Thursday, December 29, 2011

A Musing

Well, since it has been almost an entire year since I posted something on this blargh, I should probably update it. Seeing as how I'm graduated and all now, it shouldn't be too hard to post something every couple of days, yeah? So here's this rambly thing I wrote last night at 2 A.M. after standing out in the wind in my pajamas and slippers for twenty minutes. It's emo tripe as far as I'm concerned, but it did have the remarkable side effect of breaking the case of creative writer's block I've had since the tail end of last summer.

Emotional rambly tripe follows:

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These scribblings and ramblings that I write, they are not art, no form of literature. No, rather they are the musing of one who oft wakes from blister-packed dreams, pixellated hope, and a blindness to the world that can only be brought about by technology. Though I see sights international, riots and revolutions, sins and scandals from Oklahoma to Oman, Louisiana to Libya, I do NOT see the beauty in my own back yard. A thousand explosions of light and sound scream at me from LCD screens and Dolby Surround speakers, but only when the power goes out do I stop...

Stand on the rim of a dry fountain

And listen to the wind, feel it wrap around me, ripping through my clothing and folding the cloth about me like the sail of a foundering ship. The wind is my friend, and as I stand there, I am a lord of storms. None can truly take the wind from me: North, South, East, West, these are not the wind, not all of them. Even if I were shut in a sightless pit, the wind passes through me.

In. Out.

Breathe.

In. Out.

A chain of lights in hibernating trees. Two lovers holding each other up against the attacks of the Aeolian and the Alcoholic. The terrific gusts knocking down Christmas decorations left up a day too long.

Do I join them?

No.

I belong with the wind. Maybe some time I can drift among the trees, race across the grasses and wheat fields of the Palouse, skim the rims and ridges of indifferent buildings, shops and apartments and hospitals and bars and

EXPLODE

into thin air, swirling madly about, not caring who sees or what they think. I will be the wind, not a batty twenty-something who cleans toilets and drives a bus.

Not someone who, to escape the mundane of the "real" world, inundates himself with the fake smiles and colored lights of the immortal, immaterial, digital frontier. The dragon slaying, the laser rifles, the fireballs and time travel and nanomachines and Elves... I make my home away from reality amongst these. But these are worlds men are not meant to stay in. Not for long.

Not when I could, without removing myself and sequestering my thoughts outside my mind so I cannot hear them, or worse, let them hear me, find the "real." Not when, because of my infatuation with the Information Age, I can't see the beauty of the world. All the imaginary worlds crammed into my mind obscure the real world, art imitating life, art replacing life, art destroying life.

Let's play pretend, you and I. I'll be the Hero, you be the dragon, okay? And she can be the Princess.

Oddly, sometimes I feel like the Princess. And no, that's not a statement about sexuality, that's a moment of empathy I'm having with the endangered dames, the damsels in distress. Like them, I'm waiting for something.

What, though? Something I'm not sure is coming? Ever?

Maybe, as I start another paragraph of this rant and another metaphorical page in my life, the problem, and I start with a maybe because the uncertainty is a part of this as well, maybe I don't even know what exactly it is I'm looking for. I hear drunken laughter from the flat next door. The two lovers have gone home, laughing and swearing and listening to Rush songs at a hundred and twenty decibels. And they are terrible at karaoke.

Is that what I want? Do I offer up prayers for that kind of companionship? Someone I can sing poorly with and they won't mind the botched harmony because it's me singing it? Someone who blurs my troubles away, more with kindness than with distilled spirits? To be able to grab a quilt and lie down on the couch with them and just... listen to the wind?

Like the wind itself, that might blow me away.

But.

There's always a but.

Is that what I'm looking for? What I want... what I want right now is for the lovely couple who lives next door to turn their music down so I can hear my own thoughts, let them hear me, and hear the wind sing me to sleep. I'm not a lord of storms, as cool as that would be. I'm just another guy, done with the education he was expected to complete, and yet, finding that he's learned only that he knows nothing, really, and that his head's as empty as the street outside his window.

Empty, except for the wind sweeping through it at the speed of thought, carrying with it dreams and new ideas for my own little make-believe worlds.

...wow, this really sounds emo. But writing it down made me feel better. That's the definition of catharsis, is it not?

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And now, for something completely different! BATMAN IS A BRONY. YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-I_qMofiQisI/TvpBy6vFehI/AAAAAAAAZbM/qJi-9_iY9Sk/s1600/104094+-+artist+john_joseco+Batman+dc_comics+luna.jpg

Art by the legendary John Joseco

2 comments:

  1. I disagree. I think this is art, and very good literature. Not every person can explain the human condition of loneliness, and the empty longing that the material things of this world bring. Even though they're made to fill those voids, they don't. Not with the way God designed us. The only thing that wasn't good in the garden was that Adam was alone. :) This is beautiful, and made me cry!

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  2. Not that I might be a judge of good literature... But it was very good nonetheless. :P

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