You forgot to check the off switch again
You performed many clicks and pokes
All to no recorded avail
The machinery was not recording
You were never here
It never occurred
Pictures or it never happened
Is another way to put it
A policy of disbelief
A religion, if you will
Proof of existence
Presence in the matrix
Something for the AI databases to steal
As they educate themselves to destroy us all
As an aside to this, I offer a loosely related personal anecdote:
When I was about seven years old
This was in 1978
My father had gotten me into Quarter Midget racing
Which, for those who've never heard of it
Are little sprint car-looking race cars
All racing on one twentieth mile ovals
I rode the bus to school back then
And some of the older boys didn't believe me
When I told them all about what I got up to
With my Quarter Midget-ing on the weekends
So, one morning I got up early
And I dragged my race car out of the garage
And put it where it could be seen from the end of the driveway
Where the bus picked me up
When it arrived, and I boarded
I went to those boys, and I pointed
"See! See! Right there is my race car!" I exclaimed
To very mixed reactions
At least one of them was duly impressed
But the rest just basically went "Whatever"
And said that didn't prove anything
It was just a stupid little car
I learned something from that
Not that day, of course
I was only seven
But upon reflection in the years since
Something a little fuzzy and not fully formed
That means I shouldn't seek other's approval for things I do
That I shouldn't gauge my own happiness with something
By what other people think of it
That even though I had something even better than a picture
I had the real thing
Parked twenty feet away from the bus windows
That it still didn't really happen
If the other person never really gave a shit to begin with
-FDR02OCT2025
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