Tuesday 11/03/2026
Laundry day. I had it all done by10:30. While the wash was running, I wrote something for the writers group. I’ll post it below.
After that and lunch, I edited one video, the book talk by Prof. Gould (see yesterday). And I started editing a second, but it was a much more complex job and I didn’t finish.
After supper I went to the movie of the month, Double Indemnity, the classic film-noir movie. It was OK. I think Joanne liked it better than I did.
Neighbor Rob had set up this web site to display election results of interest to us (Palo Alto offices, local measures, state offices and so forth). So right after the movie we swapped that in to show on the big projector. But it wasn’t fully baked yet, and after an hour we gave up and shut down.
The writers prompt this time was, Assume there is a next life and you have some control over it. Who will you be, what will you do?” I thought I would play around with that. I told Joanne I had “a ghost of an idea.” Which I did, presenting this under the title, Ghost Life.
I could write a treatise on the physics of ectoplasm. Well, no, I couldn’t, as there is no way to write, or to do anything with a physical consequence. That’s the thing about ectoplasm: it doesn’t interact with solid stuff. So no pencil-pushing for me now, nor keyboard tappy-taps. Point one: Ectoplasm is the congealed essence of futility.
This I quickly discovered as I drifted away from the wretched hulk of the body that I had occupied so long. What? I thought in astonishment; I’m a ghost? Arms and legs and, it feels like, a thorax with a head on top. I can kind of see my translucent appendages and wave them about, and vaguely feel them waving, but where they intersect anything, they pass through. Including each other; hand-wringing is out because my hands don’t grip; they just wave through each other.
Yet I can walk, sort of. At least, I can turn, by casting my attention to a different angle, and when I form the intention “walk”, I progress that direction.
Quickly I noticed the crowds around me. So many, many semi-transparent people, walking around in all directions, passing through walls, through the bed and the nurse who was straightening my late habitation, and through each other.
“Hey!” I said, or tried to say, as a chubby chap strode through me, and onward without any reaction. There were people walking upside down on the ceiling, and people half-submerged in the floor, people progressing at all angles through the space.
I quickly learned that physical surfaces were merely suggestions to ectoplasmic humans, or ghosts. I could walk along on any surface, or I could imagine a surface, curved or flat, at any orientation, and walk along it.
But there are always crowds. Perhaps an hour along I sank in on me: Oh, duh! Of course there are so many! If every human who ever lived is still here as an ectoplasmic body, why the earth must be miles deep with us!
As days passed I learned that amusements among the ectoplasmic hordes are few. Voyeurism quickly palls, when you can’t take part in the fun.There’s Doubling, which is where you try to occupy exactly the same volume as another person, and move as they move, until they get annoyed and run away.There’s exploration, where you walk around Everest or into the Marianas Trench or wherever. Or you can imagine a path into the earth and walk down to check out the core, but there’s no light, and few ever go more than a few miles in.
Eventually all these meager amusements pall, and you begin the Long Walk. That’s why the Earth is not miles deep in ghosts after all. Once you’ve walked every continent, escape lies only that-a-way, for pretty much any way you care to point. You imagine a line that points toward Saturn, or toward Betelgeuse. And you start walking.
