Even if on the polar end of the dichotomy from more barbaric violence, is this urge to return to this place that doesn’t actually exist just as detrimental to whatever fraction of a piece of part of the inexplicable human spirit that currently resides in this ever-decaying body? Is this just another fix? A self-made junkie, even if called by some other name? The fading hubris of a man no longer young enough, or able to dream in evolving methods and meanderings?

It feels later than it is, even though it isn’t all that late. A condition of employment, maybe. Or perhaps the specter of death is lingering about my once such arrogant sharpness? Well, as with so many things- it’s both and neither. Two things can be true, as they say. And, I believe, more than one thing can be false.

These times, they exhaust me, at times. A lot of the time, really. Seems to be getting at most folks I know, in one way or whatever other perspective. In ways we are willing to admit, and those with deep deceptions, even when refracted back upon the caster. Shitty folks seem to be doing alright, but that type always finds a way. Maybe some day this species of ours will look back with anthropological wonder and arrive at a clinically explain for the correlation between great success and awfulness, as acted out in this first quarter of the twenty-first century. Maybe it will fit right in with the rest of the past consumed by this human ordeal.

Though, the cynic within me fears a darker horizon than even all that, as plenty of folks don’t even know what anthropology even is. Not without asking the computer first.

Yet, even with the beating it has been taking in my personal world, along the collective of all so many other individuals- this hope inside just won’t die. Maybe more of that indelible human spirit business continuing throughout these ages. Maybe all of it fantasy and folly, but I can’t quite concede entirely to that. Or, at least, I still believe in some sublimated divine merit to certain types and adaptations of our bipedal philosophical whimsy and might. As I was discussing with someone earlier, it is important to remember that we are just silly and still savage ape-related creatures, on an unlikely rock hurdling through the void. And when that makes you feel a bit small and purposeless, just remember- our purpose is our own.

That said, we still march down the halls of our own history, etching in beauty and blood along the way. And countless lives have been disregarded or destroyed entirely by the fickle whim of those undeserving of the responsibility they mistake as power. Plenty still, being cast or cursed so casually. Some of it, lots of it, you can watch on your little, allegedly two-way pocket television. If that’s the kind of thing you’re in to.

And before you cast me a hypocrite, I’ll do so myself. For all the grandstanding and so on, I know this will be consumed, if at all, most likely through those problem box devices that vast swaths of the species are addicted to. Wherever you might find yourself, and when, these words infect some other consciousness than my own. A public transit vessel, an empty classroom, a bar stool, a quite living room while the rest of your family sleeps- wherever this gets found, I trust the virality of it will be minimal to non-existent. Weekly writing in the age of the fifteen second attention span for base, moving imagery, a fool’s errand. As always, your humble narrator, finding a way to be a head strong and hopeless knight in the modern ages. Resting among the hedges, fighting for causes that most don’t seem to mind are lost.

Yet, I declare, if it were even possible for me to be any other way- I would refuse. The fight upon this field, it isn’t for gain or glory, or for viciousness gory even when sanctioned. No this is far more perverted than all that. This treacherous quest, this path upon I am likely to die- this is all for the pursuit and protection of ideas.

A conversation, brief, though not without profound contemplation, with an artist, a friend- essentially admitting to each other what it is we are made to do. And while not trying to credit some great creator, I think we can decide such meaning for ourselves and if you are certain about it enough, the sacral aspects will emerge, even, or especially if of your own making.

So, when the prompt arrives to indulge my own perspective, I replied, to the artist, in the same way, more or less, that I have for decades.

A writer, said he. Said me.

Confessing, of course, I don’t know quite what or how that means, but still, I am certain of it. The telling of tales and tones through words- that is I, that is me. Might be sometimes they carry a melody, perhaps others entirely prose. Might even be through a coerced visual perspective that says nothing outside of whatever emerges inside the head of the viewer. A scribe of my mind and my times and whatever other inescapable and inexcusable story I might string together either through ages or on a moment’s notice.

I write, because that’s what we do. And even if this body carries on for an eternity, this soul or whatever, well, that dies the moment I capitulate to an existence mundane or ordinary.

Is this the method of ultimate amalgamation with this pious, self-indulgent perspective of purpose? While not saying no, I still think not. This is a sharpening stone. Callousing and conditioning. Getting into a fight to make sure I still know how to lose.

Still, it stinks of the morality magic of all the stories I adore, absorb and attempt emulation. And attempt is an apt and accurate claim, because I know all these little words of mine have caused pain. And while not intending is nice enough, the sculpting of letters into ideas becomes my responsibility once thrown out into the world, and the lives of others.

Self-centered and psychoanalytical this week, I know. But if there is something you might wring from this madness, feel free. And if not, I’ll try again next week. If you find the time, I’ll see you there.