(This article was originally published in January 2000)

You turn on the machine™ You have a desire™ You want some company™

your heart is beating.

you are alive but alone. in front of the screen.

You send an e-mail to express your subjectivity. but it makes no sense. it gets you depressed. you need your medicine but you don't want to take it. you don't want to be an addict. you want to break free. you want to free yourself from the society, the commodity society, the trouble of consumption. you are running with strangers in the wrong direction.

the blackness of the future. the whiteness of the past. the gray scale of the moment.

you paint. you write. you think. you speak. you want to tell everybody about the ghost train. it's just running

nowhere

into the future.

no one knows where it's heading. into the mist of the urban future ? you are longing for some company. you want to meet somebody. you want to share some feelings and thoughts with somebody. you want to share your life with somebody. you want some coincidence in your life.

Everything™ seems so predictable.

from school to high school to university to office from eight till four. you want to leave the country. but you are not sure about the idea of finding peace somewhere else on the planet. you take your medicine. you want to leave the planet. you want to be a part of nature, the universe, just not of commodity culture.

you want to extend your living space. you have been living in this tiny flat for years. you want to meet a girl so she can arrange the things for you. you go out into the streets to search for some company. but the streets are empty. it's raining. it's the gray scale of the moment. you start to cry. you fall into the mire. you stand up. you feel dizzy. it's must be your medicine. the good doctor told you to take a lot so you pop viagra™ so you at least can feel something. you go into a porn shop. you want to get excited. you want to feel some desire. but you feel disgust. you feel the hate, the confusion, the bitterness, the empty transcendence. your heart is beating. you are alive but alone. in front of the take-away. you look into the eyes of a girl. brown. green, blue, red, vamp, substitute mother, sensuality, feelings, desires, tenderness rush in your blood. you say : "Beauty before age". the medicine rush in your blood. maybe that's why you suddenly feel that you want something. you want to cry out and so you do : "I don't want to cry out but I want to calm down". the girl then looks nervous. you scare her away. she runs. you run after her. you are chasing the girl in your life. she runs into the alley. the police comes. they arrest you. now you sit in the back of the car and talk about modern women. the police tells you to shut up. you are not allowed to express your subjectivity. you have to behave yourself. you have to be silent.

so you scream. you are getting a classic nose bleed. your sight gets hazy. you are feeling the blackness. you pass out. oh - it's a nightmare. you wake up wet. you are in a cell. you think about the beautiful girl that you accidentally scared away and the words you uttered as you were opening the door for her to the take-away. now you are on your own, in a prison. you fall asleep. you wake up a couple of hours later. you are released but you are not relieved. you feel worse. you take a bus home. it's getting late. it's getting dark. the winter is coming. you think about x-girlfriends and wonder : "What are they doing ? Where are they going ? Their hearts must be beating. They must be alive. They must have calmed down". you start to think about loneliness. at least you always got the company of yourself. you have to change the direction of your thoughts. maybe that would change the direction of the train, the bus, the commodity society. but you are not sure. so you smile. you look around in the bus. strangers but people. your brothers and sisters. your world family. you want to join them. you want to move into a big big house with them. you want to paint, write, think and speak with them. you get off the bus. the rain has stopped. you go up the stairs. you lock yourself into your flat. you don't feel at home here. you light up a cigarette. you stand in the kitchen and think for a bit. you want to move on. you want to arrange some kind of workshop as soon as possible. you want to gather some friends and strangers and spend some time with them. you want to see if you can create something else. you want to know if it's possible to be different. you want to know if it's alright to paint, write, think and speak like you do. you want to see somebody's expression to what you do. you want to react to what they are doing. you want to quit your medicine. you want to stop everything and start all over. you want to fill up the world with coincidence, company and creativity. you just want to manifest your subjectivity. your heart is beating. you are alive ! you are living and you are breathing and seeing and thinking and speaking and you are writing and you are writing and you are actually writing that you are writing....

…that you want to write about the Y2K and it's causes and effects on a variety of global discourses and humanities…but somehow you can't get any closer than this.

Is that what keeps you alive?

“Wake up, it's time to die”™.

““Wake up, it's death to time””.

Copyright © Jacob Ørsted Nielsen 1998-1999

An old session of keyboard tapping, freshly remixed 4 *spark-online 4.0 [Y2K edition] Jacob Nielsen is a Danish DJ and Poet.