My eyes can do no more than fixate on distant red blinking lights on nameless towers, shrouded in blankets of fog and disconcerting gray.
In this moment, books, glasses, films, computers, Marc Zuckerberg, DVDs, avalanches, kites, kite runners, Chumash Indians, and palm trees are all the same--
My mind, fragmented without a search filter, sitting motionless on this couch, ultra-aware and ultra-empty, abandons the sentence.
A single silhouette of a public persona-- these are now the lives we lead.
On this gray night, I see no diagnosis, no suburban angst, no emerging adulthood-- I see the hours of studying and the hours spent toiling all converging in one supposed "Aha!" moment, like, this is it, right? This IS what we do- this HAS BEEN what we have done, and intend to do, for years, decades, centuries to come.
But it isn't.
The ones who think they've got it-- calm, twittering birds on a sterile pond, are used to the quiet discontent; they have made it their culture.
I don't seek to separate "them" versus "me" but isn't that what we sign up for in these vain attempts to fuse Soul with Soul, Mind with Body, Reason with Emotion, Him with Her, Her with Her, Him with Him? Co-habituation/co-re-habilitation to nurse ourselves from ourselves-- business endeavors to grow the self and tire the self so that we may feel accomplished, complete, & well-equipped.
Urging each other into a safer and more explicable narrative of vast cityscapes, mile-high dreams, sprawling landscapes with chlorine oases, we dance into oblivion.
This is the life-- the life of now, the only life there is- and trust me, it's all made up.
