This is something from one year ago this week. While you're reading it, dig the groovy sounds of this hot new Modeselektor track.Just another zeitgeist. Another set of people phasing through my field of notice. Another bizarre, unmeditated conclusion. Circumstance and coincidence flash by, and everyone just parries the blows with the singular human defense of choice. So soon we all blast off again to our various futures. So quickly the moment in time slides away from my comprehension, lubricated by myriad complication.
Just another plane ticket. Another list of countries I plan to visit, gambling on the incidental enlightenment of travel. Another history washed away by my careless bookkeeping and truncated memory. I just shove all the experiences into my head, like wolves and goldfish at the dinner table. I keep hoping that I won't explode; that all the stimuli are being consolidated into meaningful knowledge in my subconscious.
I keep trudging through, ever positively aligned, hopelessly optimistic, trying to remind myself about something that's started to get a little dusty. Something filed in a dingy corner of my cobwebbed head. Maybe you could call it enthusiasm, but that's probably just symptomatic.
There's whole slew of other things crammed away back there. I cried last month. I can't remember the last time that happened. Although, to be fair, I can't remember much that's happened to me. Either way, it had been a while. But now I'm coming to identify with the cliché: once you let one loose, they all want to come out to sun. I'm getting all sorts of weird emotions these days. Little bouts of melancholy late at night. Fragile reverences for the unique people I meet. Quiet awe. Itchy fear. I've started putting my hands to my chin when I'm anxious. I swear that for a couple of years there, the only feelings I ever expressed were manic happiness and vicious anger. Now I'm drudging them all up, uncontrollably. They're probably simple, natural feelings that are only confusing to me because I didn't have them for so long.
Is there a connection somewhere? A theme? Maybe I'm not busy enough. I've got a lot of energy. I absolutely rely on it, but some view it as a problem. I just need lots of outlet. Maybe that's why I'm starting to feel. An alternative outlet. Bollocks. I'm just dwelling. Soon enough I can forget all this. Delete all the superfluous files. Names, faces, stories, situations. Back to Tom the Cool Cucumber. Leave yet another penguin of a friend to deal with the emotional baggage of yet another vulture of a girlfriend. Substitute. Mute the implications. Ignore the explanations. Avoid involvement. Forget about it. Move on. But then what do I get from leaving? Am I running? Am I just bouncing along to abscond from the responsibility of establishing lasting, meaningful relationships?
Or am I just a little too uptight? Too goddamn judgmental. I think I'm trying to make each decision carefully, while maintaining a level of respect for the concerns of others. But it's hard to keep up when people are so concerned with acquiescence to norms. Where are the checks and balances? Sometimes people gathered in groups seem so intellectually defunct. Maybe we all have to make independent conduct codes. Which, when you can clearly watch everyone go right off the deep end of global morality, means you're not so sure who's going to mentor you. But, then, I suppose this is just a moot concept, modern life being what it is. No village elders to hook you up with the info: just
a huge melange of self-interested consumers trying to con their way back into the womb. This is life in 2005. Existentialism is not really a question of choice without cultural underpinnings. Me sitting at a computer doing rambling stream of consciousness rather than knowing anyone who has the time to talk, or who even gives a fuck. And I'm no introvert. Au contraire.Anyways, I probably don't really have the time to spare to talk about it, if someone I knew had time to listen. It's not even that I have any big personal issues to discuss. I just hope my tactics of total self reliance don't turn me into a megalomaniac. It all seems so minor when I box it in like this. Meanwhile, out here, it's not just a bunch of sentences. Not just a creative writing exercise. It's a crying friend who doesn't know if she wants to talk to me again. It's a mean hangover. It's question marks all over my future. My brother and all the things left unmended. Marijuana. It's collapsing ecosystems and falling skies. It's life. So on I trudge, off to
