I never get tired of reading some of this book. And the funny thing is the person stubbornly insisting that it can get published is the person beating me up in the scene below. Can it get published?
You be the judge.
Dear editors,
Please accept my submission to your “undiscovered literary genius” category. Memorabilia is a novel length obituary to nostalgic compulsions, pop music trivia and the minutia of Boston Red Sox history. It’s my first novel and if it isn’t published soon it will be my last novel, which will mean my own obituary will read something like, “Oggy Bleacher, an unmarried general laborer, was also an unpublished author when he passed away, kind of like that crazy uncle your father didn’t like talking about…” I hope we agree how unpleasant that sounds. You have the power to change my obituary!
Set in 1991, Memorabilia follows the fixated pleasures and pains of Oggy Bleacher as he attempts to reverse history through delusional stubbornness to enable the 1986 Red Sox win the World Series. Oggy takes the old saying, “If you put your mind to it then you can accomplish anything” and totally disproves it. At the end of Memorabilia the reader will say, “No, there are some things you can’t do no matter how hard you try.” Part mystery, part comedy and part filler stolen from obscure Herman Hesse novels, Memorabilia is a permanent tattoo that keeps bleeding through the tattoos you get to cover it up. The original title was You Broke My Heart You Worthless Motherfucking Losers, but my friends recommended I shorten it. What’s your opinion?
Excerpt:
“Did you go in my room, nut bag?”
This could only be my brother addressing me with one of his many inventive titles. I wheeled around quickly in case he was already charging in to give me a beating. Thankfully, I hadn't decided to go into his room to record “Xanadu”. See how treacherous expanding your music library was in 1980?
“No,” I moaned, “You told me not to go in your room, so I didn't do it. I'm innocent. Please don’t hurt me.”
I instantly wished I had taken a different approach. My earnestness was too obvious. He would know I had read one of his Fantastic Four comics.
“So what did you take, Queer boy?” he asked as he smacked his fist into his palm. “Tell me now and I won't beat you up too bad.”
“I didn't. I didn't take anything. Dad!” I called to my father just to be safe, maybe get him moving in my direction before the bloodshed began. “I'm not lying. I don't want another beating. Please, Brooks.”
Again, this was too obvious. No one telling the truth would ever say, “I'm not lying.”
Brooklyn was apparently feeling benevolent because he paused and said, “If I find something is missing then I will beat you down. I told you before, Ogden. You will be beaten until you submit. I might even take your hat.”
At the threat of losing my hat I placed my senses on high alert. Few things upset me more than being separated from my hat.
“Naw!” I said as I leaned away from Brooklyn. “I was just sitting in here waiting to record Xanadu off the radio. That's all. Honest.”
“Ha! That’s your first lie. You’re sitting here listening to that fag Billy Joel. And if you’re listening to a fag then that means you are a fag.”
“Billy Joel is a wicked awesome singah.”
“You act like you’ve never heard of Black Sabbath. That is just more proof that you are fag of monumental proportions.”
“B-B-Black Sabbath?” I whispered. “Dad told you not to listen to Black Sabbath.”
“Well, Dad told you to stop being an idiot, so that makes two of us who don’t do as we’re told.”
“But Black Sabbath is evil.”
“No. Billy Joel is evil. Ozzy Osbourne is the God of Rock. You would know that if you stopped listening to that junk.” Brooklyn examined the album cover. “Glass Houses?” he sneered. “That pussy never took a chance in his whole life. Now, KISS knows how to rock. Ace Freely…hey, is that an Air Supply record? I’m going to kick your ass if you have an Air Supply record.”
I tried to hide my Air Supply record. My mother had bought the record for me at a Harvard Square thrift store and I didn’t want Brooklyn destroying it. And I didn’t even want to think about what would happen if he saw John Denver’s Greatest Hits.
“Wait! Please! I never went in your room, Brooks. Anyway, you're in my room.”
This seemed like a perfectly logical argument. If he could come in my room then why was I not allowed in his room? Why indeed?
Brooklyn paused and crossed his arms.
