What if I wasn't meant to be a proliferator, but a protagonist protracting the peril of extinction through the destruction of our dear devilish ways and focusing on sustainable development of defamation as opposed to the breakneck breakdown of moral fabric culminating in the oft scorned web 2.0 culture, as a medium for global conjoining of nihilism and me-tooism that would eventually culminate in a savage outburst of repression nearly as ridiculously out of proportion as a Muslim holy man lifting his wife's skirt on the tram.
What if it's not the time to be powerful. What if the motto of the new world should be "simple is safe."
What if the habits of my hermitage aren't simply arbitrary, but a sign of a greater and deeper wisdom, seen mostly by myself and my compatriots as madness.
Well I say, madness? This is Urban spirituality, such as it is.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
The secret of the streets
Ladies and gentlemen, I've cracked it. The code of the cement jungle, the sidewalk slang. I have finally found the beating heart of this urban sprawl, not in the pulsing bass of the club district, nor the armani shuffling of the business sector. Not in the paper parade of city hall, or the gentle humm of the power stations. The heart of it all is the market.
No where else can you see hipster and hippy, business man and bint rubbing elbows and clamoring for the same esoteric tidbits that we all thrive on. The dragon fruit pies and the chimichangas with that extra bit of changa. The folded wraps and the beer on tap, the care worn bags and a dress that drags, and all the little things you can't find anywhere else.
We are united by our need for the unique, for that which is chic yet timeless. Those rare few objects that permeate the bounds of the class structure and bring us all some measure of joy, and bring us together in the search for that last bit of humanity we all share.
The dull buzz of the crowd grows, syncs up, and creates a melody like no other. People speaking, shifting, singing and breathing all as one, yet each their own. This is the pulse of the city, the warm glow that circulates through every district and every home. This is where the city finds it heart, and breathes joy into the rest of it's quivering mass.
Thus is life.
No where else can you see hipster and hippy, business man and bint rubbing elbows and clamoring for the same esoteric tidbits that we all thrive on. The dragon fruit pies and the chimichangas with that extra bit of changa. The folded wraps and the beer on tap, the care worn bags and a dress that drags, and all the little things you can't find anywhere else.
We are united by our need for the unique, for that which is chic yet timeless. Those rare few objects that permeate the bounds of the class structure and bring us all some measure of joy, and bring us together in the search for that last bit of humanity we all share.
The dull buzz of the crowd grows, syncs up, and creates a melody like no other. People speaking, shifting, singing and breathing all as one, yet each their own. This is the pulse of the city, the warm glow that circulates through every district and every home. This is where the city finds it heart, and breathes joy into the rest of it's quivering mass.
Thus is life.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Buckshot
A single drop of sweat seeking the Earth was the only motion for what felt like miles, the smoke seeming to have frozen in a grim polaroid of that time-shattering shot. I couldn't feel my legs. For that matter, I couldn't feel anything. It was the sort of paralyzing chill that you feel when you're late for your own wedding, but I'd just ruined my tux to boot. There was nothing on me, to be sure. He went down a good fifty yards ahead, but I felt dirty. I saw the stain on my hands. They say it gets easier, and I pray they are right, because next time it won't be a buck.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Nocturnal
So earlier today I was referred to as nocturnal.
I'm not really sure how I feel about that.
No, wait, I am. I like it. Gives me an air of sophistication beyond the irreverent and often snide bouts of sardonic quips. I mean, it can't really be a bad thing right? I live in a large city, my work schedule falls into the time most people spend decompressing from their day and getting ready to go out, so by the time my shift ends I'm on the tram headed towards whatever lair of debauchery and lewd conduct my mates chose to visit that evening.
I suppose what my point here is, why is it that people are most obviously alive at night, and still not known as nocturnal, but I myself, who lives, works, and plays in the dark am some form of special separate creature. It can't be that uncommon, living more at night than during the day.
Besides, it's not my fault your day star is trying to burn me to death. Hands up if you want to be exposed to a giant flaming ball with the ability to blind you for looking at it funny.
I'm not really sure how I feel about that.
No, wait, I am. I like it. Gives me an air of sophistication beyond the irreverent and often snide bouts of sardonic quips. I mean, it can't really be a bad thing right? I live in a large city, my work schedule falls into the time most people spend decompressing from their day and getting ready to go out, so by the time my shift ends I'm on the tram headed towards whatever lair of debauchery and lewd conduct my mates chose to visit that evening.
I suppose what my point here is, why is it that people are most obviously alive at night, and still not known as nocturnal, but I myself, who lives, works, and plays in the dark am some form of special separate creature. It can't be that uncommon, living more at night than during the day.
Besides, it's not my fault your day star is trying to burn me to death. Hands up if you want to be exposed to a giant flaming ball with the ability to blind you for looking at it funny.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Like a Fox
Sometimes one must consider if brevity really is the soul of wit.
If I thought I had a soul, I may consider this to be an important question. Albeit, I am not quite pretentious enough to claim to take this quote at face value. The important point here is this; does brevity denote intelligence, or a dim wit?
