I remember waking up one morning as this song playing from my phone – just one song in a playlist generated by Spotify’s algorithms. It infested my dreams with an incredible feeling of bereft need for SOMETHING. Tears in eyes as they finally opened to the total absence of resolution to the void “inherent in human existence”. This is not to say this hadn’t occurred to me previously, or been accepted (what self-reflecting millennial doesn’t have an intimate relationship with the void?), just that the morning is usually polluted with an unconsciously animated façade of normal animal existence – wake up, find food, do the things to make sure you can do that again. Accidentally make babies if you absolutely have to/can’t not.
And the need for that “SOMETHING” wasn’t god, or love, or anything so easy to define and brush aside as mere trappings of a weak intellect hobbled by conventional norms. It was… UNDEFINED THING I NEED. Meaning? But sure, there is no meaning. Like god or love. Just another social-psychological imprint on the neural pathways. Of course, being something of a melancholic chap, it went on to infect my whole day. It was a beautiful and horrible kind of day I have no real memory of years later except that this song was its soundtrack.
I’m kinda tired. I was going to do another music blog, but instead I’m going to spam my hundreds of thousands of readers with some of the most absurd inspirational do-dads the internet has generated in the last hour. InspiroBot splices strings of text and images to create amusing nonsense, sometimes bordering on the philosophical.
Today I woke up feeling like doing anything was stupid. Instead of doing stuff I lay in bed thinking about dying. Eventually I decided to make scrambled eggs. I cut a finger while dicing onion. There were no bandaids, so I was trying to stem the bleeding with tissue. It wouldn’t stop bleeding, but I was set on getting the meal done. I’d chop a bit and then wipe blood away. Occasionally a drop would drip into the food. What do I care. Food just gets turned into blood and shit anyway.
Some people will always succeed but I don’t care
Eventually, still bleeding, I returned to bed with the my booty of scrambled goods and coffee. It was pretty good eats. Instead of doing anything important, I got back to reading the gonzo account of rockstar, Al Jourgensen (Ministry, Revolting Cocks, Lard etc). I would laugh here and there but I couldn’t concentrate, and most of the time was spent reading the same pages over and over. I also found it a little depressing (but maybe a little bit inspirational too) that this crazy character could be so fucked up on drugs and booze (and be depressed), yet still do like a thousand albums. I don’t even care about waking up in the morning.
Chicken coop massacre
Around 1 pm I mustered all the rock-star inspired OMPH! I could pull together to go check the animals. I discovered the poor chickens had been massacred – probably a dog jumping the fence in the wee hours of the morning. No bodies, but lots of feathers. That was kinda depressing.
Then I managed to use the phone (something I have a near phobia of) to book an appointment I’d been putting off for weeks. Then I showered and now I’m fucking exhausted.
Life is so sad. Time passing, faces and experiences fading, the relentlessness of nothingness leaning down hard. Usually there is a bright side of the melancholy, but today is all sad face. You happy people are lucky. …
… Hang on…
… Ok, I have a drink now. Here’s to you, the happy ones.
Finally back from the future to deliver the second installment of Jim Is Ep7. The project has been a little more ambitious than most of the other strips, so I wanted to procrastinate a bit more. There is a part 3 still to come. To see pt1 first To see the first episode
Late-night emo sessions coming at ya! This was written several months back. Not much has changed.
It’s just me and the dark. Laying here, sprawled among the wasted shards. There’s nothing left to give me that little warm feeling. I have failed and I’m pushed right to the jagged edge of this little reality.
I’ve never been so close to absolute night. There’s nothing out there. Nothing for me. Pinpricks of light sail the silence. Little bubbles of light and life. Could I swim that far? Would they have me even if I did? I’m trapped in this vacuum tube and I’m running out of time. Once the glass brakes it’ll be drowning time.
I can feel the pressure rising, and it’s already imploding. I can already feel the shards tearing flesh. This life, my world, cutting me to pieces. Love and hope and little moments of condensed light, all tearing me apart in a slow inevitable concussion a lifetime long.
All I can do is close my eyes as the world I’ve known shatters, leaving me to the crushing depths. I know I’m drowning. And I know it’s my fault. I know I should have been bold. I should have been shrewd. I should have sold my little life whole-sale and went out to fight in that big bad void. I should have fought and killed. I should have kicked and stabbed and taken everything that could be torn free.
Now all I can do is sell this life a shard at a time. Pull theses frozen spikes from my flesh. Sell them at a bargain. Sell them to live another day, washed up on some alien stretch of void. Dream of the vacuum tube. No, instead dream of the glories that could have been – maybe what can still be achieved, if only I can hang onto enough of these burning fragments long enough to make it to the day. Dream of the day I can use what I still hold to make a fresh reality to burn away the dark and the pain.
A dark and broody song, this was a favourite of this angsty teenager, and it was one of the first songs that conveyed the feelings I had about the apocalyptic breakup of my last relationship. As with any symbolism or metaphor, this song does not perfectly represent the situation, but it is as close as any song has been. Miss X, and many others in my life, would say that said relationship is so far gone and dead that there’s nothing to even be angry about now – nothing left to discuss or fight about, or for. But here I am, still just as and angry; still just as thirsty for answers.
Miss X is the woman I love and hate with equal strength. She is someone I always want to see, but if I came upon her a hundred-thousand years from now, it would still be too soon. Compound this issue with the fact we have a child together – yep she’s in my life for now and ever. She’s someone I would feel very conflicted about knowing they were having a bad and horrible life.
In this way she is a prime candidate to become my perfect enemy, but she has never faced me, never given me any answers – just walks away – just plays dead. This lack of closure is very disappointing. There is no conflict to pour the immensity of my deeply conflicted emotions into. I am now walking away in disgust. She is obviously better off keeping her reasons to herself, too afraid to face me and admit the truth. At the best, I can expect passive aggressive bullshit. So deeply unsatisfying from someone I care/d for so much.
I will certainly be better off for moving so far away, where she can’t rely on me to be there for her needs, while completely ignoring my own. You fucking disappoint me.
Now, regale me with your comments telling me to get over it.
Dead as dead can be
The doctor tells me
But I just can’t believe him
Ever the optimistic one
I’m sure of your ability
To become my perfect enemy
Wake up and face me
Don’t play dead ’cause maybe
Someday, I’ll walk away and say
You disappoint me
Maybe you’re better off this way
(The only answers I ever got amounted to nothing. The breakup is still a raw and bitter deal for me. To me it could have always been salvaged. Now I can’t even
Leanin’ over you here
Cold and catatonic
I catch a brief reflection
Of what you could and might have been
It’s your right and your ability
To become my perfect enemy
Wake up and face me
Don’t play dead ’cause maybe
Someday I’ll walk away and say
You disappoint me
Maybe you’re better off this way
Maybe you’re better off this way
Maybe you’re better off this way
Maybe you’re better off this way
You’re better off this
You’re better off this
Maybe you’re better off
Wake up and face me
Don’t play dead ’cause maybe
Someday I’ll walk away and say
You fuckin’ disappoint me
Maybe you’re better off this way
Go ahead and play dead
I know that you can hear this
Go ahead and play dead
Why can’t you turn and face me?
Why can’t you turn and face me?
Why can’t you turn and face me?
Why can’t you turn and face me?
You fuckin’ disappoint me
