The Usual
The larger arc of my life has been in a state of stagnancy for some time now, and I’ve gotten quite tired of writing about it. This occurred to me just this week while I was sitting on my back porch having a cigarette and pondering my state of affairs - I was reflecting quite negatively on how little I have written anything remotely related to recently, and even knowing this, I have had such little urge to write... and then it dawned on me. Well of course! Relative stagnancy has been my state of being, and I have covered that. I have thought through that and written that in every way - the sea of gray, the circle mire, the spiral cycle. I’ve been through it; I’ve covered it; I’VE FUCKING EXTRAPOLATED!!!! I’ve taken it everywhere it can go and yet after each journey here I am again - back in the same place, waiting for the next ride with the same concept to take me on a mundane adjacent journey. Well, of course. The state is stagnancy and I’m repetitive even within that parameter. So how could I be inspired?_______________________________________________________________________
Well I should say... you don’t have to be inspired to write if you have real discipline. Perhaps. But fuck man, even real discipline breaks down when a ship’s been too long in the doldrums and the food and water are running dry, tobacco and grog long gone.
So maybe you don’t need inspiration to write just like you don’t need wind to sail. I also must note, inspiration does not have to lend itself to cliche - it’s not just love anew or travel afar or big big life change, although those things are certainly nice (read: effective) - it can be highs or it can be lows... That is to say while walking the streets of Tokyo in the morning rain is a sure thing, it can also be heavy depression; it can be regretful depravity; it can be a near brush with madness. The point is stagnancy and mundane routine do not lend themselves to inspiration. The myriad possibilities that do lend themselves all share a few qualities, namely, they are something quite different from the daily drone, and they are generally meaningful. A la, reckoning with your shortcomings in life thus far on a cold lonely winter night in the dark is not so fun, but it just may be inspiring. Another day in front of the computer screen peforming mundane tasks for a paycheck is less of a struggle, but it is certainly not inspiring. While you may end up writing a piece, or at least making a change, after the cold night of fervent stirring, the easier monotony lends itself to an evening of TV dinner and mindless scroll before bedtime.
ANOMALY! ILLUSION! MONSTER! GHOST! or... it just be
Lately (always) -
It’s an absurd time to be alive. Life used to be much harder, but certainly less confusing. Now it is a constant deluge - information overload is cliche only because we don’t really consider what we mean by information. So fuck that word for the time being. What I mean is this - we have a magic rectangle in our pockets that talks to us, that feeds us through a screen where we see a bizarre combination of our peers and people we’ll never know posting pictures, and videos, and glimpses of their lives or of some strange distorted version thereof. We are constantly aware of what is happening in far flung corners of the world, and all of the horrible things that are happening within our own - we get regular updates, the moment they are available, without a thought to contextualization or what may come after. Earlier today I was taking a shit in the horror that is the modern office bathroom stall, and I read that a six year old girl and her father and maybe some others had been shot for running into their neighbor’s yard to retreive a basketball. It’s a fucking tragedy. But how did I hear about it while I was taking a shit? Did a fellow drone in the stall next to me shout through the wall? Did an alarm bell ring from the ceiling followed by an announcement from the proctor? No - I was, of course, distracting myself from the supreme displeasure of shitting in a foreign bathroom when the update was beamed into my rectangle. And, of course, I couldn’t resist reading because there it was - THROUGH A SERIES OF HAPHAZARD MOVEMENTS AND MOMENTS - the absolute horror thrown into my face while I was in a place I rather wouldn’t be. I’m like a fish in the sea watching that worm dance on the hook - I know it’s bad, bad, bad for me, but I’ll bite every time.
So it’s important to have a ha ha. For me, this is best with friends, but friends are not always present. So then alone it can be something like this - I am ANGRY. Life is a bunch of bullshit, and I am working a job I do not like, and I am tired, and, well... I felt a stupid rage rising in me - THIS DUMB FUCK, CAUSED ME, TO MISS THE LIGHT! The fucking audacity. I had planned for all this - I had set my alarm and I had risen against my will and I had hit the road to be into the office early - really get some work done with no distractions, and with no traffic on the way in! What a dream. And then here’s this evil bastard - no regard for anything and nowhere to be. He pulled out in front of me without a thought and ambled toward the intersection at the pace of a fat gelatinous slug drunk and oozing after gorging itself on the meticulously planted garden... and then he ambled on through the yellow light and left me there at the red - LIKE AN IDIOT! LIKE A BITCH!! LIKE A PUNY LITTLE ORPHAN BOY!!!
“MAY I HAVE SOME MORE SIR!?”
I screamed at the sky alone in my grandmother’s old car.
“AND SHOULD I JUST SUCK YOUR DICK WHILE I’M AT IT!!??”
A stupid, impotent rage alone in the peaceful purple dawn.
.....right, so it’s at that moment that I have a little laugh at myself. Funny, no?
Ok so admittedly it’s niche content. Better to stick to laughs with friends perhaps; see below.
Below are assorted photographs from recent times I compiled them and then I reflected on them and I realized
I don’t let myself feel joy, do I?
ha, ha, ha!
So I been to Key West a couple times, on down to Mexico twice though I don’t really count either as Mexico, but one was on a big all-inclusive ship moving about the Gulf, and the other was in a beautiful all-inclusive resort sitting within Cancun... and then there was also a winter weekend in the Outer Banks looking out at my beloved home ocean in her best season. And then of course there’s all the things in between in which you find the little pieces of good, or at least interesting. There is my low light jungle cave home dwelling that I do so love at times. There are the vast woodlands hidden between the hubs of civilization that I frequent for work, the only good part of my work. And there are the odd scenes along the road that appear out of the void and melt away just as quickly... I like collections like these because they capture just that once put together - the fleeting moments are so easy to forget individually, but collectively, they make much of a life.
