Archive for December, 2007
Power Overwhelming
Download LinkE.S. Posthumus - Nara
It is always cold in my apartment. I think I like it this way. A slight chill; the constant pursuit of warmth…its pathetic. The flesh is weak. The flesh is so weak. A sack of meat and bones, the vessel for my godliness–nothing more. I am always hungry here; my kitchen as barren as my bed, which has been without sheets for several weeks. A stomach that is filled with ice and hard liquors: the only things I have.
We are so weak in this state of existence. The slightest movement and we tear. The edge of paper can inflict so much pain. Its overwhelming. Rather, its underwhelming…the curse of this flesh. Why am I so powerful; why does my mind bend universes only to be limited by the material, the “real,” the confines of the physical? Why are we given these competing states of existence?
I often look at my hands. In them I see everything. Their fragility is obvious…scars, twisted and broken fingers, open wounds…yet I see passed them, into the capabilities of my limitless mind. I see these hands destroying, robbing life from the virile…I see these hands caressing, inflicting pleasure on the fairer of our sexes. I see in them the finite and infinite. I see in them life and death.
When I look down at them, instinctively turning them upside and down, I am powerful. Hands…extensions of my mind, manipulating time and space…without limit or bound. I do not know why they make me feel so herculean, but they do. I guess its their history. These hands have done so much. They work for me now, converting the impossibility of my mind into a language you will understand. But they’ve done so much more. Tools from which my mind makes things happen. An appendage I could not do without.
Their nails are dirty–stained from the day in a world of dirt and grime. Their knuckles swollen and red, signs of things to come. But they are mine. And they are powerful. Its why we shake…its not a greeting, but an introduction to our world, our abilities, our fortitude, our very potency. I’ve never respected a man with a weak grip…such snakes should merely wave. This is my hand; this is my power…and I will squeeze until you recognize the magnificence of my being.
And I should hope you squeeze back.
This power is intoxicating. I cannot breathe. I am flush with madness. But this is no introduction; for I leave that for the streets and faces in crowds. This is power overwhelming. This is my reality.
And should I find the snake who robbed me he will know this power. And should I find the woman I love, she will know this power…oh, but she will enjoy it, and he will dread it.
I am lost right now–lost in a sea of suffocating noesis. And I am left staring at these hands, minions who carry this disease into the material, into the “real,” into the confines of the physical.
A Hunter’s Prey
For the second time since moving to Austin, I have had my car broken into by a criminal.
And besides the shattered glass and bitter cold, I find myself even more calm than the first time. I know things will be taken care of…I know I am going to be out several hundred dollars, again. But there is light…a gated community, a garage, and the answer to my problems.
A friend told me the most true of things. She told me it wasn’t my fault. It never was, and this time is certainly no different. There is crime, and theft, and destruction of property everywhere. But there is a light, and in some ways, she is that light.
I don’t see this event in singularity. I see it as part of a greater arch, the story of my life. I see myself, standing outside on my back porch, drinking a cold one with my best friend David. We’re barbecuing while our wives cook inside. Children, the spitting image of their parents, running from room to room, inside and out. The Cowboys game is on television, or is it the Patriots? And we talk, about everything and nothing: work, the kids, life, vacations not yet taken. And when we sit down to eat together, as families do, we will smile and laugh–regaling tales of youth and circumstance. And this story, the most inauspicious of stories, will be told with a hint of pride. Survival of these years and success we all now enjoy. Crawling through a river of shit, to come out clean on the other side.
You see, it’s about hope. From this burglary to my final years. With her, with them, there is always hope.
The Only Way To Die Is All the Way
Like all things worth talking about, this entry is about a girl. A dead girl. And the way she made me feel.
Eons ago in the times before man enjoyed the common amenities of modern life–sanitation, clean water, and electricity–there was no Facebook. This unimaginably distant past, where poking wasn’t digital and the saying, “Well…we’re Facebook friends!,” was a humbler time. It was a time where being in a relationship meant more than a mouse click, when social interaction was based on more than wall posts and picture comments. It was a time when the fabric of this life was richer…
Do not get me wrong…I enjoy the comforts of the everyday routine–the aimless perusing of girls’ profiles and pointless log-ins–as much as anyone; however, there is a great sin that we as a generation are comitting.
We aren’t letting people die.
