Order.

Today I am sitting in English class, and I am going to sleep, and I am waking up. I thought about writing that sentence before I wrote it, I thought of different activities I did, or will do. I did not tip my head over and simply let my thoughts pour onto a page. I organized. I have ideas, like you, and what we're doing now is exchanging them. It's a fairly one-sided exchange, so far at least. The idea I was communicating, and am, and will be, is that I did all of those things, and they are all true, and the order I did them in does not matter. We put things in order because we are expected to, a major motive for almost everything we do. We are polite. We do not run red lights. We have made each other into slaves. Does this matter? Who the hell knows. What actually matters, I wonder sometimes. Not a ton. That last sentence was a palindrome.

Listen: Today I gave a woman three dollars. I threw away my napkin. I decided I wanted some ice cream. She handed me an ice cream cone and a napkin. She smiled. I got into my car and drove to an ice cream place. I ate my cone. Reflexively, I smiled back. I left. I went inside.

Did that story seem like nonsense? Of course it did. Even if it was ordered right, that would have been one dumbass story. But everything in that story was true. Even the truth can sound like nonsense if it's not organized the right way. When you read that story, your mind fights you. It tells you something's wrong, it tells you this does not make sense, it confuses you so you scramble to find a solution. You are a slave to your brain. Our minds are spoiled. They were brought up a certain way. They have been told everything needs to be in order, organized. If the brain does not get what it wants, it tries to make you fix it. Of course, you fix it by using your brain, but that's a different part of your mind. Isn't it weird to think that your brain is all these little neurons, all firing different things, allowing you to have a personality, allowing you to make up things, and choose what words you want to say? But really, you do not choose what words to say. In most situations, circumstance chooses what words you will say. There are exceptions. When you start a conversation with someone out of thin blue air, what do you choose to say, normally? If you are any kind of a decent person, you will choose something interesting to the both of you. If you are a regular person, you will choose what you want to talk about, and you will take advantage of your pal's regular etiquette. If your pal is any kind of a decent person, they won't like you very much at this point. But, they will nod and smile and laugh in the right spots, because they are expected to. Congratulations, you have a slave. If you are lucky or unlucky enough to be in a relationship, and someone tells you that they think your relationship is cute, how do they expect you to feel? Do they think they have just validated your relationship? Do they think you actually care at all? If you do actually care that someone thinks your relationship is cute, are you an idiot? People tell me they think my relationship is cute, which is bullshit. Define cute. Cute is movies. Cute is Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. People tell me they think my relationship is cute, and they are lying to me, but they are also lying to themselves. Cute is entirely based on opinion, and your opinion of cute is entirely based on what movies or TV shows or books (if you're decent) tell you cute is. If you think you know what cute is, wait fifteen years. It will change. But, if someone tells you they think you're cute somehow, they're assuming they're paying you a compliment. Society tells you relationships should be cute, so you assume I want mine to be, and therefore, by telling me my relationship is cute, you're somehow rewarding all my hard work. Why do you want to compliment me in the first place? Because you know that compliments are a way to make the other humans like you! You're gaining points in the big game we're all playing! Why is MySpace or Facebook so popular? It's a way to keep score. Especially when it's your birthday on facebook. Why am I publishing this on the internet, and not keeping it private? Because I think these are true things I'm saying, and I want you to know I'm saying them. I want points, too. I'm your slave, but you were already mine for telling me my relationship was cute, sucker.