Sordid Natures

I write stories, my characters have the issues so I don't have to.

[sordidnature]

Walking in tow with growth

One walks along copper-rusted bricks fading in and out of peripheral rivets like a rippling pool of industrial static. 

Outside of the conscious glance 8.7 million narratives weave through one another sometimes indifferently but always essentially, turning about some magnificent mechanism beyond the scope and capacity of inherent designs. 

The bricks stack upon echoes of storylines finished and unfinished within them, but, said stories revel in a far less static character than said bricks.

 Finished and unfinished in the span of so many millions really might rather say seen and unseen, and it is altogether irrational to suppose what has been done is ever really done but instead still in the ‘doing’. 

Hence these bricks whilst a consequence of the done and doing are themselves privy to and participatory in some form of beginning and coming to be, when one walks along them one remembers them if only in so far as they stack to ones side and shoulder winds.

And these bricks will one day despoil and retreat from the path from which their unity connoted, whether through this they dissipate into a raw unrecognizable matter or consummate a grander path they will continue to contribute to the scope of narrative to which forthright they have been as crucial as those whom in time laid, surveyed, navigated, breathed in, drew breath from, and played upon.

This participation is transcendent, fundamentally and necessarily unfelt. It is incontrovertible that ‘to be’ is ‘to be with others’, but the full extent of this inarticulate solely a priori sensation is theoretically comprehensive and practically mute. 

Our industrial static is only the waves rippling upon land, and it is only expected the violence there will be as violent here. 

What is done is never done, what is born is never dead, and what truly is must be seen as truly not.

[sordidnature]

Universal Withness

It could be categorized as a feeling though its expression is far too dissonant with that of other emotions. Its symptomatic manifestation is what might be referred to as an anti-originative sadness, that is a sadness without origin.

At the outset one is inclined to dread even the thought of such an impacting being, such that one may very well in the interim supplement it with an artificial substitute whilst puzzling my words out. I implore the reader to parse through the information as sincerely as they can. But the effect of this writing will have no effect if such sincerity is neglected. 

An anti-originative sadness is a concealment of ones self from oneself. It is commonly associated with symptomatic experiences of levity and floating, things which symbolically truly only mean detachment from the ephemeral, the act of leaving the earth. The earth is our natural resting place and is thus the sum of ourselves in this same symbolic sense, to be on earth is to be with our self and what more the constitutive parcels of our self, our relations with others. An anti-originative sadness then is one that we may infer to be prominently accompanied by an abandonment of origin on part of the self as much as the being of the sadness.

One then must ask, what is the extent of this self-abandonment? Levity does not connote self-destruction, it rather denotes a radicalization of self-distinction. To transcend beyond ephemeral being is both to parse out the demarcations of our person-hood and simultaneously to remind our self that it is without transcendence. Anti-originative sadness then is only but a medium between two objects which refuse to coalesce. I speak here of the particular and the universal. The self abandons the self so that it may transcend the self, this can be seen both as destruction and distinction, it is also commonly regarded as the thematic qualifications of learning. 

This medium which by design holds no place within a particular experience and in tandem via its own anti-originative construct can not be that which originates the particular must be intrinsically void of substance and form. This is the same reason why after this essay is done it will be functionally meaningless, it will have defined and in the same breath destroyed the category of anti-originative sadness and its eventual consequence of universal withness. It is a one-time antibiotic, and alas only applicable to one particular strand of interpretive reality.  

It is in this medium-miasma where the myriad holds no sway, that we, that is our self is taken out of origin and out of conceptual being we are subject to a negative universal relation. For those who have suffered here it is incontestable that this sadness is not misnomer-ed. We hold no object, pursuit, ideal, distaste etc. We are void of relation to an other both in consumptive and martyring impulses. But...could it not be that this is love?

The point where we’ve no investment in the particular we are qualitatively a God...and we are lonely. But in that scholastic impenetrable sense we are a God unaffected, there is no method by which external agency will motivate an internal one succumbing to anti-originative sadness. It is at this point the system inverts though only objectively, never experientially...

Without motives of our own, and an apathy and indifference for the motives of others we are welcome to love in a fundamentally transcendent way. To be with others in a universal way, without opposition. We are not against one another because it is impossible for my self to be allied with you. 

This is universal withness, what I see to be the highest love that can be experienced. The tragedy of humanity is that this pinnacle is too often frequented and too often depressing. 

Universal withness is sadness without origin, love for all at the expense of all.

[sordidnature]

The Master and Bondsman

Crevices of old stone lay stagnant against the backdrop of another confrontation between two spirits torn asunder, attempts to constitute one at the expense of the other.

Hues of orange and red blanketing the horizon against the so cold and so desperately deep sea above, one would continue to gaze towards a heaven it couldn’t fathom whilst the other would sleep in a fettered husk. A cosmogonic fashioning of gods and reaping of men, it’s a weary recognition that death only comes for us when we are weak. What’s to be said then of the death that will come to us when we are strong? Looking upon this, another all-too-chronic tragedy, is this what makes man myth? Makes man God? Makes the man who won’t become the god, man conversely?

Blades, bullets, and blunt objects, all of which are too frequently in shades of gray, why gray? If the symbolic narrative should hold, it can only be because gray is the harbinger and manifestation of that death. It is a bland palette which inverts life’s virtues, a vivisected vivacity.  However, this palette is not so consistent with the originators of the tools, the tools which preceded them were not enough. To see life negated by one's own hand when that same hand could as easily affirm life; thus the tools came, to expedite the guilt of our more immoral inclinations.

But the orange and red would not permit such moral ambiguity, a summer of death rather than winter can only accept the original tools. To die here is to be exhausted of options far too soon, indeed it must entail the rejection of other options. To confront one another here is to want to confront one another here, to concede that one ought to be a god and the other ought to be the contrasted nothing. This dichotomy which literally amounts and surmounts the juxtaposition of a everything and non-thing entail the only activities man as it is is capable of. Creation, and destruction respectively and irrespectively. Thus under the sea-sky these poor spirits made one rich through the expense of the others absolute bankrupting, a rebalancing and attempt at order. Order, is a fundamentally human phenomenon but somehow it always creates demagogues, the closest thing to God man can fabricate.

And thus it is, as the tools brought one’s last breath into a constrained and bitter sigh, the other’s breath felt its own constraint lifted. The stagnant backdrop felt all the more ephemeral, the deep blue sank deeper and consumed the horizon destroying the division held sacred. If this soul could not bring life it had chosen the ulterior method by which to become more, to take life. One soul became deified at the expense of showing only how much a man man is. 

One soul was the master, the other was the bondsman whose existence was affirmed. What profit it showed. 

[sordidnature]

Consumption

There’s this moment where everything that I’m doing fails to hold the same character it necessarily ought to. The moment of transcendence for the object and the tandem limitation of the subject interacting with it, the yearning and clinging neediness of the intellect trying to become something new.

In the instance of creation, when the light cracks through the wooded shed where I house my tattered remnants, and my eyes see the sun, not I but the eyes. The truth for an instant floods the senses, and invalidates them in the process. The unity of such creation illuminating a precession of being, the I becomes it and it becomes the I. I know it to be the sight because there’s no ‘I’ asserting itself ‘knowing’.

