2002-10-30 - 2:40 p.m.
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Us VS. Them (kinda)
�Why is there a hell scene in the Tunnel of Lo� ohhhhhhh yeah. That�s right.� � Belmo while watching an enlightening episode of Popeye.
Things move slow when you find you�re upset, like a minimal effort will suffice and no one gets extra credit in life anyway. I�ve sat here and been doused in the flames of mental anguish, listening to Lifetime and Glassjaw bitterly say everything I wanted to say. It�s kind of sad, really, when you can listen to a song you�ve heard a million times saying �I�m fucking glad that�s not me� and one day know exactly where they�re coming from all of a sudden. There are too many things, way too many things ringing off the hook here, not phones, but calls to action. They leave messages of warning in their wake.
I�m not going to parade around my perfect little shit of a situation on this website anymore, because I�m sure that people are worried that I�m all depressed and shit when really, I�m more fatigued than anything. After a while, depression just deteriorates to fatigue, the absolute lack of ability to really fight back any longer. The spark and glare that life held for me, who knows how long ago, has fizzled and I find that each day just taunts my will and sanity.
Most of this is my fault. I�ve let myself drag myself into some stupid substance run world, fooling myself into thinking that there�s time, there�s time. Eventually it will all come, I just have to put up with this for now and eventually, it will come. The release of binds on my life, the complete rendering of all obligations. They will fall and I�ll have a death certificate to prove it. All I have to do is mail that diploma of annihilation out and I�ll be well on my way.
But in all actuality, when all is said and done, the dust settles, the clock runs out and all the other clich�s sound off, I can�t see it getting any easier when this poor excuse of the real world runs dry. When all this hokey pokey �let�s play adult, kiddies!� lifestyle up and dies, what life will there be left? All I know is school. All I know is asking permission to speak, to question. To think. To think for myself, to apply what I should have been soaking in like a sponge, well that�s truly different. And I can�t wait for it.
But I have been waiting too long, and I think that�s what did it. I have hated school since the beginning, back when teachers used to curse the fact that my parents created me, wishing that both sides of my family practiced better forms of birth control. Oh, I�ve put a few of them away. I even saw off my elementary school principal, my good buddy. I can guarantee that it wasn�t ALL my doing, but I�ve seen the last of many of my teachers years and I can�t help but think I had a hand in it somehow. It�s funny, yes, but tragic too because all they were there to do was teach. At some point in time, it was a craving, some unknown force urging them to hand down the knowledge torch to a whole new world springing up right at their feet. They had the fire too, and eventually theirs ran out as well, probably from years and years of Belmos.
Figuratively speaking, of course. It�s not like I have 15 siblings - I only have a younger sister.
But now, although I should praise every teacher I�ve ever had to their face for putting up with my horseshit, as well as giving me the tools to find my own knowledge to make their own lives a living hell while they assisted me, I find them dull and boring. I still hold a respect for each teacher, even terrible ones because again, at one point they only meant well and thought this was what they wanted till the ground swallowed them. Now they probably wish that the ground was starving already.
But maybe it�s these professors or maybe it�s my major, a major full of people pissed off because you couldn�t be bothered to know more about their past than they do. They get upset when you haven�t had to read the books they�ve read, either forced on them by their teachers in the past or because you�re not intellectual unless you�ve had your regular dose of Wordsworth or H.G.Wells or Keats or Shakespeare or any of the standard issue stuffy subjects.
Why can�t they see for themselves that these people were probably just like us, the kids, listening to their dry, English professor (the nationality, not the subject) drone on and on, not a care in the world about who learns what as long as you learn it. They held no love for their profession, I can guarantee it. I wasn�t there, but from everything I�ve ever seen or been told about then, I can�t be far off. This is a generalization, agreed, and there�s always the ones that go against the grain, but then again, what ever happened to someone who didn�t do what everyone else told him to do? That�s right, they get in trouble and told that if they don�t turn around and go the straight path, they�d never amount to anything. All of the things that revolution and birth are spawned from have come from those that threw aside convention, asked a question that we were instructed specifically not to examine, stepped over fences guarding a fortress of creation. I can appreciate that as well, admiring those who have come before me and bathing in the glow of their own appreciation for my love. Just by their own words. If you listen just right, you can hear them read it to you in your head. Even if that isn�t their voice.
But I�m not about standing on the shoulders of giants. I�m not about escalators, streams or conveyor belts of existence. I refuse to hang my hat on the hook of history and let that be my power. They throw all sorts of literature in our face, denouncing the present day authors we revere. They downplay anything but the past, not remembering that one day, those treasures were the works of the same kind of people from the past that they are yelling at today. Keats died earlier than some people finish college and look at the beauty he left behind.
Are we the unwashed uneducated barren minded fools they try to tell us we are? Am I supposed to be impressed that they have read things I haven�t, despite the fact that I have plenty of time to catch up to their page? Am I supposed to cower when I feebly hand them some �simple minded attempt at creation that couldn�t possibly hold up to ancient tomes�? I�ve never let a teacher make me think I�m ever less than them, even when I know for a fact that I couldn�t even possibly have seen everything they�ve seen in my time. You were me, too, one day long ago. You were worthless too. No amount of reading will ever impress me. Only true teaching will.
About teaching, I�m going to give one of my friends lessons on the guitar because she really wants to learn. That�s all. That�s all I could ask for: someone dedicated to the task. I restrung my guitar for the first time in a long time and it felt great. Putting the steel veins of music through the holes and pulling them taut, fiddling with the knobs and embracing the neck like some kind of inanimate foreplay. When things are all put into place, I smile as I think of the warm reminder I hold of that open sound, that no strings touched sound, the strings screaming from being struck, kissing the neck with it�s experience, which swallows it all into the body, reverberating like humming. The wood shaking from the force of a passion only love and hate can command. I felt it vibrating against my body, running streaks of arousal through my entire body. It�s the closest to sex I�ve had in a while.
That�s how I see it behind THEIR eyes. They see these words and can pick from them some sense I either can�t or ignore. Maybe that�s it, that�s what they did it for. Who wouldn�t want to share a feeling like that with someone who craves it?
That�s it, isn�t it? They think we don�t want it enough, do they? They think we�re here wasting our time because we have all the passion but no ambition. Ready to die but not skilled to kill. Whatever they believe, they better get their asses in gear, because they�re turning me off, turning all of us off. That�s what got me to here anyway.
I�ve rambled for a good time now, and I don�t think I�ve gotten anywhere, but I can tell you one thing: I�m a lot more calm and satisfied now that I got that down. Now that I�ve let this out.
Now that I showed you what makes me wake up.
Writing.
BMC
What did you just say? - What's he gonna say next?
