The Future

I’ve realized there’s a certain feeling of security in always having work to do. When editing Fear.less I had this. I knew exactly what was coming next – another batch of stories to pore through. Now that that’s pretty much done, the future is uncertain. That’s not to say I’m not excited for it though.

Maybe I shouldn’t be saying this out loud, but it’s entirely possible that Fear.less’s success may pave the way for sequels and spinoffs. I would feel grate to be a part of Fear.less 2 or Home.less or whatever. Working on this project has illuminated for me the social media world and my own abilities. But only slightly, and that is why I would like to continue to be on board.

I saw some of the pages from the Fear.less e-book proper and it looks damn sweet. I never realized just how much content we had. This will be a good book.

Sehnsucht

I felt so bizarre today with a feeling that I thought was saudade, which I have talked about before in a linguistic sense, but I don’t think it’s that. Nostalgia is a yearning for the past, but that’s not what I do at all. It’s like I feel a nostalgia for the future, for things that haven’t happened yet. Events and situations that I cannot draw a clear line from to my present self. A hazy, dreamlike state, simultaneously mordant in its utter realism, where every word and step has a profound effect, warping the very air. Is this just a mad amplification of everyone’s desire to matter? I don’t know.

There are a couple songs that I like to listen to when I get this feeling that may be able to shed some light on it. One of them is Motion Picture Soundtrack by Radiohead. It features a momentous organ and a mournful tone – the organ is the most important feature of the song for me. As the closing track of its album, Kid A, that song has added punch from its sense of finality, of having come to the end of a journey. So maybe I feel like I am heading somewhere.

Then there are a couple songs by Counting Crows. Round Here opens with the lyrics “step out the front door like a ghost into the fog where no one notices the contrast of white on white”, which makes me think of a house in the woods, isolated but not lonely. And apparently, round there, “something radiates”. I sort of hate the song for not saying exactly what the hell is going on. The other song is Another Horsedreamer’s Blues. Maybe it’s because the opening riff sounds like something you would hear in an elevator in a good dream, and maybe it’s because the song is about a girl with a similar name to my girlfriend and both of them like horses.

Horses in particular evoke this feeling and it’s been years since I’ve ridden one. Sunsets, organs… I guess these are all romantic (in both senses of the word) images. I guess I want the destination I am heading toward to have some sort of fiery intangible resonance beyond simply what it is. If I ever wrote get around to writing a novel or making music or something, at some point I would simply be compelled to attempt to capture this feeling. But apparently, it’s impossible.

C.S. Lewis had a lot to say about it, including that most people don’t have a lot to say about it. It’s called sehnsucht and the following paragraph is not such a bad approximation of how it feels.

“In speaking of this desire for our own faroff country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”

I don’t know. I can’t think about it too much. Maybe I will have more to say later.

.thE nexT leveL

In Max Payne 2 there are many TVs strewn about the levels, and over the course of the night the game takes place in, the channel that they’re all tuned to is running a marathon of a bizarre show about an insane serial killer. It’s called Address Unknown and one of the characters is a flamingo who talks in a distorted, awkward voice, like he was talking backwards and what he said was played forwards, Twin Peaks-style. In the subtitles, this weird voice is written thus:

.shE haS dyeD heR haiR reD

.thE flesH oF falleN angelS

And that scared the crap out of me in a cool way. That method of punctuation is just so unsettling to me. Back in the day when I was really unstable, if I was journaling, I sometimes wrote in that fashion to put across clearly how unhinged I was feeling.