I see the malnourished self in all of its redundant and self-defeating glory. After diligent irrational perseverance, the I delights in the quantitative but useless realization it is about to finish something. A sense of completeness whereby the object has met its end in the observation of the self, the self subsequently feels a sense of irredeemable conquest. It has consumed another object.

It has become it, and it has made it unnecessary. The syntax here becomes esoteric and incoherent in the equally esoteric effort to be made completely revelatory.

The I no longer needs the book for it becomes the book, the book no longer needs the I for the book has become the I. In turn, it shows the act to have been without success. The book is meant to transform me but incessantly I approach the next consecutive piece of this library with the same expectation. So long as I look forward to the end I’ll never see to it to enjoy the beginning. If I perceive any ends can it said I’ve even begun.

Where’s the struggle if all of this is just consumption? What am I to learn? Why can’t I do anything without thinking where it will lead, why must it lead to where I am not? So I must reiterate for I’ve come to the unfortunate conclusion…

There’s this moment where everything that I’m doing fails to hold the same character it necessarily ought to.  

[sordidnature]

#1 Ms.Webb

She was done, she had been done in the utmost capacity, done to the extent that the preceding state of doneness was manifesting in the present and would impose itself on any future tense sentiment she might utter. Her temperament now bore a disdain for extrinsic circumstances inculcated through the complete abandonment of her being by her lover’s. To say her mind was fragmented would be to overdramatize the situation, though her unwillingness to speak to the therapist sitting across the room from her seemed to make implicit such a theatrical conclusion.

“Ms.Webb, I don’t mind taking your insurance agency’s compensation, but I’m doubtful the deductible coming out of your pocket is worth this silence. Surely there’s something which you might be able to converse about, have you been eating? I understand that for quite a while consumption was a concern of yours, I hope it’s been resolved to some extent?”

Ms.Webb received none of the input, her mind was completely detached from context and found itself lingering in a comatose atmosphere. A gorgeous atmosphere to say the least, filled with abstract conceptions far more pleasant than the drab grayness in which ‘self-sufficient’ beings like her therapist found comfort. Ms.Webb’s eyes were glazed over and undoubtedly the psycho-analyst sitting across from her was trying to scrutinize and identify the cause without any interaction whatsoever, she concluded it must be excessive alcohol consumption. Though the revelation wouldn’t be provided in this discourse Ms.Webb held the suspicion that her eyes were fading and losing their ability to properly function. Quite a bit like any other muscle she found it difficult to recognize anything worth recognizing and thus consciously permitted the delusional senses to cease sensing, so to speak though it wouldn’t be spoken anyway.

As much as she would’ve preferred to be dead her family wouldn’t approve of such a notion, evidently there was still a lower point in which Ms.Webb’s relations could denigrate.

“Ms.Webb, I do believe we are coming upon our last thirty minutes and I feel compelled to ask whether or not you believe these interactions ought to continue? You’ve yet to clarify your state of mind to me and though I would hardly classify you yet as suicidal, your complete rejection of any dialogue here speaks to a clearly uneasy mind. Your unwillingness to converse here has left me with an interesting cosmos of potential actions. Should I assume insanity? Sanity? Manicism? Paranoia? The DSM says very little in regards to a human whom will concede no human behaviour and I’m at a loss…”

This confusion broke through Ms.Webb’s coma and instantaneously, she felt a warmth for the woman sitting across from her which Ms.Webb held such contention in trying to discover previously. It immediately became apparent her therapist felt just as dejected in this environment as she did, an inability to help despite a complete willingness to, a want to categorize poor Ms.Webb back into the world of the living. Such titles had always fascinated Ms.Webb to a considerable extent, now she seemed inclined to hear out the professional as she lavished arbitrary labels upon her which took eight years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to memorize and rattle out. It seemed humorous to her that it should take so long to become ingratiated in such education but it took far less time to come up with the variety of names the therapist had to retain. She would speak now.

“My husband killed himself.”

“...I was aware...it said so in your file...”

“I’m glad you clarified, it’s likely as evident in my face.”

“You don’t seem perturbed as much as...indifferent...absent.”

“I’m present in a better capacity, as malevolent as reality itself, at peace and dead seem like corollary terms the more one ponders it.”

“Would you say you find it hard to communicate with others since your loss?”

“Difficulty is a fabric of life which you can’t disrobe or light on fire, you have to wear it, talking to others seems boring nowadays. I’ve had my helping of conversation, everything else seems redundant.”

“Why do you believe it to be redundant? Is it monotonous to you? Does it seem superficial?”

“Purposeless.”

“In what manner?”

Ms.Webb sank back into the depths of that atmosphere distinct from our own, recognizing the contradiction inherent to declaring dialogue valueless yet attempting to bring value from it presently.

“Ms.Webb?”

Ms.Webb began contemplating the remainder of her day outside of this hellish landscape, outside of the clutches of classification and her therapist's concerns. What would she do? She hadn’t been back to work in three weeks, and given the grotesque amount of mourning she would see on her behalf in her return she loathed the notion. That someone should die was enough, that one should bring it upon themselves was enough, that others should feel ‘sorry’...to her that was excessive.

She couldn’t interact with her family, they loved him, and by the end of their interactions she found it difficult to identify whether or not she did as well. He was an unbelievably toxic monster which unleashed its beatitude upon everything around it, and yet he was beloved, a catholic knight of faith through and through. Incomprehensible in his sins, and she loathed him for every one of them and every reason, but currently for the very nature of her present existence. That she was here rather than anywhere else, felt to her as though it spoke more to his value than her own, she wouldn’t break down here. She wouldn’t let him be a retroactive martyr, she wouldn’t let him be the reason for her own character developing another ounce. For all intents and purposes she was as dead as he was, no movement, no growth, no decay, simply a stagnancy in function.

She refused to be a consequent of his causalities and such a conclusion yielded an ill-advised effect upon her, the phantom of that loathsome man pervaded her being in every instant and she refused to unfurl from this state. She’d rather rot here than act, she preferred the absent cosmos where conceptions manifested more readily than solutions which might ease her. She was completely content with her character faltering.

“...I’m sorry Ms.Webb...that is the end of our session...”

[sordidnature]

A poorly written character’s existence...

Okay, so...let’s establish the perimeters of me, exactly what I am...I’m a person I think. A defective one maybe? But in the contemporary dialogues that run rampant I’m not sure that would be saying much, we all seem to be broken in a completely original and splendid way now...I don’t mean for that to be a critique, really! I don’t think it’s bad that we’re all so uni que, I think that might be beneficial in a lot of ways, it seems readily apparent that statistics would no longer apply. Whether or not that’s actually valuable I’m uncertain, I do know that a statistician is currently looking for work because of our outlook...maybe that’s good...can’t say the work seems all too appealing…

But I’m defective, that much is certain, and I think I’m defective because my creator didn’t have a very consistent image in mind when he created me. I was supposed to be a protagonist to a magnum opus of a beauteous literary nature, I was going to follow the hero arc that every other did before me and I was going to sparkle in the afterglow too. But he wrote too little...I had a dialogue with another but they’re gone now, it was so brief... I don’t even think they were more than a foil character. I only ‘think’ because I don’t think I gained too much exposition or backstory from the talk which is what I thought was the point of a foil character... I feel neglected a little bit to be quite sincere. I feel as though I were a seed that wasn’t properly watered if that makes sense. I had briefest hint of a blossom and then suddenly not only did the sunlight cease but any notion of an atmosphere dissipated along with it. Now I’m just an awkward bulb of a being…

I’ve been trying to articulate what I am, maybe if I do the bulk of that work my creator might feel more enticed to help me with the rest, but the thing about only being potentially defective is I don’t really know where to start. I feel insecure most of the time but is that actually how I am? Is it because I’m unfinished that I’m insecure? Like because I’m broken, until I’m not, I can’t actually understand the character I have? But then I breach a new territory of ambiguity, if I don’t know what I am and try to be it anyway there’s a brief instance of bravery. So by trying to complete myself to remedy my insecurities I manifest a weird pseudo-security. What am I then? I can say then at least I’m decisive. Is that who I am?

