A fripple and trickle
Hmmm. It’s funny how often these little epiphanies hit me. And because I am maybe senile, or I just forget and stop caring, I rarely pen err…I mean type them up. I complain a lot about technology being the bane of human communication, but I definitely do much better writing with a type writer…Or computer, because erasing is much easier than with an old or even newer word processing machine.
I was considering what two people had written lately. And how the tone of their posts seemed ingrained into some kind of melancholy because life had finally settled down into a pattern of sorts. It struck me pretty intensely that people are never really that inspired to be great unless they are immersed in shit. Literal or figurative. Like when I spent a good deal of time in the basement on Wayne St in JC, I kept dreaming of getting the hell out of there. The mold in the walls, the floors that were falling apart, made a perfect recipe for a pretty well imagined and well honed fantasy future life. Get me the hell out of here and I will be famous I promised myself. Get me out of here and give me some sun, I kept telling everyone else. And it has made a world of difference, changed how I see a lot of things to have some sunlight in the morning to hit my face…to have the ability to open my window up and breathe the clean air. Ok, not clean exactly, but better than the cobwebbed wonderland outside my windows in JC, and certainly better than the complete lack of windows on Meeker ave.
Why is it that being miserable is such an intense inspiration, and mediocrity is a boring propagation though? Someone wrote recently about not being able to live an un-dramatic life because it seemed wrong. It takes me back to that whole deserving thing…do you feel that you deserve a happy life? Is an even perceived happy life better than an un-dramatic and raging confusion of a life? I’m confused about this actually, because it feels as if I might suffer from the same affliction. Perhaps it is an affliction of being bored…that needing drama to fuel some energy back in feels natural. But maybe happiness is just a fleeting thing, changing shapes and forms more often than we can keep up with. Do you need to feel stressed and maniacal to want to change things in your life? Do you have to be at the literal end of your sanity to dream of a good life?
I don’t necessarily think that this is a true statement for everyone, but I do believe that this affliction is what is normally referred to as apathy. Does apathy have a way to fuel you smiling through life? Do your dreams of living in a foreign country or up and packing off dependent on being completely miserable before you are able to act?
I think that this might be the problem with becoming, or settling into this idea of adulthood, and might coincide with explaining why America is just sitting on its proverbial butt, doing a lot of nothing to change what should be everything. Have the literal number or assortment of problems gotten so big and so plentiful that living a normal projected simple life is enough to make us all sit on our rears and get old. Is this what broken dreams are made of?
One thing I do know. People who really do succeed in life don’t let themselves get bogged down in forced mediocrity. They don’t reach the plateau of normalcy and just stop. I suspect that they keep going and going and going. Not forever and ever. But up until a point when the apathy is but an afterthought to what is really important.
AMEN. amen sistuh.
Someone wrote recently about not being able to live an un-dramatic life because it seemed wrong. It takes me back to that whole deserving thing…do you feel that you deserve a happy life? Is an even perceived happy life better than an un-dramatic and raging confusion of a life? I’m confused about this actually, because it feels as if I might suffer from the same affliction. Perhaps it is an affliction of being bored…that needing drama to fuel some energy back in feels natural. But maybe happiness is just a fleeting thing, changing shapes and forms more often than we can keep up with. Do you need to feel stressed and maniacal to want to change things in your life? Do you have to be at the literal end of your sanity to dream of a good life?
Some studies show that people who have experienced trauma (of any kind, not just being abused, etc.) can get sort of “addicted” to being overstimulated (emotionally, physically, mentally). They end up unconsiously seeking out all kinds of excessive stimulation (whether in the form of drama, conflict, that “rush” of danger / risk-taking, physical pain, etc.) because they have to compulsively re-create the feeling of emotional overload caused during the original trauma(s). Sometimes the drive to re-create it is just that, and other times it is a drive to re-create as an attempt to gain mastery over the feeling of being overstimulated.
Oh Christ. Shut my brain off, please. 😛
XOXO
Homolicious me.
PS: Having re-read the paragraph I just typed, I feel totally dildonic. I am going to stick myself in bed now.
