Angry Lava
12/21/06
Finally home after the morning and afternoon are spent
At work.
Got hopped up on caffeine to make it through a
draining day at the gas station.
The place
naturally
sucks the life out of me,
regardless of my efforts
to maintain a positive and congenial attitude.
By the end of a nine hour shift
standing behind a counter that divides employee from patron
beneath fluorescent light that turns my complexion sickly
forcing smiles and basic math functions
performing a role to complete transactions
something is always denying a real sense of satisfaction.
These actions,
Devoid of purpose, doomed to routine
And efficiency,
The requisites capital and currency.
There is something about interaction that has become more important to me over the years—dialogue. Real conversation in which people listen to one another and only offer their own thoughts once they have digested what else is being said. Silence has become more significant to me; I understand the value of listening—not just to people speaking, but to the language of the world, from the dialect of the deciduous trees to the inarticulate hum of the bees to the roaring waves of the sea and every silly syllable in between. But in the quiet there is a riot of sensations that can never be replicated during any human conversation. That’s where dance comes in, that’s where music comes in, that’s where things begin to feel instead of think, to savor instead of blink.
Everyone can be an artist because everyone creates, but we’ve lost inspiration, created shallow ways to relate. And every new label that we delineate only complicates our ability to communicate.
Because I am I and I am you
And you are he and he is she
And
we
can’t
move
on
until we know
how we belong.
Not to one group or one root;
Its all part of a bigger design
Along every path
We eventually find
An explanation for
What it means to be content.
And I’d rather it be
Time
with within the moments with what and whom I love
than just money
that I’ve spent.
But I have to do these things. I have to devote so much of my time to what is expected of me rather than to what I expect of myself.
And what do I expect from myself?
Just enough words to capture a significant range of emotions and experiences.
It is an endless pursuit that I never grow weary for.
I am so exhausted. My body and mind are crashing and I haven’t the inclination to sleep. And people depend on this legal dark brewed speed; nowonder everyone is so stressed out.
Stretched out and
Spread thin.
Too tired to show their families
Or their own thoughts
Affection.
This doesn’t make sense, dad. And you don’t have to deal with it anymore—you lucky soul, you. I know I’ll be alright. I know this. But it’s so utterly frustrating. To the point where by determination gives and my cynicism takes over. I can’t even enjoy Christmas. I get like this and I can’t enjoy the moments. Until…
Right now I’m sitting next to a little gas heater, mounted on the wall of my little living-room. The orange ceramic tiles send waves of hot that heat the right side of my face and the sleeve of my duster gets so warm I have to move my arm now and again. Hobbes is grooming himself, as usual, but has settled for the couch instead of his favorite chair where I sit to work at my desk.
I am tired. But I feel like sleeping will be unproductive, a waste of time. And so what little energy and focus I have are ebbing through my fingertips, onto these plastic, clicking keys, and springing up like elegant footprints across this screen.
This screen that you helped give purpose to again. Thanks for the birthday present. I’d rather have your presence now.
There I go again, crying.
I can say I’m fed up with the world, but I know that nothing is permanent, so I’ve just got to be a little patient and I’ll be able to feel good again. What frightens me is that my life will reach a point where that feeling is merely a disguise, protection from the absurd fruitlessness of it all. What terrifies me is settling for a perspective that allows me to function without questioning.
If we are as ephemeral as the breath that a god exhales
Then why make everything so painful, so difficult?
Why the systems? Why the violence? Why the need for control?
When are we going to stop looking beyond death for guidance to life?
It isn’t about heaven. Or hell. Both of those places exist in the here and now.
And I’m so tired of both of them. The parabolic nature of life in its inconstancy has slowly but surely stripped me of my ability to create purpose.
And what’s worse, is these words. They feel so inadequate. So useless. I can only put the power of myself into them and then they are as void as theories without application, hypotheses without proof by observation. They are thoughts. And though I need to release them, they only do so much for me. They feel so unfulfilled unless they make it into another person’s awareness. And how many times must I repeat myself before I am understood? How many different ways must I translate the same basic ideas in order for enough people to get it?
I suppose in the same way that I cannot rely on anyone else for my own happiness, so my ideas too must rely on my own initiative to be fulfilled. My own movement.
But I am not alone. I am hardly ever alone. I know, people say you die alone; you meet your maker alone. But how is that possible? How is it possible for any molecule, any atom or particle or quark or vibration to exist in isolation? A vibration is a ripple, its movement only possible, only defined through a type of cooperative motion that perpetuates a wave. A wave. A wave. The parabolic tone of life.
