Praying is hard. So many people pray and I don’t want to sound trite. I don’t want to make God’s evening feel redundant. I don’t want to force him to hear the same prayer that he has already heard a million times tonight. I want to be happy. I want the people I love to be happy. I want to love. I want to be healthy. I want what God knows I want. It’s a given—why would I include any of that in a prayer? It almost feels offensive.
Is it possible to surprise an omniscient entity? How can I impress him? I want him to hear my prayer and think to himself, “wow, she’s quite clever” but I simply cannot. Even if I try to play a game with my brain, if I strive to surprise myself with my own thoughts… you saw that coming, didn’t you? This makes me so frustrated.
In a way, then, if he sees and feels and hears and knows all, are we not in a constant state of prayer? You are unable to stop communicating towards a constant presence. I cannot tell if that makes me feel comforted or suffocated. Is the latter rude? I don’t mean to offend you God, but you must understand that actively acknowledging your constant presence can be a bit overwhelming.
Maybe I should sing him a song. He would see it coming, of course, but I think he would enjoy that—no, not a psalm, a song. Not a song about him, just something fun, maybe My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion. It’s kind of sad that the only songs we sing to him are about him. I’m sure he’s tired of it. Don’t get me wrong… I love when people make art about me as much as the next guy (and if I’m being honest, probably more than as much as), but I think if that’s all I got for all of eternity, I’d get pretty bored of it.
If you were to meet someone out in the world… let’s set the scene: you’re at a cafe. You look up and make eye contact the guy at the table across the way, just for a quick moment. You look back down. You look up again. He’s still looking. You smile softly. He, with an unchanged expression, crosses the cafe to sit across from you at your very table. He informs you that he knows absolutely everything about you. He has felt every single thing you have ever felt. He has seen everything you have seen. He knows you inside and out in a way that is unable to be put into words. He knows what you have done, what you will do… what would you say to this man? What could you possibly say to this man?
Prayer is a conversation, but a conversation that feels impossible to have. Is this a prayer? What I’m doing right now? Is contemplating prayer a form of prayer? I think God appreciates me putting this much thought into the idea of prayer—gosh, why do I have such an intense desire to impress him, to impress anyone, everyone. I want to show them all how clever I am. I wonder if God thinks I’m clever. It would be unfair for him to compare me to himself, of course, but he must understand that for a mere mortal being, I’m quite clever.
Is God clever? I bet he’s not—not in the sense that he has a lack of cleverness, but in the sense that he could not be described by any of the words that we use to describe us. Does that mean, then, that I could technically say that I’m even more clever than God? I don’t mean to brag—I’m not bragging. I don’t take pride in it because I understand that it’s different. But… technically I can say that, right? It doesn’t necessarily matter. But I’m curious. Technically. Can I say that? Am I being rude? Am I being blasphemous?
I wish people were so deeply honest with me, the level of brutal honesty it would take for a friend to whisper in another friend’s ear at another friend’s funeral, “I never really liked him.” At my funeral, I want everybody to whisper their deepest darkest secrets in my ear. I wonder if I’d hear them. I would love to hold a funeral for the dead parts of my life, to lie in a coffin, clearly breathing. I have no desire to pretend I’m dead dead, but I want to bury the things that are. I want to lie in a coffin and force each attendee to tell me the truth. The secrets will give me something to bury, because after my funeral, I will go home.
At the same time, however, I don’t really want to know the truth at all. The truth makes me very sad sometimes. I’m very very sensitive, and incredibly naive. Odds are, if you are pretending, I will believe you. I am much better at recognizing dishonest art than I am at recognizing dishonest affection. I’m not sure if this is a testament to peoples’ ability to pretend, or because I convince myself of what I wish to be true. Maybe I’m just not as clever as I think I am—no, that’s not it. I’m even more clever than God.
I have a trite thought to go along with your trite prayers: I really do love the idea of pretending to die. I really do think it would be interesting to see who cares. But if I pretended to die and at least four people didn’t confess their deep romantic love for me at my funeral, the funeral would suddenly become real. Being loved feels so good. Being adored feels even better.
