What to Discuss?

          When in doubt, go meta.  Write about the process of writing.  Write about your process.  Here's mine.

          I have an idea I find either insightful or clever.  Occasionally, something will strike that feels deeply emotional, but I do tend to avoid those currently, as my emotional state is fairly well shattered for the moment.  Next I give the idea a title, map out the structure (I find it's most difficult and most enjoyable to map it out mentally, but I take no issue with breaking out my pen and sketching by hand if the concept is real complex).  Then I sit down, stare at the screen for awhile, fingers poised, and, when I feel the moment, dive in head-first and head-long and I don't stop until the flow itself stops.  Rinse and repeat until I reach the conclusion.  Stop.  Take a moment to breath, to detach and withdraw.  Give the whole thing a cursory scan, then finally compose the conclusion.  Simple, no?

          I attended a cousin's wedding last weekend and got jackknifed on tequila and Irish whiskey.  I let slip to the man who is my best friend that I was writing this here blog.  He asked me what I had to blog about.  I replied, of course, that I have nothing to blog about, as anyone who reads this will be able to attest.  Since that night, though... no ideas.  I have at least four during a slow week.  It's not that I mistook his meaning.  I got the joke.  It was funny.  That doesn't seem to matter, however.  I think that it's true what comedy points out about that old "adage" or whatever it is about how everyone has an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other... that people actually only have two devils, and they use a couple of different tricks to cause you to slip. (Simpson's, Family Guy, South Park... they've all done versions of this joke.  The film, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back has probably my favorite)  One devil whispers that you shouldn't do.  The other devil says that you can't.  It's the second one that's responsible for writer's block.  If you"re suffering from it, I recommend indulging in your favorite vice, whether that's sex, drugs, or prayer, and reminding yourself -- after you've finished the indulgence -- that what you write needs to be neither good nor meaningful.  There are a lot of reasons and then so many more for putting down the pen.  Fear is not one of them.

          So, this may seem a little disjointed, but a paragraph should be composed of no fewer than two sentences to technically qualify as a paragraph.  I'll just say that the voices in your head can be a lot of fun to hang out with, but they're not your friends... you have no friends.


Ha!

120 Years

It seems I'm all caught up with myself.  It only seems, but it's a start.



           I had kind of a fun idea more than two decades back about the natural human life span.  I calculated, based on rates I had observed of growth and decay of both muscle and maturity over roughly twenty years, that it would be, on average, 120 years.

          Now, this life span, which would account not only for the mean lifespan of everyone on earth, but also for the median and the mode, could only be experienced in a harmonious version of humanity, in the absence of any counteractive forces which currently seem to exist in the world.  Forces like Fear, and everything derived from it.  There would be outliers, of course, this would still be a natural world, physical; a world composed in equal parts creative and destructive influences.  Otherwise, why bother with mortality at all.  In a static and sterile reality one does not live and die.  One chooses either to exist or to not.  But I'm getting of track.  What I had derived all those years ago, still very much a child, was that almost every person on the planet would live between 114 and 128 years.  To be exact, it would be 3SD on the normal Bell, or approximately ninety-eight percent.

          What's neat is that the lifespan would naturally separate into four seasons:  Youth, Middle-age, Old-age, and Elder.  Each would consist of 30 years, give or take, mostly based on personality and temperament, but also to a lesser degree on circumstance.  These phases of mortality would be just as they are here in our experienced world, only that their durations and passings away, wouldn't be unknown and guessed at.  They would be, more or less, predictable.

          Thirty years of cool, thirty of hot, 30 of crisp, and one last measure of cold.  Neat.  I extended my Youth by roughly ten years, so I'll have to even out down the road and shorten a set.  I wonder which one I'll choose.  Which one would you choose?

I think I'll have a Drink

Number Three

          I didn't write an essay last week because I was drunk.  Not the entire week.  From about the middle of last week, until about the middle of this one.  (Have I mentioned the alcoholism).  It does make for a convenient and easily composed intro, though, doesn't it?

          As long as the alcoholism is already in there, I suppose I might as well use it as subject matter.  Whenever I relapse, it causes a setback in my forward progress through life.  This, in turn causes me to feel a sense of loss (of time), which I must then spend an additional measure of time to accept the loss and move on; to get back to figuring out how to most effectively enjoy my life.  The question is, is it worth it?  The answer is, not really.  Or, if you like, kind of... sometimes.

          If I decide to celebrate or, in the same vein, wallow in misery for an evening and a night.  I'm not talking about drinking to excess, I'm talking about annihilation.  I, eventually, wake up hungover the edge of the abyss.  I power through this God-awful morning and day and evening after.  Maybe I even get something done.  I don't lose sleep over that.  Were I to spend a lifetime drinking mild to moderately, with only occasional nights of excess followed by mornings of mild to moderate hangovers... in that case, I wouldn't lose sleep.  What I do is obliterate my body and mind for nearly a week, spend three days in the condition of cancer patient undergoing chemo, and then another three days mourning the loss of the previous nine.  And here's the kicker.  Once it's over, I don't feel bad about it having happened.  Not because it's in the past and needn't be dwelt upon, though that is true, but rather, I don't feel that bad about it because it's a vast improvement compared to a couple of years ago.

          I've got a long way to go, sure.  But I have come so very far.  And I haven't stopped.  I'm genuinely proud of that.



I think I'll have a drink!