2004 - The Tar Pit Letter

This letter was written to Amanda one day when we decided to have a champagne and fruit picnic on a hill at the La Brea tar Pits.


When I woke up this morning it was like stepping into a hot shower on a cold night- I had slowly and gradually emerged from some sensation and some forgotten situation into the warmth of too many blankets and the sun streaming into my room, pouring into my room with the relish of a lover united, enjoying the year's first embrace after so many years lived in solitude

Whatever I was dreaming was pleasurable. But it didn't necessarily differentiate whether it had been a euphoric dream or a nightmare- I had only the feeling that I had gotten something out of it, and that could go both ways because in the past few years I've come to realize that experience is not seperated into good and bad, or something that would have been better off not happening, but that it is those experiences, that we remember, that makes us remember how very alive we are- how much we have the capability to sense, and appreciate, and be stricken by... how much pain we have to feel to understand sometimes... and how this is the only truly valuable purpose to our existence-

After all.. in a world overpopulated by humans, the priority is not the survival of the species but the survival of the Spirit of Humanity. The greatest thrills in life are those that place us in a situation that is uncontrollable, that is subject to chance. The greatest thrills are absolutely unpredictable. This is what it means to be alive. This is why we are us and haven't yet been replaced by robots. How do you replace something with no specific function, something so malleable that its very malleability is the only thing that makes it seem indispensable?

Is it a threat that the world in large has forgotten this vital characteristic of human life, and that in general, our priorities are completely different? I thought so but this is of course not the case. How could we even dare think that the human spirit is something that we could destroy? Even in a world filled with the facilities to crush it, there will always be one or two people on any given morning, that will wake up and smile- no matter what- for no reason except that they can.