“this could be heaven or this could be hell” - Hotel California · It is hot where i am but heavenly; lucky me my father was an “existentialist” given to slapping me upside the head anytime i veered from parental wisdom, kidding, sort of. Yet here i sit 5 decades after the conversation facing heaven or hell knowing in my heart that he was right and the responsibility rests squarely in my lap which i will find. The paradox is that things are not always what they seem and heaven sometimes has horns, while through hell can appear to be the only path to heaven. I do not nest well with other birds of my species because my visage is different - the children i grew up with told me my eyes were “crossed,” professionals assured me it was either “Dwayne’s Retraction”, or “Palsy of the Sixth Cranial Nerve” in either case there is no escaping the 2nd take one sees when encountering strangers. For the longest time, i’d have sold my soul to be normal - even pretty like the rest of my family · the longer i live the more i realize my appearance has been a gift to me in a world demanding convention.
I couldn’t be conventional if i tried, and we’ll never know which came first: the chicken or egg. There is a sweet gentle core so deep inside of me that i have found few kindred spirits in my travels. To be fair, i have been described as “espinoso,” though i’d be hard-pressed to say honestly how much was projection from the observer, and how much was reaction formation on my part to be confronted by an unappealing perception from a relative stranger. Lao Tzu - “Care what other’s think and you will always be their prisoner.” What i struggle with today is taking no prisoners, yet here i sit searching for prose to convince you the reader to take pity on yourself and save the human race. It is almost enough to welcome the end; how much more confusion can one mind take? I live in a land where the language is not my own, so i must resort to body language and inference - communication modalities that were the norm in my emotionally retarded family, so when you factor in my growing blindness, ya’ may as well add a factor for blind terror.
My first wife was a schizophrenic Cherokee - our time together was less than 6 weeks · that year i broke the outside metacarpal in both hands and sliced my inside right forearm requiring 60 stitches and poured 60 gallons of simmering spaghetti sauce across the front of that same forearm - i sought therapeutic aid in resolving my stress · The friend i turned to was an MD intern in psychiatry living across the street in Santa Ana who remains a friend to this day, but he would not therapize me; only advocate on behalf of “psychoanalytic psychotherapy.” What he didn’t tell me in his role as mentor to mentee was that when he ridiculed my notions about unconventional thought, primarily metaphysics, was that he was parroting a party line about Freudian superiority to the, at the time, much disparaged take on the mind’s workings by a student and close confidant to Freud, C.G. Jung. It is entirely forgivable that my friend would labor strenuously to disparage unscientific thinking, but he did not own his prejudice, nor cross the threshold to explain his fascination with fine art as pertained his relationship to me.
People are not honest, or better said, are as honest as they are able to face their own existence. It is why i take pains to uncover in this chronicle a naked truth about myself, for i no longer have anywhere else to turn. I find the characters in my world today as frightened as any i’ve met - fear is not a positive motivator for candor, unless that fear is so great that in can shred your ego and leave your soul flapping in the wind. I do not find that sort of fear where i live - the fear here in VN is too contemporary and digitally manipulated to be of any real use · the corporate overlords and their Artificial Intelligence thug have so chopped and diced the channels of communication that there is no “commons” only the pandering clickbait of economic functionaries interpreting what responses that can be mined, and regurgitating that data back onto the population’s screens as “what you should BUY, if you really want to be happy.”
As angry as i now understand that i am with the cowardly abandonment of my family when faced with my “differentness,” i would still prefer 5 minutes of laughing at their effete reasoning than spend a day hearing what the googol bully thinks i need to watch or pay any attention at all to zuké the wannabe nazi, or his opinion of who are my friends. There is much to be said for independence; authoritarian regimes rely on clusters - the sort of cliques that make high school marketing such a success and fine art such a failure. Any shame i feel about my life cannot be attributed to poor parenting, sibling rivalry or lousy interpersonal skills - not being kind to myself is the only explanation for any unfriendliness i experience deep at night when reconciling the pleasure of deep sleep with the very real need to peer into the deepest recesses of my own discomfort and unhappiness we all share alone with ourselves and no one else because at heart we care about those around us and do not want them to feel pain - peace ·
jts 29/06/2020
http://stoanartst.blogspot.com
reprinted with permission - all rights reserved
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