That’s It:
The Postmortem Autobiography of Michael Daniels Molitch-Hou

by Michael Molitch-Hou

The machines that they had been building went on for centuries.  They were always the same machines, but, naturally, they took on different forms that would be unrecognizable to the following generations.  A machine is a machine is a machine.

That is not to say that the machines were metals parts grinding away at each other, but whatever they were is what they were.  They sometimes even took the forms of beautiful trees that smelled up the night’s already fragrant air.  They were machines that wrapped around each other as vines on trees and hugs on bodies.

It was organically electric.

But, as I was saying, the machines had been going on for so long that no one can any longer remember what they were, or what they were for, or for what it was anything was supposed to be doing.

One such machine was a man-made man-machine named Michael Daniels Molitch-Hou, which is me the man who is writing the thing about himself, which is also a thing.

Michael Daniels Molitch-Hou had been recreated for centuries taking on different forms and names, but always ended up as Michael Daniels Molitch-Hou when he was Michael Daniels Molitch-Hou, which is the time where I came in.  When, and if, he was those other forms, I do not think that he would remember it, at least not at this point when he began writing his autobiography.

But, it was meant to be, Mike.  It had come about this way and in some round about way you became you.  The nature of that course had been theorized by all sorts of people.  That is to say, suggestions were made to the nature of your comings about.

One man had put it this way, “On the first day, God created the Sun and the Earth.”  While others had decided that one of Zeus’s daughters, whichever one it was, had burst forth from his skull and then some other crazy shit happened.  Either way, you had come about and decided, or had decided for you (by you or someone else), that you wanted to know how you came about yourself.

Keeping the others’ words in mind, you might feel here and there what they were trying to suggest created you.  Had it been a big bang and a crash and then billions of years later you were you, that is to say, Mike was Mike?  Could be.  Seems logical.  They have provided a lot of evidence towards that.

Of course, this was not satiating.

How many other possible ways was it that Mike could become Mike?

You had reasoned billions, if not infinite ways, but had a feeling that some seemed a bit more right than others.  For instance, a monkey in a tree could have dropped a coconut and you could have burst out of that coconut, making the Universe.  Zeus could have shot a daughter out of his head and some other things happened after that.  Or the bang could have been big, small, or nothing at all and you still would have come about one-way or the other.

So that wasn’t it exactly.  It wasn’t the big or the bang, it was really the whole shebang.  I wanted to know, you wanted to know, without a doubt, how you came about.  I don’t remember a big bang or a man with a cane that when he pointed it, magic came, and so did you and everything around you.  The irrelevance of that whole business became extremely relevant.

But, of course, they had suggested history and theories.  They had laid out a nice track of history behind you: things suggesting that there was a history and a past that made you into being some day.  Um… some histories stretched out as far as the beginning of the Universe and as far as the eye can see, and they provided fossils and old artifacts providing proof of a past.  Past that, they told you your family lineage, your country’s history, the science of a flower, the rise to power of ancient civilizations such as Rome and all the kings horses and all the kings men.

So they gave you the Beatles, Albert Einstein, and this body that you can call your own, if you’d like to.
It was all very convenient to wake up with all this beautiful paraphernalia surrounding, wasn’t it?  It was a grandiose tropical fiesta of everything that exploded all the time with many little big bangs.

They even invented particle physics to try to tell you about that.  In a way, it was eye candy all around.  And you know that you loved all of it, down to your juicy center, that it was sweet, but weren’t sure why, which was another question raised.  And when questions are raised, “they certainly rised.
They started slow, long ago, head to toe, healthy, wealthy and wise” (The Beach Boys 1967).  Some say, or at least hint at, that the question can be the same as the answer sometimes.

Or at least, you get the feeling that that could be the case or that that someone could have said that once.
Instead of thinking of an example, let’s bring this to the point of things:

Mike, where did you come from, where are you going, and what is it exactly that you are?

A beautiful way to think of you is as a wavelength, the length of which runs entirely from the time you came into being until the time that you stop coming into being.  You have a distinct memory of your development, suggesting that you probably did come into being at some point, but we’re not sure when it ends, if ever.  Maybe, when you die, you just forget yourself and then remember yourself again back on February 8th, 1984.

Wake up, live, remember who you are and where you came from physically on a daily basis, with memories fading as the times grow longer, and then die, which is to forget, only to wake up again and repeat the process over again.

Somewhere in there, there is the thing that we are for all practicality purposes calling Michael Daniels Molitch-Hou and his consciousness.  The thing which would have the ability to see its actions and how it performs them was called Michael Daniels Molitch-Hou by the things around him when he woke up on February 8th, 1984.

