“Dying is easy”. I copied the song from the Elsewhere computer. I sent it to you. It is a song for cowboys. And people who like country music. Is it true? (I don’t mean whether you like country music. I suspect you don’t. But I bet you like cowboys. Anyway. That’s not the point.) Is dying easy? It depends how you look at it. How do you you look at it? I remember another exchange of messages. I wrote “a human being is almost nothing”. You replied “a human being is almost everything”. I replied “everything and nothing is the same thing”. You replied “it is the “almost” that keeps us from being here”. Are we the almost? The moment we are born we start to die. There’s nothing we can do about it. It is easy. We live our lives and die. I find it difficult to live. I’m afraid to die. But it will be easy. One moment you’re there, the other moment you aren’t. Sometimes I wish I could believe in an afterlife or in reïncarnation. But most of the time I realise it doesn’t matter. I don’t matter. Now I’m here, in a bit I won’t be. I’ll be missed. For a shorter or longer while. But I’m not important. And that thought makes it easier to live. A human being is almost nothing. I’m here now. I live to die. And I enjoy it. At least from time to time.
But while I’m dying I do other things. Like spending time at Elsewhere. I learned about here and now. I tasted perfect loaves of bread almost every day (I think my defenition of “perfection” is different from yours). I watched the birth of a photo opera (did you write those lines to make me tell you there’s no doubt you can wrangle meaning out of it even when alive or do you seriously think you can’t? You can. Believe me. There’s no doubt you can.)
Don’t die too soon. That’s the only advise I can give you. I would like to have the opportunity to exchange some more words with you. And I don’t believe in ghosts so dying would make it impossible to talk.
Live and bake bread. Thank you for the trust you put in me by giving me the book. And letting me into your work. I’m not sure if I’ll be a better baker than you were. I’ll try to be at least as good as you.
And sorry I took the genmaicha. I didn’t know it was yours. I love it and was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get it in Amsterdam. I only ever drank it at Elsewhere, the interns had it around last summer and a few days before I left I discovered the box in the kitchen. I put it in my suitcase on my last day but I read your post just in time to return it and hand it over to Jesse.
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Are we the almost? The moment we are born we start to die. There’s nothing we can do about it. It is easy. We live our lives and die. I find it difficult to live. I’m afraid to die. But it will be easy. One moment you’re there, the other moment you aren’t. Sometimes I wish I could believe in an afterlife or in reïncarnation. But most of the time I realise it doesn’t matter. I don’t matter. Now I’m here, in a bit I won’t be. I’ll be missed. For a shorter or longer while. But I’m not important. And that thought makes it easier to live. A human being is almost nothing. I’m here now. I live to die. And I enjoy it. At least from time to time.
But while I’m dying I do other things. Like spending time at Elsewhere. I learned about here and now. I tasted perfect loaves of bread almost every day (I think my defenition of “perfection” is different from yours). I watched the birth of a photo opera (did you write those lines to make me tell you there’s no doubt you can wrangle meaning out of it even when alive or do you seriously think you can’t? You can. Believe me. There’s no doubt you can.)
Don’t die too soon. That’s the only advise I can give you. I would like to have the opportunity to exchange some more words with you. And I don’t believe in ghosts so dying would make it impossible to talk.
Live and bake bread. Thank you for the trust you put in me by giving me the book. And letting me into your work.
I’m not sure if I’ll be a better baker than you were. I’ll try to be at least as good as you.
And sorry I took the genmaicha. I didn’t know it was yours. I love it and was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get it in Amsterdam. I only ever drank it at Elsewhere, the interns had it around last summer and a few days before I left I discovered the box in the kitchen. I put it in my suitcase on my last day but I read your post just in time to return it and hand it over to Jesse.
I’ll send you a photo of Spanky soon!