Creature of Habit

invisible_man_by_lostknightkg-d8qgles

I am a spirit and I am an inhabitant of the spirit world. I was going to say ‘and I live in the spirit world’ but that wouldn’t be true. I caught myself in time. I don’t live anywhere. ‘Living’ doesn’t accurately describe what I do. I just kind of drift helplessly along, drifting from here to there, engaging in familiar routines, in a somewhat vacant or disengaged fashion. If that makes any sense. My arm moves all by itself and picks up a cup of tea from the table in front of me. It brings the cup slowly to my lips. It’s a well-rehearsed movement, only it’s not real. The tea’s not real and neither are my lips. None of it is real. I’m a ghost and I’m drinking ghost tea. There’s no satisfaction in this, obviously. The taste of the tea is long since gone. The tea isn’t here and neither am I. We’re in the nowhere-place – the place where nothing is, the place where nothing happens.

 

When I say that I am an inhabitant of the spirit world I really need to qualify this. ‘The spirit world’ is a very broad term – I am, to be more precise, an inhabitant of a particular zone from the spirit realm. I am a denizen of the lower astral levels. Being a denizen of the lower astrals means that I just kind of do stuff that I have always done. I carry on doing it. I inhabit my own previous behaviour patterns. I inhabit my own habits. I don’t ever break into new territory, in other words. I only go where I always went. I only do what I have always done. Come to think of it that was true when I was alive too! I’ve always been a bit like that. It’s very much a question of ‘same old same old’ here only it isn’t a question. It’s a statement of fact. There are no questions asked in this place. There are no questions to be asked here – only routines to be enacted. Over and over again. Without question. You just keep on doing the next thing. The next thing on the list…

 

I am coasting on habit energy. I am being blown around by the stagnant winds of my own habitual behaviour patterns. Which blow like so many restless twisters wandering across the fields in some God-forsaken boondocks. In some hick place. In the backwaters of the lower astrals. Going wherever they blow me. Doing whatever they make me do. “Now go here.” says the wind, “Now go there. Now do this. Now do that.” And I do. I obediently follow the pattern. I follow the pattern of what I have always done – I don’t have any choice! There’s no choice in this place. There’s no such thing as choice. There’s nothing even remotely resembling it. That’s not a word that gets used here. It’s just not meaningful to think about ‘choosing’ to do things. In this place I just follow the steps that I always follow. The same old steps, the same old steps. I’m kind of used to them by now! I follow the pattern that I have to follow. I can’t not follow it. That’s what I am. I am the follower of the pattern. I am a creature of the pattern. I am the pattern…

 

I am the pattern that I enact. I am the pattern that I enact only there’s no one enacting it. Not really. Not when you look into it. There’s nobody home. There’s just the pattern enacting itself! The actual person is long gone. There’s only the pattern left. Unravelling itself. Obsessing emptily over itself. Going though the things that it goes through. Doing its own thing. Following its own worn-out rules for the billionth time. Winding very slowly down. Becoming fainter, more transparent. And in some strange kind of a way there’s an echo of me trapped in it. There’s a ghost-me is trapped in the pattern! The ghost-me which is an echo of someone who’s long since gone. I became the pattern and now there is only the echo of the pattern rattling along in this god-forsaken nowhere place. Echoing itself over and over again forever for want of anything better to do. Because there’s nothing else it can do…

 

Why do I carry on with it, you might wonder. Why the hell do I bother? Why don’t I just say no. Do the decent thing and give a rest because it’s not going anywhere. Put it to bed once and for all. Give the thing a decent burial. Draw a line under it. Don’t I ever get tired of doing the thing, doing the thing, doing the thing, and then doing the next thing? But if you’re asking me this then you’re just not listening. I can’t help it. My feet walk all by themselves, just as my hands reach out all by themselves. For the phantom cup of tea that isn’t really there. It all happens by itself. Like a very dull movie that I can’t help watching. It’s already happened a long time ago and now it’s just re-happening. I’m just going through the steps – I can’t change it. No one can change it. It’s finished and yet I still can’t stop doing it. It’s over and yet I still can’t let go of it. I’m not very good at letting go, as you’ve probably gathered…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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