RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,182
(in which I obsess)
In the book that obsessives
write, it says 'If you want to
defeat your enemy, sing his
song,' Well, that may be,
though it was never that
clear to me. In fact, I never
did find clearcut designations
of that nature to be all that
useful; something about
absolutes, and the black and
white of it all. Differences
always exist, granted, but
that field too is constantly
changing and in the midst of
a running flux. What was up
yesterday can surely be down
today. Just ask old Joe McCarthy.
Picking and choosing just isn't
worth it.
-
The only fixed 'enemy' I ever
had was 'Reality' itself. That was
a tough challenge; making sense
of the upside of down things is
always confusing and I ended up
spending probably three-quarters
of my life in such fruitless pursuit.
Getting nowhere, while others
were always so sure of their goals,
which goals seemed miserable to
me anyway. A changing slide of
definitions: Money, schooling,
business success, achievement
in every endeavor. I could never
grasp any of those stop-action
moments and always instead
sought for the move, the slide,
action that kept me just outside
of any of those 'traps' as I saw
them. Maybe I was wrong every
step of the way - for the fruitlessness
of my energies now seems to bear
heavy carrying. Not even heavy
carrying; more like 'leaving' at the
door on the way out. It all stays
behind. Nothing goes with you.
-
In that respect, life can't be viewed
as anything but a miserable tragedy
if one only views it one-dimensionally.
And most of those sorts do - the game
brings the satisfaction and all the bonus
items that go with it. No matter how
you try, however, the two Lexus cars
and the third home in Boca Raton just
do NOT fit through the gates of death.
On the other hand, if I had a dollar
for every time I doubted something,
I'd be the richest cat in the world.
While in it.
-
You know how, sometimes, you run
across one of those families wherein
everyone has an important, or themed,
name? Like Isaac, Israel, Benjamin,
Ruth and Sarah. Kind of makes you
laugh. A bit. For in thinking of the
parents having done this, it always,
in turn, seems like somehow along
the way one of those kids marry out,
and the sacred family gatherings then
have to put up with some loud jerk
named 'Uncle Bull' or whatever. Is
that then the enemy that gets planted
within? Do we then need to sing
Uncle Bull's song just to get along?
It would seem that way, yes.
-
I always obsessed. I guess obsessing
became my way of coping - and it still
goes on; endless meanderings through
my reams of fearfulness about one thing
or another, sure that this pain or ache
means a soon-to-be horrid death; that
that mechanical noise means the car or
the house is doomed and soon to explode;
the noise of that lawnmower is a sure
sign of a new fifteen-home development
coming through. Just, alone, these endless
pages of writing, photos, poems, musings,
and comments are obsessive fractions
of a very broad, flat moment of time
that I try to fill. Books. Reading.
Learning about wars and histories and
people and writers and disasters. I'm
enough in the bucket to be adjudged
crazy. I know that and it all an obsession
that has brought me to this point. I
suppose I ought to say this 'point of
finish,' but I can't. Too afraid to go
there. Once - like Thoreau or Emerson,
or whoever it was - I too felt as if I
was 'Monarch of all that I survey,' but
now I realize that that broad view,
chimerical as it was, had and has me
by the neck and in its own, everlasting
headlock too. from which I cannot
escape. And now? Jeepers, I obsess
about that!
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