Oracle 1 - Message 2

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If there’s one thing I’ve learned about life, it’s that you shouldn’t spend too much of it in your own head. Now, this isn’t shaming introverts, mind you. I would classify myself as one, in fact, if you want to stick with the introvert/extrovert dichotomy. But there’s so much more going on here than that. 

To be stuck in your own head for too long is to stifle your own growth and progress. Which, seems counterintuitive, right? At least it did to me because I’ve always been the sort of person who does my best work when I’m alone or when I can focus. Not having a conversation or trying to interact with anything directly should fall into that category. And it does, but it also doesn’t. 

While you might be the expert of yourself, your needs, your hopes, and your talents, there’s only so much you can know or do. You are limited, in the same way we all are. And so, you fall into patterns that are, admittedly, comforting. But that comfort comes with a price. Sometimes, your old patterns aren’t going to take you where you need to go. At some point, they’ll get you as far as they can, but at that point, you could very well be standing on the edge of that radius, wishing you could take a few more steps forward.

Other people might tell you how to take that step. Or if there’s a small hurdle, they could probably tell you how to get around it. Or over it. Other people bring new techniques and new ideas. To use a term you might be more familiar with considering your line of work, other people bring innovation. 

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There are many different types of innovation-provoking stimuli that you could have. Because I agree, telling people outright that you have this ability doesn’t always work out. And you’ve heard some of the ways it can go wrong in my story. I’ve been burned once before, so you know, I’ve learned the value of being careful. 

And on that note, my girlfriend was the first romantic partner to hear about this ability. And even when I told her, it wasn’t necessarily by choice. More like, my outward appearance at night when this is all happening is kind of super creepy. I was trying to make this right and salvage our relationship. That’s why I told her, and thankfully I was able to do it. Talking to her has become a critical part of maintaining my mental health, which isn’t fair to her. It’s not fair to put the burden on her entirely. It’s just not the sort of thing other people react all that well to. And for now, as I search for others, she’ll have to do. I’ll try to make it up to her in whatever way I can or she requests, but I think she grows more concerned when I don’t talk about it. Than when I do.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

Right, sorry, the point. So you can’t tell people directly, but you can have odd moral debates with people in coffee shops not too far from university campuses and sneak in your concerns. Those are lively spots, lively in a very specific sense. Like, sometimes, during the before times, I would get some work done in a hospital cafe, a specific kind of cafe. It was the spot where most of the doctors, nurses, and other staff go. Not the families of the patients or the patients themselves. Probably has something to do with the staff parking lot being on that side of the building. But there, no one wants to talk to anyone new. Because potentially, you’ll be the body they have to work on later or they will have to give you some bad news about your family members. It’s a very defensive place.

The cafe by the university was a lot more open. People want to talk there, that guy especially. And so we had all sorts of surprising conversations. Like one time, we ended up talking about double talk or double speak. It’s the sort of language that appears to be earnest or well-meant at face value but beneath the surface is a mixture of other things. There might be a real meaning tucked in, or there might be a nothingness that is meant to disorient you. It all started with a discussion of cults, in fact. And in cults, that double talk is meant to insert a certain idea in your head that’s actually destructive or that goes against your better interests. But as a phenomenon, it doesn’t have to be so negative. 

Sometimes it felt like our conversations had a momentum I felt but couldn’t really map out, you know? Like what was the destination? What was he getting at? By then, he knew he was dying, so maybe he was trying to workshop ideas with me: ideas on communicating with his wife. Because that was an opportunity for a benevolent double speak: telling her that he wanted her to happy unconditionally as a way of encouraging her to move on when he was gone or commenting on how good of a mother she was to her stepchildren as a way of making her understand that his death was not going to break that bond. 

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If that’s what he was getting at, he wasn’t very good at it. Those are just really straightforward remarks that he should have been saying anyway. And he did say them, so it wasn’t like this was going to be new information to her. 

I came to realize that the context and packaging can determine the success of double talk. I said as much to him, and I have to wonder if that intertwined us in some way. Like his idea came out of my mouth, right? So did I have to take responsibility for it?

It’s as good of a theory as any. Because I never could figure out how the dreams work. The only ones that made sense were the professors I had during university. They pour a lot of themselves into their work, and I must have picked up something of theirs as a recipient of that work.

And these were people who through instruction taught me new patterns of doing things. Suddenly, their presence in my dreams raised the stakes, which made me do more. I had to. For their sake. 

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

And… Well, I mentioned that I had this impulse to pay back or forward all that they had given me. Even if I somewhat muted that impulse, it was still there. And it was reignited by the dreams, by the stakes they were proven to have. It made me try. I had to try. There was no choice. And I don’t need to explain that part to you.

Look, I get it, I’m not going to know EVERYTHING about you. That is impossible. Even if we were in the same space, even if we spoke regularly, human interaction is defined by measured and planned disclosures. Every time we talk, we paint a portrait of the version of ourselves we want our conversation partner to see us as, knowing that even if we do our best it will never be completely accurate and being okay with that. For the most part. 

That being said, you do remind me of myself. Despite whatever has happened in your life, you weren’t inclined to run at this. You weren’t inclined to act on what you saw in those dreams, but now, the stakes are too high. Because it’s no longer about sleepless nights, however many that there were. It's about their wellbeing. For them, you do this. For them, you’re leaving your comfort zone or you’re trying to. For them, you’re talking to me. At first glance, we really aren’t that different, so you can’t blame me for thinking that way.  

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The Oracle of Dusk is a production of Miscellany Media Studios with music licensed from the Sounds like an Earful music supply. It was written, edited, produced, and performed by MJ Bailey. And if you like the show, tell friends about it or the quasi-friends that are still on your social media feeds because social norms evolved before words did, am I right?