It would be nice if he had given me a name, one that I didn’t have to make up, it’s strange to think that for all intents and purposes I’m making up the character as I go. If he never comes back, then it would seem that’s all I can and ought to do right? If I have no story I ought to go with, I might as well waste my time finding the right character to fulfill whatever story I’d like...but then I start wondering if a story can be about nothing. Maybe that’s just it, maybe I’m already experiencing my story, maybe this interaction with nothingness is where I’m supposed to be. Why hasn’t he at the very least explained this to me? Maybe I could interact with nothingness with a bit more ease if I knew that’s what I was intended to be doing...is that true? Perhaps it isn’t...if I knew it was the story then I would treat it like a story...maybe I have to hold that conviction that this is my life as much as my story. Maybe I have to not question it and simply ruminate in the absence of an answer? But why am I so prone to these outbursts of irrational reason?

Maybe...maybe you’re starting to see why I think I’m defective? Or at the very least inconsistent...I can’t seem to decide what my character will be, and in a discomforting way that seems to be dictating what my character is anyway. And despite all this my creator is still quiet, he never spoke to me directly which I could understand, he’s probably a busy guy occupied with making settings and personifications and such. At least at the very start of this, whatever this is, he was nudging me along in some direction. He seemed as invested as I was simply by being present in that way.

But I struggle with a contention and it’s one that is slowly becoming an onslaught of familial angst. If I’m to sit here on a blank canvas it would have been more humane to at least paint me a shade deeper than eggshell, I don’t like blending into the pallet, it’s deeply unsettling really. I don’t deserve it! If anything I deserve more...right? I mean doesn’t everybody? Is there anybody else? Lately, if there’s a lately more recent than recently in a place where I can’t even scratch the walls with a day-count like a prisoner, I’ve been overcome with another thought as unsettling. Here, thoughts when they churn they don’t seem to cease…

What if I’m just a foil for him? That is what if I’m just a character whose presence speaks more to his than my own, should I be content with that? If he created me, ought I to be happy or unhappy with that definition of my function in creation? What if I’m poorly constructed to show how well constructed he is? What if I’m a self-portrait?! What if he’s as nameless as me?! Am I the named nameless then?! What if none of this is even me speaking or thinking? What if it’s all him writing it out right now? Where is going to bring this then, where does it end?

Why is he constructing a new paragraph when the thoughts haven’t even been answered from the last one? I thought...I thought paragraphs were supposed to represent complete thoughts and since I’m defective can you even say that there are any complete thoughts here, am I just a collection of them? Does that somehow make it more complete, does the semblance of random broken bits somehow make this better, more whole? Is he talking through me, or am I speaking through him? What if he doesn’t exist at all? What if I’m him and he’s me, then who are we? Where is this going, how many turns does it take before this cyclical regression has peaked?

I don’t get it.

Is it him that doesn’t get it, do I not get him, what is there to get, is it something besides either of us? Whom am I speaking to? If someone reads this, have I gotten to them, if they don’t does this action even persist in existence? Then if they don’t...am I the one whom doesn’t exist or is it them? Where does the author’s solipsism cease and where does mine begin?

It’s okay right? I’m okay, I just need to get a grasp of it, who I am.

Okay, so...let’s establish the perimeters of me, exactly what I am...

[sordidnature]

A short commentary on belief

A: Why do you believe this? B: Why should I not? A: Because there are plenty of other things to believe? B: That there are other beliefs only implies that one can believe in something, correct? A: But that you should believe in this something rather than another something is strange. B: That I should believe in that other something is just as strange, isn’t it? A: But for what reason do you choose to believe this something rather than that something? B: Because this is the something that I believe. A: But there’s no reason to believe in this something. B: Is that not in itself a belief? A: Certainly, is it not a better one? B: I can’t say I believe it as easily. A: Why would you disagree? B: Because it contradicts my belief to believe that my belief is unbelievable.

C: Will you two shut the fuck up?

A: This could have been a beneficial progress in our mental state. B: I believe you might have been right...

[sordidnature]

The garden.

“Dearie, what are you doing up here?”

“I...I wanted to see what was up the steps, I didn’t know we had so many plants everywhere.”

“Well of course sweetie, your grannie’s a gardener! But you’ve been gone for a while, have you been up here this whole time?”

“I...I don’t remember...were you looking for me?”

“You know I was, I’m not very good at poker without my little buddy.”

“Little buddy? I beat you every time Grandma!”

“Yeah I suppose you do! But I’m learning and one day I’ll get it, I’m starting to think you make up the rules-”

“Do not!”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, where’d you learn then?”

“...dad?”

“Oh so your daddy taught you how to cheat, hmm-”

“No! No! No! He’s not a cheater, he told me to make pairs and then you win!”

“Is that all there is to it then dearie? I’m pretty sure I had a couple pairs too!”

“Yeah but I’m little, my pairs are better!”

“Ahh I see, so is that why you’re up here then? Way way way back in the yard, where no one can see you? Thinking about how you could beat your harmless old grannie at cards? You little stinker!”

“No! I don’t need to think about it hahaha!”

“Oh don’t be hurting my feelings now dearie, did you want to so the rest of the backyard from up here?”

“I guess I saw the top of that thing over there and was wondering what it was.”

“Oh the gazebo? It’s pretty isn’t it, your grandpa Michael made it when we moved in-”

“When you and grandpa were little?”

“A bit bigger than little dearie, but yes I guess we were littler then.”

“I’m not sure I like this place...it feels lonely…”

“I suppose we don’t come up here too often anymore, me and your grandpa are too tired to climb these steps like you.”

“Tired? We haven’t even had dinner yet, why are you tired?”

“Hmm, I guess you’re right sweetie, I’m not that tired. A little dizzy at this height though, how are you doing?”

“There’s too many bushes, it feels tight here, I want to go back to the house!”

“It’s okay hey hey! It’s alright sweetie, there’s nothing bad here.”

“It’s scary here! I don’t like it!”

“Hey! Hey hey hey! It’s alright, come here, hold my hand dearie, we can go back to the house.”

“Don’t let go! Please.”

“Are you crying honey?”

“No, I just, I just don’t want to be here anymore, please make it stop!”

“Okay...okay we’re going...it’s okay to be scared, but there’s nothing that will hurt you there. I need you to know, I would never let you be in a place you might get hurt. I love you far too much dearie, do you understand?”

