My iPod’s wee foam earbuds don’t fit perfectly: the left bud is snug, but the right is a touch too tight. And this isn’t because the appliance is imperfect. My earphones are symmetrical, but I am not. I remember a time when this realization would have been cause for profound concern, because symmetry was just about all I had to rely on when I was a child–it seemed dependable as few things were. But time has given me an appreciation for the misaligned, the uneven, the drifted.

When I was a tyke symmetry was one of my primary diagnostic tools. I might use it to check whether the lump in the left side of my neck was on the right side too. Finding the lump’s twin meant that I was fine–I’d merely discovered another organ or some such. But a single lump was not a good sign. It was a rogue thing acting of its own volition, but most importantly, something that might spell the very end of order. Order without is like an oasis in the desert, but order within is essential during the formative years.

At least that’s what I focused on. The signs of asymmetry were all there if I chose to see them: a brown streak in my right thumbnail that lasted for several years, a mysterious scar high on my forehead that I discovered only as my hairline receded, the snap of bones in my left foot as I walked. Not to mention the Millennium Falcon. And eventually there came a time when I no longer needed the symmetry of my youth, and found value in imperfection. I even entertained the thought of actively exploring asymmetry for a time. I thought: What if I lifted weights only on one side of my body, and allowed the other side–as much as possible–to wither to lankiness? That would be like having two bodies at the same time. Multiple personalities incarnate.

Asymmetry isn’t truly something you have to seek to find however, especially as time goes by. Things do drift, until eventually it’s all you can do to maintain cohesion of form over the course of a day. In fact, occasionally I’ll awaken in the middle of the night and feel an odd pressure in my teeth. Having slept with my head at a certain angle, they have drifted just enough that I can feel them pressing against each other like tectonic plates. Then, in the mirror the single stark light deepens the creases in my face, particularly around the one eye I’m squinting to protect from the glare.

Maybe persistence, as we age, is something that can only be maintained consciously. Maybe the lines deepen when we smile because that’s when we forget ourselves, if for a moment. Maybe we shift toward something eventual only in our sleep because that’s when we forget who we are entirely. Should we awaken too suddenly perhaps we’d find our body parts gone nomadic, scattered like puzzle pieces, eyes in our chests and fingers down our spines.

If symmetry requires so much effort then, isn’t it merely fashion? Because if that’s the case then I have to think that crabs and flounders and Alfred E. Neuman are right, and maybe we’re just not living up to our potentials.

You’re dispirited to hear someone repeating the story they just told you to someone else, particularly because they’re telling it exactly the same way. What you thought was a witty, off the cuff aside is actually part of a script designed to make storyteller seem insightful. You overhear storyteller’s second narration of their interior monologue, every nuance and stammer identical to its first telling, but this time the words are inescapably cloying and dead, like the dark spot of a tick head buried just beneath the skin.

You feel vaguely annoyed at this person, and disappointed that they’ve effectively killed the picture you’d painted in your head. After all, a story is a living thing, and gives one a glimpse of something, while a recital is just a faithful spew of words with neither foreplay nor afterlife.

“So the dealer tells us that we’re no longer a match for the car he’s selling, because we’re just talking about the money, and when it gets down to that then there’s no magic. And I pause, and I’m nodding. Then I point to the words painted on the glass and tell him, we’ll we’re in the finance office, you know? And usually that’s as good a place as any to start talking about money.”

You remember chuckling the first time you heard that, but now you feel like a discarded puppet, and none too unique as you overhear storyteller’s new audience laughing in exactly the same way.

“Then, believe it or not, he grabs his leg and apologizes. Sciatic nerve attack. He’s been having them off and on for a few weeks now. And I’m thinking, I should clutch my chest and start foaming at the mouth. Two can play that game, my friend.”

Puppets chuckle dutifully.

There is no grace here, and the human race drops a few pegs in your estimation. And for what? You think you’re going to enjoy a bit of burlesque but are instead witness to a third rate pole dance.

The art of telling a story must change when your audience is made up of small groups in close proximity. You must know what to leave out of a story – don’t allow your cleverness to make you giddy to the point where your blowing your bundle all at once. Don’t rehearse, don’t augment, and never ever repeat yourself.