That thing can seem, for the most part, to only see itself from the insides: a man behind the steering wheel of an automobile that he isn’t sure he knows how to drive.  There is something about the car that makes it highly desirable, maybe comfortable seats and push buttons and anything you could ever want in a car.
I guess that it is possible that when I die, I go up to the used car lot up in the big blue sky and the dealer convinces me that I am the right car for me and I could get back in and drive it all over again.  That could explain why I would want to continue driving the thing until it started to fall to pieces and the bumper fell off and the motor slowly died and the mechanics started to tell me that there wasn’t anything I could do about it, but maybe just get rid of the old thing.  Then do I trade it in for a new thing?

As I said, the forms could be different, but could all just be the same thing with different forms.  But if those forms include a consciousness and personality and everything, maybe the consciousness changes too.  So, when I go up to car lot heaven, they could sell me on a different body, but that means consciousness too, and then when I get back here on planet Earth, I am a new person and don’t remember what Michael Daniels Molitch-Hou was but now only remember what Francine Dresser is, bought as is.  Which could also explain why I don’t remember what anyone else remembers from his or her perspective, but only from mine.
And, therefore, I cannot rule out any of their consciousnesses, but can only say that I am not they and cannot say that I know them inside and outside.

After all that, this could turn out to be a short postmortem autobiography after all.

But the question of will still comes to mind and bothers me.  That’s more like it.  Why am I typing what I am typing right now as if I could say that I had a choice in the matter?  I certainly would like to say that I had a say, but it’s difficult to say if that could even be the case.  My fingers can go widdly-doo on every little thing that I do, but maybe they just do what they do and I have no choice but to choose to permit them to do it.  What do you say?

I know that the line between my will and that of the Universe around me, the insides and the outsides, seem to be negligible, in that I can’t distinguish who’s will is whos’s.  So, I suppose it’s all just happening.  And it could, in fact, be a moot point on where the Universe came from in the first place and where it goes, where I lead it and it leads me, but I’m still stuck on the one sticky thing of why all the things seem to be suffering.
There is a will about, insides or out, that wants me to help the things that are showing suffering to stop suffering, or at least to stop showing it.  That is why the consciousness of others is important, and what my role and will is in that situation.

If the whole thing is just a happening, me just being willed and willing the Universe, why did the Universe that I woke up in bother with the details of people suffering physically, emotionally, and mentally?  Did the Universe, whatever it was that I woke up in on February 8th, 1984, want there to be things that would suffer or at least show suffering?  Or maybe, it would be impossible to tell, another moot point, whether the Universe wanted the suffering or not, but just was and that was part of the was that the Universe is.
But, I, as a part of that Universe and one of the sufferers have a huge problem with that.  It is happening to me after all.  I see the suffering and want it to end, I suffer and want it to end.  What’s the deal then?  And that would be the drive that drove me, the luxury sedan with pick up and go named Michael Daniels Molitch-Hou, to the end.

And, let’s say that the suffering outside of me was just a big act.  That no one was really hurting or aching and that at any minute now, the crying will stop and I realized that I had just had the fleece pulled over my eyes for a century.  What a surprise that would be, wouldn’t it be?

But then, I would still find myself here, in the place with the things that pretend to suffer.  And why would that be?  I would still want to know why I had come to be if I was just going to come to be in a big game of things.  And that just seems silly to me.

So then I am here, there is still the one suffering question left in the sole thing that I can comprehend existing, which is me, Michael Daniels Molitch-Hou.  And I don’t seem to have a choice in the matter.
And if I have no choice in the matter, what can I choose to do?  I can’t stop choosing, because the thing that I live in, the thing I woke up in with all the things that demand that they’re suffering and that I, or someone, do something about it would demand that I choose, and choose wisely.  And they would suggest to choose this and that and this and that and everyone who was making me make choices, which I may or may not have my own ability to make, would say different things.

For instance, there are two pie shops across the street from one another.  The pie maker at one which makes cherry pies declares that his is the best and that he needs customers, money, to feed his family and keep his business going so that he can continue to feed his family and so on.  The other one across the street who makes pecan pies claims the exact same thing about his pies.  And if I like both flavors of pie equally because pie is pie and all pie is heaven in the sky because of its tingly sensations that it makes on my tongue and allows my tongue to have so much fun which is the thing that eventually allows me to love everyone, people and pies and, even the sun, how would I make a decision about which pie to eat: equally adorable pies by two men demanding me, as a customer, to make a decision.  I suppose I could just keep walking and not eat any pie, but that would involve missing out on eating anything and who wants to do that?  And, I suppose, I could just keep walking and I’d come across cake, which could be as sweet as the first scenario because, let’s face it, we’re here for the sweets.  And then I would remember that I could have just eaten pie and not have to worry about cake.

