"That makes no sense", I said. "I don't even understand what that sentence means".
I reached into the refrigerator to grab some clean underwear.
"I mean, complacent? How am I complacent?" After putting on the underwear, I walked slowly over to my couch, curled up in a ball, and began to count the days until my death.
"Remember when we were 22? Remember when we both wanted to be something?"
"Well, I'm something." This is where I scoop up an entire container of hummus with a piece of pita and eat it in two quick bites.
"Each day is a smaller percentage of our lives and therefore goes faster then the day before; which basically means that each day we live is the shortest day of our lives. We're spiraling towards death and not making the most of what we have...you know?"
I really have nothing to add to this sketch of a doodle of a draft. I guess it popped into my mind after having dinner with two old friends tonight. One, I've known for 15 years, the other for 10.
The one I've known for 15 is a talented singer/songwriter with one of the most angelically pleasant voices I've ever heard. Her talents first became apparent in the summer of 1995; when, dressed up as a riot grrl (baby doll dress, smeared lipstick, etc), she performed in a series of punkish grunge bands (including one featuring yours truly).
She moved on to go to NYU with me (complete with an application essay about Courtney Love!) and continued to sing and record wonderful stuff.
She had a band for about 7 years that never really made it and they recently broke up. She told both of us at dinner that she's given up on songwriting and "just doesn't have it". I don't believe it for a second, but sometimes our actual life gets in the way of what we think life should be.
The other girl was an English major in college and used to send me these pithy, adroit short stories with all the self-deprecating, nihilistic wit that I love. She wrote comedy with the blunt straight-forwardness of a dude, but the epigrammatic reflectiveness of a woman.
Each year on her birthday, I would buy her something that would encourage her to write (nice pens, leather bound journals, etc), and it was her dream to become a novelist.
Needless to say, she's writes for a magazine (and successful), but it's not what she wants to be doing. At dinner, she helplessly relayed her idle reveries of quitting her job; but she had no follow up. She didn't say "I want to quit to write" she said "I want to quit".
I suppose no one wants to work, but you shouldn't want to work for a reason, not just because working is soul suckingly vapid.
They both seemed miserably content and I can understand. It's a new year, and while Christmas is all about helping others (or should be), this time of year is about being selfish and setting personal goals which you will never keep (and never have the right to believe you will actually keep).
You wonder where the year went and you wonder why you didn't accomplish all you set out to accomplish when it started.
So, you set the same goals you set every year, fall woefully short; rinse, repeat.
My goal this year is to set unattainable goals and give up on them after the third week in January. At least that's a goal I can accomplish.
Here's a great song for the new year. Listen and enjoy...
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2 comments:
I think it's a mix of the time of the year, this age in particular, and the time we live in that makes our peers and ourselves so discontent. We've entered a period in history where you can become famous (or moderately to fabulously successful) for doing just about nothing. We see bands making it big through MySpace and bloggers getting book deals and get jealous. But ultimately I think the problem is that work ethic in this country just doesn't exist anymore.
I was really fascinated with this subject while in Japan. There is much more of an ethos there that concerns the greater good of the society as a whole as opposed to the benefits of the individual. Accordingly, you find people that take pride and work hard in even the most menial of jobs. Yet still even the convenience store clerk our age has a sticker of a guitar on his nametag so you know he's *really* a musician, not a life-long register attendant. Also, it's not a fair comparison because the average Tokyo resident has socialized medicine, welfare and substantial expendable income to use to buy material crap.
I wouldn't be surprised to find ennui in Japan, but probably not at the toxic levels you'd encounter in America. It just seems that we've lost sight of the important things. I find myself frequently trying to remember that for every 40 hours of work I do not living my dream, I have about 60 hours per week where I can and should be enjoying my life to the fullest.
I also like pornography a LOT.
I couldn't agree more Paul. I think we're at a tipping point one way or another; the micro is becoming macro to an almost absurd extent and it's almost unheard of to *not* bathe in your own personal ennui.
Then, if you meet someone (like a blogger who publishes a book) who isn't full of bored dissatisfaction, you become jealous and more full of bored dissatisfaction. It's a vicious cycle and makes me waste a shit load of time googling idiots and downloading pornography.
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