*Originally written and posted May 12. There was some type of technical problem with the website and it went missing until today (5/17). Luckily the smart folks at Google were able to pull it back from the cyber abyss.*
Feeling a little agitated, angry and sad today. Why? Who cares. Everyone has their own tale of woe. The degree to which people pretend to care about other people's problems is determined by how close they are, or what they might be looking for in return. Our blogger/blogee relationship indemnifies us against all of that ridiculousness.
And even if it didn't, I'm not sure I could explain what is bothering me anyway. In order to do that I would first have to have some basic understanding of my own emotions. I'd have to view the world from a broader vantage point than that of my own narrow sociopathic desires for ego satisfaction and manipulative control. The truth is I wouldn't know a real emotion if it walked up to me and stuck it's thumb in my eye.
Worse, I'm not bothered by that. I'm a chubby, smirking meat suit puffed out around a soulless black hole. And I don't care. So yeah I'm feeling a little agitated, angry and sad today, and the why of it doesn't matter. What does is how I'm handling it. How?, you ask. I'm on my way to being very, very drunk.
I don't drink often. However, like other things I don't do often (pay my bills, vacuum my living room, overlook others' shortcomings) when I do do it, it's always a bigger deal than it needs to be. I can count on one hand the times I've been intoxicated and not revisited my past three days digestive history. Yeah I'm what regular drinkers call an amateur. Shockingly another thing I am incompetent at. I'm sincerely awed and humbled by those real drinkers who at two AM are still debating the early years of the transcontinental rail road with a glassy eyed panel of bar side experts, but are up, showered and ready to go to work four hours later. That's not me.
Part of the problem is I got a late start in my drinking endeavors. I didn't have my first taste of alcohol until I was twenty four. Hard cider on draft. Many more followed, interspersed with shots of Grand Marnier for some reason. At the end of the night I was stumbling down the main street of College Park, Maryland hollering about how wonderful life is, pausing once in a while to vomit all over the side walk. A proud moment to be sure, and one I'll be reenacting this evening, I have little doubt.
Here's my hypothesis as to why I do this to myself sometimes. I am genetically predisposed to taking things wayyyyy too seriously. My parents drag neurosis behind themselves like the heavy chains weighting down that first prick ghost who comes to warn Ebenezer Scrooge about the lousy night he's going to have. To avoid the same burden, I taught myself to play a meditative game I call The Quiet End.
To play along at home imagine all of your problems and worries surrounding you like an angry mob, ripping every piece of positive energy out of you through your throat. Next picture the mob, now satisfied, walking away, and slowly dissolving into the ether. The background fades away too, and soon there is nothing but you, standing alone on the precipice of eternity, staring out into the void. Oblivion. Keep staring. There. There it is. See that? That was Oblivion winking at you, telling you nothing matters and therefore everything is possible. Life is good again, and you can go back and take on the world. The thing is, I'm not good enough yet at seeing Oblivion every time. She seems to appear much easier when I'm drunk. So I do this to myself sometimes to remember how she looks, and how her blink looks, and how nothing really matters, and how everything is possible.
No comments:
Post a Comment