Watching the screen - he saw himself when he was younger...
- When he was still a very young man, full of curiosity and wonder.
He was in a car. He was with his old friend, Ben.
The sky was grey. The weather was dark...
Downtown.
Ben's driving. Nolan rides, looking out the window...
Watching the world pass by...
The weather was cool, for this time of the year in LA.
They smoked, moving forward...
Nolan and Ben were neighbors. They both were painters and often they took trips together to buy supplies.
Trips like this one, on this cool September afternoon.
Driving along, high, they tried to figure it all out...
What is reality?
Ben's outlook on the subject was stark. He didn't really believe in anything. It is what it is, to Ben - not what you make of it...
But to Nolan Void, we create our world. With our attitude... With what we believe...
Ben doesn't see it that way. He considers himself a realist.
To Ben, Nolan can be very naiive...
His ideas seemed childish.
His ideas seemed unreal...
To Ben, Nolan Void was a philisophical optimist at best - but his ideas are in no way enlightened.
To Ben, what will be will be, regardless of what you're thinking. He doesn't care about the power of positive thinking.
Ben thinks of the whole 'power of attraction' thing as a myth, made up just to make people feel better about their miserable lives.
"The fact of the matter is," he said, "your house could burn down tomorrow and you'd have nothing to do with it.
What if your neighbor left a candle burning and it caught the drapes on fire?
Do you think you made that happen?"
Before Nolan could reply, Ben continued, "No!" he answered himself in a sarcastic tone, "Of course you didn't."
Nolan just sat in the passenger seat of Ben's car, paying more attention to the Bob Dylan song on the radio than what Ben was saying.
"You could be homeless and broke, man - it's not all in your mind."
"Think of human history man. War, greed, slavery, greed, power...
Do you think we're just using THE WRONG TYPE OF THOUGHT???"
Nolan nodded his head while Ben kept talking, "It's always been that way - it always will. Your state of mind has nothing to do with it!
Everything is what it is, it has nothing to do with you..."
Nolan couldn't silently listen to this anymore... This ignorance had to be stopped. To Nolan Void, Ben's understanding is just plain wrong.
"That wrong, Ben - it has EVERYTHING to do with you!"
"How so?" Ben replied.
"Everything is connected! Everything you say and do effects everything else in existence...", Nolan continued, "What you think is EVERYTHING."
"No, it's not." Ben said.
"Consciousness is evolving, Ben" Nolan Void went on, "you're being left behind.
It's evolution...
We make it what it is. Everything is influenced by our thoughts."
Ben shook his head.
"The world is what you believe it is. Some people pray to God. Some people pray to Allah. Some people use horoscopes to guide them through their world... It's like some Wizard of Oz shit, man. You had it in you all the time."
"You can believe in fairies all you want," Ben replied, "that doesn't make them real."
"It can." Nolan said.
Ben replied, "If you're crazy. Not in the real world. In the real world, fairies don't exist."
"You just don't get it.", Nolan said.
"Are you crazy?", Ben said, "No, really, do you have schizophrenia? People believe in a lot of Gods that don't exist.
They're still wrong. "
"Not neccessarily." Nolan replied, "I'm not talking about that kind of faith...
I'm talking about the kind of knowledge that goes as deep as it can get. Nobody KNOWS God like that...
Well, maybe some people do - but not many.
I'm talking about UNIVERSAL CONSCIOUSNESS...
Evolution...
I'm talking about vibrations that go beyond all time and space.
I'm talking about bugs that look just like the plants they live in and deep sea fish that have no eyes. Coincidences that break all the odds...
Our thoughts are involved in the order of things. Our minds are steering us around."
"I saw things in the Eyeonasphere.", Nolan said to Ben.
"It was wierd. I saw a monkey coming out of a stone egg. Where did that come from, man? It was all from my mind...
I saw it grow very strong... It was trying to achieve immortality."
"The Monkey King", Ben said.
Nolan nearly jumped out of his skin, "YES! You know about it, too! I looked it up on the internet... It was Sun Wu Kong..."
"What does that have to do with anything?" Ben asked.
"I saw it in my head.", Nolan replied. "I don't know how it got there but I feel like I'm the Monkey King, and technology is my staff."
Nolan had been awake for a couple of days, driven by a heavy dose of methamphetamines. Ben wasn't on speed - but Nolan was, and Ben knew it.
So when Nolan said things out of left field - or that didn't seem to make sense, he could attribute it to the drugs.
