Rubbed Out

Inspired by Doris Lessing’s Briefing for a Descent into Hell

I wanted to use my body differently this time, to make more of my stay here than I had before. But I got caught up in it again, forgot to remember. And all too soon I was just another suburban soccer mom spending each day the way I’d spent the last and believing in my mind that this was living.

But my heart didn’t buy it. In my deepest conviction, I knew I was wasting my time again. And now I’ve been doing it for years. And this human body is giving out. I’ll have to trade it in soon, some sleek new model, one that comes with a blank slate; except, of course, for the ingrain ideologies that every new body is born with. Too bad those ideals get rubbed out by parents and teachers and by social expectations, all just doing what they beleive is right. And too bad evolution has managed to grow the left hemisphere of the brain beyond the capacity of the right. It seems even now that the intuitive side shrinks with each new generation. Or at least the use of it does, while the left grows stronger, stronger in the notion that knowledge is more important than insight. What’s that phrase? Oh yeah, knowledge is power. Power, what the hell is that anyway but a trumped up, overrated goal? If only we could cling to the ingrain memories, we’d remember that power is nothing more than a need to control. And if we clung to what we need to know, we’d remember that control is something we truly never have.

Nevertheless, the left hemisphere has grown heavy while the right side subordinates. The storage space for our ingrain memories shrinks exponentially until soon the ability to pass them along will be thwarted entirely. And therein will lie the rub.