On a similar note I was playing SWAT 4 today and there is a level where you raid the tenement of a crazy suicide cult, and they have creepy REDRUM-esque things written on the walls. I love creepy things written on walls. .especiallY iF theY eveR lookeD likE thiS

There’s got to be a name for it. I will look it up on TV Tropes. This is all closely related to my favorite kind of horror that I’ve never been sure how to describe, things that unnerve me for reasons I don’t und H҉̵̞̟̠̖̗̘Ȅ̐̑̒̚̕̚ IS C̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̚̕̚̕̚̕̚̕̚̕̚OMI҉̵̞̟̠̖̗̘NG > ͡҉҉ ̵̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̿̿̿̚ ҉ ҉҉̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑ ͡҉҉
҉̵̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̕̚͡ ͡҉҉ ̵̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̿̿̿̚ ҉ ҉҉̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑ ̒̓̔̕̚ ̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̕̚̕̚ ̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̚ ̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔ ̕̚̕̚ ̔̕̚̕̚҉ ҉̵̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̕̚͡wha ͡҉҉ ̵̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̿̿̿̒̓̔̚̕̚ ̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̕̚̕̚t the ̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̚ ̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔ ̕̚̕̚ ̔̕̚̕̚҉ ҉̵̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̕̚͡f.jusT givE uPuck is ͡҉҉ ̵̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̿̿̿̚ ҉ ҉҉̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑ ҉̵̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̕̚͡ ͡҉҉ ̵̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̿̿̿̚ ҉ ҉҉̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑thi ̒̓̔̕̚ ̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̕̚̕̚ ̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̚ ̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔s shit ̕̚̕̚ ̔̕̚̕̚҉ ҉̵̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̕̚͡ ͡҉҉ ̵̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̿̿̿̒̓̔̚̕̚ ̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̕̚̕̚ ̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̚ ̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔ ̕̚̕̚ ̔̕̚̕̚҉ ҉̵̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̕̚͡ ͡҉҉ ̵̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̿̿̿̚ ҉ ҉҉̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑ ̒̓ ̒̓

Paranoid Ramblings

There’s a word, apophenia, it means seeing connections where none exist. It makes talking with most people about Lost such a bitch because they will venture the most nonsensical theories.

Having astute powers of observation is a blessing, but it can come with the curse of just being too good. Eventually you drive yourself mad. You know the truth, but they don’t know that you know. It all comes together so well – there is indeed a camera in your ceiling fan and a microphone under your desk.  They are gaslighting you. They moved the furniture and they think you can’t tell. They’re out to get you. They’re going to steal your lunch money and your girlfriend and they’re going to kick you in the nuts.

Remember how I said in an earlier post that boredom can be a blessing because it gives your mind room for dreams? The downside is it also clears out mental real estate for nightmares.

You may be a sort of super-sleuth, and you may be right sometimes, and that information may save your life in some way. But most of the time if you assume the worst in people you will fuck yourself over. Meaningful human relationships are based in trust. Nothing ventured nothing gained. You can’t live putting people under your own personal Patriot Act.

This is one of those ideas that made me hate thinking and like feeling. Sometimes the imagination needs to be reigned in so your senses can appreciate the truth. Truth ain’t always easy but it will always set you free. One of my favorite quotes (and I don’t have many) is by Dr. Seuss. He said, roughly, “you know you’re in love when real life is better than your dreams”. I’ll toast my green eggs and ham to that any day.

Crossword Magazines

I’ve always wanted to subscribe to those crossword magazines that my dad always has lying around the bathroom. Starting from an early age I would burn through them and many pens as an preventative measure against Alzheimer’s. And then I would keep them all in a box. My grandchildren would see Grandpa’s Crossword Box and appreciate it as the reason Grandpa still knows their names even though he is 90.

But crossword magazines are so weird. They can’t really be called magazines. They don’t have interviews, editorials, glossy color photos or top 10 lists, and you can’t even slap them into a gun and heat people up. They are so self-contained. They’re in their own little world. The one that assisted me in a bathroom adventure last night opened with exactly one letter to the editor from a farming family who has to get up early in the morning to drive goods to market and prefer crosswords to caffeine for staying alert. Exactly one goddamn letter, one vestigial flash in the pan of human personality. And then it goes on and on into dozens and dozens of puzzles.

