Dare to Know

by James Kennedy

The decision to fall in love is crucial only because we know there are others out there who are probably better for us.

Wasn’t only about sex; it was the thrill of someone new. The spiky otherness of a new person. Let me multiply my own self, try on different ways of being. Different people brought out different parts of me.

I’m dead. I’m alive. Something else, I sensed, was more deeply fucked.

And I figured, since it was within striking distance of Bloomington, it might also be a fun road trip to visit Cahokia. It wasn’t a fun road trip.

I sat there and watched Julia eat her disgusting calzone. There is no attractive way to eat a calzone. The Sbarro smelled like fried dogshit, because it was a Sbarro. I could hear Julia chewing, swallowing. Had she always been such a disgusting eater? Maybe in the past, whenever she was eating I was eating too, so I didn’t notice. But the sound of her eating now was unbearable.

In reality, though, people are bored with themselves. People don’t even know what they want. So when they encounter someone who wants something definite, who wants them, they feel their own lack and eventually let your strong want guide their weak want, and they end up aligning their want with yours.

Fashion that was deliberately ugly, that said I am so young I can even wear garbage and look good.

I’m surprised at how young her mouth is, how terrible Xuuzi is at kissing. Maybe were we all bad kissers in our twenties and just didn’t know it?

and this is why you pick up strangers, this is why you endure rejection, and being called a creep, not because you just want sex, not necessarily, but for the chance to dip into a stranger’s life, to get outside yourself, to step into someone else’s reality, to feel this electricity,

The letters spell something else, and I’m trying to figure out what the backward letters are saying, but I don’t want to. It’s a nightmare word.

Nightmare word! ❤️❤️❤️

“My job is similar to what my wife used to do at Dare to Know, I guess. Because every truly deep story puts death at the center, right? A story is a machine for reminding you that you’re going to die. We feel like we have infinite time, infinite resources. But we don’t. I’ll let you in on a trick. Here’s how to write any story and make the audience feel something. Take two characters. Make them care about each other. Then have time pass. It can’t help but end up sad.”

A story is a machine for reminding you that you’re going to die. ❤️

“Every deep story puts death at the center, right?” says Renard. “I’ll let you in on a trick. One hundred years from now, you and I will be dead. Nobody will remember any of us. A hundred years from now this place will be totally different. There will be a different cast of characters. Take two characters. Make them care about each other. Then have time pass. It can’t help but end up sad.”

Great freaking writing advice. I’m so surprised given who wrote it! /s

How much of our lives was ever our own? Did any of us ever make a real decision? Maybe never.

Everything’s subconscious pretty much!