Friday, 4:16PM, May 16, 2014 (typed this title as the last thing I did for this, it’s the current time—it’s 4:17PM now actually, sorry about this title/piece, feel like apologizing)

Tao Lin

I stood outside Bobst Library, very stoned.

I became aware that I had asked something like ‘what am I doing [generally in my life]?’

I engaged the question without much attention and answered it duly but calmly and not without humor: ‘wrong question’

So, I was conscious of this:

‘what am I doing [generally in my life]?’

‘wrong question’ (duly, as if quietly answering oneself in a manner like one already knew this and shouldn’t be asking oneself this question but that it’s okay to have messed up and to not give up)

Due to the comic timing apparently achieved in the above dialogue, occurring in my imagination, I unconsciously began to think of another question to ask that would also generate humor in possibly a synergistic manner with the first question-answer set. (I was also, to some degree, earnestly asking these questions; they were also, in part, jokes, though.)

After a few seconds I asked ‘how am I going to write my novel?’

‘wrong question’ (duly, as if quietly answering oneself in a manner like one already knew this and shouldn’t be asking oneself this question but that it’s okay to have messed up and to not give up)

‘what happens after we die?’

‘According to Schopenhauer, we become what we were before we were born. According to Terence McKenna, he doesn’t know. According to me, I don’t know, seems insane at times.’

At this point I had finished eating food out of a plastic container from LifeThyme’s by-pound buffet of hot and cold organic dishes. I went into the library’s atrium from outside. It had been raining and I was holding an umbrella, which I had spilled a beverage (made out of coconut water and coconut meat) on maybe ~30% of while walking toward LifeThyme. It was very windy and was raining lightly.

In the library’s atrium I saw a tiny Asian baby girl in a stroller behind a plastic facade. She was staring with extreme calmness and composure at 2-4 crackers that she was holding and probably eating. I’m typing this without editing much and I’m not going to go back and look at this before I submit it; this is where it’s value is for me, to some degree, to record my thought process while very stoned and to record my thought process generally and to expose this form of thing to people including myself since it’s a form I haven’t exactly written in but is one I experience constantly in my own narratizations of my own life. Nararratiaroaitnoiant. I typed that in part to render the reader okay with typos to some degree, or to view this document as something in which typos can occur. I’m fixing most of the typos but it says ‘narratizations’ is typed wrong and I’m not interested in checking if it is right now or what word I’m exactly looking for, I just want to record my life as it happens as closely as it’s happening right now, but not so close that it becomes incoherent, or too incoherent, for readers.

I just felt like I didn’t want to type this anymore. And I thought that I would paste in another thing I was originally going to submit to [magazine you’re reading] but had thought I might not but now think I will again. I will:

1

Stream of consciousness writing. Stream of consciousness prose style. Knausgaard. Something about knausgaard. Having problems deciding what to do about punctuation. It has autocapitalized the first words of each sentence. I just…I’m unconsciously pausing between teach word instead of tping real stream of sconsciousness alright here I’m typing real stream of consciuousness now if I don’t think anything I expect lvcidhces will come out like horse kicking bucket fish trouth fishing in America trichard brautigan Michael Jordan basketball rabbits cartoons carrots and now I’ll try to control my stream of consciousness as I try to think of a narrative to follow in my mind I see a rabbit walking on the side of a clean river it seems funny because it seems human to watch a rabbit or to t hink of a rabbit standing there on the side of a river all I see is a rabbit superimposed onto the river I’m thinking of Julian jayenes I think he influenced my image there because I remember he said in his book that people can superimpose images or that one can make one image appear then another but not at the same time ouiless ii sai mountain and river and you combine the mouintain and the river into a river that’s in the mountain I feel bored of this now I want to think about moun tain I just thought of mountain lion I feel it’s the novel title it’s the title of a novel by jayne bowls, no not jane bowls, it’s by I can’t remember. But I remember erading anne sexton alredount hgins time. I already tiliked about this in an interview. I ‘m only on 275 words right now it feels like it’s taking a long time to type beause I’m not interested in what I’m typing I dhavent lwt my mind settle on a topic yet I’m just let language come out of ome like I’m fishing or something

Okay

What did I want to do with this

Stream of consciousness writing

This is what stream of sconuousness writing is

It seems insane

My faingers are a main hindrance

I’m thinking at the speed of my fingers, that’s the problem maybe

I feel like I’m actually thinking in a staccato manner as I see the syllables appear on the screen

Feels insane

I’m going to try to think normally, then make the typing be secondary

I feel like I’m showing you the pmost private thing I can right now

Okay, what do iw ant to think about

It seems difficult

I just thought ‘okay, what do I want to think about’ and seemed to immediately begin thinking in the staccato manner I was before

It’s 1:37 pm Friday may 2 2014

I’ve been trying to

Never mind

Okay

What do I want to think about

I’m going to try to type in time to music. I remember before that I could think in time to

Jesus


2

stream of consciousiness attempt 2. it’s 2:10pm. friday. i’m waiting for mira, she’s having lunch with agent, iafter that we’re meeting to discuss our book, make plans official plans. feel

jesus

 

3

does stream of sconiousness include typos. should straem of sconiousness include typos. im making typos because i’m trying to type faster because i think that that would be more accurate to ‘stream of consciousness’. i cant stop to think if this makes sense or is logcial or not because i’m trying to type fast and move foward due to stream of consciousness

but if i autrally thought about whether it made sense or not that could also be stream of csocniousness


which means i have some kind of discfunction in my thinking currently i vaguelyr ecognize

b ut i feel like i canst stop, need to keep the words coming due to stream of consciousness


4

is it impossible think while typing stream of sconisuobenssc

is it impossible to think while typing stream of sconiuosness

is it impossible to think while typing stream of sconuousness

is it impossible to think while typing stream of sconiuoscness

is it impossible to think while typing stream of consciousness

i enjoyed that

i enjoyed that

art

what is this

strteam of sconiousness

stream of sconiousness writing


5

feel like i need to bring in iedas from elsewhere into this file or else they cant get in here beause i’m trying to stay in the surface or something i just keep floating past anything and seaying the feel like i’ll degenerate or change to not degenerate but change to lyriucs grunge band lyrics if i dont ioir if i julike i could easily do that i feel, i ciould easily go into grunge lyrics while tyuping stream ofo sconiusness i feel the come as you are as mya fridend as a something gun gun something jesus


6

htis is

this is psychological

why am i typing like htis

why is stream of sconiusness coming out as a lot of typos. id on’t make this many typos normally

this is

what is htis

extremely stoned currently also

this feels like

jesus


7

have i been trying to type stream of unconsciousness, trying to type unconsciously, instead of typing stream ofconsciousness. have i confused stream of consciousness with unconscious typing. what about internal monologue


8

I'm typing this on notes in iphone now , I'm walking to buy special pen and paper notebook for stream of consciousness writing for this

I realized I've been doing or trying and failing to do stream of unconsciousness not stream of consciousness. Stream of consciousness