Our Plural Singularity.

Jamie Goldstein

Writing II

Prompt 8

     “There was this funny thing of anything could happen now that we realized everything had.” –Raymond Carver

     All of every everything has already happened in the modern world. You want to paint something? Whoops, someone rendered that concept three years ago. That funny joke you just thought up? I saw that on reddit last week. Your paper topics, your thoughts, even you, are not special. There are seven billion other people stuck on this crazy fucked up spec in the sky. If you think you’re special, well, your deluded.

     Oh, Education! That’s how you’re special! Haha. Ha ha. Ha. ha. There are millions of other people out there with a fine education. There are PhD students who can’t find a job flipping burgers. Let’s face facts for a second, you’re uniqueness is a farce and you’re probably shit out of luck. It’s bleak, but it’s also true.

     Your face? Oh that’s cute. You think your looks or your style set you apart? I hate to tell you, honey, but there are only about one billion different combinations of physical features a person could have. Even if you’re not a twin, you share your face with at least two or three other people.

     Everything’s been done. Every feeling you’ve ever felt, every combination of utterances you’ve ever tried to bring about has already been said. Hell, I’m basically cribbing the entire message of this paper from a high-school graduation speech I watched on fucking YouTube last year.

     You’re not special. No one is. That’s the beauty of it. So either get busy accepting it, or don’t, but either way, someone already made that choice before you.