And, taking my own advice, the next time I have to tell you this, dear reader, I’m going to do it with my fists.

I put the cookies on the counter and my friend reaches for her pocketbook, but I dismiss her with a wave. “No no, don’t worry about it, sw- I’m buying.”

sw-

Immediately the world dilates into a single sharp white question: What just came out of my mouth?

“You’re sure?” my friend asks. “Thanks, Scamper.”

The part of my mind that most resembles a drill sergeant wrests control away from me, and immediately I’m relegated to autopilot. His voice booms in my head: “Do you have any idea how close you just came to compromising the mission, soldier?” Indeed I do, and it’s getting to be a problem. Apparently there’s enough noise in the cafe to mask the fact that I just came this close to calling my friend “sweetie,” and as I mechanically pay the man at the register I scan my friend’s face with my robot eyes, running a full high-definition analysis of her muscle tension, temperature, and perspiration. I seem to have evaded humiliation this time.

Oh, but my predisposition toward such gaffes goes back a long way. I can still hear my entire third grade class spinning around to face me, like small flowers toward the sun. I had just made the fatal mistake of calling on the teacher for help, only instead of saying her name, my mouth had formed the reputation-shattering syllable, “Mom?” The laughter began, coming from one boy initially, but instantly spreading throughout the entire class. Their little lungs went into convulsions, and they were barely able to keep the snot from shooting from their noses as the teacher shushed them to no avail.

Clearly my term of endearment threshold has been compromised by the fact that there actually is a sweetie in my life, but I’ve been rendered vulnerable because some association has subsequently been made between that term and anyone I feel any degree of comfort around. It’s that degree I’m worried about.

And if this is a neurological disorder – something I’ve suspected more and more recently – then the cards are stacked against me. Sure I’ve lucked out this time, but there’s no telling what kind of damage I may wreak if this behavior is degenerative. What if I call my brother “puddin” by accident? The horror of it would scar us for life. And rightly so, for we are warriors, and affection – even a slip – is unseemly. I can just see myself using the 2nd person familiar with a gendarme when we tour Europe a few months hence. I’ll end up in jail – for life when I refer to the magistrate as “my sow in rut.”

The universe doesn’t care. All of the thoughts we have on cunning or iPods or dirt are so much electrical discharge, no more consequential than static. Humans are incidental material, and their self-awareness is a byproduct of their particular material configuration. If you view Earth on the infrared scale then it looks just a little brighter than Mars. The difference negligible. When you zoom out, any individuality loses meaning and all we see is the collective crust of biomass, like frost on a window pane.

On the other hand, life and frost are similar in that they’re both manifestations of order in chaos. Life seems significant to us because of this, and because patterns provide the basis of one of our primary survival senses. We are pattern-seekers. Life defines itself from inert matter in that it seeks to preserve itself at any cost, while natural order seeks to preserve or encourage a sustainable mechanism. Raw ecological sustainability is most often a factor of this inertia, and choice is usually not a factor in the matter. Humanity, however, is guided by factors beyond mere survival.

We contemplate resource allocation, accumulation, and control. We hoard and obsess and create things that satisfy esoteric desires that lie beyond basic survival needs. We contemplate our own thoughts, and intangibles, and abstractions. Tradition, fashion, ritual, habit, preference all seem geared to cope with (or to manage) the fact that there can be no absolute if the universe as we know it is without perceivable end. But what truly defines us? Is it curiosity? Or sentience? Play? Creativity?

Curiosity – Inert objects do no possess this quality as far as we can tell, but its value seems an integral part of who we are. As we seek to isolate that which defines us we focus on these things. Why do we exist? Do we deserve to exist? Is there a single answer? I don’t think there are absolute answers to those questions, because those aren’t the real questions at all. Those questions form as a byproduct of sentience.

Sentience – The real question will always be: How is it that I am able to question? I think the troubling realization of awareness is behind our collective desire to abstract our reality. Our choice is limited, and is significant not because it exists, but because we are aware that it exists. A lion may choose which gazelle to pounce upon based on whatever factor, but it will not contemplate the choice later. We contemplate our place within a continuum.