“Because I'm older and you're weak. Ha! What? Did you say something, Goober?”
Brooklyn lunged at me. I instinctively fell back to protect my hat and accidentally hit the turntable. The needle skipped to “It's Still Rock and Roll to Me” scratching the vinyl with an ugly synthetic tearing sound that was still about three years from becoming popular among Rap artists. I gasped.
“No! You butt dog. You scratched it. It's mine and you ruined it.”
Brooklyn raised his arms up in triumph.
“That'll teach you not to go in my room, you Troll. I guess Billy Joel isn’t so cool anymore. Too bad.”
I'd have a bruise where I hit the turntable. My Billy Joel record was precious to me and now it was ruined. All because of Brooklyn.
“I hate you. I hate you so much,” I said as my chin began to wobble. “You're...you're evil! You're an evil person. Get out!”
Instead of leaving, Brooklyn jumped on me and wrestled me onto my back. I tried to bite his arms but he was too strong and my strength was quickly spent. He straddled my ribcage, taking the breath out of me, and took my right hand and punched my face with it.
“Stop!” I gasped. “You’re killing me.”
“I’ll stop when you say Billy Joel is a fag.”
“No!” I cried. “Billy Joel is wicked awesome!”
“Say it! Say, ‘Billy Joel is a fag.’ Then I’ll leave.”
“No.”
Brooklyn punched me in the face again with my own fist. I thrust my knee into his back and he acted like this was an unforgivable breach of the peace.
“Now you’re asking for it. Now you fahked up! And I’m gonna make you pay!”
Brooklyn forced both my arms into a flurry of face punches that left me delirious.
“Please.” I moaned. “No more!”
“Say ‘Billy Joel is a fag.’ I’m serious, Oggy. I will beat you all day long.” He bounced on my rib cage so I wanted to vomit. He bounced until I cried.
“Alright. Billy Joel is a fag.” I was so tired my words were slurred. "You're hurting me."
“And he sucks cahk,” Brooklyn continued.
“And he sucks cahk.”
“And he can’t sing.”
“And he can’t sing. Come on!”
“And if I go in Brooklyn’s room I’m dead meat.”
“And if I go in Brooklyn’s room then I’m dead meat,” I repeated and coughed up some phlegm.
Brooklyn gave me one more punch to the ear that made me squeal in pain before getting off me. He turned around and as he was leaving he casually picked up a stack of loose baseball cards off my Red Sox altar. He looked at them with feigned interest and then tossed them on the ground like they were trash. I was breathless from the beating and stared in horror as the cards tumbled into a disorganized pile. I wiped my running nose on my Red Sox stained sweatshirt as tears fell from my brown eyes.
“No! Dad! Brooklyn's being evil again; he threw my cards on the ground after I just put 'em in order. And he threatened to take my hat! He’s listening to Black Sabbath again too.”
My father was presumably in his room and didn't have a ready response to this crisis. Brooklyn pointed his finger at me and hissed, “You watch your mouth or the beating you just got will seem like a present from Grandma.”
He pounded his fist into his palm again. I was helpless and crying as I tried to gather the cards up without bending any corners. A bent corner was the difference between a “Mint” condition card and an “Excellent” condition card. I picked up a card and showed it to him as I cried, “When Julio Valdez is worth a million dollars I'm gonna make you pay for wrecking his card. You'll pay for being evil!”
Julio Valdez was a switch-hitting prospect for the Red Sox who had shown great talent at shortstop. His card was one of those now excluded from the Mint condition because of a bent corner.
“Look what you did!” I said as I held up the card as evidence of Brooklyn's evil. “I hate you! Get out! This is my room. Now get out!”
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
Errand Boy
This is a message for The Earl of Nottingham from the King of Chicago. "You can be an Errand boy for Rock and Roll."
