Decader Projection
I don't want to write today. I've left the post to the last possible hour. I feel like I could avoid posting to the blog altogether.
Maybe I'm withdrawing. Withdrawing from society. Withdrawing from the Internets. Withdrawing from heroin.
No, no, no. Not withdrawing from heroin.
I've never done heroin - not that I recall anyway. I suppose it is possible that in some drunken black-out or other I could have done heroin, but I don't think I did. I think that's the kind of thing you remember. I think I did smoke opium once though, long ago. I have a vague drunken memory of some party-guru, surrounded by his Yes Men, offering me a very unwieldy wooden pipe and I took an unpleasant, spit-soaked hit from it and then...that's all I remember. It's not unlikely that I threw up in the next hour. It kind of rings a bell. But then the memory could be blurring with scores of other identical nights.
The twenties are horrible. No one should have to do the twenties. The teens are no picnic, of course, but the twenties are really a nightmare. At least, in your teens, everything is new and fresh and very strange and even the most mundane experiences take on the thrill of a sci-fi odyssey. By the time you reach the mid-twenties - or by the time I did anyway (I realize I speak entirely for myself and that there are many who look back on their twenties, or are currently experiencing them, as the best years of their lives - Good on them!) - that newness has worn off things and life starts to become familiar. And for some of us, familiarity breeds not contempt - but utter terror and dread. So we set about trying to create something new, trying to spice up the settling in fog of familiarity and normality and calm with frantic activity and odd risk-taking binges that have no purpose other than to cause complications for our hero. Hellish.
Fortunately - and unexpectedly - I was kicked off that train - like Thomas A. Edison, grabbed by the ears and thrown headlong out.
...which has allowed my 30's to happen. And the 30's, well, I think this is what I was looking for.
My life is interesting to me, which is a wonderful, wonderful thing. One of the most wretched feelings I can remember is being not interested in anything - bored - not even slightly interested in any happening in my life, or in the lives of others. I suppose that was a symptom of depression. Today, things are a very different color. Things interest me.
The sky interests me. Wood interests me. How phlegm forms interests me. The manner and experience of my imminent death interests me. Whether global warming or military misadventure will do us all in interests me. My present irrational, seething rage at my wife's repeated loud sniffing (she's getting a cold) interests me. Form and emptiness interest me. I'm fully in my life now. I no longer have to prepare for it, I'm not quite old enough to regret it - not much of it anyway - and so there is nothing to do but lean back, stay relaxed, and take the strange parade in.
And very strange it is. Very strange. And interesting.
I wonder what will happen.
There she goes again with that sniffing.
Maybe I'm withdrawing. Withdrawing from society. Withdrawing from the Internets. Withdrawing from heroin.
No, no, no. Not withdrawing from heroin.I've never done heroin - not that I recall anyway. I suppose it is possible that in some drunken black-out or other I could have done heroin, but I don't think I did. I think that's the kind of thing you remember. I think I did smoke opium once though, long ago. I have a vague drunken memory of some party-guru, surrounded by his Yes Men, offering me a very unwieldy wooden pipe and I took an unpleasant, spit-soaked hit from it and then...that's all I remember. It's not unlikely that I threw up in the next hour. It kind of rings a bell. But then the memory could be blurring with scores of other identical nights.
The twenties are horrible. No one should have to do the twenties. The teens are no picnic, of course, but the twenties are really a nightmare. At least, in your teens, everything is new and fresh and very strange and even the most mundane experiences take on the thrill of a sci-fi odyssey. By the time you reach the mid-twenties - or by the time I did anyway (I realize I speak entirely for myself and that there are many who look back on their twenties, or are currently experiencing them, as the best years of their lives - Good on them!) - that newness has worn off things and life starts to become familiar. And for some of us, familiarity breeds not contempt - but utter terror and dread. So we set about trying to create something new, trying to spice up the settling in fog of familiarity and normality and calm with frantic activity and odd risk-taking binges that have no purpose other than to cause complications for our hero. Hellish.
Fortunately - and unexpectedly - I was kicked off that train - like Thomas A. Edison, grabbed by the ears and thrown headlong out.
...which has allowed my 30's to happen. And the 30's, well, I think this is what I was looking for.
My life is interesting to me, which is a wonderful, wonderful thing. One of the most wretched feelings I can remember is being not interested in anything - bored - not even slightly interested in any happening in my life, or in the lives of others. I suppose that was a symptom of depression. Today, things are a very different color. Things interest me.
The sky interests me. Wood interests me. How phlegm forms interests me. The manner and experience of my imminent death interests me. Whether global warming or military misadventure will do us all in interests me. My present irrational, seething rage at my wife's repeated loud sniffing (she's getting a cold) interests me. Form and emptiness interest me. I'm fully in my life now. I no longer have to prepare for it, I'm not quite old enough to regret it - not much of it anyway - and so there is nothing to do but lean back, stay relaxed, and take the strange parade in.
And very strange it is. Very strange. And interesting.
I wonder what will happen.
There she goes again with that sniffing.
posted at 5:11 AM - permalink
