Like Silent Birds of Prey

Selected Observations from Adelaide - 18-22 June, 2010.

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Letting the right one in is like a process of lying to the brain so one can salve a bleeding heart. More mechanically, its like abstraction from the point of entry and acting blissfully unaware of its process. Lips taste sweet without any flavor. The sun pierces through the blades of my eyelids without mercy. The cold rattles the bones within my fingers as smoke billows to the top of the room, hazing the glow of yet more horrible television.

At the end of the longest night comes day. With the rising of the sun, laments for miseries past and cheers for enjoyment yet to come can be heard. If we cannot compromise with time, we remain its enemy. We put up arms but we are always overcome.

If there's one thing I've learned during my travels here and elsewhere, its that people are as unknowable to me as they are to themselves. Probing, demolishing and intimating - all general theories; conjectures just itching to be refuted at some later point. Maps are never territories and are in constant need of rewriting. I cannot watch and report for you - the feelings I encounter flow deep within are everpresent like the lightness of our being. A process of my own assisted design from Mother Nature. Nevertheless, I do care in my own way. All ways and none; unique in their expression. For what it's worth, at the end of the world, it's a small step in the right direction.

Wreck Ignition

In my daily self-reflection, I was thinking about some points raised with my therapist Geoff. We hit upon past relationships and how I felt about them now, after so much time had passed by. He suggested that if I still had residual feelings, I should write them down or initiate a conversation with the partner. I told him, in all honesty, I have little desire to do so. What is done cannot be undone - I doubt it would make any difference to my emotional well-being (especially when I have chronicled relevant parts in my blog on occasion).

Thinking back, I thought all of my partners were unequivocally "amazing" and beyond reproach - I would refrain to enforce boundaries with them even to my own detriment. As I rose from the bed today, I hit a salient point - the mistake I and others make is seeing their partners as "special" rather than unique.

This is not to say my current or former partners weren't interesting or pleasant or etc. - I loved them, I cared about them and strived to treat them with the respect and devotion that I expected within a romantic relationship. But keeping the irrational thought that their partners were somehow imbued with an almost sense of the divine - that they were so fantastical that another one like them surely does not exist anywhere else in this world - will only lead to heartache and counter-productive behaviors such as pining for the good old days when you and your partner were together and waiting for them to magically return to you.

Of course, affairs of the heart are seldom ruled by the head, but the aftermath certainly can be a rational, cognitive process. Its a case of differentiating from "a" girl (or boy) and "the" girl. We can evaluate them as a complex matrix of both good and bad attributes, viewholders, etc. and accept them all as part of what makes them unique - but not special (in the aforementioned sense), of course.

Swedish vocalist Krister Linder in his song "Mixed Blood" sings thusly:

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not depressed / but my melancholy is existential / no remedy or antidote / Don't bother with a cure or rescue"

Some people cannot grapple with the thoughts of the "givens" of existence - that life is chaotic and nothing has inherent meaning apart from the ones we ascribe to events and people. Even a married couple of many years must concede that their encounter was dependent on chance and at one point, they were oblivious to the existence of one another. If a relationship goes sour, one can take comfort in the fact that it was yet another FGE (fucking growth experience) and perhaps even learn from their mistakes.

During an acid trip, I once wrote down that the "universe was created so me and Elyse (my former partner) could meet that one time and carry on together into perpetuity" - while that cannot be proven or tested, it's an irrational belief that cannot be held up by any real fact. I am the only person I have to please - it was not my responsibility to solve her (or anyone's) problems or take care of her as if she were dependent on my benevolence and love. As human beings we all have the ability to choose and mold our own destinies; be it with work, hobbies, interests or even intimate partnerships.

2009: A Collection of Failures

As time wears on, you lose parts of yourself. You are consumed and you move with arrows pointed ever forward. Depositing innocence in childhood, leaving behind the safety of home to venture somewhere, to meet someone even though the destination was never set. This year has to be the hardest I've ever faced. It held a mirror up to myself, and showed me my limitations, my downfalls, the things I truly cared about and how not to care about them in a meaningful way, in a way that makes a difference. It shattered a faith in something that I had clung to since adolescence; like a dwindling flame from a candle held between my shaking fingers finally evaporating in the air. Then my little room grows dark. Silence ensues. My flight away from myself was folly; it only brought me closer to realizing I cannot escape myself. I'm stuck here, and here's everywhere.