I contend that being overly verbose is a cardinal sin in prose and in conversation, however much a sinner I am as such. However, speaking as if you were addressing toddlers will allow you only so broad an audience. No self respecting human being prefers to read the newspapers fifth grade drivel over the works of the great writers.
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, but the needs of the few most certainly outwit the needs of the many.
It is simply a matter of sense. It becomes quite impossible to describe Plato's view on justice without having the capacity to read the Republic. It is quite heinous to expect a student of 12 to wrap their mind around Voltaire, but expecting that the masses will, for the most part, never surpass these elementary students is nothing less than an insult to polite society.
I'm afraid that soon enough brevity will become not simply the soul of wit, but the soul of society. I am only too glad that I have no need for such a soul.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Quiet Hours
Once in a while, an odd thing occurs to the man whom spends his days in solitary urbanization. The man who counts himself amongst a faceless throng in the heart of a concrete jungle will smile at his fellow man, the drunken rabble chanting at the top of their lungs. The proles screams reverberating off the massive testaments to architecture somehow humanizes the whole place. The random cheers and waves, the signs of familiarity amongst those you will never, in all likelihood, lay eyes upon again. The unity that is the rabble, even in a place where the chill glass swallows the skyline.
One can not help but smile at this simple thing, not for the joy of screaming aloud, or knowing that you've brought a smile to another, but because it reminds us how alike we all really are. Some of us work day and night to seem detached and superior, some of us work for just the opposite, but in the end, young or old, man or woman, alpha or beta, we all must yield to the most basic temptation of cracking a smile when a jubilant rabble strolls by, arm in arm, hand in hand, chanting and singing and breathing life into the cold downtown core.
They've said more through an old dance song than I ever could with prose. This brings a hint of happiness even to my often icy heart. Knowing all at once that all efforts towards a message are futile compared to a drunken crowds outburst, and that the message got through anyway.
Some people love to live life for themselves, others live to make others love themselves, but deep down, when the jubilations loose, and the barrier of polite society breaks down, we all become the joy and the sorrow. The hight of human interaction, the pinnacle of random encounters, the true human expression.
Suddenly it's not dog eat dog world, it's a pack of wolves howling at the moon.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Bluelight
I sparked a few times. It's true.
It happened to me, and it has happened to you.
It's not usually expected, and never comes when you want it.
The real trouble is deciding why it doesn't. Is it because you are too shy? Too overconfident? Too pushy, not pushy enough. Too tall, too short, too loud, too reserved. Too up or down.
No. I contend, at least for the sake of my own sanity, that it's because a real fit fits from start to end. There is no trading between love and hate, there is a constant mixture.
When something seems too good to be true, it is, and it won't be for long.
Point being, madness is all you get when trying to decipher the rules of attraction. One moment you may be perfectly fine in solitude, and then a lark flutters by that makes you wonder if your life could have meaning without it. Or perhaps you had the love, the lust, the enviable life, and lost it, and suddenly it seems like all you ever wanted was to be solitary as you are.
It's all relative, not for the greener grass, but for the lack of change. No matter how preferable a situation is, if it is constant, it is crushing.
Constant joy makes the real ups seem like downs, and constant loathing makes it seem as if things are at their peak anyway.
The trick is to change within the good. Change from one pleasant to another, one up to another. Be always gliding from one high to the next, knowing that in between during the spikes of down, you must only make them short lived to enjoy the ups all the more whilst remaining sane in your humility and humanity.
A complicated affair, and mostly, if not wholly, because I can't help but think that my sense of perfect is becoming easier and easier to map as time goes on without a spotting.
It happened to me, and it has happened to you.
It's not usually expected, and never comes when you want it.
The real trouble is deciding why it doesn't. Is it because you are too shy? Too overconfident? Too pushy, not pushy enough. Too tall, too short, too loud, too reserved. Too up or down.
No. I contend, at least for the sake of my own sanity, that it's because a real fit fits from start to end. There is no trading between love and hate, there is a constant mixture.
When something seems too good to be true, it is, and it won't be for long.
Point being, madness is all you get when trying to decipher the rules of attraction. One moment you may be perfectly fine in solitude, and then a lark flutters by that makes you wonder if your life could have meaning without it. Or perhaps you had the love, the lust, the enviable life, and lost it, and suddenly it seems like all you ever wanted was to be solitary as you are.
It's all relative, not for the greener grass, but for the lack of change. No matter how preferable a situation is, if it is constant, it is crushing.
Constant joy makes the real ups seem like downs, and constant loathing makes it seem as if things are at their peak anyway.
The trick is to change within the good. Change from one pleasant to another, one up to another. Be always gliding from one high to the next, knowing that in between during the spikes of down, you must only make them short lived to enjoy the ups all the more whilst remaining sane in your humility and humanity.
A complicated affair, and mostly, if not wholly, because I can't help but think that my sense of perfect is becoming easier and easier to map as time goes on without a spotting.
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