Fricassee Of Despair

Metaphysical nihilism cannot negate the impulse toward understanding. No, but it can get in the way of carving tight arcs, smearing turns, straight lining chutes & floating in powder. A good pair of skis should be your first priority. A disinterested perspective should be your second. You’ll also need a good pair of boots, a wad of cash, & a towel for the sauna. This is how life gives itself to us: in bits & pieces of stringy incentive. Things like clothes, hair, accessories, and so on. You know the drill. We hold these truths to be self-evident: Tuscan bread is best eaten with a drizzle of olive oil, cotton should be washed in warm water, & the truth of being is Friday.

I’m not sure what to think of dance. It’s an odd thing to do. And then there’s the guy I saw today holding a device over the street, moving it along, it had a pointed rod & a meter at the other end, I think it was some form of sonar, radar, it made pretty sounds, melodic little bleeps, I assume he was trying to find a pipe, or a sewer line. So you see, the romantic spirit isn’t dead. It’s just in a different time zone. That being, of course, the underworld. Something like Florida. Or outer space. Here’s what I think: the zeitgeist needs a bath. “We are all the leaves of one tree,” remarks Thich Nhat Hanh. But I see a lot of those leaves are rotting on the ground while a few at the top are getting abundant sunlight. My point being: the elbow is in control of its own reality. It just is.

A lot of conflict emerges from the discrepancy that we have of our feelings and the material reality which temporarily gives them birth, said Lucretius. Well, yeah, I’d say that’s got something to teach me about me. How about you? And why? Why is pain necessary? Pain doesn’t contain what it doesn’t understand. The lessons of life are relatively easy. Eat well, keep warm, get plenty of sleep. Try not to kill anyone. Above all, pay attention. Notice things. Care for things. Love animals, they have to put up with human beings. I blow soap bubbles for our cat. Do thoughts have substance? In a word, no. And so I became a dumbfuck. Blowing bubbles.

No fiery declaration, no thirsty desire, no blind passion, just loyalty to a specific being after exploring the world. Isn’t that what it’s all about? I never know how to display my emotions. Incandescence doesn’t go well with small talk & wheat thins. Intensity is easily mistaken for madness. Someone may be teetering between life & death on an operating table. Above them hovers the ghost of an exuberance. The universe does not necessarily conform to our language. Consciousness is a chiaroscuro of fire escapes & alleys. This is what life does when death isn’t around. It walks around in my blood until it finds a hand & a reason to write itself down.

My first instinct in all things is to grip something & hang on for dear life. I know this feeling. It’s called fricassee of despair. It starts as a head of lettuce & ends with a new religion. A big one, with turnstiles & polo. Spinoza saw God as nature itself.  And why not? Just look at what I’m wearing. A tiara, a tutu, & a butterfly wand topped with faux gems & flowing ribbons. Now do you believe me? Grab that idea & yank it right out like a squishy mash of thought. Did you know Chekhov's body was transported to Moscow in a refrigerated railway car meant for oysters? A little ironic, yes, but also a little pragmatic, really. The inexplicable reconciled to the veridical.