I could have guessed that it was raining outside before I saw, heard, or smelled it. Your senses grow numb, but intuition is somehow heightened in this state. I keep watching these really old movies, and I think “none of the actors, crew, anyone involved are still alive.” Unless your name made it on the poster, nobody is going to remember your contribution to this work many have praised as high art.
Nobody thanks the people making the vivid colors painters use in their work. The ghostwriters for celebrity memoirs are rarely remembered. You’ll eventually be forgotten, after enough time passes. Maybe there will be a faded picture of you in somebody’s scrapbook. Maybe it will be a jpeg archived online, in one of those electronic social media museums they’re eventually going to put old Myspace and Facebook pages in. Maybe this post will still be here when that happens, and people will wonder what the hell a Myspace or a Facebook is.
Some of the greatest nights of my life happened in places that no longer exist, and with people that no longer exist, watching bands that no longer exist, playing a style of music nobody listens to anymore. Everything disappears so fast, you have to form an instant sense of nostalgia in order to appreciate it, as well as commit it to memory. While I type this, some sad girl is crooning along to an acoustic guitar in my computer speakers. Waves of peace, feelings of solitude, and melancholy all wash over me at the same time. It’s like discovering your favorite dish, and knowing it will never taste as good as the first time you had it. Why did I spend money on all these things covering every free square inch of space in this tiny room? I’m happy with them most of the time, but it’s raining outside, and I see squandered opportunities to do something meaningful, and I see them in the shape of collectibles of things I’m not sure if I really care about right now. The rain has stopped now. Now, it’s just wet and humid outside. The animals aren’t even reacting to the sounds outside anymore. To have that kind of peace. To reach that level of nirvana. Ignorance is bliss.
