And Were You? Or Are You?

Dearest Rachel –

Now, this is a letter that the topic of which I thought I’d written to you weeks ago, when it first came up in my mind. Then again, the fact that it seems like it hasn’t suggests that the events of the day put the idea on the back burner until such time when it could brought up in more detail – and as days turned into weeks, the thought was nearly forgotten, as earworms generally are over time. You don’t spend more than a day or two with any given song in your head.

This one was a little bit different, though, because of two separate, disparate reasons. The first was that, as I listened to it – not for the first time, by any means; this was a song making the rounds on what I used to refer to as the campus nightlight for its ubiquity in the common rooms of the various dorms back at university – the more I pictured the words tracking with the theme of another, well-known but vastly different song, and had to look into it via conversation with the chatbots. Then, upon learning the genesis of the song itself (somewhat to my disappointment, but at least there seemed to still be a connection with the other song), and the songwriter’s curious attitude toward the subject, I found myself wondering if there might be any similarity to her and yourself.

At this point, you’re probably waiting for an explanation or two, so I owe that much to you. Let’s start with the song that originally played in the car a few weeks ago that dropped me into the first of several rabbit holes:

Yeah, I know the visuals are kind of trippy, and I’m pretty sure that was intentional. But it’s not as if I got the benefit of seeing that while I was driving – which is probably just as well. However, as I listened to it like I do, paying attention as best I could to the lyrics (I don’t understand how so many people don’t do that, apart from the fact that it’s hard to hear the lyrics of many popular songs – often, apparently, by design), and not distracted by the images the video conjured up, the more they sounded like the story of another character looking down upon on uncomprehending world:

Both songs have as their subject an individual transcending the mundane, ordinary world – which clearly doesn’t know what to make of them – and a singer/narrator that, while as baffled by them as the rest of the outside world, finds them fascinating rather than aloof or repellant. The Beatles describe him as a fool, of course – it’s right there in the title, after all – but seemingly agree with him that those in the unaccepting world are the real fools. Meanwhile, Talking Heads acknowledges that “she couldn’t take it back” after a certain point, but not in a tone that suggested a mistake so much as simply crossing a threshold.

Granted, said threshold was, as it turned out, a ‘trip’ taken by a neighbor of David Byrne’s; evidently, he was inspired by the fact that she would regularly drop acid while relaxing in her backyard. Even as he apparently was neither a convert to nor evangelist of the 80s drug scene (which is an odd concept to mention, since while we were growing up, that decade was one dominated, at least from our perspective, by the message of “Just Say No”), Byrne was fascinated by the concept of ecstatic states and surreal perception, and saw his neighbor as someone who was actually living those things in a way he couldn’t quite bring himself to. And yes, this is something of a summation of a few inquiries I made about this with Copilot, in order to determine if there was a lyrical connection between these two songs. Short answer; in terms of the singer’s perspective, yes – the subject has transcended ordinary reality, and the narrator observes this without condemnation – but not so much in how the subject got there.

Of course by now, you’re probably wondering why I’m bringing up the subject in the first place. What does any of this have to do with you? Is this a slow news day for me, that I would go on about something this esoteric (especially since I’ve mentioned about chatbot conversations I’ve had in the past)? Well, I’ll admit that that’s part of it – things have started to fall back into a routine, and I’d rather not repeat myself when I contact you – but not all of it. After all, there are other thresholds we cross – willingly or not – that we can’t go back on once we have.

So you can see this second connection now; I constantly address you as if, while my world is moving, you are right there with it, floating above it, but I’ve no idea if that’s really the case. There are scriptures that describe you and all those that went before you as still being “asleep”; do you remain in that condition until the trumpet sounds? And at the same time, I’ve taken it to understand that, at a certain point, we will transcend the dimensional universe that those of us still “living” (and I get that, in comparison to life eternal and transcendent, this hardly qualifies, but without a basis of comparison, what else could it be?) still reside in; that includes the dimension of time. So it’s entirely possible that, at some point, we will be among “the great cloud of witnesses” of Hebrews 12, looking down at this as well as any and every other moment of human history.

And that becomes the question at the top of this letter; are you there, looking over my shoulder? Although, I will admit that, once you transcend time, it’s hard to know what tense to use. “Were you,” to use Talking Heads’ choice? Or are you? Or are you yet to come?

In any event, if you can spare an eye to cast upon me, it would be appreciated, as well as the usual wish for luck. I’m sure you might guess that I’ll be needing it.