A Conclusion

My desire is to become better at writing. Why? My sense is that it could lead me to a more fulfilling life. My standard answer to the question, “Why write?” has been that I find it satisfying but it’s more than that. As a human being, my desire is to lead a fulfilling life. In fact, that might be the thing that I want more than anything you care to name. I don’t think it will lead me to anything like financial security though. Financial security is elusive. There is tension there. This world is a bitch to live in like that. Everything is so god damn expensive. This shimmering dream of a world that might really be a nightmare has us all running ragged for a collection of dead Presidents that is just big enough to make it through another day. 

This is gonna sound like bullshit but I also connect my writing to the struggle for justice. Writing is a vehicle for conveying truth. Words can bridge the gap between human beings who are profoundly alienated by the endless chasing of nickels and dimes. People who work jobs that leave them bleary-eyed and bored and angry need to know they aren’t alone. Maybe I can reach out and touch a few who are on the same frequency. Maybe I’m not even qualified to do that but I figure that I’ve got to try. Why the fuck not? 

I get the sense that I’ve got to challenge myself. I gotta try and write something that takes some effort. I was thinking an essay of some kind. I’ve got to give it some thought. I don’t know that I can pull it off and maybe I can’t. I might learn something from trying. 

If this reads like inspiration porn, I apologize. I hate that shit. 

I can’t concentrate. 

I just want to sit for a spell. 

I want to be high and not dread tomorrow. 

I want to be sexy and brave. 

I want to show someone the way. 

Tell me every way that you’d like me to fuck you 

and I’ll do it. 

I’ve been trying to read more. The journalist Seymour Hersh was on an episode Intercepted (By the way, if you listen to podcasts and you do not listen to Intercepted, you need to be listening to it.) and he said that before you write, you need to read. Of course, Sy Hersh was talking about journalism but it applies even if you aren’t a journalist. 

I’ve been struggling with reading for a few years. One thing that has helped is reducing subvocalization when I’m silently reading. No, I’m not becoming some kind of freak who is obsessed with speed reading but it makes things flow a lot more smoothly if I am not reading shit to myself in my head. It never occurred to me to try and cut that out. It’s something that I’ve done since I was a kid but no, I don’t need to do that. I can just sort of look at the words and fit everything together. Almost feels like a superpower actually. It’s weird. I’m re-discovering a love for reading, I think. 

I randomly bought a poetry collection to expose myself to verse. It’s garbage.

I find lately that I’m on a different frequency than the place I come from. I’m acutely aware of this recently. 

I can’t stay here. I don’t know where to go. I don’t know who or what would have me. 

I haven’t written much here but I’ve been expressing myself elsewhere under my own name at times. I’ve got to be expressing something. I’ve got to believe what I’m expressing. I’ve got to believe in my ability to express. I’ve got to believe that I can get through. 

Right now, this is all I can manage to say. 

I don't think anybody but spam bots be following me but...

If you're real. Let me know.

It really was not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but that reflection I did on Alex Vitale’s The End of Policing was satisfying to me to write. It was scribbled out at work during downtime with a black ballpoint pen on a legal pad that I had swiped at one point to write work related notes on. There was a time where I used to hand write pretty much everything. There was just something about the feeling of moving a pen on the page. There was something about looking at the words I had formed with my own hand and smelling the ink from the pen on the page. That’s part of the writing process that I definitely miss. For some writing, I’m definitely going to return to the pen and paper. 

Sometimes inspiration does hit you. That can be a beautiful thing. It really can be. It arguably hit me at least twice last night. Inspiration can be like love. Love. Sweet love. Dirty love. Dangerous love. Sometimes it can take you to places that you really didn’t plan on going. Sometimes it can take you fucking nowhere at all. 

So... I woke up and thought

Being aware of your own internal life and spending time there makes you remember that others possess an internal life as well.

This has the side effect of wanting to make sure the world is gentler.

Yeah. So.

I don't think I got myself too many human followers. I guess I'm going to be dusting off this blog a little. I don't know that anybody is going to be paying the least bit of attention but if you are, hey. Don't be a stranger.

My name is Paul. I'm 40 years old. It stands to reason that I'm probably too old for all this but eh. It is what it is.

