Getting To The Other Place You say you don't like it here? Who does? But getting to another place isn't so easy, is it? You could kill yourself— "Suicide is painless." That's a nice tune and maybe it's okay too. I'm not knocking the option. But maybe there are other ways. Maybe you've sensed, like George Sterling with brow caressed by poppy-bloom, that there's another world or even other worlds. But how? The doors don't just open automatically nor are they marked. You could take a nap and dream. That's a way and a pretty good one unless you have nightmares, but at least you're out of here for awhile. You could also slip down a rabbit hole, like Alice, and see how it is in Wonderland. There are the loveliest of gardens there, right, Carrol? You could start playing with time, like Eddington, letting it run both forwards and backwards. You could read your life like a book and stop places and rewrite things. Oh, what fun! But then you might have to be sub-atomically small to do that, and the randomness might drive you nuts, right, Einstein? Is there another way? You could climb Jack's beanstalk and do battle with the giant. That might lift your spirits if you won. Or— "fee fie fo fum"— you could visit the dark tower with poor Tom. That ought to snap you out of your depression. You could also speak in tongues in the park till they carried you off on a stretcher. "Fsh fash fosh sss ka ka boom boom ..." You could also go out of your way, anyway, strain the hell out of the normal way to proceed ... You could take a long walk in the woods and lie in the creek or ascend the Mountain asking for a meeting with the Divine One, who turns out to be in a more important meeting but asks you to leave your card. And you could do this all on your own: You could think hard, ever so hard, on the meaning of consciousness. Been done before but you could give it a try. Join the ranks of Decartes contemplating the nature of consciousness and finally, after a very long time, mutter something profound-sounding like, "I stink, therefore I need a bath." Or you could forget it all. Hey, that's what most people do. But, Candidly speaking, life wouldn't be very interesting that way, would it, Voltaire? There is something to be said for the struggle. Good luck! I'm off to sit in a cold creek bed and freeze my wankie. Then I'm going to strain consciousness till I discover a new world or implode trying. There's gotta be something better out there, gotta be! Oh, did I mention falling in love or finding a mate? That'll put you in another place, alright, but let me warn you: It will only delay the serious questions. Or as Confucius said, philosophy and marriage are not compatible, 不 (bù) 兼 (jiān) 容 (róng). Good luck finding your way—a way, some way, anyway.
	—Louis Martin