Baby Write This Down

This post is completely unabridged and uncensored. Kanpai is Japanese for cheers.

So here I am, writing it down. Because somebody said I should. A parable? Maybe.

I once knew this woman, a university professor, who had all sorts of things to say, about all kinds of things. Art, theatre, liminality, juxtaposition, the importance of the live event. Every word out of her mouth was profound, a revelation, brilliance. She knew so much about these topics, and had so much to say about them, that she began to sound like a broken record. The repetition of themes, words, and phrases grew so distinct that someone made a bingo card out of them. All of a sudden, rather than quotable, she was mockable. Did she get less brilliant? Did we get more jaded? Does why it happened matter? Maybe if she hadn't had to get us through a set of exams and projects, she could have branched out a little more, brought in more new ideas, given us more profundity. Or maybe that's all there was, she was so specialized that she'd said her profound piece, and that's all there was to it.

It was profound to you, but I got it out of an Amanda Marshall song. I said everybody wants to believe that they're special, God's chosen people. She said "every soldier in the war's got God on his side, and that's why we can't stop the slaughter".

It's entirely possible that in every relationship, romantic, friendly, platonic, adversarial, you run out of things to talk about. Eventually you know what they think about religion, politics, themself, you, the future, the way the world works and whatever else is important to the both of you. And unless something drastic changes with one of you, there's no more to say. Maybe that's simply a symptom of growing apart, or maybe it just happens to everyone.

Somewhere there's a line between wanting to see them every day and seeing them every day out of habit. Usually just this side of that line there's another one, the line between seeing someone because you have something to do with them and seeing someone because you have nothing to do with anyone else. The line where the default option changes from "alone" to "with them". The line where you become their appendage, or they become yours. Where the world is small and insular, and every decision has them as a factor. You enjoy that for awhile, and then you hit another line, the one where you begin to resent all of the above.

A flutter somewhere around the solar plexus, a flock of thousand-pound butterflies, a flush, a slight sheen of sweat, a stammer, and standing there saying to yourself "Did I seriously just say that?" That place where a "Hi" can have you on a high all day, where anything is possible and it's absolutely brilliant and you swear they'll hear your heart thudding in your chest if you don't faint from the blood rushing to your head first.

Maybe I'm crazy to miss that. I know a lot of people who have said "Yeah, all that stuff is great, but I'd never in a million years trade it for what I've got." Maybe when I'm sitting here thinking that maybe I would, that's the beginning of the end. At the very least, it's probably the way I know that the decision I've already made is the right one. Not the only way, I guess, but at least one. Someone once told me that there's no such thing as a wrong choice, it's just the ones we make, and the ones we don't. That has made all the difference, according to Frost.

Sometimes I think I'm asking for too much. Maybe it is too much to ask for a job that doesn't make me cry before or after nearly every shift I work. Maybe it's too much to ask for freedom. Maybe the truth is too much to ask for in Kindergarten, when they tell you it doesn't matter what you look like, only what you do. Maybe a dual-axis spectrum is too much to ask for. Maybe a spectrum at all is too much to ask for, a middle ground. Maybe there can be no compromise. Maybe a secret is too much to ask for. Maybe being alone is too much to ask for.

Be careful what you wish for, I suppose.

A List Update:
Know/understand all the references in the musical Rent, particularly those in the song La Vie Boheme.
Sontag, Sondheim, Maya Angelou, Ginsberg, Dylan, Cunningham, Cage, Lenny Bruce, Langston Hughes, Uta, Buddha, Pablo Neruda, Pee Wee Herman, Gertrude Stein, Antonioni, Burtolucci, Kurosawa, Carmina Burana, Vaclav Havel, The Sex Pistols, 8BC, Musetta's Waltz, Heidegger.

Stay tuned for my discoveries.

Dream On.
Daydream Believer