Here’s a bit of sapient advice too big to fit on a Snapple bottle cap but important nonetheless:
If you’re asked what your ultimate fear in life is, and you spend less than 15 seconds contemplating a response, do not answer. Find a way to swallow your tongue if you have to, fart, make fun of the way they walk, bark like a dog, anything, but whatever you do, keep that shit to yourself, because what you say isn’t as important as why the person is asking the question. Any answer, be it “I fear the sound of a flushing toilet” or “My greatest fear in life is being forced to watch George Bush answer questions from the press 24 hours a day”, your fear is as open to interpretation as what you see in an ink blot. Suzy sees big breasts. Jim sees a gigantic talking cock. I see myself banging my head against a wall for being the kind of person who answers this question on instinct without hesitating because I fear living in a world of lies more than I fear what I fear most. (And really the flushing toilet and George Bush thing are almost one and the same.)
But what is truth if you can’t trust your own feelings, when you question your “motivations as a character”, when you’re filled with self-doubt? When you feel batshit crazy, upside down, yourself only thinner and more insane. Lately, every time my brain takes a turn in one direction, I open my mouth and begin babbling in a completely different direction, miles away from where the gray matter intended to go. I can’t give myself a break. It’s like steering a car with a broken axle or being held captive by the ghost in the machine. It doesn’t matter how deftly I handle the wheel in my mind, my mouth is against me, the HAL 9000 of my soul. Sure, HAL’s polite, he’ll say good morning, how ya feeling, and all that, but he’s still going to try to kill me in the end. Somehow everything good and sensible gets lost in translation, and I end up saying all those things that make you wince when you’re lying in bed at night, reviewing the follies of your day.
Moments like these make me feel like my life is a blooper and I’m the idiot who’s always getting kicked in the crotch. It makes me wonder who’s in control? Who’s driving the bus? My thoughts, memories, instincts, or current emotional status? How I feel influences how I see and react, how I think, and even what I remember. We call it perspective, hindsight, the knowledge our future selves possess about us we wish we had now, knowledge we have now we wish we had then. But hindsight is a myth. We don’t understand who we were in the past any better than we know who we’ll be in the future. Life is always happening now, no matter what we fear, or why. At the end of the day, while reviewing the gag reel that is your life, I think minimizing the potential damage we can do to one another is more important than figuring out why or what if. Which means I’ve got to get this runaway mouth thing under control.
And I need to eat more because sitting on a bony ass is no damn fun. It’s no wonder skinny chicks always look so grumpy. (So far I’d say I’m a bit off course with the mouth thing.)
There’s nothing like completely pointless posting at 1am. Ah, the joy of wasting digital space.
Praise and Blame