It is said that photographers “capture” a moment.

One can no more capture a moment than one can stop the flow of time.

This is not how the world works, and yet we convince ourselves through our ever-advancing technology that it does.

But death always comes.

There may be a monument to us in the form of an artwork or a tombstone, but it does not change that fact.

We are in a constant state of adjustment.

We adjust. We adjust. This happened, now what next?

This is our question as humans and so it goes.

Charlie Kaufman, Antkind

As the ancient philosopher Heraclitus remarked, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.”

So, when we remember seeing sunrise “repeatedly” under “the same” circumstances, we are tacitly relying on explanatory theories to tell us which combinations of variables in our experience we should interpret as being “repeated” phenomena in the underlying reality, and which are local or irrelevant.

Thus the very idea that an experience has been repeated is not itself a sensory experience, but a theory.

David Deutsch, Beginning Of Infinity

Self: Why dialogues?

Man-Mind: Well, when grappling with the perennial darkness of doubt and dogmatic dunderheadedness that characterize the condition that our human condition is in, perhaps it’s prudent to ask ourselves what our dear ol cherished compadre So Crates would do, my good sir.

Surely he’d profess his profound ignorance from the outset, making crystal clear, or perhaps clear as crap, that he neither knows nor proclaims to know nothing—no?

So instead—opting not to profess his personal, perpetually-partial positioning as polemical proclamations—surely he’d pretend to play without pinned positions by projecting his own ponderings, perturbations, puny puns, juvenile jokes, wickedly wackadoodle wordplay, agonizingly-arduous awfully-asinine alliterations—all of it, all Duder’s polyphonic personality in all its myriad mysteries and sublime splendors, through portals of preferred personas—dramatis personae, if you prefer to use the Latin parlance of ancient times, which Duder generally does not, does not prefer to use the Latin parlance that is, all other things being equally cater-us pair-uh-bus and so on and so forth and its set-err-uh—playing out his personal perpetual perceptual psychodrama—playing with his imaginary friends, if you will (I ams), to use the parlance of our times—though not like in a sad way—proceeding along the same path as did his phreaky phantasy partner-in-philosophizing Plato…

Oh so many moons ago-oh…

I said oh yeah ooooh baby baby, yeah ooooh, I said a-don’t cha know-oh.

Boy-Brain: Hmmmkay right, I see—so you wanna play with action figures. That’s the plan?!

YAAASS BETCH!

And I told you before—don’t call me Shirley!

Languishing in lakeside lassitude, our compadres contemplate concrete and conceptual course corrections…

Or not—and just, you know, learn to like uh, live laugh love life, long as it lasts…

Tupac:
We gotta make a change

It’s time for us as a people
To start makin some changes

Let’s change the way we eat
Let’s change the way we live

And let’s change the way we treat each other

You see, the old way wasn’t working
So it’s on us to do

What we gotta do, to survive

Ed: I shall live the clean hard cold rigors of an ascetic philosopher.

A dive into the icy lake at dawn. Two quick laps around the shore. A frugal breakfast of cool water and unsalted watercress, followed by an hour of meditation.

And then—then what? What then?

Prince: Well for starters, have you ever purified yourself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka?

P Willy: You never purify yourself in the same lake twice.

Philomena: When you change your mind, where does the old one go?

P Willy: When ego dies, who survives?

Lori: You all right? You look like you saw a ghost.

Ed: I think I am a ghost now.

A lost voice wind-borne from the ghostly past.

The ghostly ghastly past, aghast against the past.

Craig: What happens when a man plunges through his own personality portal?

Maxine: We’ll see!

Malkovich: Malkovich! Malkovich?!

Dave: Although of course you end up becoming yourself.

Craig: Guess you shouldn’t be so quick to assume that changing bodies is gonna be the answer to your problems—you know?

Buber: In fact, everything must change.

So I think we should live with this constant discovery.

We should stake our whole existence on our willingness to explore and experience.

Duder: Yeah?

Well, you know, that’s just like uh, your opinion, man.

Tupac: That’s just the way it is.

Things will never be the same.

P Willy: Ah yes—so sayeth Her uh, Clitoris.

You never selfpurify in samestream.

Duder: Oh well, yeah you know—strikes and gutters, balls and strikes.

Life goes on, man.

Kurt: So it goes.

Duder: Yeah, well—and so Duder abides.

The Stranger (to audience): And so Duder abides . . .

I don’t know about you, dear reader, but I take comfort in that.

It’s good knowin he’s out there.