It’s a very strange place. Connected to and contiguous with the one you live in, but definitely its own unique address.
First off, it is mostly virtual. Like so many of us urban lemmings, I see the world through screens. Most of my day is spent staring at my expensive computer monitor or my inexpenive Amazon tablet, with occasional vacations to the living room to watch TV with my dear friends.
And I know that’s not a healthy way to live. I have so little interaction with the real world, and even less to do with the world outside this apartment.
It’s no wonder I tend to feel like I am clinging to the edge of the cliffs of insanity by my cuticles while dangling over a thousand foot fall into utter madness all the time.
Makes sense that one of my worst nightmares is that I will lose my grip on reality entirely and end up a drooling catatonic in a back ward somewhere as I go through every possible personal hell with my signature silence.
Well, I wouldn’t want to bother anyone.
Part of me wants to be able to lift a giant middle finger to the world and tell everyone who ever “ignored” me to go fuck themselves sideways with a wire brush, but I know that would not be legit.
Because I hid my pain from everybody for my entire life. If you’d met me, you would have no idea that I was ill, mentally or otherwise. I would have seemed like a warm, cheerful, friendly fellow with plenty of confidence and charm who effortlessly radiates intelligence and personality and hasn’t a care in the world.
That’s how I always seem when my smooth façade is in place, and it is always in place if there are other people around.
I can’t imagine things being any other way. This façade of mine is the wall I built around myself to keep people away from my tender, wounded inner workings, and it forms a hermetic seal around my soul.
And somewhere inside lurks the real me, the central me, the person that was born with my name and has been around ever since. The master controller who runs this whole show from within an inky black envelope of secrecy so impenetrably dense that like some obscure Cold War spy service, it denies its own existence.
Pay no attention that misshapen troglodyte behind the curtain. He is not important.
And inside that shell is this strange little world of mine. My own private playground full of games and puzzles and diversions to keep me too busy to think about the vast world outside my bubble and why I never go there.
It seems like a happy place but it’s built over a toxic waste dump and the more time I sped there, the sicker and sadder I get.
And I spend almost all my time there.
Because I can’t stay out. The outside world is too scary for me now. The world inside might be toxic but it’s familiar and I feel safe there.
And I find it so hard to make myself believe things could be better.
So I guess I am going to stay here until it kills me.
Or I somehow learn to believe in magic.
More after the break.
It’s just an ordinary day
I didn’t think much of that song when it first came out. It seemed okay and I was glad to hear from Newfoundland’s own Great Big Sea because I love those guys for taking traditional Maritimes music into the mainstream in a highly effective and most importantly credible way.
So not just some blow dried pop dipshit “sampling” the “sound” for one track in an attempt to leech some authenticity out of it like a goddamned vampire.
Yes, I am salty about that. Look, when you grow up near the Atlantic Ocean and in the shadow of the big important world that happens elsewhere, you grow up salty.
Especially, I suppose, if you’re GenX like I am. We’re a salty bunch. I liken us to badgers. Harmless if you leave us alone but if you get too close to our den, watch the fuck out because we will defend our territory with great ferocity and tenacity.
As illustrated in this primal GenX scene :
“GET OUT MOM!”
“Listen, I just want to..
“Listen! I said, GET OUT of MY ROOM. ”
“Listen, young lady, I pay the mortgage. here..
“I DON’T CARE! FUCK OFF and GET OUT!”
And our poot Boomer parents are wondering where the hell this terrifying stranger came from and where their usually quiet (if sullen) kid went.
Don’t get me started, Boomer. Trust me, you don’t want to know.
I will give you this : when you grow up feeling besieged by advertising and consumer culture absolutely EVERYWHERE, you become very protective of whatever little island of sanity that only contains YOUR CULTURE you can carve out.
BACK OFF, you fucking Madison Avenue JACKALS!
Nobody understands us.
Anyhow, like I said, I didn’t think much of that song when it came out but every time I hear it now, it impresses me more., both with its production and its message.
The message especially, because to me it sounds like it’ about finally making it to a happy place after a long hard struggle with the demons of depression.
Hence the refrain of, “It’s not so bad,,, ”
And that’s the place I am trying to go. I am trying to express all my pent up rage, bitterness, disappointment, and all the rest so that the storm raging inside me is robbed of its energy source and can finally blow out.
That is the only way I am ever going to know peace. I can’t find peace by ignoring the storm and pretending it’s not there just because I have a tiny shelter, barely a rickety shack and barely big enough to fit most of me inside.
And I can’t impose peace upon myself through contemplation, rationality, and the seeking of some kind of spiritual apotheosis.
The only way out is to deal with my shit, and that means feeling the emotions and dealing with them instead of just pushing them offstage.
Yeah, a lot of them go directly against that smooth facade of mine and are in direct violation of the person I am trying to be.
And the person I think I am.
But for enlightenment to be born, the false self must die. I am in the process of finding out who I really am, and learning to accept that person, warts and all.
And he’s not so bad a guy. He’s a lot less calm and mellow than the facade, and he’s not all that practical or wise. In the end, he will probably be less pleasant to be around because he won’t be afraid that if he is not 100 percent pleasant, people will realize what a piece of shit he is and flee.
But I am sure he will be a heck of a lovable guy, regardless.
Have patience, buddy. I’m still giving birth to you.
And that’s never pretty. Or easy.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.