Thursday, November 02, 2006

Too Much Ordinary (2)

Am I suggesting, in the post "Too Much Ordinary", that mainstream people are smaller, in the sense of philosophical grandeur, than those of us who are either on the fringes of the mainstream or completely underground?

Seems to be that position is unsustainable, on some levels (does anyone else argue with themselves like this?) I don't know that I have anything in my head or in my heart that's BIGGER than those people, even if they do read the Daily Mail, listen to Pussycat Dolls, have nothing to say on anything that Alf Garnett couldn't have said more eloquently 40 years ago. They still love, probably more freely and with more maturity than I do, and love is really the only thing that matters on a high philosophical level, given that human civilisation has been characterised by hatred and destruction and alienation since it all began, and remembering that we all live in the long shadow of the grave.

Maybe what I should have said, or would have said if I hadn't been so tired, was that mainstream people don't have the qualities and interests that I personally find sustaining. So my own identity, though it is no more important or objectively interesting (perhaps) than theirs,is diminished by too much exposure to them because my weakness of character makes me adapt to my surroundings, to some extent, to please people and so as not to feel so damn lonely all the time--the Brother from Another Planet.

That's what I meant.

When I'm back in the company of poets and musicians I feel like being the person I am isn't a crime anymore.

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