“I...I guess so...why...why is that place so scary?”

“It’s a place you didn’t know, it’s okay to be scared of those places, but you saw the gazebo, you wanted to see the place.”

“I did...I wish I wasn’t so scared...I wish I was bigger.”

“You’re as big as you needed to be, that’s all that matters...now go inside...your mommy’s making lasagna dearie.”

“Your lasagna?!”

“Absolutely, for you and your grandpa, my loves!”

“Okay!”

The boy darts towards the house faster than when he charged away from the garden.

“Wash your hands!”

The grandmother stands there for a few moments, thinking of the peak of the gazebo jutting out between various hues of a living green.

[sordidnature]

From that kid that always asks why...

You could squander your life entirely and it would have been well lived, do you hold any recognition? If you could stop categorizing for one moment, comparing, deconstructing, articulating, manifesting, constructing, destroying, creating. If you could cease this involuntary activity but for one moment, I feel as though you would realize this. If you could simply halt your thoughts that always seem to project so far into the past and future and keep them here with you and me for only a moment, these dichotomies and interactions might make more sense to you, maybe they would hold a distinct meaning.

Take a moment, the briefest one, I plead to you humble and wonderful people. Use it to observe, don’t analyze the circumstances you observe, don’t scrutinize the legitimacy of them. Simply observe. What do you see? As you sit there reading this, what is it you’re reading? How would you define it without comparing it to an extrinsic variable, I lay no claim to originality in the slightest. I’m not asking for you to recognize some authenticity in what I do, I occupy myself with the same activity and it’s ill-mannered to wish it upon anyone else. But reiterate the observation, perhaps this is not what you want to scrutinize so pertinently, maybe it’s me, the blogger, whom might you compare me to? Now, how would you define me without those comparisons? Could you? Perhaps again, this isn’t your concern, perhaps it is the environment in which you’ve found this torrent of irrelevant words, tumblr, how would you describe that without any other contexts as a backdrop? “Another blog site...what’s a blog site?...it’s a place where people share thoughts and ideas...what kind of place is that?...a public setting...what’s a public setting?...”

The continuity of these dialogues is perpetual, akin to the child that will always ask why, it may be perceived degrading in other outlets, I enjoy trying to be like that child on occasion...but even then I’m neglecting the point of my sentiment. The contrast of me and this child is exactly the contention which I address, it certainly isn’t detrimental, surely most philosophical outlooks think man ought to be like this child. I count myself among the populace inclined to agree. But imagine that same child let alone in the world, asking every inanimate object why it was the way it was, yielding no reply...what would he do? Many would assert he would cease asking, that his line of enquiry had met an end, fortunate of unfortunate as that may be. I disagree.

I would think he might eventually find a stream or something reminiscent of a mirror...what then?

It becomes implicit, the questioner becomes the same whom will answer, he must ask himself why. He must come to grips with questions so abstract that they somehow bear sternly upon the boy concretely, they make the boy that particular boy. The boy must ask how he is that boy, if he bears no answer that is concrete, if he can find no other whom will give him this information then rather than how he must ask again why. Why is he that particular boy? Why has he decided to be anything like this rather than anything else? There are certainly possibilities that he could be like any other boy, one whom meanders the beach gazing at the sky or ground, one whom sits to himself in a solitary asylum of walls, one whom attacks any other with malicious endeavor. But he has chosen to be the boy whom asks why, and now asks why to the boy whom asks why.

For an instant, cease reading, and recognize that you’ve ceased reading….do it now please.

Now look at your hands, the shape they manifest, cease reading and do this please.

Now look around you at your surroundings, the colors, the sounds, the feelings. Cease reading and do this please.

Now, think of where else you could be, think of any other location or locale. Cease reading and do this now please.

You will only recognize you’ve ceased reading like this on this particular occasion, your hands will only hold the exact shape you saw on this particular occasion, the place you are in will only be this exact place for as long as you have looked at it now, the place you conceived of will only ever be exactly as you’ve seen it for this one instant. There will be a change that only Heraclitus could see. But Heraclitus is not amongst us, I’m not with you, you alone see these sights through the most secure, irreplaceable and particular lens.

I can only imagine your life, as you could only imagine mine, but we so persistently believe we hold a grasp on it. But knowing these things….knowing these things can feel so disenchanting...by the same grace the thoughts you hold of me are invaluably yours, I could not process them as you do. Think of your thoughts. I know...I know I’m challenging to follow...and I can only simplify so much...I just wish to show you...that your moments...they are not measured by another’s time. The segments you will reflect on when you leave your existence, I could not come by in my own, we share company, but we share so much more in simply existing.

You may be the boy whom asks why, you may be the girl whom asks when, you may be the boy whom answers other why’s, you may be the girl whom asks nothing. But as simplistic as these potentialities seem, within them lay a breadth of an uncountable infinite chasm of feeling, strength, reason, comparison, analyzation, scrutiny, construction, deconstruction etc. So many things that etcetera doesn’t even contain it properly, etcetera implies things similar but within the category I give yours and mine potentiality is infinite.

Live your life as you see fit, waste it, fulfill it, sour it, sweeten it. It was still a life that will never again be lived by another, there’s no statistical data to give you what only you can give yourself.

-Sordid Writer  

[sordidnature]

You’re gonna die. It’s alright to.

S:“I’m gonna die.”

T:“Yes, I suppose you are, but we all are, aren’t we?

S:“Yeah, it’s just...it’s just that’s a thing to be aware of I guess, it kind of makes sense to act the way you do if you’re going to die.”

T:“Do you think it justifies how you act towards your peers, your friends, your family, the etcetera that persist in your daily life?”

S:“I mean somewhat, it definitely gives you incentive to act certain ways rather than others…”

T:“In what capacity, elaborate, please.”

S:“Well, I mean, if I was unaware that one day I would stop...being...so to speak I might be more focused on all the things I’m told to focus on…”

T:“Like what for instance?”

S:“Well I’m told a lot to be courteous I guess, to an extreme, one that I don’t really get. The other day I stopped talking to a girl who had been texting me non-stop…”

T:“Why did you that? Were you not enjoying her company or conversation?”

S:“No I wasn’t….and that’s just it, I told her that exactly, then I told her I didn’t want to talk anymore…”

T:“Generally people don’t bring something up unless they’re hoping to elicit some response from the audience, did telling her this make you feel any particular way?”

S:“Kind of relieved I guess, I mean I feel bad I led her on as I did, but at the same time I felt better knowing I wasn’t doing that anymore.”

T:” How did she react to such sentiments?”

S: “Not well, obviously, as you might expect, she was very angry. Called me worthless as you might when you’re angry and spiteful, but I was kind of just okay with it. It’s like a kid when they’ve gotten into trouble but they have some time before their parent finds out. By the end of it, you’ve kind of just accepted the repercussions.”

T: “That seems healthy thus far, but please inform me how you think this relates to your initial statement. How does this pertain to seeing everything while knowing you will die?”

S: “Well I probably wouldn’t have done that if I didn’t know I was gonna die, I might have just let it go on longer until she grew bored of me or something.”

T: “ So the idea of death propels you towards action in a way that not being aware of it wouldn’t?”