I’m not even sure what to muse on about this because it’s so inhuman it just exists in a different universe from me. It’s like trying to see in a world with no light. Is that overly dramatic for a fucking crossword magazine? I get the same feeling from towns with two or three digits of denizens in the middle of nowhere. So isolated. I don’t know if I could live like that. What kind of band would only ever release music without ever giving interviews or having a website or anything? The crosswords are all generic too. There weren’t any themes or anything (though that is hard to do with a crossword as opposed to a word search) that made me go oh hey somebody wanted to flavor this creation. This creation, this black-and-white, down-and-across quilt of challenges with mysteriously no human qualities but a letter from some farmers and a disturbingly long list of credits.

Anyway this is one of those posts where I don’t presume it to have any value but I couldn’t get over how the topic made me feel.

Fiercely Ebbing Away Resolve

Dictionary.com on fear: “A feeling of agitation and anxiety caused by the presence or imminence of danger.”

Urban Dictionary on fear: “A waste of your time caused by lack of familiarity with the experience.”

Fearful people on fear: “AHHHHHHHHHH!”

Computer Gaming World on F.E.A.R.: “One of the year’s top single-player shooters”

I agree with all of the above.

I had a big post written up after this nifty intro but I deleted it all. It felt like pompous half-baked (on marijuana) drivel. I think it would be premature of me to philosophize about fear right now, especially before the release of a fantastic project I am editing called Fear.less that may enlighten me and millions of others.

Instead I will share with you some of my experiences with fear. The decision to do this embodies one of my favorite methods for combating fear: fatalism!

Getting Published: Fail to figure out how, feel incompetent. Give up before reaching the mailbox/clicking send, feel cowardly. Get rejected, feel useless. Get rejected over and over, hang myself with a shoelace. Predict adverse reaction to unmet expectations or lukewarm reception, feel petty.This is the typical artist fear of a world full of critics ready to crawl up your ass, and this is an attempt to get over it.

You know who has never been published? This guy. I haven’t even had anything rejected. 0/0 technically means you’ve never failed, and the perverted hollowness of that makes me want to punch walls.

Getting Employed: What if I am as lazy at performing a job as I am at finding one? What if my boss hates me? What if it is about as fun as a swarm of wasps? What if they don’t let me go on vacation and it eats up all my time?

This is even dumber because I have been employed before and it was the best diversion in my life at the time. Fear is illogical like that. Now that I’ve sent off some applications today I feel the same way I did before, only now I have a chance of someone hiring me. For all I know I will hone the same skills in my future employment that I used to weasel out of applying to jobs forever and ever.

Getting Lucky: I lend this one substantial weight because I believe our lives should be means to a loving end. Also, it forces you into a position of vulnerability. That vulnerability can be beautiful, but not if your S.O. cheats on you with Frat Boy Chad after chugging one too many Natty Lites. Have you ever been cheated on? I’ve heard it feels like getting knifed in the stomach, though I heard this from somebody who has never been knifed in the stomach. Still though. Infidelity is vile because it’s easy betrayal and betrayal is such an atrocious sin.

That’s pretty dramatic though. Even healthy relationships are precarious and scary. One person could get bored of the other… just because. Long distances and durations of separation may prove that absence makes the heart stop caring. If both people are vestal and intellectual, it may drown in meta-analysis. Sometimes things just don’t work out, and then you have no one to hold, no one to make your sanctuary, no one to understand how triumphant it feels to eat spaghetti in a white shirt and not stain it. Do you want that? I don’t. But there’s no magical way to keep it at bay.

Getting Over It?

Notice how all of these are me getting adjectives. States being induced in me externally. Stuff being done to me. What if I was the agent? That would feel powerful. I should take control. I should say “I am a guy who gets published, who gets a job, and has a great relationship.”

I recently discovered an approach to life called Be-Do-Have that seems to resonate with my whole apotheosis idea. If I am a demigod just because I can be one, that gives the universe the finger and me control. Delusions of grandeur stop being delusions if you act on the temporary psychosis and make it happen. It makes mathematical sense: fear fiercely ebbs away resolve, but if you have infinite resolve, nothing meaningful can be taken from you. I will personally vouch that it certainly helps for acquiring special someones.

It’s hard, though. If I find a way to consistently bring about constructive megalomania, I’ll let you know.