The house is a mess. The sink is full, dirty laundry strewn about the basement as though someone were pulling it apart looking for some sort of secret. My back hurts as it so often did in the days where I took little to no care of my still young flesh. There are half a dozen half started tunes and at least as many short stories, all craving some sort of resolution. There are bureaucratic and maintenance measures that are due, if not far past such a point.

And yet, here I sit, scratching the outlines of my weary consciousness, looking for something to say. A junkie, in my own way, for this outward ripping of my internal thinkings, expelled from my soul for equal parts therapy substitute and exercise in intellectual vanity.

But if you’re here, now, reading this- you probably already knew all that.

The holiday schedule persists, so the timing of this isn’t what it had been in some weeks former. There used to be a steady routine to these and the order in the day which they occurred. Some of that routine shall return. Other parts, I’d reckon, may not. But persist, and so on. If for nothing else, a lack of anything I’d rather be doing.

In a brief text exchange (so twenty-first century, I know), the discussion of art and narcissism came up. This is with one of the most thoughtful and intelligent people I find myself regularly corresponding with. He brought up the question, which I indulged, he and I both knowing that we can toss such lofty ideas out at each other in the middle of a Monday and at some point expect a contemplated and emotional potent response, be it after work emails, cooking dinner, finishing up at the bar, taking the garbage to the curb, etc.

His prompt, more specifically, had to with the whether or not a mutual exclusivity existed between great artists and blind narcissists. Meaning, as I ascertained the inquiry to be, are they just always one in the same?

Naturally, I picked the more vague aspects and gave non-committal type answers there. That being, that the artist and narcissist can exist within the same being, and in varying degrees at varying times. That the very idea of making art is narcissistic in and of itself, being that the perspective of origin is always a personal one, no matter how abstract the layers applied afterward might be. Dismissive of the ‘great’ and ‘blind’ qualifiers (classic deflection by your narrator), I managed to stumble upon an answer by stealing something from another source, another sort of soul, such as the two of us. As the saying goes, approximately, great artists are thieves. But these words of third party, who according to reports is eight feet tall and breaths fire, an individual known to both of us- these words have a straightforward truth to them that would be undeniably accurate to even sharpest of shooters. They are, as follows:

‘The only metric of an artist is making art.’

We both agreed to the truth of this. I take inspiration from it, and though I cannot speak for the initially mentioned second party, I trust him to be the type of cat who is able to derive some sort of motivational truth from the aforementioned statement. Only an idiot wouldn’t be able to see the honest simplicity in that collection of words. Not trying to disparage idiots, being that I have have often been one in my past, and certainly will have a few more go’s at such a status in the future.

The point being, I think, is that you can call yourself an artist all you’d like. But unless you’re making art, it is something else you’re being. Perhaps that is when the costume of narcissist slips on. The same energy applied without the focal point of expression, can become little more than exercises in vanity. Not trying to knock on the workout, but anything can become an addiction, need not be substance initiated.

So, here I sit still, now justified in these current actions. Being that this personality, this Bruce fellow, is an aspect, a compartmentalization of one focus of the art I mean to keep making. This one, the writer, plenty dripped in aching and often hopeless romanticism, he exists now, as he always does, as part of the whole that rattles around demanding to exist within my heart and mind, and the greater world all on the outside of my personal vessel. He has work to do, much more, but these weekly bouts keep the rust away.

It’s been another personality that has been the forefront projection these last few weeks, months, maybe even years really, though the true steam has been picked up more as of late.

The bard, that bastard, the blowhard.

Under another stolen name I use, without remorse or shame. Same guy as the guy talking now, just different costume, and tone, and meter. And though the creation aspect has been in infrequent, though certainly potent, drips and drabs, that is but one side of this character. The part poured out in a more charmingly vicious afront, being the performer. An art all by itself, it has held the most visceral point of expressional deluge these last few weeks, with this past Saturday evening being the latest incident. And despite whatever emotions surround the great many hours before and since that short, shy of thirty minute portion of the evening’s entertainment I was in command of, and the negative spectrum of emotes certainly being explored in such times between- the stage, my near twenty year old six-stringed weapon and I, we melded and meshed and put all conjurable in the moment in the turret and ejected it in violent elegance outward into the world. Coordinated clapping and foot stomping and such, along with a few paper airplanes containing a chorus which I politely yet sternly demanded be sung along with. And they liked it, like I knew they would. So, the act, it worked. Well. And with those few added preconceived showmanship embellishments, I played the best gig I can recollect in this more recent musical incarnation. That of course, until the next one rolls around. Which happens to be but a few days away. I do not plan on disappointing.

So, I shan’t.

