Crisis in Flash-Freeze Kinetics…

I went searching for an impressive and literarily inclined way to capture the phrase: emotional cease-fire. But these three lines of shit were all I could come up with. I call them shit because they didn’t just come out of me, escape from the hiding places of my brain’s word center and slither into my fingers and out onto the keyboard. I had to work at them too hard for them to be cool. Spontaneous wit is more fun, more intellectually sexy to me than belabored ideas packaged inside ineffectual mental toil.

So, being without genius, inspiration, or talent, I came up with this.

I asked for a cessation of the madness for a while, just a little time to navigate through the rest of these lingering commitments. I wanted distance from the ledge of the fault line. I wanted some space in the penalty-free zone. And, to my surprise- egos and devils, feelings and angels aside- I might have gotten my wish.

Outside of this conflict is the only place peace can take root. It’s the only place to get a foothold against the momentum, against the current of what feels like a thousand years of habit and choice. If we cannot step outside, we will die. If we cannot find strength in the neutrality of common ground we will fall. I think she sees that now too… finally.

In the absence of knowing I fret. I fret or I ignore. Denial comes easy to me. But it is neither a long-lasting denial nor an internally assured denial. Many times it is only an outward denial; something that is broadcasted to a select set of those who give a fuck. Inside things are amplified. Stupid shit takes center stage and collects the scattered bits of my attention.

Right now I am being educated. I am learning about myself, the little things I have always wondered about. Why do I assume the worst of humanity, yet expect the best from individuals? Why do I distrust everything that is told to me yet trust almost everything I say to myself, like I am a reliable source? These are things that have plagued me my whole life, from the playground to the battleground. But I am finally learning. I am finally starting to see the places I fell off the path and the why of the fall.

There is a mini-revolution brewing. I am being told I have to make choices even though, by the classic definition, there are no options vying for selection. There is not a multitude of roads that lead into different directions. Absent options, there is no choice. But, that does not prevent those who think I have a choice from demanding I make one. And, should I fail to provide them with some answer that indicates a choice, I am equally screwed because then it will be said that I have made a choice. Did I mention there is no choice?

The difference between Shit and Stuff. Shit is all the things you know you have to accomplish, administer, and handle. Shit is the thing you schedule, reserve thought for, consider. Shit is the endgame of conflict. Stuff, on the other hand, is the left-over detail. You get around to stuff. You file, pile, reconcile stuff to getting done later or not at all. Stuff is the fodder, the sacrifice, the null-prize of completing a task. But, what people don’t realize is, Stuff can multiply and take on more meaning than Shit ever has a chance to. Shit will always be the thing you are looking out for, the punch you duck from, the grenade you dive away from. Stuff is the sniper bullet of collective incompletion… all the little things you never got to that collect, gather, unionize and then come knocking. Shit will stress you. Stuff will kill you.

The next disaster is awaiting you. Tell you what, the next time crisis comes asking for you, tell it you are not around. See how well that works out for you. The next time a family member dies, take that time to let death know you will send for it when you need it, but until you do, stay the fuck away from so much as the smallest grub in your garden. Or how about this, tell the laws of Statistical Inevitability that the rules don’t apply to you. You don’t subscribe to all that bullshit about the Law of Averages. You didn’t pay your dues to the League of Humanity so none of this shit applies. Tell the next disaster whose address label has your name on it to take a number and go wait in the coffee lounge and have a cup of joe… you will get to it when you get around to it.

My crushes are paper thin. I get them quickly and can wrap them around something completely. This is a lesson I am learning that puts my younger life in perspective. It’s not my fault. Sometimes things really are perfect. Sometimes things exist intangible and freely beautiful. My interest, my willingness, my lust to be drawn to them is what fucks up the ride. My compulsion to dig and discover the unremarkable beneath a five mile layer of importance: that is my curse. It makes realization temporary. It makes attraction and desire academic. It could be a car, or a watch, or a book, or a conversation, or a shared moment, or (and has sometimes been the case) a girl. But it has taken me a lifetime so far to realize that my projection of perfection doesn’t remove the flaws from the canvas. Sometimes, cars, watches, books, conversations, events, and girls are hopelessly devoid of anything beyond what I have assigned. Sometimes they are not… in that case please draw a line from here back to the denial section of the post. Have a nice day. Class dismissed.