Dear 21st century,

What's with the crap music? Please bring the 90s back. Also, the reality of living in a world where Youtube comments exist, serves up a freshly brewed philosophical crisis with the daily morning coffee.  

Yours truly,

Among other things, a dedicated Aerosmith junkie

"At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time."

-T.S. Eliot
"Burnt Norton"

Synchrony.

As we will never belong again.

Once is also a promise, you see. 

Move to the sound. We're trapped in boxes. Mine is glass, and the other is concrete. It's loud, and the sky is exploding. So don't stop. Too soon to say, and too late to do. Let's keep it all for later. Later, if there will be one. The summer never ended, and the flowers have all melted. I saved some but the bees are dead. There is water, and the sky is in it. So is the grass, and so is our world. There's quicksand, and I buried it with my own hands. So open your eyes and dream it all away, for we can still catch the rainbow in time. But we'll stay in our boxes, filled to the brim. With snatches of an old song, an awkward pause...

... and our own tragic flaws. 

This Day's Blurb.

Bathos in a Bottle

General Observations: Jan Lokpal Bill Protests.

For years I've been saying that nearly every public scandal rolled out by the dozen is further proof that we're actually living in a totalitarian state masquerading as a democracy. For years, I have also been saying that our classes and masses are so ridden with misanthropy and apathy that if there is ever a need for another freedom struggle, there is no way that the people would rise to the occasion and justify what they gained the last time around. In the course of merely 24 hours, I've found myself proved right and wrong. The best part being, that the evidence is indubitable. Our government, by way of dishing out absolute nonsense, expecting it to be gobbled up by flaccid minds, calling the previously much-lauded Gandhian manner of protest "unconstitutional", and launching illegal arrests and mud-slinging campaigns, has stirred up such great sentiment and rage among the people, that pro-Gandhian ideology or not, they are united in their anti-corruption motivations and outrage towards the appalling behavior of the government. One can't help but compare the state of things with the recent riots a few thousand kilometres away, partly a result of the same social apathy and misanthropy, but the addition of decadent moral values. How differently things pan out, in a "developed" nation as opposed to a stagnated "developing" one. United in anarchy or united in rage, the masses can indeed make things happen. And after a very long time, they know it.  

Work In Progress.

I could say that it's sudden abdication. And that it's a cruel thing to do to someone with enough abandonment issues to build a monument out of. I could do the flip and tell you that it's not renunciation, but abject fear in flagrant masquerade. Argue, I can, and you know it. But if I'm going to be honest, I might as well take the world down with me. My mind has been sick before, and so has my heart. And if we're fated to turn into each other eventually, then the promises you made are mine to deliver. Conviction is that simple, and sometimes I wish mine had enough to hold on to. 

"Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying;

And this same flower that smiles today,

Tomorrow will be dying."

-Robert Herrick

(To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time)

Cage III - Free Show

"The figure of Death presides over the front entrance of a carnival sideshow whose spectators watch performers undergo unspeakable degradations so grotesquely compelling that the spectators’ eyes become larger and larger until the spectators themselves are transformed into gigantic eyeballs in chairs, while on the other side of the sideshow tent the figure of Life uses a megaphone to invite fairgoers to an exhibition in which, if the fairgoers consent to undergo unspeakable degradations, they can witness ordinary persons gradually turn into gigantic eyeballs."

Carrion.

We humans are quite capable of exhibiting behaviour guided by nothing in the vicinity of reason or rationale. For a person in possession of the faculty of logic, what is it that drives such an insatiable urge to go against all better knowledge? Impulse is the means, though often mistaken for the cause. So the real cause, being influential enough to supercede all logic, must be a greater force. If so, is it really wrong to succumb to the victor in the power play, as opposed to the defeated adversary. Can logic possibly be defeated? Or does defeat by an absence of things not count? 

What a mad world it is, when it goes against rationale to expect constancy out of anything. Even out of perfection. Does fleeting perfection, for it is all that anything can be, even qualify? Why do we choose to run around, setting ourselves up for failure? It's not perpetual equilibrium one desires, it's merely one stationary reference point to put the rest of the chaos and wild spinning world into perspective. Every attempt to do so seems to be an act of deluding oneself. If logic really bends in favour of chaos and whim, it really is a mad,crazy world indeed. 

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

So, I write like a manic depressive genius, who ruminated obsessively about the dark side of things, brew up insurmountably beautiful pieces of prose, and then proceeded to hang himself to death. Not surprising at all. 

I want to read Infinite Jest. I really REALLY do. But that's probably the only book I've ever chanced upon that I am truly afraid of. Something tells me it's more darkness than I can handle at the moment. Precarious times, these. The balancing act is hard to keep up as it is. Infinite Jest = the machete to my tightrope. Sadomasochism, shall have to wait. 

This Day's Blurb.

The Daily Facebook Fail

Note: I have, indeed, attempted to make this fine gentleman look like The Amazing Exploding Angry Bird. My list of acquaintances spews such gems on a depressingly regular basis, right on to my Facebook homepage. 

Twenty-two today.
...and floating on metaphors.

We're all born with death-wishes. It is our prerogative to live with them. And when pain is this satisfying, it only stands to reason that we give in to the impulse of desire. Desire that nurtures us, and the same desire that is fated to destroy us.

On the Comfort of Doubt.

All my recreational distortions of reality, dramatic visualizations, and convoluted syllogisms aside, the truth is that when push comes to shove, I'm simply too decisive for my own good. Always certain, always sure, and very nearly incapable of experiencing doubt. I think part of that comes from a habit of stripping everything down to bare facts, and mostly from keeping it all very black-and-white in the head. But as it goes, the value of things is only known best to one bereft of them. Sometimes, I wish I could just loll around in a comforting stupor of perplexity before having to deal with the reality of things. Alas, as it goes with most of life, I skip ahead. Far ahead of myself, out past the forks in the road, choosing much too fast, much too easily. The decisions I make are never wrong. They just tread upon each other's heels and sometimes, just sometimes, they are meant to bring half my world crashing down. As I continue to skip ahead, I feel like I'm barely escaping the collapse. I'm going way too fast and I'm afraid that soon, in my dazed frenzy, I'll push the big red button intending to charge ahead. And then something would hold me back. 

green

Pictures taken on a recent trip to Manali.