return void

---

Hello.

I want you- I would like for you to engage in an experiment with me.

...

Oh, wait, sorry.

Let's begin.

Now. The experiment.

Suppose you are walking down the steps in your house - carpeted, they are, with fuzzy rounded ends that are possibly quite finicky to vacuum, only you don't bother, of course you don't. It's not worth the trouble. They serve their purpose well enough without being cleaned.

A tangent. Irrelevant. You are walking down the steps, right. And if you stopped looking, you would continue on and fumble at the landing, or the floor, because you might expect there to be more steps, but there aren't.

There is a platform, however. There is something to stand on. Quite literally, you can ground yourself.

You won't fall. You will have successfully traveled from Point A to Point B without overlarge upset.

And when you went, when you started down the steps, did you think about why?

Depending on where you spend most of your time, I don't think most of us associate that quintessential forgetfulness, that absolute void space in your memory, of being entirely absolved of the reason why you came, with going downstairs. Only up.

Now, when you go up the stairs, your only danger is falling backwards. That's a separate experiment. We still haven't concluded ours.

Recall that feeling of being jolted senseless by the presence of the landing, a docking pre-preparation on the ground floor. You may also recall the feeling of climbing into your bed and suddenly losing the solidity of frame beneath your back.

Why are you falling?

Compose the entirety of the staircase in your mind. Set it up.

Walk down.

Keep walking.

Keep walking.

Keep walking.

Now. What if I told you that at the bottom of the steps, there was nothing?

Keep walking.

That you wouldn't find the floor?

Keep walking.

That every normative belief you hold, every hold you take upon your precious belief in norms, will vanish?

Keep walking.

You believe that you'll survive anyway, don't you?

Keep walking.

You believe that you are the only one who knows what's real, don't you?

Keep walking.

You expect me to tell you to stop, don't you?

Keep walking.

You expect me to disappear like a particularly annoying cautionary apparation of a gnat, don't you?

Keep walking.

You expect that everything will be worth it after you've done with, don't you?

Keep walking.