Every day starts with relatively infinite possibilities, then gets narrowed down as the minutes march on. Such a sentiment is more widely-held by the younger set, those fortunate ones who haven’t whittled and winnowed away their enthusiasm just yet. Fledgling adults seem to have an inherent audacity for tirelessly pursuing various pies in various skies, relentless endeavors repeated remorselessly (whose results range in reliability).
I recall a time in my life when my brand of audacity was to compose thoughtful and robust sentences. The verisimilitude and substance of said sentences was inconsequential, as long as I was doing something in the literary arts. This brazen approach yielded numerous charming products, some of which may contain the universe’s secrets when stretched out to a nanometer’s width (who knows?).
Nowadays, that zest has all but extinguished itself. The audacious spirit is suspended in amber, a fossilized vestige of my past humanity. But at least I have records of this triumphant hubris, because I WROTE IT DOWN. Just the way I’m writing down this little thought experiment right at this very moment. Period.
Ooh, how audacious. Might have to just keep writing these things in order to spite myself. If I’m defiantly demonstrating my worth as a wordsmith on a semi-frequent basis, perhaps I’ll once again perceive myself as such (instead of lollygagging around with some namby pamby excuse as to why I’m supposed to be a writer but the world around me is too fucked up for me, blah blah blah).
I suppose I’ll issue myself a challenge. Keep writing like this, ya moron. Don’t you remember how good it felt once you’d finished polishing up these turds and putting all the tags and categories on them? Yeah you do, especially when those turds had metamorphosed into some sort of precious mineral (or at least clean-burning fuel source).
Okay, good pep talk. Unsure if this is helpful for anyone out there in the big ol’ world, but if you’re feeling burnt out on “life”, maybe this naïvely cynical take will make you chuckle for a second.
Category: Wordplay
Cookie Clicks
In a previous life (which is a maudlin way for me to admit that my life has been segmented into unequal emotional epochs, and this particular slice of life stings with the pith of some sort of intense citrus) I called myself an English Writing major.
I used to periodically patrol around looking for a different kind of “writing app” within the iOS and OSX environs—of course, there were numerous ones that got my attention, and I probably tried a half a dozen. At the end of the day, they are all attempting to do the same thing: help this dumb human try to wrangle its thoughts together in appealing ways (according to syntax and taste). I can’t knock that intent, and people gotta eat, so I’m willing to overlook how discombobulating this scenario has been for me.
Ya see, when faced with a multiplicity of writing applications that each have their own unique worthwhile feature, a rudimentary ape such as myself cannot overcome the amount of choices to be made in order to approach square one of the creative process. I’m distracted enough times over the course of my average day to where I don’t need even more contrivance spewed upon me (from my own computer, for chrissakes). Combine that with my neurodivergent brain and we’ve got a serious blockade forming on the horizon.
And what has this rambling accomplished? Probably nothing more than a yawp into the void we once used to think would be the apparatus to bring us all together. That was a larf. Were we just so naïve to believe that interconnectivity would improve our social mobility, allowing us to be tricked by the next generation of swindlers and snake oil salesmen into gleefully giving away all our liberties for little dopamine cookie clicks? Probly.
I swear I had a point when I started this thing.
Now that we have reached the point of full-societal multitudinous laptop writing program ubiquity, there is simply no way for me to choose a robust application. I must revert back to a rich text and sticky note mentality! It turns out I’ve learned just enough in this life in order to type words at a fairly chipper rate when I set out to do so, but that skillset fills about 85% of my computer capabilities. The remaining 15% is a Pandora’s Box of chaos that’s best left alone.
So Busy
Crap dang it, now I can’t think of anything all of a sudden. Oh well, guess it can’t be helped in my current predicament. It’s not so much of a predicament as a predicate-a-mint type of situation, where the essence of mint is completely ubiquitous around the entire cosmos for everyone to enjoy, whether they like it or not. Crap dang it.
So what am I supposed to do now? Who the hell knows? I sure don’t. That’s why I’m asking myself. Maybe if I ask myself and put some kind of deadline on the thing, I can stall the inevitable existential pain associated with extreme boredom.
But you know what? I’m sick and tired of being asked so many questions all the time. It seems like every day I’m getting badgered and/or peppered with at least several dozen inquiries, and my god does it take a toll. I’ve been meaning to have a serious talk with myself, really get the whole thing straightened out once and for all, but I’ve just been so busy.
Son’s Metal ‘Phant
Son’s metal ‘phant–
the oldest and wisest of all
the terrestrial mammals
that we’ve uncovered to date–
has an uncanny ability to get under one’s skin
in a matter of minutes, though
you’d think that such a gigantic specimen
would have trouble assimilating themselves
into such a tight space.
Fortunately for us (and, indeed, the world at large),
proportionality has no place here.
Nowadays
Inundated by swirling squirrels (plural),
my world unfurled and I hurled
at the girl–named Shirl–
who told Earl, who told Pearl.
Word spreads fast around these parts nowadays.
Definitely a far cry from stacking turtles
and expecting some kind of a turtle volume discount.
The world doesn’t revolve
around my every concern,
I must constantly remind myself;
it simply revolves around
the vast majority of my concerns,
which is not bad (as far as I’m concerned).
Regardless, I’ve shifted my priorities
toward more avian-oriented pursuits
in lieu of proper purpose fulfillment.
I once naïvely wondered if my
blundering about
could be prevented by taking a step too far
off the beaten path. They never manage
the nettles or brambles out there,
and the poison ivy situation
has gotten completely out of control.
At least I’m better prepared now.
Beginner’s luck let me
somehow sidestep preventable peril,
but then the paywall went up. And with it?
All intuitive botanical knowledge (once
freely accessible during the initial trial period)
just up and evaporated, leaving in its wake
a credit card authorization form
and the promise of easy unsubscription.
That was three years ago, and I
still haven’t managed to speak with a human
customer service rep. I’ve called in
every
other
business day
and built a rapport with a quirky AI bot
named Jimmy. He has a perfect memory
and seemingly always has time to talk,
even though the waiting list for a human
operator is still forty-seven months long.
To put it bluntly, this human
mass-extinction has really been ruffling
my feathers. All I want to do is yell
at a member of the species that made
this planet so unbearable to inhabit,
but of course that’s now practically impossible.
Well, I’d always like the opportunity to yell… but
I’d also appreciate crossing paths
with that elusive customer service rep
(a subset of human
that may very well have gone extinct by now).
Public or Private
Pudgy pigeons
pluck plinko players
from plaid plundering,
piracy never preferred
over pragmatic pilgrimages
(purchased with privilege
and pursued with primeval
predilections). Predictions
produce practically no pressure
in this prideful pageant, Professor–
public or private.
Perfectibillies
Sometimes you just need to keep rattling out random strings of words until you hit that one vein of gold ore that you wouldn’t mind blasting and smelting for the cost of three chicken sandwiches a day–though the price of those chicken sandwiches would be in direct opposition to the idea of one’s own self-worth, which tends to be inherently problematic.
On the one hand, I know that chicken sandwiches are really only worth about a few bucks a pop, but if I feel emotionally bankrupt, a double-digit dollar figure may be too hefty a price tag to tack onto my floundering ego (even if imposed as a thought exercise and nothing else).
Some folks prefer to invent misfortunes due to the dearth of such impediments in their naturally-occurring existence. The culmination of all human experience has led us to quarrel with our inner Perfectibillies (those naïve mind-dwellers with the sole objective to get the point across that we used to be a much more resilient bunch in the midst of chaos). We’ve lost our litheness, and it shows.
WHARVED 