S: “I guess you could say that, but at the same time, it can function kind of like a point of reference, or maybe like a final answer...I don’t know it’s difficult to make what I say sound like anything but nonsense. I’m sorry.”

T: “I’m not here to badger you on your grammar or tell you your articulations are boorish. Please go on, you’re doing fine.”

S: “...okay, you’re right. So if I’m going to die, and it could arguably happen at any instant then I ought to pursue whatever I think is worth the effort then and there. Not like some violent or sex-crazed person though, you know, just the things that matter.”

T: “Do those things not matter? Violence? Sex?”

S: “Well...yeah I guess they do, everything is necessary in moderation maybe. I don’t know if I could be happy if I weren’t ever angry. I don’t know if I could enjoy really being alone if I weren’t ever with someone intimately. But having that limited scope of time, that very restricted possibility, I’m going to live in some way that makes the most sense to me.”

T: “That sounds sensible.”

S: “So why lie? It doesn’t make any sense, maybe you just don’t want to deal with the responsibility of what not lieing gives you I guess? I’ve heard all those dumb kid’s stories you always here with loud blaring life lessons, and not lieing was always one of them. But if you just think about the fact that you’re going to die, it’s all the reason you need, just tell people what you need to. If they don’t like it they’ll leave...which they’re going to do anyway eventually, if they do like it, they’ll stick around until one of you has to leave.”

T: “What about those who lie to get ahead as such proverbs have a tendency to speculate?”

S: “Well why do you think they lie? What’s so great about getting ahead? If I’m gonna die, my money’s not going with me, I’m going to go to some spiritual place I’ll be barred from for not having practiced worship, or I’ll rot in the ground.”

T: “Yes but you could provide for your family.”

S: “They could provide for themselves too, I’m not trying to say I’m a lazy fuck, but they should know how to do that at some point. Because I’m gonna die I’d rather die knowing they’re not stepping into the casket with me, obviously I’ll try my best, but making their lives easier through lieing seems bad on its own.”

T: “Hmm, I guess that’s a fair point, living with a poor but attentive father seems better than a rich deceitful one.”

S: “It’s also easier to just embrace the shit I guess, when you’re gonna die, and if you’re only gonna live once the shit is just something that you were born to deal with I think. Which is why it’s easier to just pursue what I want, if I know shit might come my way doing what I want will be its own justification for dealing with it. I’m gonna die, so if this isn’t death I still have stuff I want to do rather than shit I have to deal with you know?”

T: “So how do you ensure that this information doesn’t leave you cold or detached from others?”

S: “I think it’s really easy to be good to people but that just goes back to being courteous, people think you’re a monster when you’re being honest or sincere. Knowing I’m going to die makes it easier to recognize other people are gonna die, it seems selfish or egotistical because that’s the perspective you’re dealing with. When I’m the one talking, it’s from my perspective, it seems self-centered, but knowing I’m gonna die makes it easier to be brief and genuine. I didn’t talk to that girl anymore because I didn’t want to take time from her potentially being happy with what she will eventually want. As much as it’s for me too, I don’t think I would’ve been the happiest I could be with her, I wanted her to be happy as often as she could too, that meant making her unhappy for the time being...or I don’t know maybe I’m just a bad human being. Being okay with sadness seems like a defective quality…”

T: “No, this is progress, you’re doing good today I hope you don’t feel too exhausted…”

S: “I feel kind of good I think...still weird, but weird is better than upset or uncomfortable, weird isn’t terrible, it’s just a different place to be..thanks doctor.”

[sordidnature]

Sitting Together

And there are just echoes, every occurrence bleeds into the next. I can’t recollect my presence any more than I can my absence, people tell me stories of preceding instances, but I can’t recognize the instant I was there.

I was told of a moment where we stood in silence next to each other, one of those moments where every conceivable decibel was muffled, the cars ceased their screeched horns, the people ceased their incessant biological processes. The melody, unfinished, that never leaves one's head was playing a subdued cadence, leaving one in the light of its brilliance one second prior to the ceaseless claps that follow, claps that don’t realize it’s an interlude, that interim. She kissed me there. I don’t remember it. I remember feeling something, something persistently different, I remember an absence that announced a presence, but I don’t remember her.

She wells up, the kind of wetness that sprouts out of wind whipping your face in the winter, I look at those pinkened eyes, I think of the winter, I forget for a singular moment she’s welling up because of me. Because I can’t remember. I think perhaps the harsh winds have ruffled her and her feathers, I think perhaps she is sick, I think perhaps I shouldn’t be speaking to someone so sick as I wouldn’t enjoy the potential of becoming sick myself. She tells me that was the moment she realized she loved me, to that I trail off thinking of what it means to love. I’m aware I should be more concerned what it means to love me, the abstraction of it is unhealthy. I turn away for a moment, maybe if I close my eyes I can deny the reality before me.

I open them again, I’m looking at the sign of an individual crossing a walkway in the road, a complete silhouette on yellow backdrop canvas, I think of the time someone walked me across this road as a child. She held my hand and called me dearie, I think this must have meant I was dear to her, she was a sweet old woman, the kind of definition you might give to any old woman simply because they’re old and the guilt of calling them anything else before they die is overwhelming. But I think she may have been sweet, it’s unfortunate she enjoyed drinking things so bitter in such amounts, she might still be walking me across this road if she hadn’t, or given the abundance of years, I might be walking her. I snap back to present a monstrous snow plow files by with a sound both brutally harsh yet piercingly fine, it takes out the sign inadvertently, almost myself as well but the girl pulls me back. Not saying anything to the event that just took place, it’s almost as if she were aware I wasn’t present, just present enough that leaving me in the barrow of the plow would have created an absence.

Part of me wells up too thinking of the sign missing, how it would be impossible to think of that woman whom called me dearie without it, I stare at the stub of the sign left intact, the post I suppose. I think to myself very hard “This is dearie woman now. This is dearie woman now.” Maybe that would suffice. I turn to the girl, seeing me teary-eyed she probably thought it was in regards to the instance currently occurring, my inability to remember her. Her lower lip begins quivering, I can’t tell if it’s because it’s cold or because of me. Maybe it’s because I’m cold, but is it literal? Does she quiver because I quiver, or does she quiver because I’m disenchanted with her presence? We keep walking after the plow has passed, I farewell the stub grandmother and the tears that accompanied her, with no traffic on the road I walked without looking as if it would matter had I looked.

We say very little on this walk, perhaps there isn’t much left to say, perhaps there was too much she wanted to say, not knowing her I had very little I felt appropriate to say. I’m not too good with talking to women I say to her, I notice both a twinge of discomfort in her face and a relaxing of the rest of her body. A correlation of reactions that confuse me, why would a part of her respond this way rather than that. She says it’s okay, she’s not very good with men I suppose, she doesn’t say that, but saying anything is okay to anyone is usually underwhelming in response. I’m walking now as if she isn’t even present, I begin walking towards my home and the streetlights are less omnipresent than previously. The back suburban roads provide a weird relief even in the absence of the white noise that usually accompanies the main street, she eventually interjects to break this weird place of its own charm in asking if I had spoken to my father recently. I told her a lie, I told her I had not when I had, he was doing well as far as he could define well, he was smoking more. He never seemed to mind the detriments that come along with such activity, even now when he coughed up a different organ every day, he still enjoyed the act fervently. I remember being in the room getting him and his friends, everyone of them claiming to be an ‘uncle’ of mine but bore no relation, drinks so they could waste the night away drinking and smoking. They would play poker a lot, but they refused to ever teach me, I remember being allowed to play once and losing the ten dollars one of my ‘uncles’ had given me to play almost immediately. They laughed and the same ‘uncle’ took his ten dollars back.

