It’s been a considerable while since I’ve been chemically augmented to a noticeable degree and so the world at large has been spared the truly epic amount of drivel that my chemically unbalanced mind is capable of producing. It would appear that day to day living (and a truly staggering abuse of caffeine) doesn’t produce as much angst as one would hope; then again I would bet large amounts of money that it is more my limited social interaction that is leading to my relatively calm state of mind.
After all hell is most commonly found to be other people and in most people’s lives all woes can be traced more or less directly to a single person or persons. Of course if what you commonly rail against are forces of nature or abstract conundrums then my apologies. I suppose in a perverse way I somewhat miss the emotional or mental turmoil that frequent social interaction (and I imagine substance abuse) used to generate. I suppose that’s evidence that I haven’t outgrown the entire thing, which is somewhat annoying. Of course there’s also the fact that I like to bat around the tired old saw of the pseudo artiste – that art is only drawn from emotion.
But that’s largely bullshit and an attempt to use a tired old platitude to obscure the fact that while a few years ago when I was incapable of production I possessed the urge to create whereas now that I possess the means of production I no longer have anything to produce. Though that again isn’t the entire truth, if it was it wouldn’t even be that annoying, I could just get over it and be on my merry way. It’s the fact that nascent thoughts, shadowed hints of half formed ideas are continually floating around my cranium – there’s something there I just can’t seem to figure out what it is or how to express it. Though I’m loathe to use it there is almost certainly an analogy between this feeling and constipation. I imagine it would be classier to label it writers block though.
Well this is somewhat off topic from what I’d intended to slobber on about, which was that oh so over examined topic of “love” (you know even the fucking word annoys me, it’s burdened with far too much baggage for my liking) and in particular my new stance on the entire thing. But I’m tired and certainly not in the correct frame of mind (that also isn’t true as I imagine whatever I end up “preserving for posterity” on this subject would be much better summed up with the phrase “Fuck It”) so I am instead going to go to bed (or at the very least do something else).
I’m not sure about other people but I would have to say that personally all the most embarrassing moments in my life are in retrospect, its only through the wonders of hindsight that I realise how truly foolish I was. In fact I have done things which I find so mind bogglingly pathetic that I have suppressed their memories in order to prevent post traumatic disorder. And the root cause of all these moments of sublime embarrassment is nearly always “love”.
Now just to clarify something before I continue, while I find many of my recollections embarrassing there are very few I actively regret, in fact there are very few things at all in my life that I regret (well things over which I have direct control, after all I regret not winning the lotto or gaining super powers from irradiated milk and so on). I’d like to say that it’s because I’m all Zen and shit and that I live my life in a way which ensures I have no regrets because I live it the way I want to. While the latter is more or less true the former if taken seriously would possibly leave me open to charges of being somewhat spurious at best. But like my realisations of embarrassment most of my acceptance of these events has been in retrospect, and the reasoning behind my lack of regret is fairly simple. Despite all my complaining and wordy whinging I basically like myself and the me that is now is clearly a product of everything that has led up to this point in time thus to deny what I have done or being involved in is to in some measure deny myself. Which is something that would waste precious time I could use to complain about my condition (i.e. being human). A less generous view of my lack of regret would be that I’m a giant egomaniac. I suppose you can decide what you will (but what you decide doesn’t matter, hah, suck on some solipsism shitheads – and have some assonance and alliteration to go with it).
As an aside, which (for once) ties into my main point, as opposed to going to bed I thought I’d brave the digital frontier of the internet. And I ended up reading something there about someone trivialising rape (in a fictional setting) and getting lambasted for not understanding how a woman feels (and the poor bastard wasn’t even talking about rape). Fair enough, rape is nothing to take likely (though I have no issues with it being used for good dramatic/emotional effect) but what struck me was that the person complaining that this person didn’t understand how a woman felt was a guy. There were several similar posts from other guys all of which contained the same implicit statement that they understood how women feel. Frankly I found their hubris somewhat stunning (I also always assume in these situations 75% of the men are talking shit in order to look “enlightened”). It wasn’t only their arrogance that I found amazing; it was also the entire basis of their argument. The idea that somehow being of the same sex allows us to feed into some kind of group gender mind. What a fucking pile of bullshit. Maybe mine just aren’t working right but the last time I checked my testicles didn’t let me tune into the great man mind in the sky.
Its arrogant enough to say that you know how someone else feels, because from my experience most people don’t even know how they really feel never mind how someone else (and we’re much more isolated in existence than people care to readily acknowledge) feels, but to generalise this to the level of gender and then to push it further to another gender, what rubbish. I don’t know how women feel, I also don’t know how men feel – because what you’re packing between your legs doesn’t make you a fucking mind reader. I may, depending on how well I know them, have (or delude myself into thinking I have) a good handle on how an individual known to me feels – but my “knowledge” of their feelings could be very, very wrong. To bust out an example, I spent a lot of time with Ian and if asked would probably have said I knew how he felt, which is clearly untrue as if I actually knew how he felt I probably would have done something before he shot himself in the head. It’s just stupid; gender is a generalisation so broad as to be almost useless, especially for use as an emotional dowsing rod. An Irish woman of similar upbringing and social status is obviously going to have a much better idea “how I feel” than a male villager from the depths of the Amazon – and guess what it’s not because we share matching genitalia. Gah I find the idea of judging anything about someone based on their gender to be extremely irritating, so be assured that if I like or dislike you or if I know (or care) about your feelings it more than likely has nothing to with whether your packing heat or not.
So anyhow to get fully back on track, I’m giving up on love. Well that’s not quite true, or more accurately its not phrased correctly, saying I’m giving up implies that I’ve lost in some kind of contest. It would be more accurate to say that I’m ending my association with “love”, that I’ve had enough, it is now a topic I no longer wish to engage with either mentally or physically. I’m taking my ball (‘s, ho ho feel the puntaciular power) and going home. I no longer have any wish to pursue an emotional or physical relationship with the fairer sex (note I am not subtly announcing a sudden bout of homosexual experimentation). My only interest in women from this point on is as friends. There was nothing in particular that I can point to as the cause of this new resolution, it was more an aggregate of various factors which reached a kind of mental critical mass and spurred me to make this decision. Of course the manner in which I have described this decision makes it sound as if I am some accomplished and much in demand lothario, which is clearly untrue. And as such there may not be any huge gross results seen in my day to day life but I feel that by acknowledging my own decision it will enable me to eliminate the often unacknowledged subtext that seems almost ubiquitous in dealings with the opposite sex.
I suppose this means I should also make an effort to curb any ogling or unconscious judgement of the female form, but that’s probably going a bit far. After all if I can appreciate a beautiful morning skyscape then I should be able to appreciate a nice pair of breasts or a shapely posterior in the same frame of mind (if this were a conversation this would be a perfect opportunity for someone to interject “But sure Mick I heard you’d get up on the crack of dawn”). Though I think I shall be eradicating my (not insignificant I suppose) collection of smut, well apart from Twin Angels, because the Orbs of Orgasm are fucking hilarious.
Yeah, so there you go, it’s the bachelor life for me. I’m sure all my female readers are tragically disappointed that their slim chance of access to the Mick Love has now been denied them, sorry ladies. I’m quite happy with the decision so far; in other life changing events I think I’m going to slightly relax my non-drinking prohibition. Though to be honest I sill have no real interest in going to nightclubs I think I may of a quiet evening enjoy a small rum on the rocks. Of course what I need to do now is to address those aspects of my life which actually “matter”, in particular my future and what I need to do to achieve it. I need to build myself a dream because I’m tired of living without one.
Listening to: The National - Green Gloves