An Inhuman Condition

Get Caught Up Everything

Distraction is easy. Everyone knows distraction. Even if it’s unwilling and you try your damnedest to stay focused, life itself can distract you. You can throw away all the TV, movies, video games you like, but if you’re being reactionary to problems, occasions, chores and errands you will undoubtedly lose all your time to them. Instead of having time to do all the things you want, your life becomes the sum of all the things you’re busy taking care of (often to have “free” time later).

At the end of the day, it’s the end of the day. You’re out of time. Unless you’ve managed to have nothing to do tomorrow, you’ve failed at doing the things you want. But it’s ok, right? If you wake up early, do breakfast, shower, get yourself to work, find some dinner after and buy a cup or two of coffee with a friend tomorrow, it will be time to wind down and get your ass to bed again. Repeat this method thousands of time, and that’s your life. I hope the things you wanted to do were eat, sleep, work and talk about Occupy Wallstreet.

Nothing is easier than doing nothing.

Stop lamenting all the ways you suck. Stop wishing you were productive. Stop wanting things you don’t need. Stop doing things that don’t matter. Stop putting things off until you “have more time.” You waste plenty of time already.

Don’t take it personally, don’t get depressed. Just do better.

The more you sit around and lament whatever wishing and dreaming of a better world (better you, better circumstances, better anything), you could be doing it. You do it by doing better. Contemplation is great if you’re going forward, but thinking about the past is only backward motion. You can’t change anything there. You are powerless in the past, but you are Superman now and in the future. There are so many things you can change right now that make all of the things you can’t change look meaningless. Learn from your mistakes and do better. Don’t plan, don’t schedule, don’t make a mental note or procrastinate on it. You will lose it if you don’t start now. Just do better. Tattoo that thought on your mind and don’t forget. Do it now.

Do better.

Keep calm; carry on.

If you aren’t up for the extremes of death through failure and death through success, I have the perfect answer for you. There is definitely a way to kill yourself with mediocrity. It’s more of a long-term commitment than the other two, but it doesn’t require a whole lot of work. This is the option most appealing to my sample group, and it could be a great fit for anyone.

Do you lack (or have you given up) any real dreams or aspirations? Do you play video games all day? Are you in your mid-twenties and still living with your parents? Are you stuck in a relationship heading nowhere but content to stay because it’s comfy? Have you been working the same shitty job or type of job for more than five years? Are you starting a family? Are you a college graduate making less than $20k a year? Are you just shuffling along day after day? Are you pushing forward in a career or field of study that doesn’t make your dick (or clit) hard? Are you letting bills, rent, obligations keep you from the things you really want?

Then this is the method for you.

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Burn out; fade away.

If that doesn’t work for you, there’s always the opposite. I’m old enough to see the dangers of the folks who choose to grow up too much. There’s always the chance they get lost in it and become this thing they didn’t want. Wearing the biz-casual khakipants or necktie every day can just wear a person down to the point of being a homogenous office jockey. They start to think the career is everything. They fail at being social outside of work; they get the marriage and 2.5 children, and they fade away.

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Live fast; die young.

I’m realizing there’s a definite stage of development for any former “rock and roll” youth type where one of two things happen: you grow up or fuck up. This division seems to happen anywhere between 18 and 25, but it always happens. It’s been odd on this side of things – seeing people wasting away working at Burger King, still sniffing glue, spending every dime getting hammered or worse. It’s sad. These were my peers growing up. We fucked off and got fucked up. We did some seriously stupid shit, and some of us got over it. Some of us didn’t live long enough to get over it.

