If I were a photocopied transparency, layered over brightly colored paper, cut into shapes and sizes representing particular aspects of reality as an illustration of a narrative, telling a story that's been told time and again, how would I invert my self, without requiring assistance to manually lift and turn me over? I want to see what the world feels like, watching me, being manipulated by me, and others. This viewpoint is too limited, and I long for the taste of soil in my mouth. Rather than be walked over by shoes caked in dirt, I want to be the dirt. Augmentation: the act and mentality of true augustness, the pursuit of the real. I am wandering from the Path I originally set out from. I've wandered so far, I'm not sure what kind of trees these are, what exactly it is I am smelling, and whether the light in the distance is just my imagination, or worth floating towards at all.
When I first started off on my own, I had a clear idea of the life I would pursue. It would be one of People, of artistic achievement, of angular representation. I remember first moving to San Francisco at eighteen, writing somewhat-quality stuff every single day of the week, going regularly to they hay-day of late-1990's San Francisco poetry revival readings. Q.R. Hand, Jr. was there. Justin Desmangles. Steve Arnston. Charles Blackwell. Craig Easley. And man, they were the shit. And we all had this synergistic relationship, where the more I hung out with these people who were older than me (same as it ever was), the more I absorbed, gained the confidence to do my own thing, be right by my self. Q.R. is in his seventies now, but he in a static way will always be one of the best friends I've ever had.
I know things don't ever stay the same. But that's not what I'm talking about. Things were going amazing. I felt I was on the path to be able to do anything in the world I wanted. Become the reality technician of fine reality modification devices I'd always wanted to be. I had support, I had an audience, and I had magic at my fingertips. But the city, underneath, somehow convinced me that I wasn't suitable to stick it out. The city squeezed. But I'm jumping ahead of my self here.
For awhile I was in and out of a romantic relationship with a girl who had a boyfriend--shouldn't I be cloaking my self here? What happened to my layers of metaphor? I was waiting for her to break up with her boyfriend when I met another girl, Tiramisu. Tiramisu was everything I wanted in a girl all at once, she sweeped me off my feet. And I still live with her, almost four years later now.
I'm straying from what I'm trying to talk about. A sense of loss. And I'm not talking about the romantic relationships and things like that, though somehow I've meandered to this subject. Let's ignore that I've done that. Let's just get to what I'm really feeling here. I'm straying from my path. I'm not living a life in pursuance of art. Of anything. I'm a spectator. I'm living in Portland, Oregon-- I have no close friendships. I know this is my own problem. It's very very very difficult for me to have a good friendship with a person. I'm a hermit in many aspects. I spend so much energy taking care of my girlfriend. I'm working all of the time. I'm still in school. And now, I'm on a path to become a teacher? What's going on? I haven't done a psychedelic drug in almost a year, even longer since I've had the ones I want. :) I haven't had a performance since my last in San Francisco, where I sold the last of my music CDs, and performed to the largest audience I'd ever been in front of before. And I left that to come here--where I had nothing of that sort set up. Nobody giving a damn. No transportation. No ability to stay out after nine o'clock at night. No friends. No job. No money. No food delivery except pizza. And the whole plan was so I could come up here and concentrate on school, and writing. And have I done that? No, not really. Because the school lied to me, and now it's taking twice as long as it should, costing twice as much money, and I'm having twice the amount of useless classes. And not only that, but I'm going on a path to a fucking career. What's going on?
I'm 22 years old and I already feel like there's no more time to shift this all around. Everything is too intwined. I'm wrapped in barbed wire. I already took my chance to turn things around, and that's where I'm at now. Did I turn the wrong thing around? Instigated my own demise? Here I sit, now responsible for the welfare of not only Tiramisu but her sister as well, with no room to my self. No motivation anymore without an audience. Writing mediocre. Making mediocre music. Living a mediocre life. And this is what I've come all this way for? This is what I lived a very turbulent childhood for?
I spend my days listening to other's artistic creations. I digest music ravenously. I read books and books and books and books. I digest the world situation, and I just get more pissed off that I'm not doing anything, and that I'm in no position to do anything. I feel my existence being nullified every day. And my persona, my experimental approaches to art just being more and more irrelevant. I missed my window of opportunity. Maybe I made the wrong choice all those years ago. What would that time thread have looked like? See how far we stray, I had never even set out to write anything like this. It just happened, and now I'm labeled a big whiner. And nobody likes a whiner.
Ch'ien, Modesty
Modesty creates success. The superior man carries things through. Within the earth, a mountain: The image of Modesty. Thus the superior man reduces that which is too much, And augments that which is too little. He weighs things and makes them equal.
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we're going boom boom boom and that's the way we live, and in a great big room and that's the way we live"