I'm A Yo-Yo

Consciousness means we’re involved in the creation of the universe. It’s a process. What you’re going to need is a philosophy, a shovel, and a bag of cement. Romance, precision, generalization. Quills and calculus and pliers and a caulking gun and motorcycles and a big garage. A drummer. A bass guitarist. A case of beer. The voice of Merle Haggard. The spirit of Moses. The linguistic prowess of Cleopatra. A stiff felt hat and a whirlpool of upholstery in somebody’s basement. Lights are good and a Persian carpet and a roll of duct tape. Include a peninsula and a noontime snooze. Everyone is here. Everyone is involved. It’s time to get started. This one’s all but gone. But we can salvage the nails and lumber. It’s going to be a kick-ass universe. Timeless as string. If we do it up right, it will echo the cravings of the spirit. And walk in beauty like the yo-yo.

I’m a yo-yo. No doubt about it. It amazes me the number of times I have to get up and piss. The night becomes a pattern of up and down, up and down, up and down. Pissing has become an occupation. I’ve had to cultivate a new relationship with my body and its organs. In youth I flew around like Ariel, hardly aware I had a body at all. Unless I had a hard-on. Or I was getting punched in a fight. Because some guy’s girlfriend took a liking to me. And gave me a hard-on. But sometime after passing 50 things changed. And by the time I was 70 I became the caretaker of 170 pounds of elements like hydrogen and sulfur and phosphorous and an amalgam of muscle, gum and bone. I do what it wants. What it needs. And now if you’ll excuse me, I have to piss.

Remember when people used to say stupid things like job satisfaction is a cause of well-being? They don’t still say that, do they?

I’d rather shoot myself. I hope to God I never become that person. Which, considering my age, is highly unlikely. I’m a different species of asshole. I’m the kind that goofs off all day, and then blames it all on Arthur Schopenhauer.

The spawn of John Calvin is everywhere. Original sin. Predestination. Humility and obedience. Hard work as a religious duty. Jesus. What bullshit.

Those forced grins you used to see everywhere, at least that’s gone. Now that the corporate juggernaut has achieved its goal of hijacking governments and prosecuting a plan of neo-feudalism for the masses, it’s ok to show your despair and look askance and not engage customers in conversation. Those self-serve aisles at the grocery store have become a remarkable success. It’s got work, martyrdom, and debasement all over it and as an added bonus you don’t have to engage with anyone.

Whatever happened to well-being? For a lot of people, people fleeing Afghanistan or Ukraine or Syria, it's a luxury. It begins with shelter and food. And for a lot of people - many of them living in the United States and Europe - shelter and food have become a luxury. 

There’s no such thing as well-being. Being is a meaningless term. It’s not an entity. Not a cotton swab. And what does ‘well’ mean? Skilled, competent, good, healthy, strong, vigorous, shrewd, judicious, fit as a fiddle. In other words, an asshole. Non-being is a form of well-being. If there’s no being there’s no worry, no purpose, no agenda, no target, no intention, no weaponry, no animus, no machinations, no aim. Therefore, non-being is the nebulous chew of reverie. Blue rubies. Black Beauties. Musical breweries. I’m done now. Done with being. This is clearly the moment to talk about something else. Eccentrics in Africa and the greenery of rattling shirts. Cherry blossom pink is the nipples’s friend, and this involves easels and paint, and a sense of non-being.

It's a simple formula: if you have non-being, nobody can get their hooks in you. When well-being becomes a commodity, non-being is a way out: ownership is suffering. When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose. 

Normally, I don’t get this preachy. But every time I see a white blank sheet of paper or word document I see a theater. I see a stage. So here I am. To be or not to be, that is the question. Everything pivots around that.