Stream of Consciousness – Page 16

Poet on a Laptop in a Coffeeshop

So here’s what’s going to happen now. There sits a person to my left whom I believe is comparing their outward appearance and behavior to me at this moment, I’m not sure why. It’s quite possible that I have heinously misdiagnosed the situation, and this individual doesn’t give a second shit–let alone a first–about it. Honestly, I still haven’t even looked over at them, which I’m assuming they would interpret as strange.

If I were more swept up
by those weird social ticks
displayed on a regular basis
by our average arena-dwellers,
I may have already regarded this person
in some shape or form, but I flat out
just don’t care an ounce.

Now what does that make me? Am I some kind of hypocrite, expecting people to be attracted to my persona/aura and then rejecting them as soon as the convenience and luster of their adoration wears off? Jeez, that sounds pretty brutal. I’m just going to work off of the assumption that these folks are a little needier than the average bear, and they’re working out their emotional stuff on perfect strangers.

After all, those random
Jake and Jackie Terwilligers out there
are the ultimate barometers of who we are
in a social context, no?

Trivial Matters

As midlevel leisure enthusiasts,
we have always preferred
sipping
iced tea
on only the loveliest of summer days–
is that a stale interpretation?

Because, truth be told,
we could be the bandwagon kind of folk
who only drink iced tea
on the sun porch
in otherwise scorching conditions,
our enclosed little patio-area the only respite
when a cross-breeze comes rolling through.

No, I’m talking
temperate conditions
where you could really take it or leave it
(as far as a cool beverage is concerned).
It would even be bordering on the cusp of preferring
a lukewarm or even full-on warm beverage
if we were on the more neutral end of temperature concerns.

That’s not what I’m talking about here.
It’s crucial that you understand
my delicate position on this matter.

It’s usually not long after positing such a polarizing statement that I would be rebuffed with counter arguments stating the absurdity of equating a particular kind of climate/weather condition with the kind of beverage preferred during said time, at which time I would widely rebuke the person/s responsible for the indignation. What kind of boring life must you be leading if you have nothing better to do than debate someone over the importance, nay, relevance, of climate and beverage temperature comparison?!

I tend to get heated over trivial matters.
You got a problem with that?

Absurdity Is Rampant

Absurdity is rampant, all you jelly bean mongers out there (and aspiring monger-types who just haven’t caught your big break yet (it’s coming, trust me))!

The point here is the absurdity of even doing anything at all, let alone to the point where we can press our most sacred thoughts into lasting pellets of intuition and wildly disseminate them–in perpetuity–across the universe.

Effort would be considered the lion’s share of the process; it’s not the transcendence of this field of shapes and arbitrary sets of value, no, how could it be? For we are but simple field mice, content to labor our way through all hours of the day, afraid to look up or take pause.

Fear of the finite, the decay, the ruination of our children within, we clutch to anything resembling the womb.

But to state these maladies is only to bring attention back to that stale old paradigm, failing to uplift, only presenting symptoms of the perpetual problems while offering no solutions. What are we to do? Dive into some kind of fantastic phantasmagorical wonderscape?

Gretchen Ann simply needed to demonstrate the breadth of her innate yodeling abilities. Never once a formal student of the craft, her superb tonality and unapologetic virtuosity always brought her audience–usually herself–to the verge of emotional breakdown.

What the Why I Oughtta

I’m going for broad strokes here, don’t need no fancy-ass sophisti-ma-cated doohickey telling me why not or what for (what the why I oughtta).

Forget about all that untrustworthy noise being split and spattered as hats drop all across this great nation of ours. Am I a politician? No, I’m the version of that public servant who couldn’t be arsed into devoting so much time to such fruitless labor, only to end up making most people I know either hate or envy me just based on what I picked as my moneymaking methodology.

No, I’m a free-range consultant. No cages involved in the creation of my livelihood, I just move from place to place with a pen in hand (and hopefully some form of paper), keenly aware of my place within the echelon of idealists who couldn’t just sit by while creative liberties were being stripped away left and right through the illusion of choice that’s being perpetuated by the umpteen media concerns who mainly just seek that bottom dollar, any progress to be made coming in secondary as long as the people responsible for the immense success of these moneymaking machines are satisfied with the level of financial wherewithal gained through their various transactions aimed at creating a consumerist welfare state.

People, mostly, seem to have lost the innate ability to make something from scratch and take pride in it. Well, that’s not entirely true. People find their various outlets for pent-up creative energy, many times leading to unwanted pregnancy–or wanted, you never know. So having incredible sex, cooking a delicious meal, taking in a provocative documentary–you get the picture–are all lovely pastimes, but rarely do they get to the heart of the issue that pokes and prods us through every threshold of our very finite lives: what can I do as an individual that can be considered mine and mine alone? Sure, I make an excellent lasagna and fuck like the wind, but there just has to be more to this whole dog and pony show we all find ourselves swimming through (even though there was no prior mention of any aquatic activity whatsoever and we’re all stuck here looking like fools while we contemplate whether to strip naked, down to our skivvies, or just jump in, shoes and all).

When I was confronted with the infinite above-ground swimming pool of “reality”, I did my damnedest to avoid even dipping my toe in the water. I was and always have been a perpetual procrastinator and particular perfectionist, and I’ve learned to adjust expectations and accept when situations are out of my control. All well and good, you say, until I mention that the other 90% of all scenarios I’ve encountered have come as a result of the anxiety regarding my personal development and negotiation of this absurd pool metaphor that is becoming more and more apt the more I’m thinking about it.

I used to be perfectly content to drive headfirst into that pool for OTHER people, but when the time would invariably come to jump in there for my best interests, I would always shy away and make excuse after excuse, up to the point where just the act of making excuses became so humdrum that I didn’t even bother telling myself those convenient little mistruths. I would typically still be able to string those thoughts together, in order to satisfy questions by concerned parties (or nosy neighbors), but I’d run out of the energy to pretend to delude myself, because the only person I’d succeeded at confusing was ME!

And now none of that even matters anyway. I’m fixing to move to Albuquerque and start up a tombstone business, a good ol’ brick and mortar joint. That’ll teach ’em.