity, to strengthen the wall you share. 

If you focus on the differences, the common wall will never get started.

If you focus on the similarities, the common wall will not last.

If you work together to build more familiarity, the wall will grow stronger.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

So, editing people, have you already got a layout person lined up, or is that something I can help with?

I am totally down with this, and I believe I saw that LMNO said that he is too... that would be awesome!

SEXYAWESOMEFUN!

Let me know when you guys settle on an order to put in the things that are already done and made the cut, and I can start working on my end. I think as it stands right now it may be able to fit in a single booklet, but with a bunch of people still saying they're not done it may end up being a multiple booklet deal.

[LMNO]

For now, leave it open ended.  Focus on design, look, and feel.  Try a few things out, experiment, play around.  We'll probably change our minds about thing at the drop of a hat, so don't get too committed.  Might be a good idea to start by grouping by tone, length, and subject, which then can be arranged to form an arc.  However, since things are still being written, everything is mutable.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Definitely not putting a cap on anything, just figured I'd give you a heads up on the multiple booklet issue before I get too involved.

[The Rev]

"The sound shivers through the walls, through the table, through the window frame, and into my finger. These distraction-oholics. These focus-ophobics. Old George Orwell got it backward. Big Brother isn't watching. He's singing and dancing. He's pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother's holding your attention every moment you're awake. He's making sure you're always distracted. He's making sure you're fully absorbed... and this being fed, it's worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what's in your mind. With everyone's imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world."  Chuck Palahniuk

Everyone is so worried about Big Brother watching.  People spend hours every day wasting time and energy on the worry that someone might see something.  Bi-peds hold their privacy so close, it is as important to them as air.

Maybe that is the problem.  Everyone is so worried about who might see something they stopped concerning themselves with what they are or are not seeing.  See Big Brother isn't watching us, we are watching him. 

Few are safe, because humanity has become addicted to watching everyone else, they've forgotten that there are traps they cannot see.  They don't think about the things that once seen cannot be unseen.  So they watch. 

What are those Kardashians up to today? 

Who's left in the Big Brother house?

Is Lindsey Lohan back in jail? 

Who will be the NEXT American Idol? 

While humanity is distracted with trivial interests like this, Big Brother, he's kicking ass in every corner no one is looking.  While so many were worried about some little girl falling off a stage last night on American Idol, 28 people were killed and another 235 wounded in Syria. 

While everyone is watching everyone else's status on Facebook, a couple was killed in Tennessee for un-friending another woman.  The couple's eight month old baby was found in its dead mother's arms.

While Obama caves on the birth control issue and the Catholic church continues with it's go forth and multiply message, proven by the average daily births worldwide of 353,015, no one stops to wonder what happens when there is just no more room. 

Is it possible that we need to stop looking at the obvious and find out what the obvious is hiding behind its back?

Khara has decided to take ownership of this piece. I posted it here under my name at her request, and now, at her request I am giving her the credit.