The Rent of Happiness

Hola amigos.  I know it's been a while since I rapped at ya.

(Man, I miss that column in the Onion sometimes.)

Stewed cashews. Nuts in the flower. Strange men, paid by the hour. Filters flown flying fleet. I got words, and time for sheet. Sheet, sheet, sail and ho. There be demons in the buried below. Crack the eggs, crack the skull, whisper memes, follow genes. Monster wreck and dreck and move about. Their handlers spin songs to control the flout. Fleet swans and dreamy dewey ducks. Parks at night, and steamy fucks.

Whoa there sailor!  Moon River.

Adulting is silly, and then we free willy. Free Willy! Free Willy! Free Willy! Ran ol' Carmone. Some stories stick in the brain, brought up like a Bermuda ship wreck. Wreck, recreator, Wreckreators.  That was the name of a band. A band who borrowed a wordy ditty of mine, put it to music. Once, long ago.

Maudlin, maudlin shit. Seems we're all little out of whack these days. Sad, borrowed, blue. Cordon bleu, chickens sealed up with too much cheese. Desperate housewives.

Maybe there's something in the atmosphere, the stars, the bars. There's some miasma flirting with our souls. Maybe we're getting old, grooved, latent. Maybe we can't be bothered. Maybe it's only drunk assholes who go to concerts anymore. Maybe all the popular music sucks these days. Maybe the young don't know how to dress. Maybe their attitude sucks, their lingo sucks, their politics suck.  Maybe we're all just fatter than we used to be. Maybe none of us has meant to change. And yet it occurs beneath our feet. Maybe this is the end. Maybe the screen is dimming to a small bright point, and finally POOF, BONK, the old cathode ray tube shuts down.

And yet we chafe. And yet we are not done. And yet we are bothered. We are bugged, listened to, and unheard. We are dissatisfied, disillusioned, disaffected, dismembered in our disharmony, disunion, our own personal DIS, the entrance to hell's circles.

We are not happy with it. And unhappiness is the root of seeking change. We will make the old new, because we feel it should change. We'll fill that page with words. We'll fill that canvas with color. We'll take the hours ahead like bitter medicine and make the revolution come. We'll smile and wonder why we ever despaired. We'll laugh at our tears. We'll wheel.  Wheel Wheel Wheel.

I've got no easy solutions. I haven't solutions at all. But I believe in questions, and quite simply am unable to stop. Stop trying, stop blabbing, stop drinking, stop smoking, stop talking to cats, stop exercising, stop eating, stop shopping, stop texting, stop memeing, stop burning shit, stop cleaning, stop repairing, stop building, stop critiquing, stop reviewing, stop helping, stop consoling, stop loving, stop knowing, stop guessing, stop dreaming… for the love, some night to not dream…. stop anything.  There is no stopping.  Until the end, until brain death.  And then, even then.  I doubt it's the end either. That would be too easy. Too rewarding to suicides.

There is no end. There are only additional beginnings.

Why in Christ didn't I say "a pic or 500 words?"

Because of the push. The gamble, the lay, the strategy, the hate of loss, the relief of loss.  The guilt, the blame, the despair, the crying jag off alone in the corner. The diversions, the forced laughter, the small talk, the bulbs burning out in lamps across the nation. The hunger rattling my belly. The beautiful hunger. The clear, persistent feel of hunger. The slight fatigue and light headedness of low blood sugar. Then, add booze. Pour it on, deep and slow, over ice, over my head. Let the warmth spread from this action, this choice, this turning away. Let the eyes fog over and the world glow brighter for the liquid refraction of light.

Refraction of sight.

The world shifts to a different spot when the surface tension is crossed. The spear fisherman must aim away from the prey to compensate for this strange magic. Of course there are logical, scientific reasons for why optics change in the water. The speed of light slowed in a different medium, etc.

It makes sense, but still looks weird. We have to compensate for the change in world, the change in medium, the change of state. This is a metaphor. Much like everything else.

We each hold a version of reality in our mind. A world picture of the world. Our brains assume so much, and only adjust that vision slowly, via repeated correction, via shock, via sudden amputations. We each hold a metaphor in mind. It's not a literary device I'm describing here. But a linguistic way of describing a mental tool. As equals As. Mind visions as versions of reality.

So, what is real. What is provable. What has science actually achieved?

Well, for one, science has things to say about why I'm fat. Good things, helpful things, anthropological things.  Fine adaptations for storing fuel as fat during feast times, helpful to survive repeated lean times.  How fucking far did we go between meals, for millions of years, all our lives, for this to have been a thing?

Hunger. Hunger is part and parcel of our character. We need not proper nutrition, but regular starvation. We need pain and unhappiness. We need dissatisfaction and desperation. We need the negative to know the positive. We need the dark to notice the single candle flame 20 miles away to test the limits of our human perception of light.

The Universe is only a probable result of chaos engendering consciousness by accident. Realize that and you're dead. So don't. Make art instead. Make someone laugh instead. Have a drink. Make merry. And pay your rent.

We need to be ok with trying. There are too many versions of success. Notoriety, acclaim, wealth, redemption, grandchildren, a long and lasting love. Most people, achieve none of these. Winning isn't everything. It is only a thing.

We need to be ok with trying. Trying is the important part. The journey is the only way we get anywhere. It's ok to keep trying, and never make it.  I mean, what's the alternative? Frustration, soul death, bitterness, and deep deep anger?  Naw.  Keep trying.  Whatever it is, keep poking at it.

Don't have the time? Do what you can, when you can. Change how your time works. Change anything to make it better. Keep trying.

Do I think I'm going to write the next great American novel? Out do Asimov, Niven, Heinlein? No, no way man. But I'm happy to be here with you. Trying it again. Playing with it again. Mulling it over.  Doing what it takes to make the effort, and challenge the results. Again. Picking myself back up off the floor and throwing in. Again. Doing it for me, cause if I don't I'll just make the people I love miserable.  Because I'll be miserable.  I'll keep it going. I'll forget how to start again, and then remember. And then we'll laugh at the forgetting. And I'll keep doing it.

And I'll keep paying the rent.  Paying the rent of happiness.