A bird flew into my window, none of her bones broke but she sat completely still for 7 minutes with her mouth wide open. Her eyes were human and her expression in the moment was so familiar to me that it might has well have been my own. So many authors are fascinated with the parts of America that are completely empty aside from a few gas stations and houses ravaged by time yet hastily repaired by human effort.

I am also attracted to this vision, last weekend I drove through the middle of Texas and found myself overwhelmed by a sense of dread and curiosity seeing confederate flags waving high above lonely wooden houses and sex stores with signs so bright they almost compared to the violent sun beating down on them.

I am scared of these places for reasons that may solely be attributed to my ignorance of them outside of the images of rural indecency that I am constantly inundated with from books I read and movies I watch. However, when I see these places I cannot help thinking about the bird who crashed so violently into my window, her bones not broken but body and mind so confused and stunned to the point of inaction.

There is no difference between me and the man who would wave a gun at me if I dared to cross his property line. I could be him and he could be me and I think although I fear him and he may fear me I think we just fear ourselves. How could you exist in a world that presents you with images of humanity standing above nature while your electricity has not functioned for 3 days because of a dust storm. What does it mean to be confused, I think it means to lack awareness of what is happening to you and/or be aware of what is happening to you but not know why or how it is happening.

Unfortunately, I feel largely alienated from myself and who I physically am. This may be the result of a lifetime of never reckoning with what it means to be me versus any other person who more or less checks the same boxes on the CommonApp as I do. All I know is what I like, I cannot articulate how my consciousness is not the product of other consciousnesses I have witnessed. I have not yet developed my own self.

This may be because I am young but this is clearly not the only reason for this sensation because I have seen adults who clearly live their life by rules they do not understand in their soul and limit themselves by norms rather than wisdom. They obey the law not to help their neighbor or to be kind, but to not get in trouble.

I do not know why this is. It could be the result of capitalism which may have told us that we are what we have and that to be empathetic would risk those possessions. It could be the result of a lack of curiosity which has caused millions to not reckon with the self in favor of survival and quick conveniences.

All I know is that I am a stunned bird and that you are likely a stunned bird and to be a stunned bird convinced of the idea that god is a strong bearded white man while you live in a place unoccupied by people neglected by society and overcome with fear may mean taking arms against a sea of troubles with only a sliver of the self.

I think the only thing that I can do is accept the confusion and proceed in hopes that maybe I can get my bearings a little bit at some point. That brings me to Atilla, the “impossible novel.” This book is filled with non-sentences, words in sequence that a consequentialist may understand as meaningless, but I feel they are the only meaning.

Neurons fire constantly in my head in opposite directions and when they clash it creates nuclear fission that creates non-sentences. I don’t know if I will ever not be confused and I do think it is possible that what I am witnessing it Attila is simply another man a more educated man articulating his own confusion with no inhibition but I do feel like he has developed his own consciousness. I guess the issue is that I have been faced with a multitude of perfectly coherent thoughts and viewpoints which are perfectly logical and seemingly fully formed as soon as though they were immediately birthed into the head of the author. When in fact it is a guarantee that every though started with non-sentences.

Attila shows me that is okay to be ignorant and that even though I may nevr now at least I can know that my confusion is my own and that I have lived my life by my own rules like a flower free from the greedy shade of an oak tree. My confusion is the sprout that will turn into a flower through inarticulate articulation. I will make my own way and I will listen and understand but I will only take the nutrients and leave anything that does not resonate deeply in my soul.