Focused on one thing and one thing alone, I set off to preserve the flame at all costs. It shined so bright, it touched a part of me like nothing else had before. For the first time, I dozed peacefully without care. Wind blew through my hair for the first time and the hand clasped within mine brought a smile to my face. I was so scared of losing it, I guarded myself against it. I had purchased a ring to symbolize a bright new future for "us" and wore it. Every time I stared at it, I was frightened by happiness. My inner fortress eventually fell under the weight of fear and I returned from battle, wearied and scarred. The ring was seemingly lost. Why was I fighting? For peace and love? It made no sense. Being left alone for with nothing but a hound and a cat for company, a(nother) fissure appeared in my psyche. One that's in the process of a lengthy and complex repair. One night I crept around my apartment, lost and confused. 2AM. A shot of Jagermeister. 4AM. A Beer. Eventually the sun rose at 7AM and it felt like the walls were collapsing in and around me. A lone tear streaked down my face. I knew it was the end of something but the beginning of nothing. "Oh," I muttered under my breath to passing joggers and nervous workers in the morning twilight, "nothing seems right." But then again, what did? What will?

Although there was a lot of good done and so many tears shed for the near departed and for my own departure, it doesn't act as a counter to what I have lost, so irrecoverably. Its a loss that was so total and so complete, only the memory of what I once felt remains and not the feeling itself. Rationally, how long can you beat yourself over the head with it? Minutes? Hours? Until your final breath? Distract yourself with something of no consequence? Redefine what's important? Deconstruct and reconstruct your perceptions ad nauseam for some great reward? Thoughts come without repentance; in my case they flood and break down the banks of an otherwise decent mind, leaving me in a heap of nerves.

Perhaps I can steel myself against what the world throws at me. I can stand at a window and watch shadows lengthen in the sun before the moon's pale light emerges and touches silvery leaves at night. I can do it until I can sigh no more. Just pick up your things and carry on with everything. Its all the rage at the moment.

When I sleep and dream, I dream of lesions forming on my body and blood spilling out. They open up everywhere; I'm stunned into position and I cannot move. I figure its my unconscious telling me that the wounds are still fresh and that I am still alive, I still feel, I still breathe. Perhaps one day they will turn to scars and the haunting will stop. It reminds me to believe in nothing, that the preservation of self will only lead to a wooden box or a copper urn on a mantelpiece - from stars we are born, to stars we shall one day become again.

With each success, I feel nothing. With failure brings defeat and emptiness, but familiarity. There's a map with failure written across it and a territory that doesn't mean anything when you turn your back on it. With success, I feel alone and scorned, waiting for the day it all comes down. No amount of riches or fame or "success" by any measure would salve me; I would never feel satisfied. Something would be missing and I'd search high and low to plug the void - even though what wasn't there was benign to begin with; it was a fictitious concern at best. There were more earthly and pressing matters to attend to. I can see that now. Now all I feel is the hot sting of being told I'm second, third, fourth best after an effort to prove my worth. I can empty my pockets and strip myself of clothes and the only wealth I'll seek will be the touch of another and the sound of a forgiving voice in the dead of night; even then, I will still feel poor and wretched.

I would cast me out into a great cold distance too if I had to live with me, so I can understand the reasoning behind the decisions that were made by and for me all those months ago. It's fine, really. I am an observer, not a participant; I write the stories down and try to make sense of them, even though I never ever will. The struggle isn't to elicit the words of care and love, to preserve them in the fabric of time; the struggle is to act in their spirit, day after day. I do; she's gone and happy. In a perverse and seething way, buried under fear, anxiety, hate, despair and remorse, I am glad she is. I'll take everything on face value; don't worry about it.

So I, like you, move on from another year into the next, and then from that, another. Why? Its impossible to tell. Will it unleash another fresh hell from my mind's eye or a pit me in a quest for an unattainable heaven? The ultimate tension between the two creates that void in the pit of my being; once filled with a light that's now gone. May it one day return under a different guise. It doesn't matter who lights it. It became starkly apparent this year that it doesn't matter who does it, it just has to be done.

The limits of my search were defined and promptly conquered. It feels like I've returned from the frontier and found nothing. I just feel like apologizing to everyone concerned and slinking off in any given direction. Then I'll sit myself down at a bar, smoke cigarettes, sip whiskey and say nothing. I will delude myself that people will ask me why I am there, what I am doing; but no one will ever talk to me. The boiling pulse of anger will rise within and evaporate as sweat taking each earthen-colored drink from the bartender. The color of my money will be the wrong shade, the whites of my eyes streaked with red, the dark circles around them growing in strength with every passing hour.

Potentialities abound but none of them seem like they have purpose. I can't see the wood for the trees; I can't even see why the trees are there in the first place. For all the books I read, the trials of academia and knowledge I cultivate, I still feel like a god damned fool. Driving up the highway with a bad transmission, carrying a raving lunatic in the passenger seat and trunk full of garbage with one thought on my mind.

