Having spent three days in a different environment, constantly surrounded by pleasant company and occupied by all manner of activities, I am struck by one thing on my return to normal patterns -- the blissful absence of the internal monologue, of this incessant ritual I play out for reasons that are sometimes unclear. I've occupied many pages with measured consideration of how important these discussions are to me. But, to be perfectly honest, I can't say that I missed them at all.
Friday, March 21, 2014
Monday, March 10, 2014
I'm guilty of many things, so detailing every one of them is of limited value (though this act has given the present blog many resuscitations). But the dour mood I find myself in today comes from an offense that explains some of my other behaviour, and so is worth noting: an obsession with the imagined "normality" of the salt of the earth, and a yearning to leave behind my perennial morass of idiosyncracy to join my brothers and sisters on the open plain of possibility.
No sin is without reason, and in my case, it is the years surrounded by some of the most elliptic, oblong, eccentric individuals that walk this planet. The dissatisfaction I felt in that environment made the promise of normality seem wondrous, and a cure to some of my other ailments. But, I'm saddened to report, the promise sets up only to disappoint. The reason isn't, I think, that the "normals" don't exist; it's that I have been for too long steeped in an odd diet of isolation and introspection, and so, despite my best attempts to feign otherwise, I find myself squarely in the camp of the "other".
Conforming to the majority is the absolute opposite of what most people of import practiced. But they had at their disposal better tools than I to rise above their situation, and over time change what is thought to be ordinary, usually for the better. And, perhaps, more importantly, what they refused to comprise on was, axiomatically, something they saw as valuable and worth fighting for. In my case, these points of difference are rarely the result of a reasoned, principled philosophical stance -- more typically, they are an instinctive reaction that allow me to defer the uncomfortable process of change.
And yet, for someone who claims to have shut his heart's door, I seem to take these blows pretty hard. So I think I shall continue to seek out other clubs, even if so far they've only made me seal myself off even further. Because I do not believe this particular party of one can sustain.
No sin is without reason, and in my case, it is the years surrounded by some of the most elliptic, oblong, eccentric individuals that walk this planet. The dissatisfaction I felt in that environment made the promise of normality seem wondrous, and a cure to some of my other ailments. But, I'm saddened to report, the promise sets up only to disappoint. The reason isn't, I think, that the "normals" don't exist; it's that I have been for too long steeped in an odd diet of isolation and introspection, and so, despite my best attempts to feign otherwise, I find myself squarely in the camp of the "other".
Conforming to the majority is the absolute opposite of what most people of import practiced. But they had at their disposal better tools than I to rise above their situation, and over time change what is thought to be ordinary, usually for the better. And, perhaps, more importantly, what they refused to comprise on was, axiomatically, something they saw as valuable and worth fighting for. In my case, these points of difference are rarely the result of a reasoned, principled philosophical stance -- more typically, they are an instinctive reaction that allow me to defer the uncomfortable process of change.
And yet, for someone who claims to have shut his heart's door, I seem to take these blows pretty hard. So I think I shall continue to seek out other clubs, even if so far they've only made me seal myself off even further. Because I do not believe this particular party of one can sustain.
Sunday, March 09, 2014
Memories
David McComb is at his best, and with each lyric it's as though I'm easing myself into the warm ocean. I'm no longer in this room, this world, this universe. Everything I have experienced I feel again in one instant. The sun's under eclipse, but there is nothing I need see anymore. Lying in this ocean of ceaseless calm, I have no more need. If he speaks one more word, I may never come back. My life hangs on the next syllable, and the universe trembles in anticipation.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
