Reality
My first memorable encounter with "reality"or to put it better the sense of what i think reality to be. Was when i first smelt TCP after grazing my knee at some wee age in little little school, that raw abbrasive and dominating smell was more genuine than every other moment leading to and surrounding the antiseptic. The wool it was on seemed to eminate its own chill. And wherever it was waved in the nurses hand it broke the previously unoticed haze of stymied normality around it igniting blue ray crispness with its invisable vapors. Of course when it touched my graze it backed up its case by being more painful than the original accident.
Perhaps it caught me at that stage of development when i was braking into a new sentient level and the experience on a whole was inevitably going to be associated to such a potent ident. Creating my own bespoke catalog of "reality". Except i remember little else than the very real dowsed cotton wall coming towards my knee making the rest of the world in comparison no more than differently shaped uncertainties.
TCP represents those vulnerable moments at four in the morning when you wake up and your mind is caught out while performing maintenance and making everything seems very real and scary. Its also the very oppressed searing pain that knows your relationship isnt working or your friendship is drifting, Its the thing that sees your lifespan like a countdown. Its when you feel very grateful to be alive after something making you nearly not being. Its a mixed bag of the unpleasant and the vital and the nasty that we block out and save for other peoples lives to be read the next morning in the metro. Except we are haunted by the faint TCP aroma more than we realize only consciously obscured by the worlds physical familiarity and the ironic masochism of wanting to always feel good.
My first Death Realization happened when i was sixteen. My nan died unexpectedly on the 1st day of the new millennium completely out of the blue. Its almost as if she was programmed to cut out before the 21st century. I was left feeling shamefully unaffected, she lived up the road but was never particularly affectionate, not mean by a long shot its just the words "duty" seemed to guide her interaction more than"love". This may not of been the case but thats how it felt, i didn't really care overly.
Walking back home drunk 3 months later after an underage drinking success i thought passively "i'm going to die one day"... then a bit more analytically... "Me Matthew Eveleigh will be dead" ....then a bit panickingly... "...I am actually going to cease"... then very perturbedly... "Everything i have felt will feel or experience will be over and mean nothing!" i then stopped on the spot near my house and lightning sober as if i had a blood transfusion from a nun. Its as if someone split a whole bottle of TCP all over my real body that was connected to the matrix bringing the real me round. In that incrementally harrowing re entry through Realities levels to the big "D", i lost my care free youth, my resilience to Dangerous activity, my romantic Americanized film view of the world.
I didn't recover from that phase for about two years, dwelling on death trying to get round it, obsessed with coming up with a rescue plan. I rejected religion as it seemed totally obsurd even though i understood its attraction more than i ever had. I was a pre-emo emo, finally coming out of it in a rare mental agreement with TCP lathered reality to ignore the problem until it comes into view, as i was oddly contradicting realities purpose by indulging in one of its most over whelming aspects while it wasn't actually yet being experienced.
in hindsight of that situation and since i think being drunk definitely opens chinks of reality into your mind, or it anesthetizes the interference of your protective "everything's normal" security system that lets you run your life with stable day to day efficiency.
if we are not careful we wrongly attach a fake opinion to "Real"which contradicts its term and with bothersome outcomes, some people can over romantisis death after listening to Nick drake, as they have never confronted the minimalist and strongest truth of the reality. Certain types think they are truly gods gift at a task as they have a tendency for arrogance, and will eventually encounter the reality off guard. While others who are truly gifted believe they are worthless as they have a tendency for mental torment and perhaps will never face the reality they are good. Sometimes the very real TCP stinking un-manipulated truth staring you in the face can give you a good and much needed slap and if not providing a wanton solution to your problems, drags you by the vulnerable in the right direction.