This is serious. It goes beyond the damage social-networking websites have reaped upon our sense of “friendship” and “belonging.” It goes deeper than the pathetic and now trite fighting that nearly every couple in this new age has experienced due to digitally induced jealousy. It is a grave matter that we must address.
You see, right after Facebook entered my life, and the Stephen F. Austin college community, I was poked. This particular poke was by no means special…it was the feverish binary affection that I had already grown to hate. You think I am cute? Call me. You think I am interesting? I don’t think you are. But, in now standard Facebook etiquette, I poked back.
And a new relationship was born. We would befriend one another within hours. Having never spoken a word, never shared a conversation, we became “friends.” Surely we would meet someday, in class or at a party, and experience the awkwardness of familiarity without the courage to confirm our own ridiculous connection out loud. We would meet eyes and shuffle on…towards drinks, towards real friends, towards anywhere but each other’s eyes… Surely this would happen…
Two days after our digital relationship began I cracked the seam of the school newspaper and read of a tragic death. The name struck me as familiar. Her particulars eerily reminiscent. It bothered me all day. I had the most haunting feeling that I knew who this girl was…
So when the anxiety was too great and the suspense too much for my mind to handle, I bailed on class. I shuffled, as if avoiding not just her eyes but all eyes, to the nearest computer. I had a dark and dangerous secret and I needed to know the truth. I logged onto Facebook–it must have been the third time that day–and I went to my newfound “friend’s” page. And I confirmed everything I had suspected.
She died. The girl who, for whatever reason found me, and started a connection that was bound to go nowhere had died. Tragically. At first, her wall was the worst part…six entries from friends, of the real variety, confessing their undying love and misery. And below the sixth entry, there was one post from a girl from the previous six saying how much fun she had with her the previous night and to call when she got in from her trip home. A digital dichotomy of life and death. A sickening sight. Or is it site..?
Out of morbid curiosity I returned to her page for the next few days. More and more entries were posted on her wall. So many that the posts from her living life had been pushed deep within the tomb of her electronic history. Now the great dichotomy of life and death was her own profile, which spoke of her favorite music and activities, juxtaposed against a literal wall of sadness and regret. It drove me mad.
And then the most disturbing thing of all happened.
A friend, one can only hope not a real one, changed her profile. She left everything intact, but below all of it she wrote a message to everyone. She announced that she had gained access to her dead friend’s account and would keep it open, as a digital memorial to the fallen. She encouraged people to write “to” the deceased on her wall and to carry on her memory by joining the R.I.P. group she had just started.
She had her dead friend join the group mourning her own demise.
This lunacy is not relative to this event. I had another friend, a real one, die and a similar scene of madness took place. I check his page, which I have removed from my friend list out of sheer respect for the dead, often and on birthdays and holidays friends and family still write “to” him. Wishes of happy thanksgiving…and paragraphs of anguish for all the world to see.
My question is simple: What is wrong with you all? These people are dead. Allow them to die. If you catch me on the wrong side of a knife or mangled beyond recognition in the most horrific of accidents, please allow me to die. I do not want a Facebook group with 30 members who feel obligated to join out of some new age electronic fidelity. I do not want my page, which contains my material and temporal interests and whims, sitting static and illustrating the most shallow and pointless information about who I was and what I stood for remaining after I pass.
And you should demand the same. The internet and electronics have destroyed our sense of communication and friendship. They have blurred the line between the obscene and the tasteful. This is not a symptom of our twenty-first century lives, it is the entire disease. Not even death is safe anymore.
One day I sat at lunch with a friend of mine and we were discussing the details of our once and future death. I told her that I wanted my tombstone to read succinctly: full name, dates, and the quote which you will find tucked neatly on the right hand side of this website. With the biggest of smiles she told me that she wanted her tombstone to read simply: “BRB.” A hilarious, and unfortunately clairvoyant, joke on what our generation was becoming. I have stolen her joke many times, opting for “AFK” over “BRB” because I find it so much more ridiculous.
We are products of our era. We are victims of our times. But remembrance is eternal and everlasting…our fallen friends and family members live on, in us, in our minds and hearts, and in everything we do. You do not need something as hollow as HTML code to respect the dead and pay them their due, or to show that you care.
Remember, all you have to do is remember. Please…let them die.