Book-ends

This has been a year that, were I to plot out the events in linear sequence taking into account my general spirits, could accurately be called a roller-coaster: slow, steady ascents to peaks from which the entire countryside is visible, met entirely too soon by cliff-stark falls, and then riding along the bottom until another all-too-slow climb.

This has also been a year of secret experiments, with expectedly depressing results that I am unlikely to ever directly share. In a word: demystification. Looking inwards for methods to confirm intuitions outwards has led to understanding more deeply concepts that have eluded me in the past.

Failures and consequent fears have, in moments, led to more moments of clarity than I remember from year-to-year, but I wonder about the cost.

I wonder what else can go wrong, and whether things might turn around.

I don't know what to hope for. For another month, except for a weekend in the middle, all I can anticipate is more self-loathing rooted in my meaningless part-time job requiring me to be out of bed around 5am five days a week. If one could convince me that the rest of my life would be spent much as it has this summer, I would seek to destroy myself. Fortunately, I expect better things, or at least a better environment, when I return to school.

I've rarely felt more useless, more uninspired, more victim of the grip of nihilism.

The Age of Ill Triumph

Thursday and Friday I worked from 6am-5pm with barely an hour for lunch as the only exception. I stocked Pepsi product shelves at the local Wal-Mart and "Marketplace" supermarket. I hated it.

I'll be stirred, maybe or maybe not from dreaming, around 5am tomorrow. I probably won't work nearly as long, but I'll still hate it--how mundane, how meaningless it seems amidst contemplations of deeper things. I have been raised to believe in myself, and I have been led by my instructors to think there is something exceptional about some of my talents; yet, I find myself chasing a meagre paycheck this summer, loathe to the world as my circumstance crushes into me a better understanding of just how nihilistic so much of this world is.

Nietzsche warns against the "last man," and I can't help but think this is everyone I am surrounded by in the Northwoods: this is the person who would willingly avoid everything but the most simple existence. Even perusing vendor tents at a festival the other weekend, except for three, everyone seemed to have the same meaningless goal. Exist, don't think about it, just do enough to get by . . . just try to be happy, and question nothing.

Yet, to question nothing is to rob me of my nature. I am a person who is amazed how it appears most people seem to have little trouble "turning off" their brain, myself finding it nearly impossible such that I'm rarely able to fall asleep with anything less than two hours of laying still.

This place is poison to me, yet my every other option would demand risks that could be exponentially more poisonous. The only reward here is that I am compelled, slightly more often, to extend upon myself in order to bring out of my mind some of the thoughts that cycle constantly (that is, for lack of being inspired externally, I inspire myself through creation).

Understanding probability forces me to accept that I'll most likely have to spend a lot more time in the future chasing meaningless paychecks just to survive. I am tempted to blame this on the condition of our society relegating artistic folk into obscurity for those that could support them instead supporting what is more easily understood. Technology means almost everyone, or at least everyone living in the "first-world," has the ability to share anything they create with everyone who might look.

Then, those actually offering innovation, originality, vision, etc. are rarely found. Also, it is that much harder for such creators to believe in their own work, as quality criticism is often as hard to find as quality art.

I would survive living unknown, but to do so would mean constantly amazing myself at fending off wave upon wave of depression . . . as I'm doing now. What sells is what is simple, easy, and approachable. Though there exist niche's, and though the fringes are where things move forward, the way true genius is ignored for the somewhat-exceptional gets under my skin. It won't change--not in this world--and it would make things easier for me to accept it, but I can't do that and I'll never be understood by those who can't understand that (making things even harder for me as they wander off blindly).

I'd like to be better understood, but I wonder if that would take from me a lot of what drives me forward. My mind is rare. I am one who understands Nietzsche implicitly, praying I can live a life at least somewhat less lonely than his.

I can't sell myself. I can't compromise my values. I can't cheat people. I can't be satisfied just blinking, just existing.

I can't have it easy . . . but, thankfully I suppose, deep down I don't want it easy.