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Have you ever been overtaken with an insane, lustful rage? It’s the whiskey-in-hand, we-can’t-work-things-out, why-can’t-I-tell-her-how-I-feel, what-the-fuck-is-so-difficult-about-this-shit, burning-through-cigarettes kind of madness. It’s the sort of rage that leaves you pacing back and forth in the kitchen, thinking fake conversations in your head while your eyes just burn into nothing in particular. You just mumble things here and there thinking you’re an idiot and occasionally blurt out a coherent “fuck” or “damn it.” You only stop to pour your blessed whiskey into a shot glass, highball or mixing cup – whatever is clean at the moment. For whatever reason you feel trapped in that instant with nothing else in the world – it’s just you, the anger and the whiskey.

Now picture all of that, the ping-ponging, the muttering, the burning eyes, but without the alcohol. Picture instead that instead of a chilled, caramel-colored beverage, you’ve chosen a loaf of bread and a stick of butter as the outlet of your frustration.

You untwist the little tie or pull off that plastic square thing almost breaking it in half (which happens even in normal operating conditions I must add), and you tear into that loaf of bread piece by flaky piece. You have your knife and you viciously slice into that stick of soft butter over and over again, smearing it across the bread. All the while you seethe and pace and think “what the fuck” as you bite off a piece of bread and continue on your way. Picture doing this for twenty minutes.

That was my Sunday night.

I didn’t write it into my calendar. I didn’t need to finish the loaf before it all went moldy. I wasn’t even that hungry. I thought to myself: “I should go find a snack and make some coffee.” It was that innocent. I get the coffee brewing. I start peering into the fridge, and while I’m in there something just snaps. It was this out-of-nowhere, visceral, what-the-fuck-is-so-goddamned-wrong-with-me outburst.

I’ve been single for a few months now, nothing major mind you, but I think it’s starting to take its toll. Couple that with coming out of an on-again, fuck-off-again relationship. Couple that with having contact with the ex again. Couple that with realizing how it will never work between the two of us. Couple that with having no real prospects and being complete shit at meeting women. When you put that all together, you can see why it might be maddening. But bread and butter?

I can’t justify it. There’s nothing about the bread that held any particular sentiment. I’m not some closet bread fetishist. It was just stupid happenstance.

Although I think I had better figure out this relationship bullshit soon before I find myself pouting over some chips and salsa.

It’s the time of night when everyone is a little lonely. The smooth jazz plays over cooling coffee while my books sit aloft. The rap and tap of rain sings in rhythm while my cigarette burns bright, and I find myself missing you.

What do we do when love is gone? We scratch, thrash and lunge about trying to build ourselves anew. Every destructive impulse of man can be found among this reconstructive raucous as we tear down and remodel, birth and demolish. We are Shiva wedged under Kali’s flailing arms, and no piece comes without its price.

When two people entwine their lives, untying knots is always the hardest part. Ridding, removing and reconciling loss are guaranteed to hurt. Every faded picture, dusty memento and scrap of the other is rent across raw skin seething, burning from within.

But healthy relationships aren’t meant to end, and the nagging truth of knowing it’s all for the best might be the most disappointing part.

She was everything. I made her that and built all the now-fallen walls around us. It’s something I must own, hold and never let go. My ruined city is slowly coming back together. The bricks won’t go back the way they used to, and I know I couldn’t make them fit if I tried. For everything I’ve lost, some new gain must be made. Possibility is a perfect parting gift, and what is made here will have to weather a while. It’s my duty to keep building until nothing is missing and nothing can be taken.

This is the night in which I’ve awoken in the life I’ve made. It’s not too bad here among the lonely jazz and benevolent brew awaiting my lips’ return. The soft whisper of longing concern for some unforeseen connection still holds my wakefulness, but I would try to sleep if this night seemed like it could hold a few dreams.

I sit at my desk wasting away the working hours of this dull-and-dying, penultimate day of the year 2009. This has been a lame year, limping along to its denouement in a begging-for-euthanasia sort of stupor as if it’s the golden year of an aging decade seeking a quick release. This Friday it will be 2010, and personally I cannot wait to be in its loving, infant embrace. The beginning of a new year coupled with the start of a new decade has a shimmering glow of hope as if somehow the changing of the calendar will encourage people to drink less, study more, lose weight, stop smoking or be less of an insufferable prick. I don’t personally subscribe to any of that resolution bullshit, but I still feel the radiation of possibility that floats through folks this time of year.