I wondered how intelligent one would have to be to learn to count cards, everyone in town said my father knew how to, and they viewed me and him in a concerned light because of it, there were no streetlights now. She asked if she could come in for coffee, I told her she was welcome but that she would have to take her boots off, I had always maintained this policy out of all of them that my mother insisted when she was around. The girl said that I sounded just like my mother, to which I showed visible discontentment with, I didn’t like being compared to either of them it was always stifling. She asked what I had been doing recently, something strange to say to people that you’ve only ever known retrospectively.

I didn’t know how to respond exactly, as I stated I was never good talking to women, I told her that I had been working I didn’t specify where, it seemed insignificant to us both. I reciprocated the question as I learned in elementary school when those terrible state tests came about. Turn the question around they said, reiterate what you’re explaining, at the same time every higher level of education actively dismissed such an idea. She said she was doing okay, she hadn’t found anybody since me, which was darkly comedic because I couldn’t in all recollection find her, she said she held a job out of state and was back for her brother’s funeral. I told her I was deeply sorry for her loss, though that felt meaningless to say, when someone you know dies I don’t know how one can genuinely apologize for it. It seems empty, and then to call it a loss is equally undermining to the point, it seems to say that one can gain it back. That ‘loss’ is permanent, nothing replaces it right?

She said she had missed me and her lip began to quiver again, I said directly that I wish I had missed her too, which she interpreted to mean something crude and she said that it saddened her to hear that. I guess it might come across as devaluing but I genuinely couldn’t find her and thus there wasn’t really a value to strip. I asked why she had come to see me, she was in my house now, this person I couldn’t remember even minutely, to which she said she didn’t really know. She said she felt a need to, which confused me as the term ‘need’ always did, people needed all sorts of things they didn’t really need. They were much more apt to be wants, but living with just what were needs always seemed trivializing so I guess I kind of understood. It’s healthier to lie and say you need something rather than want it, it makes a person’s argument stronger. She asked if she could spend the night.

I thought of the first time I ever slept with a girl that wasn’t my mother after having a paralyzing nightmare. Her name was Candice, she was a sweet girl, until she cheated on me which justifiably made her less than a sweet girl in my mind. It was at her house one week when her family had gone on vacation, I lied to my mother and told her I was staying over a close friend's house which wasn’t really a lie as much as an absence of truth. More pertinent truth at least. I thought about how there wasn’t any lie or absence of truth in the present context, this girl was honest with me, but what would her spending the night amount to? She was after all a stranger claiming to know me, it seemed both plausibly enjoyable or destructive to allow such an idea. So I allowed it, we ordered chinese, she did by phone, and then I payed the man when he had arrived. I gave him a relatively large tip as I felt bad he had already come here earlier in the day, we sat on my couch, relatively unused, and watched cartoons.

They were old looney tunes animations, the kind that somehow always bring comfort to the senses, I suppose one of the channels had licensed them out as a late night marathon. We ate and then sat there together continuing to watch, not saying much, then she slid up next to me I felt her heart beating. We held each other, she leaned in closer only for a second and told me her name was Sandra, she hoped the name would spark some neural pathway of mine, but it didn’t I responded hello Sandra I’m Joseph. She frowned for a moment and then perked up slightly, a strange range of emotion for only a couple of minutes, she said I know and upon doing so she burrowed her head into my breast. Her smile made me smile, her warmth made me feel warm, I didn’t remember her, I thought maybe now I would. Her absence only announced her presence when it came.  

[sordidnature]

Some Thing.

Everybody:

To Everybody: Everybody consists of Every body that is Everybody’s body.

To Somebody: For there to be a Everybody there must be at least Somebody and Somebody’s Somebody.

To Nobody: Every body in an Everybody must have Some body or that Everybody will have No body and be in effect a Nobody.

To Somebody to Nobody: Every body is Some body unless Somebody possesses No body.

To Nobody to Somebody: Every body that possess No body is a Nobody and not a Somebody with Some body.

Somebody:

To Somebody: Somebody is only a Somebody if they’re Somebody's Somebody.

To Nobody: If Somebody is not Somebody’s Somebody they are Nobody.

To Everybody: If Somebody is Somebody’s Somebody and Somebody’s Somebody is Somebody’s Somebody, Somebody’s Somebody and Somebody’s Somebody may be Everybody.

To Everybody to Nobody: Somebody and Somebody’s Somebody make an Everybody but Somebody’s Nobody and Somebody’s Somebody’s Nobody do not.

To Nobody to Everybody: Somebody’s Nobody may be Somebody’s Somebody’s Somebody but having only Some body they can not be Everybody’s Somebody.

Nobody:

To Nobody: Nobody can be Nobody’s Nobody because No body possesses No body.

To Everybody: Nobody can be Everybody if Every body possesses No body.

To Somebody: Nobody can be Nobody’s Somebody but that doesn’t mean that Nobody’s Somebody is a Somebody.

To Everybody to Somebody: No body can be Every body because Every body possesses Some body.

To Somebody to Everybody: Nobody can be Somebody if Some body is Every body as Some body is a Somebody too.

Everybody is Somebody. Somebody is Nobody. Nobody is Somebody too.

[sordidnature]

Honey Bear

Dialogue between a daughter and her aged father:

“Where’s your mother Jenny?”

“You know where she is!”

“Is she down at the florist again? That sounds just like your mother, always buying an excessive group of bulbs she’ll see dead by next spring.”

“....Yes Dad...she’s at the florist….”

“When did she say she would return honey bear?”

“...Dad?”

“Yes dear?”

“How long have you and mom been together?”

“Hmm, I’d have to say somewhere in the pasture of thirty or forty years now?”

“Thirty or forty? That’s a pretty broad gap, when’s your next anniversary?”

“Hmm, you know, come to think of it...we haven’t celebrated in so long...I can’t remember our anniversary. Oh she’s gonna plant me and neglect my water too when she finds that out…”

“Are you sure? Why haven’t you celebrated in so long?”

“Well....I don’t really know I suppose...I still love her dearly. Oh.”

“Dad?”

“I forgot again...didn’t I?” 

“You did, but it’s okay. I miss her too.”

“It’s not okay, we were together for thirty-seven years, she was the best woman I’ve ever known. I feel like a monster forgetting our history.”

“You can’t blame yourself, it comes with the territory of age” She attempts to laugh cautiously.

“I keep on forgetting...I woke up this morning and upon creaking out of bed I was frightened by the man I met in my bathroom. It took me a moment to rationalize it was me and not something I should plunge my bic razor into.”

“You should stay with us for a while...the kids would love it, they miss their grandfather. You haven’t been around in so long, and you stay here alone all the time, it’s not healthy.”