15 serving 30
Martin was back at the tennis courts and challenged me to a game where we keep score. I wish I could go back in time and play him 50 years ago...when he was my age. Jesus. 50 years is a long time and I thought 40 years was a long time. I was reading the Portsmouth obituaries and saw a face that looked like Martin and the guy was from Newfoundland. What the hell? But it wasn't Martin. The dead man was 96 years old and also served in the navy. Something tells me Newfoundlanders have good genes because that's simply unusual for two 90 + year old men to be living in Portsmouth. Martin must've been a good tennis player because his instincts are still there but he has to watch the ball bounce because his feet can't get him there in time. He's come to terms with it. After our single set match he did what most 90 year old men do: go sailing. I'll have to go out with him sometime to see him in his natural element...if my back is up to it.
The Labor Hall was a depressing place this morning. A man was snoring on the table while I read the help wanted jobs. Another guy was limping around talking about pawning his bicycle for $15 to buy pain killers for an infected injury. On the television was "Troy" with Brad Pitt, a terrible piece of shit film that everyone ignored. The pretty Greeks could not possibly shine on our collective misery of poverty, hacking coughs, limps and neck pains. The phone was silent and I finally walked out with no fanfare. In fact, because I was on the list before some of the other guys I thought I heard a sigh of relief. It's a waiting game like hitchhiking. The longer you wait, the better your chances are to make $30. More than likely the sound I heard was someone's last breath.
If I can't work then I might as well play tennis.
The Labor Hall was a depressing place this morning. A man was snoring on the table while I read the help wanted jobs. Another guy was limping around talking about pawning his bicycle for $15 to buy pain killers for an infected injury. On the television was "Troy" with Brad Pitt, a terrible piece of shit film that everyone ignored. The pretty Greeks could not possibly shine on our collective misery of poverty, hacking coughs, limps and neck pains. The phone was silent and I finally walked out with no fanfare. In fact, because I was on the list before some of the other guys I thought I heard a sigh of relief. It's a waiting game like hitchhiking. The longer you wait, the better your chances are to make $30. More than likely the sound I heard was someone's last breath.
If I can't work then I might as well play tennis.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Behind our backs.
Each time I take these other jobs to learn some humility I manage for a few hours and can even ignore the grinding pain in the joints, but when I look around at the mammoth scale of the operation and how completely unacceptable it is to expect Thailand and China to produce this much specialty athletic equipment, I start to lose my mind. I think, "No, Oggy, you need the money. Fuck it all. FUCK THE EARTH. WE FUCKED IT UP. IT'S NOT GOING TO BE SAVED."
I try to convince myself that whatever moral principles I cling to are so pathetically futile and self-destructive that I'm being pointlessly stubborn. Just give up! Fuck it all. Work, take the money, buy some crack and shoot up in the bathroom. Who fucking cares? Look around at this fucking square mile of athletic equipment. Just look. This is insane. Nothing can justify this many jock straps that can withstand a 90 MPH impact from a piece of molded rubber. No. It's totally and completely wrong. No way are you going to justify a factory in China devoted solely to sewing jock straps for hockey players. Nope. Impossible. Not hundreds of thousands of them. No no no no no.
So, I try to ignore it, punch the time clock and move on, but then I think, wait...wait...hold on. The reason I am shocked and repulsed is because I'm actually seeing something that is shocking and repulsive. No one would think this is normal if they would just leave the seacoast of New Hampshire or read something other than Sports Illustrated. I mean, yes, this is totally normal AS LONG AS YOU ARE AN ETHNOCENTRIC CAPITALIST. If you aren't then you will quickly see this operation as utterly unsustainable and wasteful. Shameful. I mean, this is the kind of operation historians will highlight as evidence we were blind amoral pigs.
Stop, Oggy! I will continue until they fire me...Just take the money,,,just... but I'm telling you that this can't go on. I realize these specialized pieces of equipment are well designed and long lasting, but this is HOCKEY. ROLLER HOCKEY! What the fuck>>?
Again, it's because most of humanity only sees the five styles of rollerblades at the one sporting goods store or at Walmart. They think, "That's it. There are only this many rollerblades in the world."
