THE REALITY MANIFESTO

I've lost the ability to tell what's good or bad, true or not true, any more. And don't try tell me - okay? I'll believe what I want to believe and you believe what you believe. The truth is overrated as a virtue. All kinds of honesty. Even honesty honesty.

This is what it is to be psychotic. I’ve made a pretty fair adjustment to the outside world except for this one fixed idea. It will never go away, I will have it for the balance of my life. It's a harmless idea and it keeps me going. So they’ve made no attempt to deal with it psychiatrically.

When all your theories and explanations about yourself have worn out, when you know nothing, believe nothing, and the rest is obscure. Reality denied comes back to haunt. To overtake one without warning and make one insane. How fragile this psychological edge. One wrong statement, one statement too much, and it will vanish. Once lost it might never be regained.

What can I tell? The total reality as I know it? That is too hard to do, because I really do not comprehend it myself. I don't know! It always comes back to that. You must wait for me to figure it out... and be there with me, either physically or electronically, when it happens. Frankly, I'm too tired to care.

You shouldn't be frightened so easily. Or life is going to be too much for you. If you're afraid you don't commit yourself to life completely; fear makes you always, always hold something back. My reality is leaking back. The Gods are playing with us. Pulling off our wings. Give up; it is hopeless. Like living in a world made of rubber. Everything bounces. Changes shape as soon it is touched or even looked at.

To live is to be hunted. The die was cast in the beginning. Before any of you even laid hands on it. As you go to your grave your mouth will still be open, asking the question, "What did I do?" You will be buried that way, with your mouth still open.

There is beauty which will never be lost. And I abide it. And that, in the final analysis, is all that matters.


Constructed entirely from snippets from Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by PKD