Not all is lost. Nothing can be all lost; I have succeeded and failed - done both, and neither. Whoever showed me that; I am in your debt. But I cannot pay you, you are gone now. I was of no consequence to you and shall remain that way. I feel as I was of no consequence to myself. Sitting up in bed smoking a cigarette, confessing the sins of my being. It's a sobering and sad thought. Like an unwitting clown that doesn't remember telling any jokes but finds himself being laughed at all the same.

Goodbye old year, goodbye. It still feels that things need to be done, therefore I will do them as best as I can. There's a freedom in that; there's none in idleness and despair. Onward into battle my friends, onward and upward.

The love for life once bright
(Out of sight)
A burning fuse
The only flame I have
Fate's spiral down this curve
(Shall only serve)
The seeds growing my misery
These wounds kill time
My struggle sublime
Idle the blood
A black state of mind

All dreams left behind

Katatonia - Idle Blood

In Heavy Consternation

There's no internship to work as a freelance journalist. You don't go to a "somewhere", train yourself and go do it. (Perhaps there is; I'd sure like to know about it.) Sure, you can do a university degree in journalism but that doesn't 'qualify' you, so to speak. Like any profession, you learn on the job. The job for me as a freelance copywriter/journo/PR dude is the job (or jobs) you push yourself to get. I've been writing since I was in high school. It didn't dawn on me that writing as a job was a viable option until about the fourth year of my three year university degree. I never thought doing something I enjoyed could actually earn some money. Well, it doesn't. The economy's rooted and so am I. To a certain extent.

But just like riding bicycles and sexy time, things get easier with practice. The more you venture out from your comfort zone, the more hardships you will find and the more rewarding the pay off. The vocation I have chosen for myself will not make me any significant amount of money for a while. I know that. I won't be driving Beemers or drinking G&Ts in penthouse apartments. (Because that's gay.) I'm still in my "internship" - writing for free until I gain a name for myself. I have contacts, I have drive, I have ambition and I have knowhow but not enough clout for subs to rush to their editors and exclaim, "I have Tom Valcanis on the phone! He wants to another piece about how much Facebook sucks!" Close friends and my partner will attest; I'm an egotistical son of a bitch and I hate being rejected. I even get childish about it at times. But as Korzybski, Watzlawick and Ellis have taught me, failure is feedback - try and try again, improving each time.

In my isolation since my return to Australia, I've actually found myself. Being in the US showed me what was important in my life and the lives of a significant other and now I know where I want to be. I have moved past my "grass is greener" mentality; I want to work, I want to improve and I want to be proactive. Getting my arse-kicked the day I took off from Hartsfield-Jackson Airport has left an indeliable indentation on my bum and it will always remind me that there are things bigger than myself that I want to be a part of and have to work towards to be included in again. I've done wrong but I am working to make things right. I believe in second chances and gradual transformation. As one of my favorite authors and philosophers, Robert Anton Wilson says; "I'm not a noun - I'm a verb. I'm always changing, never staying the same from one moment to the next."

Walking Away Scathed

I sit in front of a computer sometimes and before I know it, it's 2AM. It isn't where I'd like to be, but its where I sit.

In this position, its like you're being held under a constant fear of a great pain to be unleashed across your entire body; like an intense and chronic anticipation of ripping a sticking bandage from your skin. Its an overwhelming, nauseating feeling that accompanies you on the bus, on the walk toward where you live, in the job interview, talking to friends and even when you sleep.

You just wait and wait and hope that it's ripped off soon - then you'll know if your insides come spilling out or if the wound has healed. Or maybe it's even more complicated than that; a feeling of hopelessness yields to one of longing, one of renewal. I don't feel like my old self, I don't want to be that old self, I am in a process of change.

The confluence of distance and immediacy, the amalgam of thinking that another sits at the same computer, another coughs up her medicine in the middle of the night, this shattered heart cannot bear. I hold the shards of it in one of my bloodied hands, the other gripping a hammer of my own making. What is done cannot be undone, even though a repair might come too late, I will endeavor to make it all better. I hope I get that chance, love, even if it takes me all my life.

Inward and Closing

I'm just sitting around. Sitting on the computer, filing number after number of job applications, waiting. I visit my grandmother and her thinning hair, waiting. She tells me not to worry. I ignore her. What am I waiting for? I send some messages. My SMS machine lays idle, so I wait for it to go off. I'm stuck in the house of my childhood, waiting. I have an inkling to what I'm waiting for but I don't like it one bit.

I miss my love so terribly it hurts to sleep just as much as it does to keep awake. Then my mind turns to my love, all alone, hurt by me in so many innumerable ways, each one another regret on my mind. I want to share another joke, another glance, another kiss, another chance; anything. But I'm here waiting. I'll tape together a million shards of a broken heart if it somehow brings that giggle back. And I will wait forever if I have to. I love her that much.