While At Work
Today, I wanted silence. Then I realized that there are two kinds of silence. One where you hear nothing, and one where you hear everything. And that became the koan-like statement for the day. I wanted to tell someone this revelation about the nature of aural tranquility. But I was working all day. The only person I came close to telling was an awkward tall guy who does computer programming alone into the middle of the night and who said that he likes the rain while it was raining. He looks away when he talks. I wonder if he's merely uniquely sensitive to the stimuli of the world, or just slightly crazy or something. But I didn't tell him.
Then I wondered whether I was unique.
And I read in The Stranger, which I began reading recently, where someone quoted Kerouac's "The only people who are for me..." line. And I wondered if I had become complacent, which slightly terrified me. I realized that no, I was not mad to live. I did not care that much. But I was desirous. I was desirous of the universe in the rain, in the radiating sun, in the cold winds that attack you. I wanted those moments when you are impaled by the universe. And I wanted those moments where the universe falls away in the face of beauty like life itself is vignetting.
I consider that I haven't written anything in a long time. I realize, that really, I just want to give myself to a single person. Lacking that, I write here, for myself. To remember something. To put down the beautiful words. I write these words and edit these words, not because I feel that it's important to say thing to no one in particular, but because I want to feel this in the future. Like the bottle when the drink is gone, the memory is still tangible. The cold burn lingers in the glass because although the ginger ale is gone, we replace it with our melancholy and regret. We remember our feelings and throw them away. And like that, I keep the labels on my door.
All these years, I wrote for myself. And I wanted someone to love me for it, to love these words who are me. Someone to love my regrets and my desires.
Then I wondered whether I was unique.
And I read in The Stranger, which I began reading recently, where someone quoted Kerouac's "The only people who are for me..." line. And I wondered if I had become complacent, which slightly terrified me. I realized that no, I was not mad to live. I did not care that much. But I was desirous. I was desirous of the universe in the rain, in the radiating sun, in the cold winds that attack you. I wanted those moments when you are impaled by the universe. And I wanted those moments where the universe falls away in the face of beauty like life itself is vignetting.
I consider that I haven't written anything in a long time. I realize, that really, I just want to give myself to a single person. Lacking that, I write here, for myself. To remember something. To put down the beautiful words. I write these words and edit these words, not because I feel that it's important to say thing to no one in particular, but because I want to feel this in the future. Like the bottle when the drink is gone, the memory is still tangible. The cold burn lingers in the glass because although the ginger ale is gone, we replace it with our melancholy and regret. We remember our feelings and throw them away. And like that, I keep the labels on my door.
All these years, I wrote for myself. And I wanted someone to love me for it, to love these words who are me. Someone to love my regrets and my desires.