I was speaking to a white man with a beard in a kitchen, who was offering me some brandy and an energy drink.
me: "What is your name?"beard man: "Gladwell."
me: "Have we ever spoken before?"
beard man: "Yes, we speak pretty much every day."
me: "Uh...what did we talk about last?"
beard man: "You were speaking about becoming one with Mickey Mouse."
There was a strange almost awakening, but ended up back in the same kitchen...this time talking to a black man, who introduced himself to me as Gladwell. He was fiddling around, putting some stuff in the microwave.
me: "Wait. You weren't black before. Are you the same person I was talking to before?"black man: (sigh) "I really don't know how I can answer that question."
me: "Why don't you just say what comes to mind and I'll try and interpret it?"
black man: "Okay. 'this is not a word', said the sensei."
me: "Uh...okay...so you think the question has no meaning. Does it only have no meaning when applied to you? Am *I* a person?"
Another strange almost-awakening reset the situation to the kitchen again, this time the beard man was there. He told some people around that I was back, and that I had more questions.
me: "So...my question never got answered. Am *I* a person?"beard man: "No, you're not, because *I* am."
me: "Are you being contradictory in order to unask the question?"
beard man: "Un-ask? Oh. Hm. Yes, that's very good."
me: "What do you know about the mechanism by which I got here?"
beard man: "Got 'here' from 'where'?"
me: "From Earth."
beard man: "Why do you keep talking about 'Earth'?"
me: "Well, what would *you* call it?"
beard man: "Pointer offset to pointer delta. Or more essentially 'pointer outside'"
(Note: It is curious to read upon awakening that the very famous journalist Malcolm Gladwell had a white father and a black mother...)
