Grind

Hot and still, someone banging with a hammer, someone grinding something.

It's like, if you stepped outside, it wouldn't be there. And sometimes I watch a football match and it's live and I say to myself, they're really doing that now, and I just don't believe it.

wat

Anyway, the noise stops and I'm aware of birds. And here's a thing, when I read that diversity is a good thing, I never read about why. The organisation benefits from diversity, I see them assert, but they never say why they benefit.

These birds are diverse but they only bring discomfort because I do not understand their language, and in my home, they speak to me in tongues I grasp.

And anyway, is it a bad thing that languages die? It's not bad that they change, right? So what is lost? Just stuff.

I'm talking to L, and she's saying how people aren't happy. And she was watching something on TV, and the people were dirt poor, but they were happy. And I'm saying, yeah, the thing is, I think we were happiest before the Neolithic Revolution. Yeah, we got sick and didn't live as long as we do now. But we didn't fight over things. We didn't fight over land, because no one had land. We didn't have stuff, only what we could carry.

And our lives never got better for having more stuff. That's just a myth the rich sell you because they want to be richer. And that's something I never fucking understood. I understand that money is freedom. I understand that I am encumbered because I am poor. But at a certain point, I would be free, and after that, what point would there be to having more?

I could even tell you how much it would be.

And if I abandoned stuff, it would be even less.

wat

You are not permitted to abandon stuff, you fool. Yeahbut.

See, I woke up this morning and I didn't want to live. And I have been here for five hours plus and will be here for seven more. What's the use of that? What's the point of it?

And you know, I always thought I was fairly smart but how smart can you be when you have the wrong stuff? Right now, all I want is a small cottage with a walled garden, and how hard would that have been? Not hard at all. And how hard is it to eat a bit of shit and rise? Not hard at all. I was thinking, I could have written shit for the college rag, but I didn't, and I can't even remember why not. Just lack of faith.

wat

You have faith in everyone else, you clown. And you keep saying you needed a mentor and now you have one. You just don't ever let him show you the way.

Right. But you know, I start a lot of things and never finish. That was half the problem. More than half. I start a lot of things and lose interest, or lose faith, or lose the ability to love them enough to

You know, that's a curious way to look at it
that you should love what you do
That's a curious way to even think about such mundane things as becoming who you are and who you can be.
And it doesn't make sense to think you couldn't love something now you're older, because what has changed except that you stopped dreaming.

How many times do you need to say I wish I had never given that up before you realise you didn't ever give it up, you just put it aside and can pick it back up just as easily?

Here's the fucking thing. Why worry about authenticity when everything you do is fakery anyhow? Do I think I made a principled way to being a copy editor? Do I think I built the world I live in? Do I think I am doing the right thing?

Stop. Think.

Think.

Give her what she wants. It won't matter if it's six months more. It won't matter because the kids will still be primary age, and you will still have something left. Let it slide so that you can make it good. Let it slide so that you can breathe.

Think.

It's no use fretting about how you told those people October. They don't care about you; they won't look after you. Don't fret about those people; think about how you can make yourself a bud, waiting to flower; think about how you can make yourself a cool glass of water.

When I was shaving the other day, I was thinking, I could die in ten years. I meant, I expect to die. I feel like I will die. I am not in good shape and I'm only half sure that the pains in my chest are nothing.

I could die and I don't want to have been this man, and you can easily stop. You can't deny any of that.

You cannot deny any of that and trying to just ignore it

is like ignoring the grinding, and what the fuck is that guy grinding anyway?

DR

posted by Dr Zen @ 1:11 pm