Play – It’s worth noting because play is not universal. Does the wind play? Do amoebae play? Do plants practice a slow play that we can’t comprehend? Are they having fun? Do they possess a sense of humor or creativity? Where does play come from? Much of it seems to be about practice: basic survival mechanisms manifesting without the consequences of survival. Play can be about domination (wrestling) and sex (dancing) and food (bonbons) and communication (music). I think these things suggest that play is a primal source of advantage.

Creativity – This seems more an augmentation of intelligence. It means that we may realize that there are manifold, non-linear ways to realize a desired goal. Creativity, its expression and the observation of it, gives us pleasure. It rewards us, which means that it is of some benefit. Why? Simply because the meta goal that drives cleverness and cunning is innovation. Innovation is advantageous, but not always linear.

But those things are only the start. A clearer answer emerges as we examine these factors:

Choice – Of the things above, what we honor – what we choose – is guided not only by our individual perception, which is a factor of our material configuration, but by factors beyond the immediate.

Significance – It implies qualification. Love and beauty and conscience and meaning feel significant to us because they are advantageous to our preservation. Doubt and fear and waste and guilt and pain, insofar as they represent some measure of immediate disadvantage, are troubling, but are no less the byproducts of an overall successful mechanism.

At its root, choice involves using certain criteria to arrive at a decision when presented with multiple options. But can it not be more than that? Creativity, intelligence, and an awareness of significance – of persistence within a continuum – provide a choice that lions cannot conceive. To a lion the decision to go for the smallest, closest, or meatiest gazelle depends on a given set of circumstances. But we can arrive at a choice born of something more than circumstance: intuition, projection, sacrifice, or curiosity.

What if we go after the fastest gazelle, with the realization that our chances of catching it are slim, just to see how fast it is? We might learn something from that that will add to the overall body of our knowledge, which will provide advantage in the future. What if we were to go after the second closest gazelle because our friend isn’t as fast as we are, and we are willing to act in a way that we both may eat? Is that sacrifice? What if we intimidate the gazelles until they become mentally weary, and then pick off ten of them at a time? Perhaps it’s not ecologically sustainable, but we are no longer acting as part of the ecology alone when behavior transcends mere survival.

Our unique advantage is that we’re able to perceive a greater whole than ourselves, and have the capacity to understand that an immediate loss might somehow preserve or benefit this greater whole. The conscious notion of this possibility in combination with creativity might lead us to ways that we might provide others without detriment to ourselves.

But why? If this whole thing is an accident, and there’s no goal, no absolute right, nor wrong, why bother? Maybe for the fun of it? Or maybe because doing good feels good because it’s most efficient. I don’t know. How can we be fulfilled while avoiding pain? Can we give more than we take? Can we help more than hurt?

Having said that, I’ve just swatted a gnat.

She’s not there.

It stops me on the sidewalk. I stare through my reflection into the cafe, but the table is empty. Actually I don’t think I would have thought of her if she had been there. She’s taken lunch there nearly every day for the past seven years, at the same time and at the same table. This I know because I’ve been walking the same route for ten.

Except for her regularity she never struck me as remarkable. Regularity is noteworthy because it’s so fleeting–it’s really nothing more than a drawn out pause. But it’s around these ephemeral axes of stasis that other changes happen, and are all the more noticeable in contrast.

Resisting inertia and entropy to enjoy a sandwich takes gumption. Doing it for seven years straight takes something that I understand all too well, except in myself. She’s gone, and the distress comes at the fear that my chances of understanding stasis have vanished along with this girl, though the answer could never have existed until she left. The answer comes at the moment of change, at the realization of will.

I wish I could interview her now. “What is it that made you walk past your table today? Is something going to happen? Is it something you’ve considered before? Did you ever think about how it might affect someone you didn’t know?”

“Can I help you?” One of the staff have come to check on the funny little man staring in through the plate glass window. I merely wave and continue down the sidewalk with the feeling that I’ve left something behind.