And damn-it, I didn’t sit down with intention, but here out comes my foolish principle. Out comes purpose. Out comes a message as uselessly universal as the image of God.
Vibration—2. Physics. (esp. rapid) motion to and fro, esp. of the parts of a fluid or an elastic solid whose equilibrium has been disturbed or of an electromagnetic wave.
So what causes electromagnetism? What is electricity? The wordfinder is no help. Just gives me strings of signifiers that defer meaning again and again and again so that the words end up leading back to the same words I was seeking to understand.
A form of energy resulting from the existence of charged particles (electrons, protons, etc.).
What charges them? Where does that energy come from? It doesn’t matter. It has manifested and it gives us this and we can do with this what we WILL. By our sheer will.
Sheer will.
Thin and translucent.
What are you trying to do?
“Why don’t you rebel?”—Lauryn Hill
And so what if one day there is a young woman who sings at the local microbrewery? And they prefer for her to sing the same songs that they are used to hearing while they consume. While they drown their sorrows and exaggerate their volumes and find a method to cope within a glass half full or half empty of fermented substance. And she cannot tolerate censorship; her reasons for singing have to do with wanting to be heard, with wanting to express things that people tend to ignore for the sake of comfort. But she is not comfortable. She is not content pretending, entertaining, performing according to the rules of convention. So she sings her protest songs, her woeful ballads, her unheard of covers, avoiding as many clichés as possible and the patrons begin to listen more. And drink less. Or drink more and listen less. Either way, she loses. Either way the spotlight is the wrong kind of bright and her tone is more suited for the person alone in the calm part of their day, in the isolation of their living room where speakers project her voice and its messages into the ears of a person attempting to disconnect from the stress they’ve collected throughout their routinized day.
It is in the times we are surprised that our senses are really tested. How receptive are we to what life offers? How much of it becomes automatic, expected, ritualized, categorized and filed into a stock of experiences that are essentially disposable because they offer nothing in the way of evolution. And if change is the only constant and we still repeat the same mistakes, recreate the same sorry state of affairs, then we are not changing; we have submitted to the illusion of conformity because we are too lazy to make anew.
Like angry lava.
Finally home after the morning and afternoon are spent
At work.
Got hopped up on caffeine to make it through a
draining day at the gas station.
The place
naturally
sucks the life out of me,
regardless of my efforts
to maintain a positive and congenial attitude.
By the end of a nine hour shift
standing behind a counter that divides employee from patron
beneath fluorescent light that turns my complexion sickly
forcing smiles and basic math functions
performing a role to complete transactions
something is always denying a real sense of satisfaction.
These actions,
Devoid of purpose, doomed to routine
And efficiency,
The requisites capital and currency.
There is something about interaction that has become more important to me over the years—dialogue. Real conversation in which people listen to one another and only offer their own thoughts once they have digested what else is being said. Silence has become more significant to me; I understand the value of listening—not just to people speaking, but to the language of the world, from the dialect of the deciduous trees to the inarticulate hum of the bees to the roaring waves of the sea and every silly syllable in between. But in the quiet there is a riot of sensations that can never be replicated during any human conversation. That’s where dance comes in, that’s where music comes in, that’s where things begin to feel instead of think, to savor instead of blink.
Everyone can be an artist because everyone creates, but we’ve lost inspiration, created shallow ways to relate. And every new label that we delineate only complicates our ability to communicate.
Because I am I and I am you
And you are he and he is she
And
we
can’t
move
on
until we know
how we belong.
Not to one group or one root;
Its all part of a bigger design
Along every path
We eventually find
An explanation for
What it means to be content.
And I’d rather it be
Time
with within the moments with what and whom I love
than just money
that I’ve spent.
But I have to do these things. I have to devote so much of my time to what is expected of me rather than to what I expect of myself.
And what do I expect from myself?
Just enough words to capture a significant range of emotions and experiences.
It is an endless pursuit that I never grow weary for.
I am so exhausted. My body and mind are crashing and I haven’t the inclination to sleep. And people depend on this legal dark brewed speed; nowonder everyone is so stressed out.
Stretched out and
Spread thin.
Too tired to show their families
Or their own thoughts
Affection.
