Sometimes I wonder whether the happier posts on S.P. don't have a touch of smugness about them. Like I have discovered the secret place where the jewels of life hang from abundant trees, or something, and I'm wearing them like a blogging peacock. (And how's that for a jumble of images?)
Well, it's a confidence trick really. I'm trying to talk my way to happiness most of the time. I was having a good day yesterday, but not long after I posted about feeling blessed and emotionally secure I lost my sense of both and became sullen and annoyed waiting for a phone call that finally arrived three hours later than expected. I have a resentful voice permanently whispering in my ear that drunkenness is good, marijuana conducive to clear thought and insight, masturbation healthy, bitterness the philosopher's familiar, destruction the pastime of kings. That voice shouts over the other, happier voice: who are you trying to fool?
I'm going to wait until I get married before I have sex again? Out of choice? I'm more likely to find a polka dot sun shining down in one direct beam of light on a winning lottery ticket when I step outside my door this afternoon.
Why should I try to rid myself of every defining characteristic of the person I used to be, whether that bloke was real or a creation of my own mind? Drunken stoner egomaniac poet Bruce may have been a useless c**t, but he stood by me when everybody else vanished like the morning mist.
4 comments:
No, let me reassure you, I'm definitely NOT trying to be "born again". I did have a feeling that many of the things I presumed about myself weren't really who I was, that I had invented many of the characteristics of my identity as a rationalisation of my weaknesses and vulnerabilities. But now I don't know anymore. Now I'm thinking that NONE of it is real, good bad or indifferent, and at the same time ALL of it is real. Ah, these early morning metaphysical conundrums! No wonder I get headaches...
But I WON'T go back to the booze and the blunts, whatever else might happen. Too much extra belly, too much paranoia and failing memory--that's all they gave me. (Bruce)
This might have nothing to do with that or anything at all: sometimes, when I'm driving, I feel like I have to make small, quick, numerous, jerks on the steering wheel - left right left right left right - in order to keep the car perfectly centered on the road. Other times I feel like I should keep the steering wheel absolutely still in order to keep the car centered.
It's a great metaphor, actually B.--though you are kind of the master of such things. All any of us are trying to do is keep the car centred on a shifting road. That's why our behaviour seems to contradict itself so often.
In that, though, I go with Whitman: "Do I contradict myself? Well then, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes."
Great quote. I'm keeping Leaves of Grass nearby lately.
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