Let me clarify why I try to confuse people. Seven years ago, I asked a high-school teacher of mine how I could clear my mind. He told me to try Zen Buddhism, and gave me the name of a temple. Zen means “meditation” in Japanese. That’s what Zen Buddhists do the most — they meditate. They count their breaths while staring at walls in an effort to clear their minds of un-needed thoughts (non-thinking) so they can let their true nature shine through and so they can see the truth. People are good at heart, so nothing bad results. We were also given lectures by our sensei, and in my spare time I read some koans (Zen poems). The lectures by the sensei usually made sense, but he would also rail against thought and reason, saying that they had no place in the temple, which is absolutely true. He wanted us to “just sit.” The koans I read were sometimes dense like a story from Jorge Luis Borges, with lots of symbolism and false clues, but more often just didn't make sense (e.g., cows on top of poles; the sound of a single hand clapping). As you progress in meditation, you sit for longer periods. The sessions remain the same length, but you do more of them each day, eventually sleeping at the temple to accommodate the meditation schedule. In this way, you begin to feel a sense of progress, but that’s when the monks at the temple step in. They throw you false clues in the form of nonsensical statements (e.g., “you must kill Buddha”) and act like they think you're doing a bad job. You begin to feel as if you’re no closer to obtaining “enlightenment” than before. You begin to break down, losing hope, and if you’re lucky, you do. If you’re lucky, you will abandon reason and the thoughts that are causing you to feel hopeless. You will give up trying to reason.
I never obtained enlightenment, because (1) I was 19-years old, (2) I have low self-confidence, and (3) I have ADHD [I didn’t know this at the time]. So, I gave up. But, I came away from Zen with an immense respect for things that do not make sense.
One thing Zen taught me is that humans don't really know anything. No matter how long you go to school – you can earn 5 Ph.D.s – you will still know almost nothing. Today, I see these professors in my classes – some in their 60s who have been studying things all their lives — roaming into subjects they don’t understand. For example, my professor in Spanish literature began to lecture us the other day about European history while he was talking about a poem, and for the first time, I noticed several serious mistakes in what he was saying. He said that in the 1600s, the Protestant countries of Northern Europe were more advanced than the Catholic countries, which is untrue. The most-sophisticated countries of the time were Spain, Italy, and France, which were all Catholic. He has also been lecturing me personally about how I need to format my papers. He thinks that I shouldn’t bold my headings (!) and that I need to indent paragraphs below headings (!) although the headings set them off just fine. Likewise, another professor told us about the “5 Ps of marketing” (the business Spanish professor thinks there’s 5, although all the marketing textbooks say there’s 4). Indeed, what good does a Ph.D. in psychology do if you want to talk about physics, and what good does a Ph.D. in Spanish do you if you want to talk about marketing? Once you realize how little you know, the better off you will be. Humans love to fool themselves into thinking that the world makes sense to them. The world absolutely makes sense, but not to a human, who is far too weak to understand something so complex and so large.
My fictional writing
Today I write what you might call poetry. It’s not that type of poetry, i.e., rhymed stanzas (lines) of a fixed length. It can be called poetry because it is phrased mostly for an emotional effect, rather than for a certain meaning. Anything that is arranged for a certain sound, impression, or even a certain appearance (e.g., words in a circle) is poetry. Most people arrange poems for a sound, making them beautiful but hard to understand. I phrase my writing in blank verse, meaning there is no special sound. I also put it into plain-old paragraphs. I phrase it purely to cause the reader to ask — as strongly as possible — what the fuck is going on?I don't think that creating surrealist art is easy. That’s why I think Jackson Pollock is such a horrible artist. Is splattered paint really unusual? Of course not. Walk over to a neighborhood with a lot of construction, and you will probably see some splattered paint on the ground. His artwork doesn’t make any sense, but as I wrote above, most things in life do not make sense to humans. To see something nonsensical is not surprising to most people. Better surrealists take their art a step further and make it bizarre. Better surrealists still take it into the realm of terror and then humor. When your art is so damn strange that audiences break into uncontrollable laughter, then you know that you have created something very surreal. (Laughter is our instinctual response to paradoxes in life.) I am not entirely certain which is stranger: things that are humorous or things that are terrifying, but if you’ve reached either threshold, you’re doing your job. Here is the general progression of nonsense:
clarity → murkiness → nonsense → absurdity → horror → comedy
So, writing great surrealist material is not as easy as writing random things. I’m not sure what the magic ingredient is, though. My technique is like walking a tightrope. I am always trying to make things as weird and stupid as possible, but at the same time, trying to keep the reader from giving up on reading the essay or story, or getting bored from something that is so random as to not be stimulating. One method I use is changing the way in which the piece does not make sense. This may mean talking about an event which could never happen in one sentence, like never listening to music in your life (“I’ve never listened to music before in my life.”) In another sentence, you might include words that appear to make sense at first, but are really just a bunch of tongue-twisters (e.g., “Is me what it is that tell be want to do.” which seems almost like “Is me what it is that you tell me what to do,” which still doesn’t make sense even when it is translated). An essay I wrote the other day colored each word in a paragraph differently. Another included some photographs of people in strange poses. The general idea is to always keep the reader on his or her toes.
The best place to present your writing is in a café. You can’t use color or arrange your words in shapes, but you can use your voice and your body. I like to place emphasis on words which should not be emphasized (e.g., “Because this music is of just like talking to me.”). The audience will already be confused by the fact that you are referring to nonexistent music and that it is just like "talking," but if you act like you are surprised by the fact that it is talking to you, you will make their bewilderment complete. You can also gauge reader responses easily in such an environment. If you’re posting your writing to some site, it’s much harder to tell.
Here is a short story/poem/essay I wrote a few months ago. I also posted it on Uncyclopedia. Feel free to tell me what you think or give me suggestions on how to make it better.
A Breath of Heaven
Dad, can eyes see themselves? I plan to cure all illnesses of mankind, 'cuz I'm so fucking ideational.. Like the O as in Don’t eat that fruit! You can belly-laugh it up.I was with another guy having lunch at an outdoor restaurant. My companion was looking at me eat, saying “Oh yeah…” I looked innocently at him--not confused. The other guy kept talking, “that feels good, doesn’t it? Whoo, whoo, whoo, whoooo…” looking very emotional, near tears. I looked at his face and saw a tear streaming down one side. That night, he got really, really, drunk. He then went driving on a county road. He could only see a blurry tunnel. He saw an oncoming car’s headlights as a light and he heard a voice saying, “go towards the light.” So, he turned towards the car, and said, “I CAN SEE THE LIGHT!" and began screaming, "AAAHHH!” He hit the accelerator, saying again, “I-CAN-SEE-THE LIGHT!!!” He hit the car and they both vaporized.
Although he vaporized, he still went to work the next day. He clocked in, sat down, and went to work. I remember him, and in our hearts, an evil power is spreading. Indeed, my rage is like a hot coal. If you touch it, it will burn right through you straight to your soul. I’ve swallowed the coal, and it’s killing me. Because this song of is just like talking to me. Quite frankly, you ought to just open the door to see who's there.
But we saw the great tree of life. We were all facing it, and began climbing it. The tree began rumbling and making a sound “aahhr.” By the time I quenched the light with my hand, it had burned my eyes. My eyes were in shock—I didn’t see white—I saw red and cried out loud: “aaah.” It's incredibly ideational. I raised my hands towards el cielo, praising God.