The Wind Is Risin', Leaves Tremblin' on the Tree
I awake from my post-flight nap and belong to the night, my stomach hungry for grilled chicken on a stick, my amorphous, magical tackle, a vigorously misguided fallacy of needs. I’m up for a familiar, long meandering walk from soi to soi, rubbing elbows with the sidewalk merchants of Sukhumvit, cold beer in hand, pharmacology on the brain and Aphrodite by my side, again steering me clear of the honorable questions, and keeping me from running aground on imperfect answers.
I have a gift for separating me into two parts; the “me” who thinks that discipline offers me nothing of any real value and the “me” too terrified to admit that it is everything.
Principles and integrity become the flotsam and jetsam of my dead-in-the-water ideals as all concepts of right and wrong become vagaries, all now well beyond their sell-by dates and are therefore as irredeemable as I am.
I may never get to know the One on a first name basis, but I can amuse myself, his creatures of the evening and share a part of my good fortune in exchange for some flimsy excuse for a fusion of mind and flesh. I believe psychiatrists refer to this sort of rationalization as delusional. But. So what? Sooner or later, Gabriel will be a’ blowing smoke rings in my face, and when that time comes and I finally have no more points I’d like to make; no home to abandon or return to, I will have to admit quite casually that I purposefully and without regret have long evaded all of my end time preparatory duties. I've been busy.
These times, those times, that time, this time--never has there ever been a right time for me to put my disordered affairs in order because all times have always been the right time for me to indulge in the interest of my best of times. So year after year I devote myself to the passivity of Weltschmerz management during my allocation of valued down time when I visit neighborhoods of familiar sites, sounds and fragrances, places where I have a talent for wasting time.
Looky here. What it is, is that all of it comes down to the needs of just one, unprincipled but marginally risk-free individual. What’s so fucking hard to understand about that? Losing collective values is a complex undertaking and it is a lot of work. So I have my own set of values and ideals which I have collected from my own epiphanies and ethereal hunches and OK, maybe there is an untarnished communal truth out there somewhere, but I am sure it is none the worse for my never knowing it.
I have a gift for separating me into two parts; the “me” who thinks that discipline offers me nothing of any real value and the “me” too terrified to admit that it is everything.
Principles and integrity become the flotsam and jetsam of my dead-in-the-water ideals as all concepts of right and wrong become vagaries, all now well beyond their sell-by dates and are therefore as irredeemable as I am.
I may never get to know the One on a first name basis, but I can amuse myself, his creatures of the evening and share a part of my good fortune in exchange for some flimsy excuse for a fusion of mind and flesh. I believe psychiatrists refer to this sort of rationalization as delusional. But. So what? Sooner or later, Gabriel will be a’ blowing smoke rings in my face, and when that time comes and I finally have no more points I’d like to make; no home to abandon or return to, I will have to admit quite casually that I purposefully and without regret have long evaded all of my end time preparatory duties. I've been busy.
These times, those times, that time, this time--never has there ever been a right time for me to put my disordered affairs in order because all times have always been the right time for me to indulge in the interest of my best of times. So year after year I devote myself to the passivity of Weltschmerz management during my allocation of valued down time when I visit neighborhoods of familiar sites, sounds and fragrances, places where I have a talent for wasting time.
Looky here. What it is, is that all of it comes down to the needs of just one, unprincipled but marginally risk-free individual. What’s so fucking hard to understand about that? Losing collective values is a complex undertaking and it is a lot of work. So I have my own set of values and ideals which I have collected from my own epiphanies and ethereal hunches and OK, maybe there is an untarnished communal truth out there somewhere, but I am sure it is none the worse for my never knowing it.
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5 Comments:
I will like this segment a whole lot more when you go back and get to clear business with Mister Paragraph One. Not for a second would I bother guessing why anyone heads in one direction or another, but I myself have a mighty struggle with parenthetical phrases (although I typically remove the parentheses, like that won't get me caught.) And then, at edit time, I hack the hell out of them. Usually.
When you've whacked this hard with your blue pen, I think this is one of my favorite philosophical bits.
Mister Paragraph One just wouldn't breathe! I must've performed CPR on him for two maybe three hours last night then said fuggit, I've got to get this feller and his warped value system on the streets sooner or later. So glad someone who "knows" what's what dropped by and as always grazi bella.
Fine bit of "delusional" commentary. If we die with life, in the parabolic arc sense, then I don't believe that there is any need for tidying up as you say. As you say so well, you are too busy indulging in your best of times. You are preparing by living it all out and creating your own soul values.
Thanks Marco--if all those folks are right and who have since time immemorial been hedging their bets believing there will come a day when they'll have to ante up, I'm gonna play the free will card.
As good as any card in the deck for all us cosmic gamblers. Though the Joker might be useful too. Reminds of Leonard Cohen's "The Stranger Song".
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