Tag: death

Writer’s Log: 1570

March 22, 2018

Writing keeps me alive.

The experiment continues. A couple of months ago, death and its long ivory fingers reached unerringly for my throat. Writing, the act of writing, held them off. The effort of putting words to paper continues to do so today.

The stories that I wish to tell implore me — do not forsake us — and so, I stay the knife, the noose, the clack of pistol hammer slamming home against the breach.

But the pleading grows faint. The day-to-day grind draws its pint of life’s blood, its quart of soul from me every setting of the sun. The light turns orange and the lift I feel from the sunset’s cheery color lessens.

But the stories are relentless. They will not be, so far, denied. I rather resent them at times.

To abandon all that is this mundane daily slog and leap out, writing, would be everything I could have ever wished for. I’ve considered this act throughout this long, strange ride that is my life.

Yet here I am, an established, and dependable provider, dedicated to the mechanical production of money through the venue of software code; the ugliest, the most ineffectual end product the world has ever seen. Turn off the power and what do you have? Emptiness. That is my contribution. Despicable. These are the words that run through my mind right now — I FUCKING HATE COMPUTERS. But that sentiment is less than useful. We are here. Trapped in our digital snow globes. And the fact remains, I’m far more culpable that you. I helped create this dystopia we languish within.

But writing… It’s the only soaring vista that spreads out and returns, piercing my heart. Write. Write well and maybe all of this will not have been for naught.

 

 

 

Leaving Las Vegas – wisdom

February 2, 2018

Consider that the movie Leaving Las Vegas embodied everything we know about existence. And that the ultimate fate of man was death. And that to die, comatose, drunk off your ass, was, really, the absolute acknowledgement that life is futile.

What of the opioid crisis? Maybe every one of those overdoses is actually someone acknowledging the futility of life and that by dying, they admit their understanding that the universe is absurd?

 

Death to Success

December 31, 2017

I’m going to conduct an experiment.

You can participate as well. Or you can watch this spot for progress reports. Or both.

The hypothesis for this experiment is as follows:

The mind is plastic. Evidence of this is that the internet and specifically, social media (through PCs and smartphones) has, unbeknownst to us, rewired our brains and we are now victims of our own desires to engage the world through the dings and tweedles, red and orange notifications dots and numbers we yearn to see on our computing devices. Our brains have been remolded making us all social notification addicts.

It therefore follows that, so altered, the mind, my mind, can be altered back. Specifically, my fixation with death, and the nihilistic attitudes I’ve cultivated for the last few years, which, if the theory holds true, I’ve inadvertently wired my brain to gravitate towards, will be attempted to be transformed to — not thoughts of death and the end of the Universe — but to a simple idealistic desire for success.

Every time I think of death and any and all of the terms and constructs that surround it, I will intentionally divert my thinking to the word “success”. This word, I believe, can embody a diametrically opposed belief system opposite of Morte.

Along the way I’ll be attempting to also alter my use of the internet, trying to curb my insidious predilection toward the dopamine-drip fed feeling of social acknowledgment found in said software dings and dots.

The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains — Nicholas Carr, a book recommended by Zarah Parker, has me convinced that this experiment can be attempted.

The null hypothesis would be that, in six months or so, I retain the tendency to dwell on my mortal demise (or I’ve shoved an ice pick into my ear) and will report such results (or not). To reject this null hypothesis, we’ll have to see where my head is right around the summer solstice.

It’s a fun and exiting experiment you can do at home, work, or traveling. So, come along and join the joy. Let’s all change our minds together.

[And now for a dram of Inception’esqueness: https://bmhonline.wordpress.com/2018/01/02/death-to-success/ Where Brian has eloquently, if anachronistically verbalized the above verbiage.]