Well, I intentionally worked at dozens of different Target stores and now at the place that distributes to Target stores and I'm stunned by the volume of crap that is being produced. I don't mean it in a bad way but you are an incredibly ignorant person if you believe the only rollerblades in the world are at the one Walmart you visit. My brain can barely comprehend the number of indestructible jock straps that currently exist. The volume is like sand in the desert. Just imagine a jock strap that is 6 stories high and weighs 700 pounds.
It's the nature of capitalism, the compulsion to produce and consume, that we never pause to consider what the grand scale of things is. In fact, I admit I don't naturally pause to consider the grand scale of things but I have forced myself to take jobs in factories and in the Gulf of Mexico so I can actually experience some of it and the final conclusion is that we've collectively run amok. It's not a myth made up by pot smoking hippies; it's true. Commerce has been taken over by the most short sighted people in history and television has normalized a lifestyle that is completely blind to the consequences we will all soon suffer and which the developing world is suffering right now. We're plugged into the dream machine so it's impossible to see the machine. The sky is falling and no jock strap can protect your nuts.
I have a lot of time at work to ponder if unregulated commerce is Man's attempt to protect himself from the elements or if it is actually a plot by a tiny minority to get rich by encouraging and exploiting Man's childish nature, by catering to our infantilism. I really wonder because I know this can't last. An American child uses the resources of 7 children from a developing nation. The theory is that if America is comfortable then the rest of the world will eventually benefit. But what I see is tens of thousands of indestructible jock straps. You can theorize all you want but when I see a hundred thousand lime green roller blade wheels in boxes stacked 6 stories high then, excuse me, but I start to question all theories. This is not the benevolent hand of grand commerce. No. Something horrible is happening here and that is why there are fences around the building. You go to a Walmart or online and you think you are ordering a special set of rollerblade wheels made specially for you by tree elves. I'm telling you the truth and there is basically a thunderous downpour of rollerblade wheels, hockey pucks and jock straps and you are ordering a single item that is so insignificant compared to the whole that only a computer can tell when a piece is missing. We have mountains and mountains of specialty athletic equipment in the world. MOUNTAINS like small skyscrapers. Factories are devoted to jock straps. Containers...cargo ships are completely filled with superhero themed goalie masks and ON THE OCEAN RIGHT NOW.
The truth of commerce is so ugly and wasteful and dirty, and the myth of commerce is so glossy and perfumed and hair free, that I can only rant about it and pray Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky write a solid essay on my behalf. I'm telling you that this contradiction is almost something that can't be explained. You have to experience it to understand the dimensions. Naomi Klein is pretty good at describing it but I think modern commerce is too complicated for anyone to completely grasp through an essay. Like, on the front of Lester Brown's Plan B there's a quote by Bill Clinton "Good book." Ok, Bill. Nice of you to put the hamburger down long enough to write the blurb. No way did Bill Clinton demonstrate he learned anything from Plan B. Why? Because all he did was read the book. That's not good enough. You basically have to go work in a modern factory if you want to understand modern commerce. Right now. Quit your specialized job and go do someone else's specialized job in a factory. That's my only recommendation. We all need to swap jobs and see what's going on behind our backs. If you don't do it then you will dismiss me as alarmist and continue to suckle the Fox News tit for misinformation, you gullible, cowardly cunt.
Sorry, I got angry.
(deep breath)
Please come work with me for one day. That's all it takes. I'm not asking you to change careers. Just see with your own eyes and you will understand. I can't describe it well enough and they strip search me before and after I go to work so I can't smuggle in a camera. Please. I'll get you in touch with my placement agent.
I try to convince myself that whatever moral principles I cling to are so pathetically futile and self-destructive that I'm being pointlessly stubborn. Just give up! Fuck it all. Work, take the money, buy some crack and shoot up in the bathroom. Who fucking cares? Look around at this fucking square mile of athletic equipment. Just look. This is insane. Nothing can justify this many jock straps that can withstand a 90 MPH impact from a piece of molded rubber. No. It's totally and completely wrong. No way are you going to justify a factory in China devoted solely to sewing jock straps for hockey players. Nope. Impossible. Not hundreds of thousands of them. No no no no no.
