Hell is Other People
February 1, 2010
She knew herself. She was born into her life as a mind that was attached to a human, a human who acted and aspired and desired and lived–but mostly she was a mind. She knew herself and where she was and why and how she did things. She saw herself from above; she saw herself without a mirror. She knew her insides in a way most of us never fully know our outsides, she knew what she would do next. She had fallen deep into the well of consciousness and there she remained until she emerged, not drowning, but waving.
Everyone emerges at some point.
Some time, and it was not entirely clear when, she entered the world. She decided, we’re sure, that she had fully understood herself and it was time to embark upon something new. The next great adventure was not death, but others. Well, we know what they say.
She came out rubbing her eyes, fresh from the womb of her soul. She blinked in the brightness of so many people, who all had that same well deep inside them. The first thing she noticed was how they were different. As she began to move through the world she discovered that what was true and known in herself was not true and known in others. Others did not even know themselves!
There were too many for her. It took her years to learn how her own gears shifted, to inspect it and oil it and know that she was a machine like any other, just that her rules were different and not as quantifiable as the lab coats would like her to believe. That she could hypothesize and experiment and conclude and predict just as well as the lab coats, even if she worked with a conscience instead of neurons. But all these peoples, mysteries unto themselves, had not taken that time and walked around surprised at their own movements. She could not uncover them all.
It embodied itself as fear. Mad, hair-gripping fear. Enigmas! she shouted. All of you! Enigmas! Her mind wanted to unwind them, fix them, take them as Rubix cubes and simply apply a muscle-memorized formula to leave them ordered and clear. Still humanity remained the scribble it has always been, and every undulation sent shivers down her spine. For what is more fearsome than that which you cannot predict?
She lived in fear of those who loved her turning their backs, unable to understand themselves why they left. She could not take their uncertainty, their momentary passing, their surging emotions. She could not live with their mindlessness. She could not survive their ineptitude.
We did not know what to do. No one did. And, like humans, our concern slowly dropped away, one raindrop at a time, until we watered the earth and sprouted new concerns and forgot, eventually, (we all do,) that we had even been concerned in the first place. She too disappeared. Perhaps she retreated back into herself, found more to play with just by being in the world briefly. Perhaps she thought to mimic us: leave after a temporary period and do not wonder why. She left, and we left, and then no one was there.
