Naturally And Artificially Flavored Circumstances seem to be the make or break factors of existence. The circumstances of my life are as such - one-way streets and right hand turns, and the occasional flat tire. Many people refer to life as a highway - it’s not. A better metaphor is a six-foot wide dirt path in the Amazon rainforest during the monsoon season. That’s life as seen through the eyes of most. Maybe it is a highway for some, and for others a ditch on the side. There’s a kaleidoscope of viewpoints to be had, but mostly we’re either on the road, or we’re not. The real world is scary, scarier than high school feuds, bad report cards, and bubble-gum girlfriends. The real world has Wall Street, concentration camps, and televangelists – ethically, it is unclear which is worse. Failure is a reality. Love and hatred mean nothing - they are little more than the means by which we are justified in our doings and sayings. And ‘eye for an eye’ still holds more weight among the general public than any amount of forgiveness. We hit back - hard. Welcome to the laughing-stock of the Universe, welcome to a conscious existence. Welcome to bona-fide shit. In third grade I beat up a kid for smelling bad, four years later I beat up a kid for fun. Then I learned the brutal arts of nagging and libeling. No longer did I have to physically exert myself to satiate my sadistic tendencies, now I could produce fell blows with a few select words - and oh how talented I was. I don’t think I’ve ever really loved, and I’m sure I never really hated (with the exception of cherry cough syrup); but boy how I loved to hate, and hated to love. If I can’t love Jesus Christ, how do you expect me to love you? That man supposedly died for me, and I guess he must have been a nice guy, but it all still seems a bit silly to me; but maybe to be secular is to lack illumination. Anyway, I was approached by a couple of door-to-door salesmen for the Jehovah’s Witnesses a couple weeks ago, who relayed this important piece of information to me - the name of God is Jehovah. And still I’ve heard others insist on calling him Allah. Maybe it isn’t even a ‘him’, maybe it’s a ‘her’. I don’t know, it just seems that fussing over a name really doesn’t help anyone; in fact, loads of people have been killing themselves so that their God’s name will prevail over others. Well anyway, you can just call me Patrick. Some poor sap once made the mistake of calling religion ‘the opiate of the masses’ - he must be unaware that its mostly rat poison on a global scale. Faith is of a different composition altogether. It takes a defiantly confident type of person to maintain his faith in a world where priests molest young parishioners, where six million of God’s ‘chosen people’ were murdered by their next-door neighbors, where war and violence is deemed just and even holy, and where science has taken the miracle out of creation. Have faith...in mass-minded whims for better or worse. This is just one big opium den that’s been on the verge of running dry for the past two thousand years. What’s my opiate? You’re reading it. I lead a ‘buy one, get one’ free life. My perspective works for me, I think anybody else would be a fool to try and adopt it. After all, isn’t this the age of the copyright? Besides, there aren’t many ways to live other than the way you do. The present never actually changes, no matter how much we think it does. Eating, sleeping, excreting, multiplying, and thinking, are what we all do for a living. We frivolously spend most of our time here searching for roughage in some form or another - something, anything to consume. It has come to the point where people seem to believe that money is more edible than food. Oh dear. Where am I taking you? Not someplace where I wouldn’t go myself. I’m not really leading you, and you’re not actually following me - I think that perhaps this is the most elusive understanding to a writer and his readers, more elusive than the messages behind Joyce’s sesquipedalian verbosity. But I’ll try to fabricate a purpose anyway. Think of this as an introduction to me. It’s autumn in the year 2004, a time of uncertainty (as most good times are). Gravity is still working, in defiance of all those who say its time has come. Carbon dioxide is winning the war against Ozone, with an especially strong showing on the Australian front. And the most prevalent species on earth is the ‘Teeny-bopper’. I myself have since evolved. But enough context and review, let’s get down to the ‘nitty gritty’. If you’re searching for sense this isn’t the place. I personally wear a new pair of socks each day, which puts me