So, I try to ignore it, punch the time clock and move on, but then I think, wait...wait...hold on. The reason I am shocked and repulsed is because I'm actually seeing something that is shocking and repulsive. No one would think this is normal if they would just leave the seacoast of New Hampshire or read something other than Sports Illustrated. I mean, yes, this is totally normal AS LONG AS YOU ARE AN ETHNOCENTRIC CAPITALIST. If you aren't then you will quickly see this operation as utterly unsustainable and wasteful. Shameful. I mean, this is the kind of operation historians will highlight as evidence we were blind amoral pigs.
Stop, Oggy! I will continue until they fire me...Just take the money,,,just... but I'm telling you that this can't go on. I realize these specialized pieces of equipment are well designed and long lasting, but this is HOCKEY. ROLLER HOCKEY! What the fuck>>?
Again, it's because most of humanity only sees the five styles of rollerblades at the one sporting goods store or at Walmart. They think, "That's it. There are only this many rollerblades in the world."
Well, I intentionally worked at dozens of different Target stores and now at the place that distributes to Target stores and I'm stunned by the volume of crap that is being produced. I don't mean it in a bad way but you are an incredibly ignorant person if you believe the only rollerblades in the world are at the one Walmart you visit. My brain can barely comprehend the number of indestructible jock straps that currently exist. The volume is like sand in the desert. Just imagine a jock strap that is 6 stories high and weighs 700 pounds.
It's the nature of capitalism, the compulsion to produce and consume, that we never pause to consider what the grand scale of things is. In fact, I admit I don't naturally pause to consider the grand scale of things but I have forced myself to take jobs in factories and in the Gulf of Mexico so I can actually experience some of it and the final conclusion is that we've collectively run amok. It's not a myth made up by pot smoking hippies; it's true. Commerce has been taken over by the most short sighted people in history and television has normalized a lifestyle that is completely blind to the consequences we will all soon suffer and which the developing world is suffering right now. We're plugged into the dream machine so it's impossible to see the machine. The sky is falling and no jock strap can protect your nuts.
I have a lot of time at work to ponder if unregulated commerce is Man's attempt to protect himself from the elements or if it is actually a plot by a tiny minority to get rich by encouraging and exploiting Man's childish nature, by catering to our infantilism. I really wonder because I know this can't last. An American child uses the resources of 7 children from a developing nation. The theory is that if America is comfortable then the rest of the world will eventually benefit. But what I see is tens of thousands of indestructible jock straps. You can theorize all you want but when I see a hundred thousand lime green roller blade wheels in boxes stacked 6 stories high then, excuse me, but I start to question all theories. This is not the benevolent hand of grand commerce. No. Something horrible is happening here and that is why there are fences around the building. You go to a Walmart or online and you think you are ordering a special set of rollerblade wheels made specially for you by tree elves. I'm telling you the truth and there is basically a thunderous downpour of rollerblade wheels, hockey pucks and jock straps and you are ordering a single item that is so insignificant compared to the whole that only a computer can tell when a piece is missing. We have mountains and mountains of specialty athletic equipment in the world. MOUNTAINS like small skyscrapers. Factories are devoted to jock straps. Containers...cargo ships are completely filled with superhero themed goalie masks and ON THE OCEAN RIGHT NOW.
The truth of commerce is so ugly and wasteful and dirty, and the myth of commerce is so glossy and perfumed and hair free, that I can only rant about it and pray Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky write a solid essay on my behalf. I'm telling you that this contradiction is almost something that can't be explained. You have to experience it to understand the dimensions. Naomi Klein is pretty good at describing it but I think modern commerce is too complicated for anyone to completely grasp through an essay. Like, on the front of Lester Brown's Plan B there's a quote by Bill Clinton "Good book." Ok, Bill. Nice of you to put the hamburger down long enough to write the blurb. No way did Bill Clinton demonstrate he learned anything from Plan B. Why? Because all he did was read the book. That's not good enough. You basically have to go work in a modern factory if you want to understand modern commerce. Right now. Quit your specialized job and go do someone else's specialized job in a factory. That's my only recommendation. We all need to swap jobs and see what's going on behind our backs. If you don't do it then you will dismiss me as alarmist and continue to suckle the Fox News tit for misinformation, you gullible, cowardly cunt.