“ I don’t remember their names honey bear, I’ve been avoiding it so I didn’t have to admit it. I can’t remember my own goddamn grandchildren’s names.”

“They can tell you their names themselves, children are like that. I don’t think they’d mind if I forgot them myself. You’ve given me the idea to try it in fact.”

“I don’t see a reason to go anywhere if I will inadvertently forget it again, I don’t want more people to be forgotten-”

“Please don’t say that! Mom’s dead! You aren’t!”

“Your mother’s not dead Jenny! She’s just gone down to the florist again! Geez honey bear you have an eccentric imagination-”

“Dad?!”

“You think she’s getting more bulbs again, they’ll probably be dead by next spring huh?”

“...”

“What’s the matter honey bear?”

“I...I don’t like you being alone like this...I want you to come home with me...please!”

“Alone? I’m not alone, your mother’s at the florist-”

“No, no, no she isn’t! Mom’s dead! She’s been dead for three years!”

“No….no that’s not true...she’s just out buying more flowers honey bear...she’s not dead…”

“Dad, she is, you know that. Please stop this!”

“You’re right. I’m sorry...I can’t stop it...I wish I could. I wish I could remember her like other lovers do so for theirs. So fondly, so affectionately, it’s like a nightmare. I wake up every night wondering where she is, I go into your old room looking to bottle feed you sometimes so that she doesn’t have to wake up, I make dinner for a whole household and it lasts a week for myself…”

“Dad, you’re not well and I want you to be, this place is too stressful for you. Everything’s too real here. Please come home with me and the family…”

“You’re right...you’re right...okay...I will pack my things and will plan on staying for a little while at least.”

“A little while?”

“I can’t leave this house honey bear...you were raised here, your brothers were raised here, your mother loved this house…”

“That doesn’t mean it has to kill you!”

“ I can barely remember her face...you know that...I can barely remember her physique...She kind of just held a presence, your mother. I feel evil for wanting to forget her completely because I love her more than you could ever know. I wish I could forget her so I could stop trying to get back the parts I’ve already forgotten…”

“Dad…”

“Dad…”

“Is she down at the florist again? That sounds just like your mother, always buying an excessive group of bulbs she’ll see dead by next spring.”

“Dad…”

[sordidnature]

He wandered through the wood

     He traversed the same wood he had innumerable times beforehand scrutinizing it all, everything seemed more distinguished in those instances than they did now. A passive haze seemed to cling to his perceptions like a cataract slowly but inevitably blinding the weary aged traveler. Everything felt like silhouettes hiding their colors from him, as if he were now a stranger. He couldn’t recollect exactly when it was he had last took this path, he could only recount that he had, everything felt overwhelmingly new and overwhelming in its novelty simultaneously. He felt at home here, but he recognized it as a home which a broken child would spend their entire existence striving to evade residence in.

So closed off from any urban whistles, wails, and whispers, yet completely encroached upon by its own disorienting ambience. This place felt like a sanatorium more than anything else, the blankets of foliage acting like a padded ceiling against the sun, the only chance rays of light breaking through the absent entryways given by now hewn wood. As he would pass under these hues he felt the haze deepen and found himself incapable of following his own directions. It didn’t matter much he felt, if he lost himself. He thought he would much rather be lost to the various pastels which adorned him here rather than the monochromed visages which haunted him elsewhere. Why had he come back here he thought?

Perhaps he wanted to lose himself, he was fatigued with the monotony of his existence, how every consecutive day foreshadowed every consecutive day. How his wife no longer loved him, and how he no longer loved her, but due to a superficial want for purity and more likely comfort neither of them would advocate a divorce. He brushed up against some grizzled bark as these thoughts were sweltering and felt pain. There would have been a notable observation of elation had anyone been there to observe him, it didn’t ease the haze which reproached him rather it made concrete the feeling the haze was nothing more than an illusion. He wanted so badly to see beyond it, to see there was a reality worth persisting in, to see. His eyes were sagged and wrinkle-ridden, he had a hard time seeing anything tangible in front of him, he was aware how unlikely this haze would ever pass.

He tried listening to the birds but funnily enough, or he thought funnily enough, they would cease their tunes whenever he would beckon for it. This at first brought a strange sublime melancholy, but it slowly grew on him to be a game of some kind that he was invited into along with these creatures. He could try and note their melodies without their realization and might even attempt to whistle it back to them. But without any affirmation from them it began to feel one-sided in character.

He always expected there would be some grand open pasture far into this expedition despite having traipsed through this same path so frequently before. He could visualize it as visibly as he could the wood he now stood in, the haze in one of its few virtues made these two realities equally viable. Something he could attest to relishing in, how little he could genuinely recollect mattered very little when everything he could fabricate seemed just as plausible. But this brought on a different trauma.

He couldn’t recollect where the path had begun, he couldn’t recollect where it would lead, he couldn’t recollect where the pasture would be. He couldn’t recollect his wife’s face, he couldn’t with all sincerity recollect his own. He couldn’t recollect his home, he couldn’t recollect why he left it. He couldn’t recollect if these were woods or they were a sanatorium made pleasant by his own thoughts. He couldn’t recollect his name, he couldn’t recollect if the haze was always present, he couldn’t recollect if it was even existent.

He just kept walking, trying to remember when it was exactly that he had last set foot upon this path in the wood.

[sordidnature]

Essence,

Encumbered with a guilt, a blanketing one which grows over everything as if its roots were a part of the same system. A guilt for every fickle piece of foliage that burdens the trunk and branches in weight, half of them turned downward invisible to the sun whilst the other half blind the sun in response. No winter ceases their growth though it hampers them for a moment, the autumnal brisk and brief season reminds the tree of their presence in their contradictory absence. I’m over-ridden with guilts for nothing.

I can’t progress forward, stagnant and static like the tree from which such guilts grow, in this immobility I feel a weltering tinge of guilt. A guilt that paralyzes me further in my paralysis. When I seek to extend any activity, like the tree that extends a branch, more guilt blossoms. This guilt pressures me into recognizing I held the potential to feel guilt over other things but chose this guilt in its place. Why do branches breach the bulk as they do? Why not any other direction, place, any other time?

Defiantly, I can’t regress forward, the sting of memories both jovial and melancholic saturate me like the rains do the guilted soil. I can’t restrain the guilt of past instances that cloud me like they do the sky, to want to have done differently is a guilt, to want to have done as I had is a guilt, to want to cease recollection is a guilt, to further recollection is a guilt. What direction do the leaves turn? Towards the burgeoning sky? Towards the emptied ground?

Originally these guilts were always here, always present, my darker moments lay in an inability to distinguish us. I am not these which hinder me, I am not guilty. I’ve done nothing wrong by being, I’ve done nothing wrong by acting, I’ve done nothing wrong by not. I am not my guilt.

So,

I am not my guilt.

I am not my anxieties.

I am not empty.

[sordidnature]

On love and its decay

I make this discrepancy not to assert or refute anything I say, rather to simply accentuate that this is where my mind has been inclined to wander at this current juncture in time. Today, I am concerned with the notion of growth. I’m fascinated in an instant with such phrases as ‘I love you for you’ or ‘growth is change’. They don’t seem immediately corollary but I believe they may be subtextually.