This doesn’t make sense, dad. And you don’t have to deal with it anymore—you lucky soul, you. I know I’ll be alright. I know this. But it’s so utterly frustrating. To the point where by determination gives and my cynicism takes over. I can’t even enjoy Christmas. I get like this and I can’t enjoy the moments. Until…
Right now I’m sitting next to a little gas heater, mounted on the wall of my little living-room. The orange ceramic tiles send waves of hot that heat the right side of my face and the sleeve of my duster gets so warm I have to move my arm now and again. Hobbes is grooming himself, as usual, but has settled for the couch instead of his favorite chair where I sit to work at my desk.
I am tired. But I feel like sleeping will be unproductive, a waste of time. And so what little energy and focus I have are ebbing through my fingertips, onto these plastic, clicking keys, and springing up like elegant footprints across this screen.
This screen that you helped give purpose to again. Thanks for the birthday present. I’d rather have your presence now.
There I go again, crying.
I can say I’m fed up with the world, but I know that nothing is permanent, so I’ve just got to be a little patient and I’ll be able to feel good again. What frightens me is that my life will reach a point where that feeling is merely a disguise, protection from the absurd fruitlessness of it all. What terrifies me is settling for a perspective that allows me to function without questioning.
If we are as ephemeral as the breath that a god exhales
Then why make everything so painful, so difficult?
Why the systems? Why the violence? Why the need for control?
When are we going to stop looking beyond death for guidance to life?
It isn’t about heaven. Or hell. Both of those places exist in the here and now.
And I’m so tired of both of them. The parabolic nature of life in its inconstancy has slowly but surely stripped me of my ability to create purpose.
And what’s worse, is these words. They feel so inadequate. So useless. I can only put the power of myself into them and then they are as void as theories without application, hypotheses without proof by observation. They are thoughts. And though I need to release them, they only do so much for me. They feel so unfulfilled unless they make it into another person’s awareness. And how many times must I repeat myself before I am understood? How many different ways must I translate the same basic ideas in order for enough people to get it?
I suppose in the same way that I cannot rely on anyone else for my own happiness, so my ideas too must rely on my own initiative to be fulfilled. My own movement.
But I am not alone. I am hardly ever alone. I know, people say you die alone; you meet your maker alone. But how is that possible? How is it possible for any molecule, any atom or particle or quark or vibration to exist in isolation? A vibration is a ripple, its movement only possible, only defined through a type of cooperative motion that perpetuates a wave. A wave. A wave. The parabolic tone of life.
And damn-it, I didn’t sit down with intention, but here out comes my foolish principle. Out comes purpose. Out comes a message as uselessly universal as the image of God.
Vibration—2. Physics. (esp. rapid) motion to and fro, esp. of the parts of a fluid or an elastic solid whose equilibrium has been disturbed or of an electromagnetic wave.
So what causes electromagnetism? What is electricity? The wordfinder is no help. Just gives me strings of signifiers that defer meaning again and again and again so that the words end up leading back to the same words I was seeking to understand.
A form of energy resulting from the existence of charged particles (electrons, protons, etc.).
What charges them? Where does that energy come from? It doesn’t matter. It has manifested and it gives us this and we can do with this what we WILL. By our sheer will.
Sheer will.
Thin and translucent.
What are you trying to do?
“Why don’t you rebel?”—Lauryn Hill
And so what if one day there is a young woman who sings at the local microbrewery? And they prefer for her to sing the same songs that they are used to hearing while they consume. While they drown their sorrows and exaggerate their volumes and find a method to cope within a glass half full or half empty of fermented substance. And she cannot tolerate censorship; her reasons for singing have to do with wanting to be heard, with wanting to express things that people tend to ignore for the sake of comfort. But she is not comfortable. She is not content pretending, entertaining, performing according to the rules of convention. So she sings her protest songs, her woeful ballads, her unheard of covers, avoiding as many clichés as possible and the patrons begin to listen more. And drink less. Or drink more and listen less. Either way, she loses. Either way the spotlight is the wrong kind of bright and her tone is more suited for the person alone in the calm part of their day, in the isolation of their living room where speakers project her voice and its messages into the ears of a person attempting to disconnect from the stress they’ve collected throughout their routinized day.
It is in the times we are surprised that our senses are really tested. How receptive are we to what life offers? How much of it becomes automatic, expected, ritualized, categorized and filed into a stock of experiences that are essentially disposable because they offer nothing in the way of evolution. And if change is the only constant and we still repeat the same mistakes, recreate the same sorry state of affairs, then we are not changing; we have submitted to the illusion of conformity because we are too lazy to make anew.
Like angry lava.
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