Sorry, I got angry.
(deep breath)
Please come work with me for one day. That's all it takes. I'm not asking you to change careers. Just see with your own eyes and you will understand. I can't describe it well enough and they strip search me before and after I go to work so I can't smuggle in a camera. Please. I'll get you in touch with my placement agent.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Struggle for the legal tender
That's what's happening on the surface, a hustle for a buck, but underneath everything is paid training to be focused on the moment. This is not easy for me as 12 months of pondering infinity have left me weeks behind the present moment. I'm mentally in Utah looking for a place to park in a butte filled area near Salt Lake City, slowly dodging pot holes, looking for birds and wildlife and finding hundreds of shotgun shells and computer husks. Are we lucky the earth is big so our carelessness is hard to notice or are we careless because the earth is so big? Anyway, that's where my consciousness is and the only thing that's good for is the careful analysis of human (my) experience. It's philosophy if I'm able to write a treatise or manifesto that revolutionizes man's. If I am unable to do this then it's called daydreaming. Emerson had a line that I stole for my screenplay (It was in his "Oscar" monologue) "The true preacher can be known by this, that he deals out to the people his life ... life passed through the fire of thought."
I set it as a slow transition from Emerson at his Unitarian Church in Harvard giving the sermon...to Thoreau getting a canoe ready in Concord with Emerson's words echoing in his head as he stares at his reflection in the river. A bit polyanna, but a guaranteed Golden Globe award.
Anyway, I took this statement personally, as a challenge to walk through those same flames. How else could I call myself a philosopher? Impossible. Another quote that I read early on and has figured on my journey through the fires is from Socrates, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
I took that as a challenge too and it's been 20 years since I decided to examine my life and walk through the fires of thought. Two decades. My findings are as slippery as fine sand. How can I explain them when I can't control them? The other influential concept is from Ignatius in Confederacy of Dunces. He speaks often and highly of cultivating a personal worldview that is ever evolving from new experiences. The worldview is basically his conceptualization of the ideas put forth by Socrates and Emerson, that a person is responsible for self examination and reflection and self criticism. That a man's entire moral and social code must be generated from within.
Another book I incorporated into my fantasy was "The Razor's Edge" I read it before the Bill Murray movie came out and everything by Somerset Maugham is excellent. It's a very good study of wanderlust. It also predates Into The Wild by many years and I'm surprised it doesn't get referenced more in discussions about Chris McCandless. I don't think it's a perfect comparison but there are elements there that fit. It was about the sole pursuit of truths. I wonder sometimes if reading books by Thoreau and Maugham shaped me or if they just reinforced and refined my own self image as a seeker of truth and wisdom. I will ponder that.
Anyway, defining ones moral code is easier written about than accomplished. My own book set in Santa Cruz is an attempt to not only extend these excellent concepts, but to demonstrate the disastrous consequences when one takes them too seriously, or when one dismissed them entirely. It's a groundbreaking approach that will break my spirit if it doesn't kill me first. But it's the culmination of a 20 year research assignment. It's my manifesto.
As Ignatius learned, eschewing social norms while living in normal society is just a terrible idea and leads to awful confrontations. And god help you if you actually succeed and replace most or all social conventions with some patchwork worldview based on books and songs you like. GOD HELP YOU.
And yet, (and this is the kind of question that makes me fuck up the most basic task because it can never be answered without constant consideration) WHAT ELSE ARE YOU GOING TO DO? Do you adopt WHAT IS simply because IT IS? Or do you make a thorough investigation of your self and your surroundings and come to scientific or philosophic conclusion as to your conduct? If you answer that it's best to go along with the status quo then what is that saying about our autonomy? And if your pondering results in a personal incompatibility with society then you are also fucked.
