Before the great sleep, my mind tells me it is awake and that it is ready to conquer anything I should throw at it. What you see are the feeble attempts at capturing that, mostly unsuccessful. Try as I might to capture the mood, they are often escaped. I can only hope they intend to visit someone else's dreams.

Back when I was learning how to become both a collector and a snob, I had invented several now-ridiculous rules regarding how and when it was ok to consume an album. Recalling them brings waves of embarrassment, but I would be remiss to not offer one example -- that the album is, minimally, a work of art, and one that demands utmost attention. Being lyrically minded, this in particular meant hanging on every syllable, parsing every intonation, decoding every reference, and of course, collecting the best turns of phrase for a purpose I knew existed, even if I didn't know what it was at the time.

It may not surprise that this meant a great many albums were purchased on the advice of my guides and teachers, but were listened to once, and shelved after I had concluded that they required a mood or point of view that I did not possess at the time of listening. Not wishing to disrespect the artist, I of course did not want to project my own deficiencies onto their work -- thus, they were saved up for a time when I did have the means to fully understand them.

That time is now, apparently. Whenever I encounter one of these albums from nearly a decade ago, collecting dust but always a reminder of a certain failure in my appreciation skills, I now see it as a challenge that must be bested -- my credentials depend on it. Having taken up a few of these challenges now, I am very pleasantly surprised to report that the value and merit of these works is largely unaffected by the hang-ups I've imposed on it. How blessed I am that great, and even good art, doesn't have an expiry date.

A corollary is that another class of albums -- those I saw something powerful in, but consumed only a few times in fear of the power overwhelming me -- are also ripe for rediscovery. I'm now starting to think that some of them may even be as good as I remember wanting them to be. On the one hand, this is all great news. On the other hand, I worry what this says about the hundreds of carefully considered records I've conquered over the past few years. Might the day come when I decide that I never really listened to them in the first place? But I shouldn't be surprised were this to unfold. I've always believed that my tastes were well-formed and my own, even when they were wildly changing; as Lou would say, belief is never sure.

Time Out Of Mind

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.

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.

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.

Slacker

Of my voyueristic subjects, I think the slacker is one I have a particular weakness for. How at odds with the company of highly motivated and passionate folk I spend most of my time with. In the spirit of sweeping statements that I don't have to make good on, permit me the following: if you removed all incentives and societal expectations, and asked me what I wanted to do with my time, well. Sprawled on the couch, a book always within reach, the headphones playing the comforting sound of country and western. I suppose writing every once in a while, if I could stand the stress of introversion, and the reminder of failure from these ventures never really amounting to anything. (As for why they persist, well, at least there's commitment to failure.)

But I stress voyueristic. Because I seem unable to cope with the real thing. When I go through it myself, I get a crushing sense of uselessness. Is it the inability to let go the shackles of expectation that have controlled nearly every decision up till this point? Or is it, more simply, the pretty fantasy colliding head-on with the slab of reality I seem so keen to escape? As with most personal experiences, it's hard to disentangle everything, and so all hope may seem lost. But. When I see it in others, whose life course bears no impact on mine, I must admit feeling that it is the latter. I can't help but feel I am witness to a life unfolding before my eyes, squandered to no end.

Time is fixed, but what we do with it isn't. I don't know what we're meant to be doing. But nothing, tempting as it is, doesn't seem the likely answer.

Blue and Grey Shirt

As a pleasant respite from the usual pattern of my processes, I've found myself looking back on certain times from the past few years with, dare I say it, nostalgia. Now that's something I never saw coming. In my defense, I never thought I'd find myself here in the first place; I imagined the experience was the sum total of existence itself, and that its conclusion may as well never happen, because it's not as though I'd be around to appreciate the freedom.

Anyhow, one lesson today is simply what Joni Mitchell famously sang about. It may even be a statement of the tenacity of the heart: even when what I had was barely worth calling a life, it seems that some things were still able to move me. Were it possible to pick out the greatest hits, I suppose near any life might seem not so bad. True enough, taking too much out of this is the likely cause of innumerable bad decisions, made out of simplified nostalgia and the belief that life can always be better. But I'm not claiming anything more than what I've been feeling: as a whole, things were probably as bad as I remember, but that doesn't mean there weren't things to hold on to.

All of which is warming, but I hope that it's a lesson I don't need to be taught too many more times in the future. I'm tired of a life that's just a series of goodbyes, of doors to other hearts shut because my restless spirit demands wandering. And yet I seem unwilling to do what is required to make that not so -- unpack the flag, set it down, and call someplace home. I'll admit there's something vaguely poetic about carrying on as an eternal wandered, stopping ever so often to write fondly about people that are gone. But sometimes I don't like poetry much at all.

1) Elliott Smith, "Can't Make a Sound". The effective closer to probably Smith's weakest album has always been arresting because of the melody and sound, but to me the lyrics have never been more than merely fitting to the mood. After returning to it several times, I think I've now determined how my senses choose to interpret them -- the repeated last line is surely not to the one thing found, but a mocking question to the narrator himself. As it happens, a question I've had to ask of late, hence this missive. Songs like these remind me why I'm happy to have a weakness for the melancholy -- while I understand the (critical) majority's distaste for the style, if you happen to be afflicted with a pensive persona, it isn't always easy to wish away the shades of pale that sometimes cross the mind. Having this struggle expressed by someone else does, at the end of the day, offer solace in that your struggle is by no means unique. Sometimes it also offers hope, which Smith does to an extent (treating the circumstances of his exit as accidental). Of course, all of this knowledge is only any good if you can do something with it; but until you name your foe, you have no chance of besting him.

Happy Boys Happy

I think I've collected enough data to conclude that on the inside, I'm still not far from a precipice, and that it doesn't take much to make me peer over the edge. Old lesson, but it bears repeating: serenity is best measured when things aren't going well. But this is not to imply that what I've been experiencing prior to this point is illusory, or naive: just that more is needed to truly consider myself far from the edge. Given the circumstances of the latest recurrence, I'd have to begrudgingly admit that they probably would not have come up had I decided to do something else with my time. But things don't seem as hopeless as they used to. Because I'm genuinely optimistic that in the long term, this gig will do me some good. In the off chance it doesn't, there'll be no stopping me from saying goodbye to this path once and for all, and find something more within my capacity.

In principle, I quite admire you, the informed contrarian. But in practice, it seems to invite a complete disregard for empathy, which I admire less. My every experience is reduced to the unremarkable result of some set of equations and principles that operated without me knowing. There's the implicit belief (and don't you try to deny it) that this diminishes the experience. Whether or not it is true, I simply don't care. Instead of trying to arrive at these dismal conclusions, how about relating to the person? Marvelling at the arc of their story? That's why, to me, you don't understand anything about the world at all, or at least not the one I occupy, and wish on others. Your universe, whose uninvitingness you mistake as a certificate of authenticity, is a wretched place. We all may be dirt in the ground at the end, I don't deny that. But you are not alone in feeling pity. Yours is based on a jaundiced view of the world. Mine is based on the belief that happiness is not something that needs to be justified.