Dueling Monologues
Why we insist on living within the comfortable illusion of human intimacy is perhaps existence's most confounding mystery. We engage ourselves in innumerable relationships and interactions, and, of course, what we perceive to be a requisite volley of conversant exchange. Whatever part of us it is that conceives the impossible amalgam of joy, desire, pain, want and pleasure also propagates an explicable need to share our personal albatross of emotion with others. Not finding answers within, we can only hope to find them from without. And thus was born the illusion of which I speak--the illusion that I can somehow hear you or you me. Clearly friends, we are merely engaged in dueling monologues.
I think therefore I am? Does this prosaic exercise in semantics truly reflect a justification of your existence? An honest assessment of your mortal predicament would more accurately proclaim, "I lack therefore I need." Would it not? From the first cry leaving your mother's womb to last night's dressing down of the valet who dinged your Prius--all your lamentations have a familiar chorus. Time marches forward but the song remains the same. I am not whole. Someone, anyone, help me fill void. Considering this, I suppose our collective need to solicit the charitable intimacies of interpersonal communication would make sense---that is if anyone was paying even the slightest bit of fucking attention to anything you had to say.
Yes, I know what your thinking. People do listen to what I have to say. I express a need, explicitly or implicitly, and those around me respond. I go to Starbucks, I order a cappuccino, the barista gives me a cappuccino. I ask my girlfriend to blow me, and, assuming she still holds some flight of fancy for my cock, the dick gets sucked. Grandma died and boy is the Synagogue packed. What a lovely old bird that one was. She will be missed. Uh-huh.
What we fail to recognize is that every need you share, express, emote, excrete, and/or insinuate is beamed through the self-indulgent prism of everyone else's wholly singular existence--which, I'm sorry to inform you, doesn't give a flying fuck about you. This isn't to say your existence will be discarded or your emotions payed no heed. Of course, this could not be the case as evidenced by the still abundant bounty of cappuccinos, blowjobs and tastefully embalmed grandmothers. In order to appreciate the reality of the situation, one must recognize the subtle disconnect between selflessness and selfishness. There is no selflessness. Ever.
Every decision, response, remark, action, reaction and endeavor is processed through an inescapable matrix of self. Ask me what an apple tastes like and I'm not going to tell you what it tastes like to you. I can only tell you what it tastes like to me. This truth can be extrapolated to the point of absurdity and never lose an ounce of its efficacy. Understand that your investment in the intimacy of others will never yield an unpolluted return. It will yield a construct of another, for another. The trick then becomes the acknowledgment of your predicament, and the ability to divest one's self from the illusion.
Why we insist on living within the comfortable illusion of human intimacy is perhaps existence's most confounding mystery. We engage ourselves in innumerable relationships and interactions, and, of course, what we perceive to be a requisite volley of conversant exchange. Whatever part of us it is that conceives the impossible amalgam of joy, desire, pain, want and pleasure also propagates an explicable need to share our personal albatross of emotion with others. Not finding answers within, we can only hope to find them from without. And thus was born the illusion of which I speak--the illusion that I can somehow hear you or you me. Clearly friends, we are merely engaged in dueling monologues.
I think therefore I am? Does this prosaic exercise in semantics truly reflect a justification of your existence? An honest assessment of your mortal predicament would more accurately proclaim, "I lack therefore I need." Would it not? From the first cry leaving your mother's womb to last night's dressing down of the valet who dinged your Prius--all your lamentations have a familiar chorus. Time marches forward but the song remains the same. I am not whole. Someone, anyone, help me fill void. Considering this, I suppose our collective need to solicit the charitable intimacies of interpersonal communication would make sense---that is if anyone was paying even the slightest bit of fucking attention to anything you had to say.
Yes, I know what your thinking. People do listen to what I have to say. I express a need, explicitly or implicitly, and those around me respond. I go to Starbucks, I order a cappuccino, the barista gives me a cappuccino. I ask my girlfriend to blow me, and, assuming she still holds some flight of fancy for my cock, the dick gets sucked. Grandma died and boy is the Synagogue packed. What a lovely old bird that one was. She will be missed. Uh-huh.
What we fail to recognize is that every need you share, express, emote, excrete, and/or insinuate is beamed through the self-indulgent prism of everyone else's wholly singular existence--which, I'm sorry to inform you, doesn't give a flying fuck about you. This isn't to say your existence will be discarded or your emotions payed no heed. Of course, this could not be the case as evidenced by the still abundant bounty of cappuccinos, blowjobs and tastefully embalmed grandmothers. In order to appreciate the reality of the situation, one must recognize the subtle disconnect between selflessness and selfishness. There is no selflessness. Ever.
Every decision, response, remark, action, reaction and endeavor is processed through an inescapable matrix of self. Ask me what an apple tastes like and I'm not going to tell you what it tastes like to you. I can only tell you what it tastes like to me. This truth can be extrapolated to the point of absurdity and never lose an ounce of its efficacy. Understand that your investment in the intimacy of others will never yield an unpolluted return. It will yield a construct of another, for another. The trick then becomes the acknowledgment of your predicament, and the ability to divest one's self from the illusion.
Happy New Year, fella
and what about you, how are you implicated? are you "divested?"