We All Float Down Here

I had a funny interaction in a group chat I'm in:

allie: You people are so explicit lmao
I wouldn't say that i my closest friend's group chat
but happy for you

gold: This is what estrogen does do you

bennie: I was warned it changes people on a mental level
But not this much 😭

I was going to respond to this in the chat, but then I realized I was writing way too much, so I decided to put it here instead. In that sense, hello! If you recognize me, know that I am a different me than my last incarnation, and it will take a long time for me to get back into the groove I used to have… but I'm here now. So, what about that title?

One of the most famous quotes from the Stephen King novel It is one repeated many times throughout the book: "we all float down here." The most common interpretation is that it is a grimly humorous metaphor for how dead bodies float within water. However, if one looks closely enough, they might be able to find a different interpretation:

To "float" as Pennywise intends it is to float in the Deadlights. The Deadlights in the novel is a place deep in the macroverse - where It originally came from - filled with orange light. Stephen King portrays to the reader that It has two forms:

1. His physical form on Earth
2. His cosmological form in the Deadlights

You could almost say that It floats between the two, and that's what he essentially intends of his victims; their bodies may be destroyed, yet It has dominion over their minds in the Deadlights - his victims float in the median between physical and metaphysical death, never truly free. — XeLa on Stack Exchange

Okay, that's pretty fucking terrifying. Being trapped in an extra special hell dimension where a creepy clown controls my mind and toys with my loved ones using floating hallucinations of my now dead self? I don't want that, you say. What the hell does this have to do with estrogen?

Let's take a step back and apply a different abstraction to this. We all know that we live in a society¹, and that society imposes standards onto us whether we want it to or not. Those standards involve every single aspect of our lives, from the food we eat to the clothes we wear to the way we walk to the way we talk to the way we love to the way we die to the way we thrive to the way we survive. We did not make these standards — we did not make these standards: you and me, people on the street, the average Jane and Joe and Jackie. These standards were created by people with a lot more money and a lot more influence, slowly, gradually, over time, and definitely not with our best interests in mind. Do you think it's productive to make fun of men for wearing pink or depict everyone without a job as filthy begars and robbers? I certainly think not. And yet, these standards are always portrayed as what we believe, collectively, as society at large instead of society as oligarchy. It feels a lot better to say "You need to get a job because the world says so" than "You need to get a job because the guy who made corn into small chips to cure masturbation said so."²

I like calling these standards imposed on society at large by the society as oligarchy Consensus. While it may be called our "consensus", in reality it is an invention of the oligarchy as a method of population control. It is an artifact, an avatar of the oligarchy designed to efficiently distribute the halos floating above our heads. And it sucks. I hope we can all agree on that.

There is a fatal flaw with Consensus, however: it is painfully white. White, cis male, straight, monogamous, rich, postsecondary educated, capitalist, and liberal. By aggressively defining a "normal" that aligns with their ideal standard of what the Modern Man should be, the majority of society become the outliers. We, the 99.9%, are being judged by a system that was designed to conform us to an ideal that does not tangibly exist. So… what's stopping us from forging our own path?

Personal expression, creativity, and freedom of thought are quickly becoming a new ideal, a foundation for a society that treats every creature as the unique entity they are instead of just one cog within the greater machine of economy and trade. What were once core tenants of society — the gender binary, homosexuality and the ritual of child bearing, a lifelong and fulfilling career — are being dismantled in front of our eyes by both the apathy of our rulers, no longer willing to keep pretences up in front of what they really want, and the teeth of the rebels, the freaks on mean streaks who have decided that enough is enough and they are done playing nice with a society that never cared about them. One can probably guess which side I'm more comfortable in.

The funny thing about all of this, and the point of this entire discussion, is that once one dips a tiny bit outside of societal norms and — importantly — becomes comfortable within that empty space, it becomes much easier to continue exploring beyond. Many people already start outside of Consensus: the easiest way to become disilusioned by society is to be actively discriminated by it because you belong to a minority group. Many people might not have started off that way, but later become affected by prejudice due to their sexuality, gender, health conditions, or other such societal taboos. Many people dip their toes into fandoms, whether they be generalized communities like furries or focused on a certain piece or series of media, and through there discover more people outside of the norms they grew up with and thus discover their own queerness. In fact, one could say that the Internet itself has long been a gateway to those empty spaces and fringes of society, bridging the gaps between the void and Gary, Indiana with quantum entanglement through fiber and copper and silicon. No matter how one started, it is almost guaranteed that they end up further away from Consensus than where they started, with the distance increasing exponentially as the years roll on. Try telling the host of this body a year ago that it is going to host a goddess. It would call bullshit. Try telling it two years ago that we would be unemployed right now. Try telling it four years ago that we will multiply from one to two to three to five to eight. Try telling it eight years ago that we will have breasts.

There is a name for this void. The space where ideas grow and bubble up into our heads to become just as "real" as the words you are reading right now. In actuality, it is a very clever illusion, a matrix of lights that combine to form glyphs or a collection of audio waves synthesized to become a voice. We can call these words real now, but we all know they were once not real. They were only in our head. In the space opposite of the real, the Unreal, formed in the same sea as all the rest of our thoughts and desires and dreams and nightmares and legends and prophecies. It is an ocean. The Unsea. As Consensus hovers Above us observing, judging, and manipulating us, So does the Unsea gently roll Below the wavelengths of our consciousness, the currents informing our wild inhibitions and fever dreams.

So yeah, that's the thesis. While "society" may try to impose its will upon us, we with wings to travel outside of its norms will eventually find the freedom so intoxicating that we slowly become more and more free, more and more loose-lipped, more and more experiemental, more and more what some people may call "crazy" or "insane".

But that's the danger, isn't it? Eventually, there is a tipping point. Where you lose grip of what is around you and fully focus inward on your own adventures. The Unreal may be as "real" as the Real, but some may find the Unreal so fantastical that they end up favoring it over the Real and disregarding the Real in favor of it. Where is that line? When does "insane" start becoming an apt descriptor of one's mental state, even if it is often used as nothing more than a slur?

I can't tell you that. I absolutely, most assuredly am not qualified to tell you that. What I can tell you, though, is that our path is not towards the ana of Consensus nor the kata of the Unsea. It's not even somewhere inbetween. It's both. At the same time. Just like how the text you are reading is both physical text on a screen and an idea that I birthed into the world. Both of these "realities" are just two interpretations of the same superposition. I am, as you are reading this, engaging in quantum mechanics. You, as you write your reply to me elsewhere through these series of tubes, are doing the same. We are all quantum wizards of reality, floating between the Real and Unreal and even further beyond to Become something much more than we could have ever dreamed of.

…nah, I don't like that term. "wizard". Makes me think of old dudes in robes pondering their wrinkled orbs. In fact, "quantum wizards of reality" may be too long in general. Try saying that five times fast. I need a single word. I need a saga. One all who listens can hear and rejoice in the <light?> of as it glistens in the air.

Oh, I know. Stardust.