14th January 2000

Surreal. Is a word I find myself saying a lot these days.

I once knew a person who called herself "Surreal", and had me buying it hook line and sinker. It was only till later that I realised she was wrong. You can't BE Surreal. It's a state of mind. You might feel that the world around you isn't quite as you knew it - that's surreal. Carried further, it becomes derealisation, an Abnormal Experience that characterises mental illness. You might feel that you're not quite real to yourself. That's depersonalisation if carried to extremes. Other people might feel that you're surreal, to them. But you simply cannot make yourself Surreal. That's posturing / posing.

Surreal is catching youself wearing a puzzled frown - or a silly grin - at the strangest moments. And knowing that this can't be me! I don't! I have too much common sense for this! Surreal is having your convictions shaken, about things that were once written in stone, about odds that were so low as to be virtually impossible, happening twice a lifetime. Kind of like being struck by lightning twice, or winning the national lottery. Twice. About carefully-constructed rules being taken to the Test, and crumbling. Evoke the 5 minute Law... then ignore it. Surreal is a normally lucid, eloquent person trying to put thoughts like these down on paper - and finding himself wholly inadequate for the task. Admitting that it's far, far more than words. Surreal is re-reading the same words, and thinking ack! It's so cheesy! So second-rate -- did I write that? Surreal is speaking honestly, from the heart - without fear that it would hurt, be misconstrued by, or overwhelm anyone. A certain invulnerability, in a sea of fragility -- because Surrealism is fragile.

It is transient - rationality tells me so - it gets overwhelmed and overcome by the mundane, by the dry truths of Everydayness, by the coldness of reality. It fades away, over time. You hear uplifting snippets everyday about how, with enough courage and faith, you can believe, and how with enough Belief, things will work out in the end (deja vu!) whatever the odds - and the logical, cynical part of you grins wryly and says, maybe in a movie... maybe for someone else, not like me. Not for me. But part of you desperately wants to cling on to that idealism, to hang on to that something good, to try to play that impossible game, and maybe, just maybe all 3 dies will come up 6s. Surreal. Is being split in half, where normally you're the stable one, the one grounded in sensibility. Not insensibility.

Surrealism colours the world around you a little more vividly. It even seems to affect the weather! It's a warm, sunny day today, with clear white sunshine and clear technicolour-blue skies -- where it should be cold, grey and drizzling -- this IS london,(cue BBC news themesong) after all. It makes things you'd normally find unusual, unreal. A friend of mine has recently revealed her online-journal to me, and it seems that in the 4 years I've known her, I've never really known her at all. How do people hide who they are, so completely from the world? Why do they do it? They'd be none the worse off for showing the world who they really are - because the world might well find that attractive.

Honesty. Is a rarity these days. In a world as techno-sexual as ours, everyone wants something, for nothing. Everyone wears an attractive mask to get those somethings - love, sex, money, promotions, power, career. But where do you turn to for Peace, and Happiness? Surely not deceit - how do you face yourself in the morning, knowing that you are a lie - or at least, an intentionally-created mystery? How do you suss other people out, knowing the things you do? Then you encounter Honesty, and if you're lucky, you either continue being the honest person you were to begin with, or learn to reciprocate that honesty - and that's where reality ends and surrealism starts.

Not true. Reality remains. The mundane and everyday remains. You still feel it as acutely while you're there, then you slip into an alternate reality, equally real to you, after working hours. Surreal.

Surrealism doesn't exclude logic. It excludes logical projections and predictions about the unknown. But you can be logical, and still be drifting. Some of the patients in my hospital are coldly logical about their delusions, and I can *almost* believe them. And I know that they truly believe they once led the US army. To them, it's real. To me, they're surreal - living somewhere in between 2 alternate dimensions.

So is that it? Is surrealism a sign of mental illness? Perhaps I belong in the funny farm.

Surreal is desperately wanting to rise up and fight for something that hasn't even come into being yet -- because it's under threat -- when you'd been meaning to say those fatal words yourself, and put everything under Fire - to point out the impossibilities, and futilities, and cannot-bes -- and changing everything : your stands, your rationalisations, because you've been pipped to the mark, and something other than rationality starts banging your head against the wall. But not rising up and fighting, because someone else needs you not to. Just calmly and detachedly stating the facts, and leaving the decision open to... chance? when somewhere in there, you're yearning to be biased and opiniated, and to opiniate someone else. Surreal is living - for Real, in an unconventional sense.

I met an elf this Christmas.

Bizarre.