So which pie do I choose?  Well, let’s say one man is evil and should not make any profit or have any customers, though his pie is delicious.  So, I should choose the good man and not the bad, but I have no idea how to gauge the good or badness of either one.  So I look into their faces for sometime and talk to them and sit there and try to decide if one is evil.  And then Pecan Pete tells me how he used to burn ants with a magnifying glass as a kid.  That fact for some reason makes me think that maybe Pete ain’t such a good guy and that I’d better go ask Cherry Chuck if he ever burned ants as a kid, to which he responds, “Nope!”  But, I think, why did Pete burn those ants?  Well, maybe his parents didn’t raise him right and he ended up hurting little tiny bugs and it’s not completely his fault.  And, plus, Chuck tells me that he cheated on his first wife because really they weren’t happy in the first place and, I mean, he thought he was in love, but it turned out not to be true and, well I don’t know, I guess one thing led to another and hormones are hormones and he found himself with another woman while still with the first one.

I wouldn’t want to contribute to either foul man, burning ants and committing adultery.  So I could go down to the cake place where I find out that Chocolate Chunk Charlie punches cats to this day.  Hell, I’d rather eat pie from a man who burnt ants when he was 8 and didn’t know better than to eat cake from a grown woman who still punches cats.  But then, I figure, well, her folks probably never raised her right in the first place, so she never got rid of her bad cat punching habits.  And, really, is my buying her cake going to change the way she is one way or the other?

How did Pete, Chuck, and Charlie ever come to be so sad, bad, or mad?  Well, in one form or another, their folks never raised them right?  Well, why didn’t their folks raise them right?  Probably because their folks didn’t raise them right.  And so on and so on into infinity.  Which brings us back to where it all came from and what the hell we’re doing here and why.  And because I can’t speak for anyone else because I am not inside of anyone else’s consciousness, I have to ask myself, where did Michael Daniels Molitch-Hou come from and why?

It’s not a silly question even if it’s been repeated a thousand times because I still have to be here.  The only way I don’t have to be here is if I’m not here.  But because I’m here, I have to assume that I am here and that I should probably figure out how to enjoy it.

So, I just buy whatever the hell I feel like at the time I buy it and that’s that.

And, then, I guess, I’m still here for the sweets whether they contribute to all things evil, which is being defined here as destroying the Universe (which is assumed to be good), or not.  So the sweets are still going to be sweet and the sours sours whether I know why or where or who or what or however or whatever.
But to walk out into the streets daily and hear everyone yell at each other about what they’re doing wrong and all, I can’t help but feel like telling them it was just people’s parents not raising them right, whoever or whatever their parents were and wherever they came from or instead to maybe just keep my fat mouth shut.  That is to say: forgive and/or forget to forgive and/or forget.

So, at least on a daily basis, the individual uni-VERSE (little “uni”, big “verse”)  of Michael Daniels Molitch-Hou, with his daily day to day memory way has to forget who he is every day in order to remember himself in everyway which is run by a motor, small or large, that asks him the question, who, what, why, when, where, and how much farther?.  That could, in fact, be the sweetest sweet of them all, the pie in the sky piece of cake, because the engine fueled by delicious answers to hungry questions on a day to day basis could one day eat the most satisfying meal of an answer to the hungriest eater of a question that the eater engine would be filled for an eternity, kick back its heals, and pat its big, fat, greedy stomach and burp and, when it got hungry again, say to itself, which would probably be everyone,

“Well, who wants seconds?” individual life being the Universe’s favorite five course meal and all hands that ever were being raised and on deck.  Thus, leaving Michael Michael Motorcylce (Turn the Key Watch Him Pee) Daniels Molitch-Hou to repeat himself in all forms at all spaces and times, whether it be the conscious personality of Michael Daniels Molitch-Hou or not and to run on his own motor, which fuels itself until it can’t fuel itself anymore at which point it becomes a different form of Michael Daniels Molitch-Hou that might be called Francine Dresser, which I believe can be correctly translated as a French cabinet, but could never quite remember who Michael Daniels Molitch-Hou was in the first place, though when she saw him there was probably some vague recollection.

So, Francine Dresser takes a good look at him as he stumbles into her, knocking her and her things over in the big used car lot, and yells, “What the hell are you doing?”, questions his upbringing, and then tries to remember where it was she knew him from exactly, but then letting the feeling trail behind her with her other memories of the day.  She, finally, signs the contract for the car and, on the way out of the lot, asks herself if she’s happy with her purchase.  And at the nighttime, the summer time, with only soft cotton sheets from the 70’s, she recounts her happenings to her husband.  And then, he responds,

“It’s funny, I told that same story to a friend the other day, and he said, ‘Yeah, same thing happened to me in Rome in, I’d say, um, ‘round abouts 70 AD.’”