And another dynamic I'm looking into is the difficulty in being unbiased TO BEGIN WITH. Like, no matter what conclusion you reach it will not be scientifically or philosophically based, but more inclined to stem from early, suppressed, almost innate learning that could easily have been implanted because of an article in Time Magazine or an episode of Sesame Street. So what the fuck? Is it all futile? Can we never be fully responsible for our habits and worldviews? Is Big Bird our philosophical patriarch?
These are difficult questions and since I'm at work right now I can not go further into detail. This whole time I was supposed to be organizing boxes of shoes but I thought it was more important to sneak into the boss's office and use his computer to type this essay. If I didn't do it now then I might forget all these fine details and formulations. I mean..what? Oh. Shit. Here comes the...fuck. I just got fired. Here come the security guards. God damn it! Why does this always happen to me? Fuck! I only have two more seco...
I set it as a slow transition from Emerson at his Unitarian Church in Harvard giving the sermon...to Thoreau getting a canoe ready in Concord with Emerson's words echoing in his head as he stares at his reflection in the river. A bit polyanna, but a guaranteed Golden Globe award.
Anyway, I took this statement personally, as a challenge to walk through those same flames. How else could I call myself a philosopher? Impossible. Another quote that I read early on and has figured on my journey through the fires is from Socrates, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
I took that as a challenge too and it's been 20 years since I decided to examine my life and walk through the fires of thought. Two decades. My findings are as slippery as fine sand. How can I explain them when I can't control them? The other influential concept is from Ignatius in Confederacy of Dunces. He speaks often and highly of cultivating a personal worldview that is ever evolving from new experiences. The worldview is basically his conceptualization of the ideas put forth by Socrates and Emerson, that a person is responsible for self examination and reflection and self criticism. That a man's entire moral and social code must be generated from within.
Another book I incorporated into my fantasy was "The Razor's Edge" I read it before the Bill Murray movie came out and everything by Somerset Maugham is excellent. It's a very good study of wanderlust. It also predates Into The Wild by many years and I'm surprised it doesn't get referenced more in discussions about Chris McCandless. I don't think it's a perfect comparison but there are elements there that fit. It was about the sole pursuit of truths. I wonder sometimes if reading books by Thoreau and Maugham shaped me or if they just reinforced and refined my own self image as a seeker of truth and wisdom. I will ponder that.
Anyway, defining ones moral code is easier written about than accomplished. My own book set in Santa Cruz is an attempt to not only extend these excellent concepts, but to demonstrate the disastrous consequences when one takes them too seriously, or when one dismissed them entirely. It's a groundbreaking approach that will break my spirit if it doesn't kill me first. But it's the culmination of a 20 year research assignment. It's my manifesto.
As Ignatius learned, eschewing social norms while living in normal society is just a terrible idea and leads to awful confrontations. And god help you if you actually succeed and replace most or all social conventions with some patchwork worldview based on books and songs you like. GOD HELP YOU.
And yet, (and this is the kind of question that makes me fuck up the most basic task because it can never be answered without constant consideration) WHAT ELSE ARE YOU GOING TO DO? Do you adopt WHAT IS simply because IT IS? Or do you make a thorough investigation of your self and your surroundings and come to scientific or philosophic conclusion as to your conduct? If you answer that it's best to go along with the status quo then what is that saying about our autonomy? And if your pondering results in a personal incompatibility with society then you are also fucked.
And another dynamic I'm looking into is the difficulty in being unbiased TO BEGIN WITH. Like, no matter what conclusion you reach it will not be scientifically or philosophically based, but more inclined to stem from early, suppressed, almost innate learning that could easily have been implanted because of an article in Time Magazine or an episode of Sesame Street. So what the fuck? Is it all futile? Can we never be fully responsible for our habits and worldviews? Is Big Bird our philosophical patriarch?
These are difficult questions and since I'm at work right now I can not go further into detail. This whole time I was supposed to be organizing boxes of shoes but I thought it was more important to sneak into the boss's office and use his computer to type this essay. If I didn't do it now then I might forget all these fine details and formulations. I mean..what? Oh. Shit. Here comes the...fuck. I just got fired. Here come the security guards. God damn it! Why does this always happen to me? Fuck! I only have two more seco...
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