I think you’re on to something there. I was freaking out a bit yesterday about the current political climate and how things are looking to get ugly really fast. and on that same note things will, and will have to get really fucking scary (think Nazi Germany) before ppl do stand up to do something about it. Our computer guru friend says, “this is start of much longer problem
stay quiet
teach children in basement
be ready to run anytime
do not even TRY to fight in this phase”
hmmm.
I’m not sure if that do not even try to fight advisement is something that should be followed succinctly. I think we would be far and away from this issue if people did stand up and fight. And eventually sometime it might be necessary no matter where you stand…or try to hide.
Thinking about this reminds me of something I plan on writing today.
There’s an old saying that if you drop a frog into hot water, it will jump out, but if you drop it in tepid water and then slowly heat the water, it will just acclimate to the changes in temperature until it’s too late to save itself. I think that’s what happens with so many people – they get into a nice situation, and don’t want to leave it, even when it slowly starts to become worse and worse, until it’s too late. It’s easier to not do anything or adjust than to change yourself or your situation. It’s easier to change your dream than to live it.
Those of us who have had to change our situation, due to whatever – usually trauma – tend to feel stressed anyways, so the urge to jump is there already. 🙂
(PS – Hi. I’m a friend of hypallagefever. Found you from one of her recent posts. 🙂
hello sevenjades. I saw your link through Francis’ a few days ago. So HI!
anyways…I think you are right about that. The statement reminds me of a conversation I had last night, on the edge of intoxication. There is a blanket of complacency, which we might also name ignorance, about what is going on right now in the world. And people who are not looking…not looking for a problem, but people who don’t have their eyes open, will not be ready for what is feeling stronger and stronger…coming all of the time.
Trauma, yeah. I think it doesn’t always have to even be people who know trauma first hand as some of us do who want to jump, but people who have a certain empathy, or concern for others around them that makes the difference.
Hi back! Love your ink!
You hit the nail on the head when you used “ignorance.” One thing traumatized and empathic people have in common is awareness. They pick up on cues and clues others miss. When your life or the life of others around you is miserable, the signals are easy to read, usually. When life is relatively good, it’s easy to either ignore the signals or not be aware of them. This applies to personal life and the greater society and everything in between.
It’s not true, though, that once your eyes are open, they can’t be shut again. That’s happened plenty of times.
You’re on point, as usual.
I know the things of which you type, all too well. It’s not just the drama – it’s the thrill of creating something beautiful out of the chaos. Turning something mediocre or craptastic into something stunning and luminous.
I still scribble in paper journals that nobody will ever see. Scraps of paper at work become hodge-podge manifestos that are for my eyes only. Glances on subways become entire novels in my head.
And I think there is also a comfort level to this reactionary behavior. Look at music – the punk rock of the Reagan Years was monumental in shaping me into this thing that I am now. And if not for the drama and starvation of that bleak era we’d have been stuck with Mr. Mister.
Meh. Fuck it – I’ll cop to my romanticism of the dramatic as a catalyst, as long as you keep on doing what you do.
Peaches and cream,
S
deja fucking vu
I had a long conversation with someone last night I re-met through E I had gone out with a few years ago…who is working in the music business. He had some kind of existentialist crisis early on in the summer…feeling as if he was supposed to be doing something “bigger” than running whatever label he is running (I rarely pay attention to these details because nothing impresses me anyways). And we talked about how music was a unifying force, and he had felt better realizing that at whatever point..but he still was keeping his eyes open for whatever was next. It was one of those conversations we could have had in Washington Square park.
I just can’t cop to feeling as if much of the music which seems to be important to people now is really responsible for actually shaping anything or anyone Important. Not important in that they exist, but important that they will actually give a shit. Maybe this is the next topic I will tackle later today..after my rant about mean mexicans.
I won’t stop writing. But most of my inspiration hits me in alter moments..the moments where I am in between now consciousness…or simply just stoned.
Nope, neither one of us should stop writing. It is very important.
But I need your hosting information…I need to put my site up. It’s overdue by about 3 years. And how your formatted it too if you don’t mind.