I have a friend my friend who plays some piano. He once invoked Art Tatum and I told him about this old man on YouTube that demonstrates Tatum’s lightning runs. There was a trick to them. Anyone with a few hours could manage it, even a child, just index finger and thumb. So easy. I tried explaining it to my friend but he wouldn’t even attempt it. I don’t know what blocked him, but I found it wild because he truly wished he could play like Art Tatum. Maybe it was the belief that he wasn’t worthy or maybe it was confusion disguised as permission to quit. Either way, he resembled the person who can’t bear the possibility that the “self” is merely construction. A ventriloquist’s dummy believing itself alive and independent, desperately avoiding any questions about the strings attached to its various parts.

For a certain type of person, the most remarkable thing to understand is this: we don’t exist. At least, not in the way we’ve been taught. Ever since before memory began, someone has been telling you that you are Fred or Stella, and you’ve believed it, why not? Whose looking back before the mirror? It is Fred. But is Fred for real? The mirror shows body parts – eyes, ears, nose, hair. Exactly where is Fred hiding? Are the eyes Fred, or is Fred behind them?
Questioning one’s own existence is absurd. Of course I exist. End of story. Conversation over. But whoever stays, does so because something rang true. The same suspicion Jim Carey tosses into interviews these days smirking, “I don’t exist and neither do you,” while they try pretending the topic is the Oscars or what upcoming films he will be in.