From: mdw@theory.TC.Cornell.EDU (Matt Welsh)
Subject: Architecture
Followup-To: talk.bizarre,alt.religion.kibology,alt.fan.BIFF
Organization: Cornell Theory Center
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 20:49:39 GMT


I was, for more than a decade, an architect; an architect of souls, 
perhaps. I would spend long nights at the drafting table, bleary-eyed,
sketching detailed blueprints for my next grandioso edifice. Contemplating
structures on paper was nothing, however, compared to actually being out
on the field when the first concrete was being poured or when the first
I-beam was pulled upright. I marveled at how all of these workers would
follow my instructions to the letter, like a giant myrmidon, fulfilling
my dreams through sweat, pain, and overexertion for such little pay.
I felt responsible. Guilt permeated my very being. I was determined to
be not entirely boreal. 

The great creations that I would devise were not schoolhouses or
skyscrapers or office complexes or shopping malls as it may seem. I was
an architect of the human psyche, an engineer in the fine art of personality
construction and habilitation. I would start with the most primitive levels 
of structure, such as raw thought, like an infant's first premonitions on the 
outside world, and over a great deal of time I would descend deeper and deeper 
into finer levels of detail and actual implementation, as the abstractions
were left behind and in their place were substituted the pith of reasoning
processes. Circling downwards, covering every dry spot, sanding every
edge, spiraling like a gargantuan toilet bowl of consciousness. I would breathe
into my creations the breath of cerebration. I would finely tune the
ego and superego, mold the id, feel its softness between my fingertips as
if it were clay. I was like a puppetmaster, pulling the strings of the
mind, mouthing the words of the characters: Go ahead! Emote! I would 
put on my headphones and blast grunge metal while my pen flew across the
paper, like a madman, like a beast to be tamed. The music would move 
through me like the profile thermographs on a Gatorade commercial, and I 
would radiate ideas and impressions upon my mind-cum-sculpture as a
new star shedding its first rays, forming life, giving needed energy to
the indigenous flora and fauna. I would watch funny-looking fish grow
arms and legs, finally making it out of the muskeg and onto land, breathing
with their tender new lungs, and eventually forming the connubial relation
between earth and sea, between mind and spirit, between logic and sentiment.

I had it all. My career was off to an amazing start: I had been 
singlehandedly responsible for building up the pneumae of such personalities
as E. R. Stettinius, Jr., Joseph Conrad, and Pauly Shore. My resume was
a lesson in information digestion paramount to the unabridged edition of
"Roots" or the long version of the movie "Dune". My putrefication started,
however, when I was petitioned to design the charm and character for a new
line of chartered accountants, to be implanted in each and every one of the
employees of an unnamed multimillion dollar worldwide banking firm. Obviously
I has been misunderstood. I was an artist, a sculptor, a composer, not a
burger-flipper (as much as one can be in the world of psychofabrication). 
What did this mean? Moreover, this burdensome task was more than I could
handle: the minds of an ENTIRE FIRM? Not for me. I worked on one client
at a time, and sought whenever possible to customize the process and 
allow for variations from individual to individual. I was simply unable to
garter myself to such a broad task. I went home and tried to shave,
to no avail. For some reason the entire world of mind-alteration seemed
pointless.


mdw
and that's not all
-- 
Matt Welsh    mdw@tc.cornell.edu        +1 607 253 2737
Systems Programmer, Cornell Theory Center
  "Yow! Up ahead! It's a DONUT HUT!!"
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