But again, that is only one aspect of the person who loves, in this specific venue, to refer to himself as narrator. Not a lie, even if a bit of a façade. All encompassed in the being that has a family given name and government issued number, and that larger idea of a someone that I will spend my life trying to understand, though nameless such a being might always be. And all these monikers, generally emerging from a time around the dawn of my position as a parent, they are not deflections of who I am. But rather, are means of breaking down and attempting to understand this mind and identity, the one this life has either granted or doomed me to. Even those that use the same name for all their endeavors, this breakdown exists somewhere there, within them, though how they can keep track of who is who, I’ll never know. Nor do I wish to.

And still, there is this moment in time upon the regularly cyclic calendar that arouses something spiritual, for lack of a better term, within me. And although I am not a fan of the more recently occurring holiday of near former, the one that this season ‘concludes’ upon, I rather like. Some might call it cliched or contrived, but as always, haters will go about hating. But the New Year ideology is certainly one that still holds an abundance of merit. It is a forward-moving idea, never too drenched in nostalgia more than it is hopeful for what is yet to be. The potential of a future, and our ability, even if incorrectly perceived, to be at the helm of navigating all that what is still to come- and that has a romantic effect all its own.

Not that I will be out celebrating. Not in the muck and drunken mire, seeking some sort of confirmation in optimism that one finds in something like a stout set of resolutions, or some simple, silly thing, like a kiss. I will be at my place of labor, earning the paycheck that keeps all these dreamer ideas funded, along with all the other necessities and dependencies my life has thus far accumulated. The line of work i find myself in, has no shortage of weekends and holidays. There is something of a strange wonder to it, though. Working Christmas, for example, something I have done consistently for a decade now- within that strange loneliness from society all around, I find these deeper truths that I know some never get to see. Even if all the specifics of how and why and what all stay out of reach enough for names or classification.

But, anyway.

On my last trip to the bathroom, I grabbed the notebook I’d scratched some lines out in earlier. Could be the title of an autobiography there, though I’ll never likely gather enough attention and intention enough to make such a stance. But I’ll pry open these withered pages, and see what fresh hells I’ve wrought myself.

Tired, he wrote, of apologies to the man residing in the bathroom mirror.

Not meaning I’m weary of giving the respect due to the reflection, for all the things he’s seen and all that I’ve put him through, he has right enough for a certain level of weariness. But tired, rather, of reducing my ability of apology to little more than sorry’s and the echo of my cynicism telling me ‘I told you so.’ Not when there is still so much more to do and say, to explore and wonder about. Stuck in somber soliloquy, while life goes on and on and on. To much to do. To experience. To create. Even if at times only limited to some passive fantasy, or some dust crusted yesteryear, and making some sort of something out of it. What do they call that stuff, again? Art?

But the apologies only derive for myself being that I am the only person that I will allow to ever feel sorry for myself. Any other pity adjacent accusation, I will fight and defy vehemently- write, wrong or otherwise sung.

Which, almost as though I planned it even though I very much totally did not, brings us to the other bit I’d scratched out with good ol’ fashioned ink. In ink, I wrote-

Accepting the things you cannot change. And changing the things you cannot accept.

Sure, I know, a very Sisyphustic statement- but hey, a good story is a good story, no matter how many millennia might have between its conception and now.

The first part of that is, natural, stolen. The stuff I’m rooting out from my notebooks atrocious handwriting. Stolen from some Irish prayer, I believe. Something I always see about, being part of my cultural circumstances.

The internet tells me it is the ‘serenity’ prayer, and is, as follows:

‘God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.’

Not too bad, right? Not a fan of the first word, but the rest of it, how human, huh? My second part though, differs from the one gone on about in the prayer.

Courage to change the things you can, sure, I get it. But I think there is plenty of courage in the acceptance, as well. Perhaps, even more. But even with that being said, I wonder how much a still living being should accept what at the very least seems imperceptibly capable of change. While still holding breath, I believe there should always be some sort of fight. Maybe even a stupid one, but I wouldn’t advise making a habit of that exact brand.

But my second line, perhaps etched in bias, I like a bit more. As I mentioned in a humorous passing that she has damn become immune to, to a prompt to whose specifics I no longer recall- I told my daughter earlier today that I compare myself to no man but myself, and no being lesser than nature herself.

Audacious? Certainly. But ain’t that just the most human thing to be? Perhaps besides feeling destitute and broken. That one is quite human, as well. But I think I’ll keep striving for that impossible ambition of fighting the tides of fate. The inability for change being a prospect which I find unacceptable. Bold? Certainly. Stupid? Almost by design. Divine? Well, I guess so, at least when measured in metric of my own supernatural standing. All the divinity I seem to have left is within myself (treacherous prospect), my near and trusted outside relations (at least slightly risky), or in those inexplicable draws towards otherworldly desire. You know, art and love and all that shit.

But that will do, for tonight, not even a quarter of an hour until Tuesday. I’ll read this back, barely and with speed, one time. Then out into this universe it goes. Hopefully, there is something within all this for someone besides myself. Even, he mentioned with undaunted arrogance, it serves as some sort of glimmer some idealism in the future. Even if just for a whisper upon the ever turning earth.