Ben knew about the Eyeonasphere, Nolan Void's 'thought broadcasting' machine. He'd never seen it - nobody but Nolan had. Nut Nolan talked about it all the time.
He knew Nolan was tweeking - so half of what he said went in one of Be's ears and right out of the other...
Nolan went on, "It's in our heads, man. People believe in miracles all the time and make them come true. "
Some people believe in God - and so for them, he's real.
He cures their cancer. It isn't a miracle - it happens all the time...
"Not always," Ben interjected, "people pray all the time and don't get what they want... People who believe."
Nolan interrupts, "No. If they really believed then they could have it ALL. If they don't get what they want, well then they must not truly believe."
"Bullshit." Ben said, dryly.
"No it's not." Nolan relied, "You can't BELIEVE in something when you know that it's not real. We're always trying to convince ourselves of this thing or that thing that we really know is not real to us! That's what you're not understanding. Everything is different for everybody, based on what they KNOW is real.".
"What I understand, " Ben said, "is that I'm always hearing YOU trying to convince yourself of these THINGS THAT AREN'T REAL. But in reality - you're just like all the rest of us. It is what it is and you take what you are given."
"You're wrong." Nolan replied, "Maybe that's how you live your life... But I know, I CONTROL MY OWN DESTINY."
He then went into another sleep deprived rant.
"Cut off my head, and I'll speak. Cut off my arms and I'll still lash out! Take my legs - I'll still walk. You can't kill me, man."
Ben shook his head with a sense of Nolan Void's delirium, as Nolan continued, "Your life is what you believe it to be - and so MY LIFE IS GOOD.
Maybe YOUR house could burn down tomorrow - but not mine!
Mine will be fine! My reality will be PERFECT."
Ben laughed an unbeliving laugh, "You're unreal, ya'know that Nolan. I try to have a normal conversation with you about the nature of reality and you just blast incoherant non-facts! Do you even know where you're at, man? How long have you been up?"
Nolan just grinned a mysterious grin and looked from the passenger side window.
"Dude," Ben said, "it's useless. You're all jacked up, you don't even know how that sounds. Your beliefs have nothing to do with your reality! You're beliefs only effect YOU - not the world we live in.
I'm tired of all this new age crap telling people "think it and it will happen", and "You are what you believe." and all that... It's all just BULLSHIT. TRUTH IS TRUTH. REALITY IS WHAT'S REAL - and REALITY has all sorts of things in store - GOOD AND BAD.
Everything isn't perfect for you - you're just high.
"Yeah, I'm high," Nolan Void replied, "But I don't have to be high to know that what I'm saying is true. You are what you believe...
And that's all there is to it..."
"I BELIEVE IN A GOOD LIFE! So that's the one I live..."
Ben snickered...
"I still haven't shed all the false beliefs that culture has put into me - but I've seen the future. Mind is reality, and one day we'll all see.
This is really working for me - and if reality proves to be something else then I'll respond...
I choose to see the GOODNESS. I choose to try to manifest the BEST - and nothing short..."
Ben interrupts, "Keep trying, man... You'll see. Tragedy happens... That's life."
"That's YOUR life!" Nolan barked back, aggrevated by the tone of the conversation. "I'm trying to reprogram it, man. I'm trying to REFOCUS my life. Like a monk...
Or a shaman...
I'm creating my reality."
Ben laughed aloud, looking at Nolan from his drivers side seat like he had to be kidding...
"I AM the STORY! We ALL are! All that the negative thoughts do is OPEN UP REALITY to that OPTION. It's not just a warning to us! It's setting the course... I don't care what anybody says, I'll stick with what I think is right...
We're programming the world around us with our THINKING.'
Ben's sarcasting laughing got louder over Nolan's voice.
"REALITY CAN BE PERFECT!", Nolan practically shouted, "We'll live in an ALL POSITVE WORLD!"
Then the conversation paused to silence, giving the men a moment to think about what they were talking about...
Ben looked toward Nolan, eyes red from the joint they'd been smoking.
"I guess we'll see, man." he said.
"Yeah," Nolan replied, "we will."
He paused for a moment, thinking of the phrase that he'd just said...
Then he laughed a little, "Like... Will. We will."
"Get it?" he said, smiling at Ben, "Like, we WILL."
Ben was confused by what Nolan said...
Slowly, he caught up with the conversation.
"Like..." Nolan said...
