In the Matrix, Morpheus offered Neo a choice. Take the blue pill and life would continue the way it was. No change, no disruption. Take the red pill and he got to see how far down the rabbit hole he could go.
A few days ago I went to a hockey game. I do that a lot. I grew up in Canada and hockey was part of me. I played for a lot of years as a kid, then more as an adult. I didn’t play because I was expected to; I genuinely enjoyed it.
So I go to a game, then I go to a friend’s sex-positive burlesque extravaganza. I was hoping to hang with them after but I wasn’t feeling that vibe that night, so I went home. On the way I stopped at a bar I frequent. I’ve been living alone since my wife moved out six months ago, and I’ve been pretty lonely since my wife opted to enter polyamory almost immediately after we got married two and a half years ago. My point is that I wanted people in my life this particular night.
A little socializing and then I step out into the smoking patio. Why? I don’t know. I don’t smoke. Maybe to see who was there. I talk with one person I know and there’s a cute, petite human there as well. I won’t assume pronouns but my brain said ‘woman’ and I’ll use she/her for this writing. I’ll also update this later if I find out otherwise. We traded a couple lines of small talk but there was a resonance. We stepped inside and I bought her a drink.
Over the course of the drink we learned about common friends all over the country, and that she knew a woman I dated 14 years ago from the anarchist community. To be clear, I was not part of that world but I have spent time in subcultures a step removed. Hackers, skateboard/bmx, artists, swingers, kink. I didn’t grok my ex’s anarchy message back then, in fact she seemed a bit removed from it herself having later spent a lot of time in hardcore buddhist training, but I heard a few of her stories for sure.
Anyhow, I connect with this new woman. Shall I call her Trinity? We find immediate comfort in each other. She’s telling me stories of her life that I won’t document in any recording. I mention another book I recently read and how I was exposed to it. She had personal experience with the person that was responsible for my exposing. She reaches into her own bag and pulls out a book.
Days of Wars, Nights of Love. Crimethink for beginners.
It was a published book but it felt like a subculture zine from way back when. It touched lots of topics, in no particular order. It would become the spark for my next five days.
Trinity came home with me, stayed over. We cuddled but kept it platonic. There was indeed a strange comfort, but a very welcome one. Both of us have been massively short on touch for so long, and engaging another human was very nice. We stayed up most of the night talking.
I took her home the next morning, and later that night started on the book. The words were individual tiny drugs, pulling at parts of my soul. Things that seemed obvious and yet unsaid. Each pull morphing into part of a larger drug that was screaming at me “CHANGE YOUR LIFE!”. I read a hundred pages that night. A hundred pages the next night. I finished it on night three.
I have a lot to learn. I don’t know which parts I will fully embrace, which parts I will partially embrace. I didn’t find a lot in there that I was going to outright reject, although the me-of-the-now did find a couple things.
How fortunate to have had this synergistic bar encounter while also in the midst of such personal change. It feels late in life to be embarking on a wholesale change, but there is only ever the present. I will probably read the book again, slower this time, and document some of my thoughts as I go, on more specific topics.
Trinity, thank you for seeing me primed for the red pill and trusting me with it.