More people will read this than I think. This is something I am coming to terms with: scrutiny. You are probably going to judge me, at least a little bit. Someone will send a screenshot to a friend out of context of when I said I’m more clever than God. But the thing is, you know what I mean. But it’s fun to pretend. It’s fun to misunderstand somebody, to let them become a caricature of your own creation, to let them fit your narrative of who they are. Often, in fact, people actively choose to misunderstand somebody. I have been told I invite this.
When I am told I invite becoming someone else’s version of me, I respond, “how do I invite this?” I am truly unsure how earnest that question is. On one hand, I know what they mean. On the other hand, what do they actually mean? Am I who I think I am or who people say I am? At the end of the day, they are all equally real. These different you’s and me’s exist because if enough people start calling an orange an apple it’s kind of an apple now.
I am not sure if everybody is constantly performing, or if even performing is just existing—that’s not true. I am very aware that it’s both because I am more clever than God—that’s not true. I am very aware that any cleverness I may have is God’s doing—that’s not true. I believe in free will. Can both be true? Can God’s will and free will go hand in hand? I must believe that they can—that’s not true. I must have faith that they can.
Am I performing less than people realize? Or am I so deep in a constant state of performance and spectacle that I have completely lost my ability to tell the difference? That question is ridiculous. I feel embarrassed for asking, but you should feel embarrassed too. Do you love me or do you hate me? Actually, don’t tell me. It might make me sad. Unless you love me—you can tell me if you love me. But if you don’t tell me you love me, I know that you’ll hate me… Please say nothing either way. Better yet, lie, or maybe flip a coin. Heads you hate me, tails you love me. Heads? Fuck. Best of 3?
If you call an orange an apple, you still have to peel it.
At the end of the day, I don’t need to fake my own death. I know who would care if I died. I know my family would be really sad. I love them a lot. Thinking about them being sad makes me feel sad. I don’t really like thinking about this. You can accuse me of a lot of things, but one thing you could never accuse me of is wanting to die. I am obsessed with living—that’s not true. I consider it my duty to live, partially because I owe it to God to live the life he has given me, and partially because I am more clever than most people, and clever people should stick around.
I would be lying, though, if I said I wasn’t curious, curious about the people I’d think would care but wouldn’t, the people I’d think wouldn’t care but would… you know—the wildcards. I’m sure some people would pretend to care. They’d show up, they’d kneel in front of my body, maybe do the sign of the cross if that’s their style. Maybe they’d even be able to convince themselves that they care. This makes me wonder how much of the dark atmosphere at funerals is more a result of that unsettling presence of nothing as opposed to sorrow or loss. You simply cannot suppress nothingness. It’s pure, unadulterated lack.
If you end up at my funeral one day, a day I hope is far away, I prefer that you admit it to yourself if you feel nothing. I do understand. There’s also something narratively interesting about somebody dying, is there not? Maybe you would even kind of like it—not maliciously, no, not at all maliciously, but because at least something happened. I do understand.
It is honorable to choose narrative over happiness. I do it all the time—that’s not true. It’s a false dichotomy. I don’t think I could be happy, truly happy, if I abandon the narrative. Is that what you meant by inviting? Is this performing? But I simply could not fathom any other way to live! No… it’s not performing, and if it is performing, then perform I shall, the most beautiful performance.
I would like to perform at the Met Opera, if we’re fantasizing now. I hear the rumbling of the audience (it’s a sold out show) getting louder and louder as I wait behind the curtain. It isn’t until they fall silent that I realize the house lights have fallen. My heart rate increases, it’s like a drumroll for the curtain opening. Spotlight. At first I curse the spotlight, because I want to see who is there. Are you there? Is my mom there? Is—goodness, this is no way to perform! I must focus. I am going to dance. The orchestra starts playing Schubert’s Nocturne in E-Flat Major. Have you ever blacked out during a performance? I have. Sometimes I come off stage and remember absolutely nothing. It’s quite magical. They say that when you’re about to die, your life flashes before your eyes. I believe that I will remember nothing, just like when I come off stage after a performance that transcends me. All I will be left with is that belly feeling.
But what I really want more than anything, as I slip into eternality with that belly feeling still somehow lingering about my soul, is to be applauded by God and his angels.