My attitude toward self-improvement has always been that I will make the change for myself and succeed or I will fail miserably. I don’t need programs or pamphlets, occasions or opportunities, assistance or assuagement. If something is important or necessary, I feel like I will figure it out eventually. It does me no good to pretend that I will make drastic changes in my life and then be miserable when I don’t or the changes are insignificant. I’d like to think that I’m always progressing toward a better me. I’m never sure how to quantify that theory, but I do like it. I think every few years I can look back and see some naiveté and flaws that have faded away. I’m being honed by time and experience into a mighty, virile missile.

By that logic, 2010 will see the best Nate to date. He will be stepping ever-forward into slimy oblivion with a wide smile and derisive glare. The coming year will be a delightful balance of misery and happiness coupled with an almost-lethal dose of the weird (assuming trends continue). Oddity and circumstance will seek to break me at times, but I will boldly shake my dick in its direction and march on. I can feel some good things coming, and I will do my best to welcome them.

So I propose a toast to a year of high-tech computery shit, the crack-cocaine of micro-blogging, artists and dancers, empty valentines, rampant and depressing economic collapse, awesome foods, pots of coffee, piles of cigarettes, excellent music, post-optimism, mi familia en fuego, OMGWTFBBQs, truck driving, 7.13-10.28, robots, birthday shenanigans, finally moving, the cyclical death and rebirth of a man named Winston, early mornings, late nights, two-hour travels, elections and erections, man-dates, LAN parties, sober spells, personal hells, Denny’s, friends, writing, and somehow striving despite an inhuman condition buried cancer-deep in this machine’s corroded core signifying fuck nothing.

And to a happy new year (at least some days).

I’m spending the morning writing to myself trying to finish up some ongoing projects and finalize the formatting for the Lulu book in which this will ultimately be the title essay. For specific reasons I’ve yet to process in my own brain, this is the only thing that I am able to do today. I am not writing this out of any sense of enjoyment or a duty to finish the product, but because I just need to get out of my head and focus on something before I gnaw out any last bit of sanity that might remain in the dank crevasse. I would much rather spend my time chatting at a coffee shop with some good friends or discussing the issues currently pressing me into this position, but the options are not available.

It’s early enough in the morning that nothing is happening (even online), and I feel quite isolated at this moment. Thus I write. That’s the best part about this little farce of a hobby. It’s a method of communication to the outside world when nothing else is available. It is a way to think to myself and yet say something all the while. Unlike spoken word I have the opportunity to take time, formulate my thoughts, and edit the hot shit out of them. If I decide I really don’t want to say anything about my dick warts or my penchant for the taste of fresh-boiled kitten hearts, I can remove all that nonsense and leave you with whatever is left: the little bits of this twisted mind I’m comfortable sharing.

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Here I am on the night of the Kalamazoo City Commission elections taking time away from my busy schedule of reading and consuming to pay attention. I’m stuck chain smoking and clicking the refresh button on my browser faster than a lab rat would click for cheese. I’ve been pondering the votes, assembling my own list of candidate stats and watching what is ultimately a pretty boring show. The incumbents are all far enough ahead at this point to keep their seats, and Mayor Hopewell is in no danger of losing the high throne.

I’ve been watching these results over the last few precincts and only one remains to report. I’ve seen Don Cooney lose the runner-up spot to McKinney by 66 votes, and now he’s down 107. I was hoping that someone as weird as Cooney would see some recognition. I had my hopes for the poor bastard last year when he ran against the Upton legacy for U.S. representative, and now it looks like he’s stuck a plain-ol’ commissioner. The past few elections I’ve seen him take the number 3 spot every time, and it looks like this one will be no different.

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