20041111   

Michael considered fate at 22:05   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment

Tony complained today about having to go through his archives to make a book. Not that he didn't like the idea of a free book but he just doesn't care much for re-reading his archives.

I don't blame him, mine are shit.

And it's not even the spelling mistakes, the poor grammar, or the overuse of the comma and hyphen that gets me down, really. It's the sap. In a perfect world I'd have no feelings and just roll around like a giant juggernaut of logic. Logic, you see, has the power to save people. Logic, I've heard.. makes sense. I dunno what that means, exactly, but I think it has something to do with emotions being only partially right, or true, depending on how you're measuring things. It's sort of like natural error built into the system. One of the many variables in this big experiment of life. So what if you cry at your sister's wedding and throw a fit. Was it the best thing to do? Was it the right thing to do? Was it the thing to do if you were trying to maximize your social value, maximize your opportunities, maximize.. your life? Who knows, for sure. I'm not saying this logic thing is cut and dry either.. In fact, if we all adopted ultimate logic as our "social engine" god knows it would be fucking weird around here for awhile. Really weird.

Up is down, Left is right.

Still, though, in a perfect world I'd probably be a little less emotional, a little less romantic, a little less feeling in general. Why? Cause why not. Honestly, it's the emotion of things that gets me real down in it - the brain feeling, emotions - I'm not talking about ouch-my-knee-hurts here. I'm talking about real pain. Real suffering. And the other side of things is just fleeting, the unreachable goal of happiness. I've talked about happiness before. I say it's a momentary feeling. I say it's an electron in an excited state. Not something that lasts and lasts. The only thing that goes on, day to day, everyday, is the feeling like we're missing something.. like we're not quite getting it.

You thought I was going to say pain? Suffering? Come on, I'm not that much of a cynic. Sure, pain and suffering are a universal truth but I'd be a hypocrite if I led you to believe it was me doing the pain and suffering everyday.

But I am missing something. The big truth, as it were. The end-all-be-all-answer of why.. and I'm not talking about religion here. I'm not even talking about the end of the universe. I'm just talking about the neighbourhood, really. Humanity. Earth. The human race and where we're going, what we got up our sleeve, are we screwing it up.. big time? Could we do better?

I don't know, honestly, but for a race that's managed to take control of the world and, I think, do pretty well for itself.. managed to cover up it's fuck-ups fairly well, managed to make do with what we have in a necessity-is-the-mother-of-all-invention sort of way, well.. we've got a pretty bad attitude.

Don't think so? Look at Star Wars. Look at Blade Runner. Look at THX. The future, as we'd like to imagine it, is pretty damn bleak. Waterworld? Maybe we're just obsessed with suffering.. it's more powerful than love, maybe. Suffering is our ultimate purpose. It makes ourselves real. It frees us from our failings, because, well.. we're suffering. As if that's the ultimate excuse. If you cut me sir, do I not bleed?

Bullocks I bleed and bullocks if I don't heal right up and keep on going and going like that damn energizer bunny but you don't see anyone grasping onto that idea, do you? Around here we call such nonsense "hope" and then we laugh about it. It's like we're afraid to think we might be alright.

So maybe it's some sick evolutionary trick being played on us. Like a dog that can't stop eating maybe we just can't stop feeling sorry for ourselves, can't stop thinking we're gonna royally fuck it up, can't stop believeing that we're gonna kill ourselves off, we're going to ruin the world, we're we're we're at fault and we'll certainly suffer for it. I dunno, is that our self-contrived necessity? Do we suffer for naught?

I'm just saying we should think about these things on occasion. Maybe not take it all so seriously, maybe laugh at the blood, enjoy the pain. Maybe.

And maybe I should trudge through my archives and come up with a book myself. A blook as tony calls 'em. I can't imagine 10 pages worthwhile let alone 200 but then again, one man's garbage (thoughts) is another man's treasure(d ideas).

I could print it up real nice like and stare at it on my bookshelf.

And feel like I've failed.