Jun 9, 2022
thinking about the internet, loneliness and motivation
woke up with this simplicity on my mind’s tongue—a basic framework for what I think about, so I thought maybe I would ramble some paragraphs about each and make a Medium post to sustain my own belief in my Linktree and being an online creator speaking vulnerable truth to an audience that might not be there (are you there? What is the online human being doing but reaching out across the abyss of separateness trying to make what’s unreal real? I wish it were as easy as I remember it was, in my twenties at a party, backyard underneath a palm tree strung with lights, a cooler, cool people…life was going somewhere: there were managers and governments somewhere, fathers, leaders, someone respectable rather than just other bumbling adults running a script trying not to get found out, clinging to capital and guns and voting to change nothing, damned be the kids dying from gunfire in schools while police officers stand awaiting orders outside the fatal classroom where another young white man with a machine gun takes out his rage on the world that did not take his muttered grievances seriously
THE INTERNET is full of children who’ve taken their fate in their own hands insisting their ennui and malaise is extraordinary, and if only it were heard and taken seriously, they would be relieved of making $70,000 a year and continuing to bang the drum of LinkedIn and continue the internal narrative of their goodness, their being on the right track, the coherence necessary to go out, dress well, enjoy a drink and socialize ~ whereas I am the ice cube that has melted and am liquid awareness and blank identity at the center, the vast landscape of nature, and every moment is a fresh beginning, and the pieces that once were congealed (oh, nostalgia for personal Pangaea) are now disintegrated, fragments, flecks of memory and image, a broken, frazzled story of how I might string together efforts in a shape called a job description or a reliable human being (am I just lazy, selfish, ridiculous? am I an artist who according to James Baldwin is necessarily opposed to and divorced from any system whatever? I’ve been staying in a small town after failing out of New York City a second time, and men surround me who are driving trucks, smoking a cigarette, listening to country music effortlessly, going to a job, doing a job, coming home from a job…what kind of man am I? Am I even a man? Could you or anyone else tell me? Here I am making myself legible, accessible, and I don’t think any active imagination, memory or sense perception can give me answers or comfort as I drift over the sea of absurdity and lack of gear-catch, seeing myself as a motor vehicle, the teeth of the transmission gears clutching the axle and pulling, and I go, in miles per hour like the other cars on the road with an origin and a destination; I wonder about place and time, personality, motivation, clarity, employment, mortgage, marriage, divorce — is this just a light hike down to the waterfall where my awareness wells forth? Could be; that would make me a painter of ladders; it could be worse; I’m no less viable than others pouring/crying into their devices, rendering the path to their heart and eyes legible, proving to the world they are Active now, receiving messages and ready to respond; oh, are people making promises and following through, and sending receipts and having money sent for services rendered? Gosh, it seems like a long time since I’ve done that, yet my life up to a month ago really did happen; I remember when I had a brand, and potential and beauty and talent and something to say, a voice—don’t I still? Am I heartbroken? Silence and solitude are yielding all this meat and fruit; only you can tell me what kind of dish or meal this is, if my stream of consciousness would be considered part of the hospitality industry
LONELINESS is heroic, put on music and write whatever comes to your head: show us what your inner voice is; drift very far from a coherent life arranged in boxes called work, home/life/family…maybe I’m trying to be my own best friend, spouse, manager (HAHA! I’ve shown my hand I’ve let sour; gosh, I started off so well, so lucky, sweet, beautiful, full of potential; don’t tell me I’m writing an elegy for my youth which is unfortunately permanent and will stick around; the truth is I’ve lost nothing (am I the saddest, most introspective boy ever? The move of course is to publish this and not look back, remembering it only by the cover photo, title and date, all other facts melt into the soup of timeless spiritual awareness, a flat circle from which I could call up any memory or experience that’s ever happened to me, or you—your past is here too, your heart is beating too, isn’t this fact enough to quash loneliness forever? No, we forget, I go back to having trouble getting out of bed because my life is stupid and stuck, and thousands of talking heads selling some sort of coaching service are available, Wide Open Calendar, to be paid to listen and talk back; what if money rained from the sky and we could all pay each other to say whatever they’re thinking? I wonder about the quote from Francis Bacon: reading maketh a ready man, writing an exact man, and conference a something man…or maybe i got that wrong and could google or twitter search it, uh oh this is flying off the rails now, a deep dive off the skyscraper of ego and sadness and clinging for security and safety and love and a story of where I am going like I used to have, oh this is helpless, I can’t see this being published on Kindle Cloud Reader, but haven’t I read others’ such unhinged vignettes? Is it a problem or is it a gift that I can write darkly so easily? Is this as entertaining as radio? Does it go down smoothly? Is it a pleasant ride? I wonder if in the future we won’t buy cars but will instead traverse others’ depths via written vehicle they present online like so, like so, click elsewhere there are so many others tearing their chests open, maybe I ought to try real nudity
MOTIVATION would be a way of believing that if you do what you say you are going to do, life will unfold and be warm and you will be proud of yourself; sadly my generation and younger has been trained on mirrors and making sense to others; we only see ourselves as how we are judged, so we are always trying to avoid punishment—so when no one cares enough to punish us (am I so privileged and American that I must imagine a disaster? even though it’s terrible on every screen, the pain and suffering are distant from me; i worry about what i will eat next; … i think economic liberation for me personally will come from rendering myself as a disgusting person so free it’s stupid, free to make meaning and tear it down and be an elephant and listen to music and take edibles and hope no one I respect sees me like this; I will be OK if money is given without my having to be read. Oh! How I run away from you! But you can’t hurt me; this is fiction and probably very far away from my speaking voice; it is raw and so it is good enough to overwrite all previous stuff; it can’t be wrong if I am writing it and feeling very good…but I’m afraid this is shameful and just practice, not accomplishment at all, not editing or publishing, not thought leadership; it’s dumb leadership, it’s being a twat — see I didn’t even say anything militaristic about motivation and trying to appear like my father, trying to be a good little boy all the way to the bank and the wife and two kids and white picket fence; ya know it actually sounds nice if there’s a 24-hour deli to walk to, imagine combining the best of the suburbs and New York City LOL there’s a project I could see myself interested in, making the best little pod for independent intellectuals who are longing for something to be a part of; I could be a father figure to lonely shitposters everywhere, insisting on the freedom to live absurdly and type whatever and press publish and require no viewers, judges or validators, and yet one would still be able to believe in their housing situation’s endurance three, six nine and twelve months from now, and not aging so quickly in photographs that your mother might legitimately be proud of you … God, if that’s my next step in therapy and that my father is only a gateway drug to my mother, fuck you, that’s a damn good joke