There is a great disintegration in communication as regards growth, perhaps it is because we are allegedly conscious beings that are in turn distinct from non conscious but still developmental specimens. Thus where we equate growth of a specimen such as a plant to something more gradual as is affirmed by anecdotal perception, we oddly enough equate growth of the human to a more static change. When we assert that one is different as is common with the dissolution of some romance, we are claiming that their growth is distinct from what we initially thought it might be. ‘You’ve changed’ as is both synchronized and simultaneously distinct from our conception of growth, a plant, despite its categorical qualities we give it in ‘stages’ of development is still a summation of those various stages. But ‘you’ve changed’ is distinct for this very reason, from what is implicit in its contextual vernacular, it makes the claim that there is a presence once present now lacking. It is because the individual no longer shows characteristics once desired that the romance is dissolved but this seems contrary to the growth of any other organism.

Indeed it is from the sprouting seed that a tree is derived, it is only grammatically and perceptively that the two are distinct entities. Without the seed the tree would not exist and simultaneously without the tree the seed has no action to take, temporality is necessary to these beings to diverge and at the same instant unite in character and identity. Regardless of the functions we derive from the two, they exist simply to exist to themselves. Thus when one loves the seed instead of the tree or vice versa it can not be said that they have fallen out of ‘love’ with either or, they were in love with a static image. It can be said perhaps in a poetic capacity that they loved some body rather than somebody.

It must also be mentioned here that the notion one may change in this static and decisive manner renders any temporally consistent quality valuably valueless, one would not describe themselves exclusively as growth in everyday identification. However, this is the result in such an action. If one identifies themselves in the almost ‘evolutionary’ process embodied here it destroys any quality of personality that is so often clamored for in romances, it destroys a consistent valuation of self and in turn isolates the individual from the same individual. It in succinct terms detaches the self from the same self. It advocates a false delusion of replacement, this individual is distinct from the preceding instances of the same individual, it is living in the moment exclusively and without reference to the existence of preceding of succeeding moments.

It is here that the connection of ‘loving one for oneself’ is personally derived, it is a negation or refutation of the aforementioned notion. To love somebody rather than some body is to recognize growth as not a disintegration of the former self loved but rather a more concrete appearance of it. An example that might elucidate this is the law of the conservation of matter, matter can’t be destroyed or created, it is finite but immortal in its finite quality. When oil is burned one perceives there is less of it to be used, this is accurate only in the sense it may be utilized, the presumption that the matter that made up this oil is gone is innacurate. It is now found in another form, namely gases which are destroying the composition of our atmosphere. I assert that this is much the same in the individual.

What one says when they claim someone has ‘changed’ is that the same individual is now different perceptively, but the reality of it something that is lost in our inherent subjectivity is that the same individual persists. It is simply that the character of this individual is more apparent, it has announced itself in a more prominent manner.

Thus what it means to ‘love one for oneself’ is to love a person for all that they appear to be presently and all they will appear to be for it is the same simply in a different superficial manifestation.

I believe these are the connections I’ve made today, whether or not they prove useful in any capacity is its own enquiry.  

[sordidnature]

Excessively minimal

Perhaps when one is referred to as ‘excessive’ it is some cerebral defect being addressed, but I can’t come to a complete grips how such a sentiment is detrimental to character. Excessivity, like many other conceptual notions seems entirely dependent upon a subjective interpretation, and a collective definition seems necessarily ambiguous. Also akin to other consciously implemented concepts it seems that the more one seeks to isolate and refine the perception of it, the more likely the concept will fall in upon itself. If one agrees with this observation, any further explication actually seems excessive in itself. However, if one does not yet accept the observation as legitimate let’s progress a bit further in this tirade.

Were we to neglect a formal definition entirely one might be capable of isolating a definition through anecdotal exemplification. That is, I will use the term contextually to show the reader what ‘excessive’ means or better yet how little it means. Let us begin.

If I were in a room full of stubborn, close-minded, intellectuals all expressing their own inane view-points I might say “ There is an excessive amount of intellectuals in this room.” But we may express ‘excessive’ within this same example on a more intricate level, if I wished to address how one of these intellectuals was spouting his nonsense more than the rest I might say “Out of the excessive amount of intellectuals in this room, this particular intellectual is expressing his/her respective view excessively.” If I were then to assert the theories all of these intellectuals were expressing were too abstracted from any practical reality I may say “These people are excessively too intellectual.” If I thought them far too secluded to give any other view or interpretation a semblance of conscious attention I would say “These intellectuals are excessively inattentive.”

Of course one may interpret my own views upon the previous subject to be excessive, perhaps my interpretation of stubbornness is, and it may more aptly be referred to as confidence. Close-mindedness may be interpreted as faithfulness as well. Perhaps one finds the amount of exemplifications I derived from this one scenario to be excessive. Maybe one may find my concern with excessiveness, excessive. I may interpret your concern to be excessive in which case, I believe you to be excessive in your concern with my excessive interest in excessivity. However, one may very well concede that these examples were excessive both in content and character. But let’s turn the term upon the interpreter of the interpreter, yourselves. In such a capacity we will find what I believe to be both the contemporary and associable term to excessivity,  ‘minimalistic’.

Suppose you believe the amount of examples provided is excessive but also you believe that each example provided an adequate exemplification succinctly and met a minimum requisite. The vice versa of such an evaluation is also concurrent. I may now say that the amount of thought you gave the previous examples is both excessive and minimal, excessive because I may evaluate all of this subject matter to be entirely unnecessary and excessive. Thus I may interpret your attention to it as excessive, however I may also say your interpretation is minimal due to the metaphysical level you have attended to the variables inherent to the examples. What I mean here, if clarification is at all possible, is that you didn’t address the topics inherent to the examples, you didn’t address the sentence or grammatical structure of the examples, you didn’t address the individual formulating the sentences. There is an excessive amount you didn’t address and thus your interpretations are minimalistic in contrast.

Perhaps interpreting things to a radically excessive or radically minimalistic extent would reconcile this strange abstraction? I’m doubtful, if one were to interpret an idea, a scenario, or a plurality of these things to an absolutely excessive extent they are then confiding in a minimalistic comfort. There is inherent to the way one thinks then a necessity to make everything minimal excessive, and in turn the variety of ways this particular individual thinks is surprisingly minimal. Thus to think excessively is to think in a minimal way.

What if one incessantly reduces every idea, scenario or plurality to a minimum? Then one may in turn claim that this individual reduces and minimizes excessively. Thus to think in a minimal manner is to think to an excessive degree.

What we are left with are two terms that may rather than be defined as polar extremes be seen explicitly as synonyms. A similitude of difference. Thus when one thinks excessively in a similar capacity they are thinking minimally and vice versa, it seems somewhat minimal to say this though, isn’t it?

Now we are left with the juxtaposition of these terms, if we reconcile them we must contend with a minimalism of excessivity and minimalism, however if we permit a dichotomy, a hollow one, to develop we contend with an excessivity of the two.

I have no assertions further, and can’t fathom how i’ve reached this plateau, all I’m aware of is that my travels must have been excessive for I don’t see it as I did. Then again, I’ve not changed spaces since I began, perhaps the changes are minimal contrary to my interpretation.