Winter Prose;

Stream of Thought

My head has been filled with opinions, which uphold not only my own, but those of others. To put it frankly, I have been holding onto these opposing thoughts and philosophies with utter anguish and cannot decipher which, or who’s thoughts are the cause of my despair. I have always thought that the quote, cried out at the end of THIS SIDE OF PARADISE, “I know myself, but that is all,” had been a somewhat relatable phrase I could use as my own, but perhaps it is quite the antithesis. I know all of you, but not myself, could be more appropriate if I had a clear sense of who all of you actually are. And if wisdom is knowing when to shut your mouth, I am only a wise man 25 percent of the time. This season of winter has been nothing but a dream, a nightmare in fact. Senses have been distorted for sometime now and reality seems uninteresting, or maybe so interesting that it is overwhelming.

As a drunkard in a dive bar had once told me, in all the wisdom and elegance that a drunkard could have, “The only thing in life that we can prove is real is thought.” Although not tangible, I believe, that this theory is true. Of course, after implications that he was in fact a Nazi sympathizer I could listen no longer. I leave no honor on this planet, not that I know of. Honor is a child’s day-dream. I wish not for honor but for more. More in the idea of what I hold dear. Excess can lead to wisdom, but when you are wise, life becomes clear and no longer a mystery, an adventure, nor interesting. It becomes clear. And when it is a clear day, what you see is reality. And while reality is based upon perception, perception is for myself, something in which I try to distort, to make it interesting. But I am done. The abstract, the mystery, the suffering. What has this brought me? It has brought me to the gates of hell. It has shown me a glimpse of Heaven and it has taken it away as a tease.

No more speaking. A young man of 24, too sentimental, too analytical, too confusing and abstract for most, must learn to keep his mouth shut. I will write, but for how long? Does my future hold for me a life of writing my thoughts. And when God and I meet, shall I be too depressed and tired and beaten down to even shake his hand or give him a smile? A writer must suffer. No author shall suffer, for an author is not a writer. A writer writes for unknown reasons, reasons that lay in the womb. We know why an author writes. We know why a baker bakes. For product. For the writer, the product is what it is, a product of what we have written. But to reiterate, the reasons for being born a writer are unknown. The suffering is too much. I must quit. I must learn how to speak like the man on television, I must learn how to dress like the man at the office downtown.

Comedy, how wonderful! We have learned to laugh through this strange life. Dancing, the only way to use all of your senses and forget who you are and forget what you have done, or what you will do. The buddha must have invented dancing.

I must move, I must make money, I must become obsolete and and unknown. I will drive a sports car and throw money to poor people in villages in South America and support both sides fighting a civil war. I will support the corrupt while I dance with the innocent. I will not pick a side anymore. I will pick my nose at the gala, in front of the prime minister, and shake the hand of his wife and look down her blouse.

Love, love, love, with trumpets playing. I would rather this if only it were real. I would trade my soul to Lucifer himself if only I could have a love like those in the movies. I love, but I do not show it well. I cannot show anything true. I wear a mask. I am not ingenuine, only afraid.
I see her name everyday on commercials. It is too much. It was an affair too brief to consider real, but too intense to consider fake. It was the shortest, saddest love story that only I have seen.

But this has happened before and to quote Lennon on the matter, “Is it for her or myself that I cry?”

Wake up, sleep, Wake up, sleep. Have I eaten a genuine meal in the last few days? No. I am too weak to take vitamins! Coffee and Cigarettes, the meal of a man in constant despair.

Am I too pretentious with my grammar, my font, my stream of thought? So be it. How I write, is in fact how I THINK. Which maybe means I am crazy, for when I speak, I sound like a washed up stoner from 1969. Slow and nasally. Yet, in three months you will find me as a cool, witty dude, sun bathing in olive oil, wearing a woman’s head band to keep my wavy hair off of my forehead. Even tan, narcissistic and self-conscious, low self-esteem with grandiose thoughts. I thank my ancestors. As far back as the Donegans, Martins, Watsons and Beatons go. The Irish the French the Anglo’s. That Basque connection with the Neanderthals. I blame my Neanderthal side.