I was at a party the other day. A guy at the party took a five dollar bill and wrapped it around my wrist, my cigarette in my other hand. He told me I could have the five if I could burn a hole through it with my cig. I was pretty drunk at the time; I accepted his challenge.
It took about half a second for my wrist to start feeling like it was on fire. Fifteen seconds later there wasn’t the slightest mark on the bill, but there was quite the nasty burn on my skin. The point is money doesn’t burn very easily.
I’ve been reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, at quite the pace I might add. It’s understandable though – the book is really good. The point is, it’s starting to fuck with me. I’m starting to realize the similarity between life in Ken Kesey’s fictional mental ward and the real world that we interact with every day. It really is a symbol of literary magnificence when an author criticizes all the counter-intuitive vagaries of society through a bunch of “insane” people in a mental ward. I’m still reeling at the brilliance.
You can accept these absurdities of human group behavior because that is the easy way to do things. I started out accepting them. When I started to ask questions that challenged the sanity of it all, I freaked out. Next thing I know, I’m not in school anymore. Next thing I know, I’m finding it hard to feel impassioned about anything. Shit, I can’t blame you for not wanting to tackle that dilemma head on. Then again, I have this tendency to put on a nice front when I don’t feel nice at all. So maybe I can.
Since I spun that 180 degree turn a few years back and began wandering in a different direction, I began noticing all these overwhelming forces trying to prevent it from happening. This doesn’t vibe with the idea of the future we had in our heads! This is not right! No no no! I was feeling rebellious and freaked out by the questions I had started to ask myself, so I told everyone to fuck off and went on ahead regardless, determined and stubborn.
I’ve got this god damn thing called willpower, and when I feel it, all bridled up – feel how it’s different – I realize that I’ve changed; that I’ve developed this determination recently. Now I’ve had a successful first show and I realize how possible anything I want to do is. It truly is a shame how people work so hard to chain themselves and those around them, and they don’t even realize it. So much potential gone to waste for lack of determination and inability to deal with the overwhelming absurdities of people living with people… So much propagated friction wearing down people just trying to be happy…
I feel extremely calm right now. Like I’ve finally found a way to guard my mind against the inescapable, paradoxical nature of these crazy things people do. Now that I have learned to deal with these absurdities, I expect I will be more motivated to change the things around me. Even if I fail, the attempt puts me in a more fulfilling place than the sidelines.
