The purpose of human existence is to send out impulses to influence the environment and people where one exists, and feed upon what is received in return. This is growth, and this is where we grasp our identification and validation. What is the measure of what one feeds upon? It is one's expanding essence of existence. And what crop is one growing? Who are you feeding? The foods you eat influence what you eventually constitutionally become. Who are you creating? And most importantly, who is creating you?

For example, in relationships, the sad state of unrequited affection, fascination or desire, is the knowledge that the person you like is not eating from you whilst you eat from them, for indeed this is the selection of responses into 'like' and 'not like' in both senses of the word [like as in similar to, and like as inclined towards].

You can sense who likes you from noting if they are becoming like you, falling into forms of you, as you are falling into theirs ? how you turn their heads round, feed into their brain processes, how you incline them to make certain decisions, how they follow your express or implied or inferred paths of reasoning. [Hence, I really do not believe that opposites attract, and what I mean is opposites beneath appearances, true elemental opposites, or last very long in their attraction, unless one person is surely suffering and being overwhelmed by the other, which is not very pleasant to contemplate].

I think players are people following different paths, juggling opportunities and judgments, refusing to be influenced, fighting for their sovereignty and suffering the paranoid hesitation to being overwhelmed by influence [Hence is suppose every player has a past of being overwhelmed] whilst they wear their many faces.

Inspiration. This is what the meal is. Which is why there are long term and short term inspirations ? fascinations ? inclinations. And the capturing attention is indeed an art. Who and what captures your attention? Whose attention do you capture? For you are feeding, and being fed.

The people you like are the people you identify with despite your appearances, because they are who you are, or who you think you are like.

Things you think people do are things you have done, there is a general feeling of perception in the world you control and you want the people in your world to comply and conform with your definitions of rationality and irrationality, good and evil, et cetera, and you feed on these individuals to derive and confirm your definitions of everything you believe in.

18th June, 2004

Natasha Ashwe is a poet and a writer. She was born in Kingston, Ontario, and she currently resides in Nigeria where she is at university studying law. She loves music, art, and philosophy.