at an advantage when compared with the majority of my peers who are unable to afford to maintain such a luxury. I have been told that it is God whom I should thank for this privilege - but I’d rather be snotty and believe that it is my own strong constitution that I have to thank instead. Or maybe I should thank my country for having the good sense to kill rather than be killed. Of course it is hard to kill an ‘army of one’. Either way, my gratitude is due. Now of course I do have some just complaints, such as the fact that certain irregularities in the terrain I tread upon, rip holes in my beloved socks. This might be corrected if the good ‘ol U.S. of A. would chop down all the forests, rip up all natural terra, and install a nationwide concrete patio. As far as I can tell, steps are already being taken in most metropolitan areas. There is entirely too much of Mother Nature to cope with. I even have a sock drawer in my dresser. What could be more impressive? The clock ticks as the seconds roll by, I’ve found a renewed sense of being in time itself, rather than with time. I’m what you might call an existential leech’ - yes, that’s me, an ‘existential leech’ sucking away at time itself. And I have socks. Good socks. When I die, I want to go out with my best pair of socks on, so that if I do end up in hell it’ll make the walking a bit easier. I’m not sure whether fishing is an attempt to catch a fish, or to drown a worm. From the worm’s perspective, it must sure seem like the latter of the two. I think that if you read everything that I have so far erased from this text, you’d think me mad. Not that that actually matters to me. I am quite aware that I’m madder and more edgy than a rooster in a henhouse. But like I said, that doesn’t matter, nothing really matters any more than what really does. Cryptic? It shouldn’t be. New York State has given me an excellent insurance policy, they’ll probably cover me into the afterlife - forget Jesus Christ, I’ve got George Pataki to back me. Satan won’t mess with Republicans, who else does his work better? Democrats? ‘Who knows’, and ‘who cares?’ are the positions I’ve adopted when it comes to that matter. Yes, that’s right, I’ve got ‘dibs’ on apathy. But ‘No Man’s Land’ isn’t a safe place to be, which is why I’m a proponent of careless activism. That way, I’m never in the wrong. This is the point at which I get a serious case of ‘writer’s block’. Here goes anyway... There’s a red minivan outside the window of my tollbooth right now, the very symbol of American ingenuity coupled with the interests of Soccer Moms everywhere. The driver’s asked me for directions, and I have come through for her. Now she’s gone, just another short glimpse of another life far from my own. I can only dream of being a Soccer Mom, but then again I’m fairly certain present society wouldn’t allow that to happen. Time to patiently await the next patron of my gate. Tick-tock goes the clock. I’ve got a head full of sand spilling slowing through a hole in time. A couple of guys from Ohio just approached me, I remembered them from days past, and so did they - “Oh, its you. We forgot our pass, will we be able to get back in without paying?” “Sure”, says I - “Just remind me”. “Thanks man.” A little back and forth like that helps keep the faith. Besides, there’s always the knowledge that they’ll be back, that they haven’t abandoned me yet. Is that trust? I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like the proverbial Troll under the bridge, waiting till the last moment to jump out and snatch away a bundle of money from unsuspecting by-passers. But again, at least I’m making George Pataki happy. We all want a ‘happy Pataki’ right? I’ve picked up where I left off, in more than one sense. Now I’m at home enjoying the cool, lazy bliss of American suburbia. The TV’s chatting to itself in the background as the microwave hums a tune to an irradiated ‘Dinte Moore’. The step-dad is home from work, the dog is in the kennel, and hi ho the derre-o doesn’t my life seem livable. Is this an American dream or an American nightmare? With everything in its place, what is left for us to do? Naturally get an education, a five maybe even six-figure career, lobby for a local McDonald’s and Wal-mart, and put everything in its place again. Those Hindus were right, everything is cyclical. This seems like as good a place as any to end the ensuing nonsense, and let myself off the hook so that I can retreat back into my comfortable shell. But this isn’t a conclusion, this is just the beginning. I might not be a good writer, but I’m a great critic.
Copyright © 2004 Patrick T Collins |