locomotive

not to long ago i met up with a friend in berkley–i would call her a bronze friend if that makes any sense, somehow she is neither silver, nor gold, yet functions beautifully like an installment in a mediterranean courtyard, the courtyard of my spirit–at a place called cafe gratitude, or something like that. i don’t remember exactly. at this establishment, the staff is trained to call everything on the menu, “i’m grateful,” or “i’m ecstatic.” things like that. it’s kind of weird, but pretty nice too. (the word “weird” is from a welsch word, “wyyrrdd”–true spelling–which means you have one foot in the other world.) this bronze friend of mine is into a lot of different ayurvedic study, yoga, meditation, etc. she seemed to be in a fairly pissy mood because she’d just rear-ended someone on her way to meet me. that’s never a fun thing. (i did it once on my way skiing and totaled my parents car.) she described how all the people in this cafe were unfortunately stuck in the “god realm.” this means that they think–perhaps by force–that everything is great, that everything is designed to be great. they say it over and over like a mantra. she told me that this is a false spirit level… in other words, inhuman. that the human iterations of spirit across spaces of life and death, sometimes encompass the god space, but only for a time. she said that these god people will be shaken from their state at some point. her argument seemed a little pessimistic to me i admit, but also interesting. her point of view was one of transcendence, self proclaimed… as though she were in observance of all iterations, or knew what they are… SO i made the argument of kurt vonnegut: as long as there is a member of the lower class i am of it… as long as there is one man in prison, i am with him. and further, what about the lowly workers toiling over the manufacture of the giant locomotive, slowly (or quickly as it were) killing themselves as they weld the iron, one fierce hot joint at a time. she smiled. and took what i posed as a state almost of enslavement, and turned it: “but they’re welding the molten parts of themselves to something higher; they’re doing exactly what they have to be doing at that moment to make the wheel turn, to send the water over the turbine of our fortunes in order to gain the next phase state.” (again, a fairly drastic paraphrase.) i was only thinking of this this afternoon because i’ve been welding for the past ten hours.