00X02

There are these kids that live in my neighborhood. I had seen them around before, but rarely. I don't know what caused it to happen – I could probably peruse my journal for the exact day where it started and figure it out there – but at some point I started to lend them my bikes for them to ride. They are both young, and they have friends who are very young too. One of them is a toddler, I think, but there's another who's about the same age as me. I had no idea there were this many people living in the neighborhood. I gave them my bikes for a few hours, frequently I would go riding with them, and I saw these people who I had never seen before. The houses that I frequently assumed were just houses had actual people inside of them.

Maybe before I had seen some other neighbor and their friends or family playing outside, riding bicycles of their own. I never came to know them. I never figured out what part of the neighborhood they were from. But they were still there. And they would be there, again. They stopped going outside. I assume they've moved.

I am given the leeway to ride around the neighborhood at my leisure on my bike. It is relatively large for a suburban neighborhood. I am at the far end of it. I would ride from one extremity to the next. There are around four regions here, each with houses of their own. And what I can assume to be small communities. I am disconnected from these regions. I ride by them every day, but I never get to know who lives inside of the houses that line the sidewalks. There are large gaps of concrete between the regions. They are surrounded by forest. I only know one person from far outside my region, but I've only seen them around three times. It is two young kids, again. But they are much younger than the ones I know that live much nearer to me. I met them by happenstance. I started mute, as per usual. But they got me to speak. We became friends, I guess, but the only time I ever met them again was by happenstance. I saw them once more after that and then never again.

I remember etching something into the sand when they left. I had some film left in my Polaroid. I took some photos of the trees, and of them. I gave it to the kids and their much older sister. I wonder if they still have it. The sand was marked with me asking to meet with them at the playground again tomorrow, or some time later. The first day of some month. I had not known anyone from outside of my region before until these people. It was new to me. I wanted to see them again, because I never had the opportunity to socialize like this before. Because, usually, I was alone, inside of my house, doing whatever I felt like doing at the time and then sleeping when night came. Every morning I would get out to ride my bike, and I would ride by the regions, not turning into one, neither the others, just eyeing them. Trying to imagine what the people there were up to. I don't think what I wrote on the sand stayed very long.

Back to the two kids that I loan my bicycles to. Them and maybe at least four other people. They were apparently their friends. One of them was the kids' much older brother. I was friends with him in middle school. We hadn't spoken in years, because I moved away for a year and by then had likely forgotten his name. We became friends again on the day I gave the kids my bikes. He has one of his own. It's red. He doesn't ride it sitting down, but standing up. I've tried to imitate that. It seems efficient in some ways, although I've never been interested in stunts... and that seems like the only reason you would ride a bicycle like that for. Besides him there were three other people that I came to know. One had a mysterious demeanor about them. We aren't friends because we don't know each other. But she seems well-meaning.

I started going down that region, the one I never went through before. I went through the other region that remained untraveled as well. The end of the former was a roundabout. It gave me some sense of déjà vu when I first came across it. I was glad to have come there. I circled around it a few times, then I left. I was glad to have come there. On one particular day the clouds were out. And it mesmerized me. I did the only thing I knew how to do in those situations. I took twelve photos of the sky.

I used to whine. A lot.

If you go to my old website, and look at my old blog where I intentionally tried to scour up every old piece of writing I could find on my hard drive, and you go to the older posts, you will find some very mopey and moaney stuff. Well, I was a dumb idiot at the time, so whining was the only thing I knew how to do. I'm not sure if anyone ever read the newer blog I put out. As far as I can tell, blogs are supposed to give insight on a specific topic of special interest. Like botany, or programming. Journaling is not entirely dissimilar to blogging, but it is not a blog regardless. If there is one thing I am good at, it is self-indulgence. Blogging does not fit in that mold.

I was browsing the internet. I am supposed to be writing an essay for a college exam, but I haven't been able to. My professor will kill me for it... but I'm willing to take the blow. To my grade.

Anyways, I was browsing the internet. Reading Why's (Poignant) Guide To Ruby. Obviously, I've always thought _why was a cool guy ever since I found out about him, so I motivated myself to dig deeper. I found http://preeventualist.org/ in Chapter 6 of his book. I looked around. Went on DuckDuckGo, looked up "preeventualism". Found a little website belonging to a person named Paige. In it, something called _why's estate. Curiosity piqued. Expectantly, it was an archive for _why's past works. I scrolled down a bit and found this curious little document. It was all caps. CLOSURE. I knew the guy had left but I didn't recall any sort of closing note. I opened it in Dropbox and I read it.

Years ago I used to obsess over this game named EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OK. It's very striking. It definitely resonated with me at that time. It still does now. I've been meaning to revisit it for some time. What matters is that it is there. It is a piece of software that has eluded me, and always will. I assume it is centered, at least somewhat, around the experiences of the person who created it, but it also feels like a more general deliberation on the far recesses of the human mind. Where things go wrong. It presents itself in proverbs. And it goes deep. DEEP. It cuts similarly deep, as well. It found a place in my heart because I could relate to it. I think anyone can, really. It's unabashed and in some aspects abrasive. There is never an end to these things. These things are not meant to be understood. If you're going to replicate them you shouldn't try to have clarity.

What links these two entities is that they feel connected, in some way. One was made long after the other. But they feel like they communicate the same sort of emotion to me. It's the same kind of resonance. CLOSURE is 96 pages of writing of different kinds. Some are in handwriting. Some are written with a typewriter. Some are typeset in some word processor of their own, fancy formatting and everything, and some are just... inside of books. I assume it is there to tell some kind of story. But, from what I can gather, it's from the perspective of _why. In many ways it's disorganized, it feels personal. In other aspects it feels eloquent and natural. Like I'm meant to be reading this. There is a lot to take from what he writes here. Fiction or not.

In many ways EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OK is disorganized, in other ways it feels streamlined. I cannot surmise how this was made, or why. But it is in front of me now, and it feels like the greatest form of self-indulgence imaginable. One everyone can identify with. One that is wholly unique. That doesn't have to be meaningless nonsense, being said for the sake of being said. It's there to relate to. CLOSURE is not dissimilar in this regard, at least to me.

I don't intend to whine, or to wonder why anything is the way it is. I will indulge, I will browse the catalogs of my mind, and I will try to make meaning out of it for as long as I am able to. I will write about my day. Sometimes I will not. Some threads will be tied up and others will remain loose.

Nature is detached from human ingenuity. In an indeterminate amount of years from now I will die. Whether or not I will be remembered is up to the universe to decide. And the universe is very indecisive.

Eons will come and go and trees will rise and fall. But for as long as they stand they will be my comfort. If there is no brain to think then there is no potential for despair. I am happy for my sentience as it gives me the capacity to appreciate that which is still. Slowly, it may move, but in this moment, as I look at it, it doesn't make a single motion, except for the wind influencing it. It is me and nature. My one true comfort.