RHINEHART, Luke

The Diceman

…..
What if the sense of being someone represents an evolutionary error as disastrous to the further development of a more complex creature as was the shell for snails or turtles?

He he he. What if? indeed: men must attempt to eliminate the error and develop in themselves and their children liberation from the sense of self. Man must become comfortable in flowing from one role to another, one set of values to another, one life to another. Men must be free from boundaries, patterns and consistencies in order to be free to think, feel and create in new ways. Men have admired Prometheus and Mars too long; our God must become Proteus.

…..
"What if your feeling that all desires are unreliable and all belief illusions is right, is the mature, valid vision of reality, and the rest of men are living under illusions which your experience has permitted you to shed?"

"Of course, that's what I think," she said.

"Then why not act upon your belief?"

The smile left her face and she frowned, still not looking at me.

"What do you mean?"

"Treat all of your desires as if they had equal value and each of your beliefs as if it were as much an illusion as the next."

"How?"

"Stop trying to create a pattern, a personality; just do whatever you feel like."

"But I don't feel like doing anything; that's the trouble."

"That's because you're letting one desire, the desire to believe strongly and be a clearly defined person, inhibit the rest of your various desires."

"Maybe, but I don't see how I can change it."

"Become a dice person."

…..
To change man, the audience by which he judges himself must be changed. A man is defined by his audience: by the people, institutions, authors, magazines, movie heroes, philosophers by whom he pictures himself being cheered and booed. Major psychological disturbances, 'identity crises', are caused when an individual begins to change the audience for whom he plays: from parents to peers; from peers to the works of Albert Camus; from the Bible to Hugh Hefner.

…..