I've spent a lot of time in the Twitter roleplay scene writing various original characters. If anybody from that scene stumbles across this then hello. What's up? Obviously Twitter is quite fucked up these days due to the machinations of the muskrat.

It occurs to me that people I may actually know in real life might stumble across this. I think that is unlikely but I guess I find myself in a bit of a "not giving a fuck" era.

I play guitar. I started playing right at the end of 2020. I'm not that good but I play every single day. I primarily play acoustic.

I run a decent amount for physical and mental health reasons. I'm at almost 300 miles this year.

I'm a stoner at times.

I'm an ex-evangelical that was raised Catholic. At the current time, I'm coming to terms with the fact that I don't believe. It's only very recently that I've been honest with myself about that. It sounds clichè as fuck to say it's been quite a journey but it has.

Yeah. Aight. Later.

What Happens

What happens is the machine 

goes through us 

too damn quick

til we got nothin’ but fun size Milky Way wrappers 

in a Halloween treat bag. 

-

What happens is sometimes you find yourself ponderin’ what hell is. 

It’s geographic region. 

The shit that goes down there. 

Always in the same ZIP code you’re in. 

It’s Monday eternally. 

That deep, polar bear cold you feel all over your body

never quits 

and everything you got to do to eat that day 

is gonna kill you. 

-

What happens is sometimes you live 

and you’re happy enough to (almost) thank god. 

Your walk has swagger to it.

Maybe the air that slowly kills you tastes sweeter. 

You think maybe it’ll all be okay 

till it all wears off like a crack hit. 

- 

What happens is life. 

It’s starting to become not enough to just write. I’ve written semi-diligently almost every single day. I want to say something. I want to get close to the inexpressible and get kinda close to expressing it. I want to get so close that god damn it, I actually fucking expressed it. 

Dog-whistling Dixie. That phrase kept occurring to me on my drive home today. Dog whistling Dixie. Dog whistling Dixie. I dunno. 

I’m actually close to having read an entire book in I don’t know how long. I got to spend a lot of time just reading at my desk today. That was nice. Seriously. I took care of some minor shit here and there but most of the time, I just got to read. We’re not talking anything that literary. It’s The Great Divide by Matt Taibbi. It talks a lot about the machinations of the financial collapse of 2008. I barely remember that. Seriously, I think maybe I was barely conscious. That event touched everything though. It was a complicated shell game that ended up torching the lives of so many people and no one was ever really held accountable for it. That’s crime on a massive scale. There’s crime and then there’s crime. 

Something that can send me into a rage is local news broadcasts because of all the “crime” stories. Maybe they’ll have some story about some thieves that are stealing packages on people’s doorsteps. I remember once seeing a video on some local news station’s Facebook page of some package thief nicking a package and then slipping and falling and the comments were all, “KARMA! IT’S A BIIIIITCH AND SO AM I,” and “THEY WAS LUCKY I WASN’T THERE WITH MY GUN CUZ I WOULDA GONE PUNISHER ON HER FAT ASS.” All this ire for some desperate petty criminal but where is the rage for the banker who ripped off their pension fund on Wall Street with a nose full of cocaine while getting head from a barely legal prostie? C’mon man. I know it’s not the 80s any more but I’m pretty sure Wall Street still runs on cocaine. You ever see that episode of Cops where they were stopping and frisking people outside of a luxury apartment complex and hitting Wall Streeters with coke possession charges? No you don’t because it never happened and it doesn’t happen. Nah, if you are one of the brain dead idiots who enjoys a show like Cops, you are treated to shirtless folk in trailer parks getting busted for meth and domestic violence and monologues from boring motherfuckers with crew cuts talking about how they are like a 4th generation pig or some shit as they drive along on patrol with their eyes peeled for people of color. 

I will be going in and seeing a therapist on Monday. Fuck! A god damn Monday. So, I am going to be groggy and ready to just go to bed after a long day but I can’t just go home. I gotta go talk to some guy I’ve talked to exactly twice. I better think about what it is I’m going to say. Damn. I wonder how honest I really am going to be in there. I’ve got to make at least some attempt to be honest or there really is no point, right?  So, what is it really? 

Hmm. So. Here’s what it is. I’m really fucking bored, lonely and I can get really anxious. Look, I’m doing better than I have in a long time but god damn it, what else should I be doing?