chances are

I made a list the other day of human tastes and qualities that I am not very fond of. You know, tastes that reveal key facts of a person's disposition or personality. And, tastes that if possesed by a human, the chances of me getting on with him would be slim.

You see, I'm trying to reduce my alienation to factors that I can understand.

.... And, Old Timothy replied to my confession,

"I made a list the other day too, mine was of all the girls I never fucked."

"Oh Yeah?"

"Yeah, you know, but girls I might have had had a shot at, not like her." (he points to some random girl running to catch a bus).

"Ah, but, she's a cute girl."

"Well, let me see... well maybe her."

Hmm, I guess there is always a chance.

the years that follow

I wanted to love and care, but I was evidently tricking myself...

It’s always after the third conversation. Some say that three is a holy number. It’s after the third conversation that she runs away from me. Oh, she’s polite about it, don’t get me wrong.... But once that light turns off, it’s panic, panic on the streets of you name it.... they can’t think up a reason quick enough to get them out of situation...

I’m onto it now... And when the truth is known there’s nothing else to do. I don’t think you can fight the fates and win, especially when you don’t like what they have to say, which is the coldest realization of them all..... So I thank Celine for honestly reminding me...

"You get used to it... but it takes a while... to the idea that you’re in the way wherever you go, that you give off an insufferable smell and really ought to be liquidated... even now I see, I observe, nothing imaginary about it, the same retching look in people who come near me or even hear me mentioned."

before the first breath

Quite often I think about people that I know who have died, and sometimes when I do this the thoughts are easier to bear than others.....

I almost always think about the finality of death, boy that’s it, I’m not going to see that person again ever, not again, and if I do it’s not going to be in the way that I might want to think, you know, not like seeing them return home from a trip. Though sometimes I ponder the possibility of such a reunion, I wish I didn’t. I tell myself I know better.

I also think about all the misery that I was part of in this dead person’s life, the misery they caused, the misery I caused, and I think, oh, if only I had more time to rectify all those situations... all would be well and I’d feel better about the way things went. What a lousy view of things, lousy because such an idea is a fantasy completely detached from the very sufferings of life. And, anyway I should know that counter-factuals have to always be false......

So as there’s no way out, never a way out anyway, no possibility for atonement yet I’m left to atone for all the suffering I brought into this world. How can I or anybody ever fully atone for all of their sins, and to be quite honest I think it’s shameful that some human beings have tried to find a way out of this conundrum by charging Jesus Christ with this responsibility. How can he atone for the sins of all mankind, was he himself not a man, he lived, suffered and died like a man? Yes, I think so, but somehow it remains written that in that one death all of mankind has mystically attained the possibility of complete and utter salvation. I don’t know, maybe Jesus did believe this.... but I sure think it would be great if he came back yelled at all of us: "stop feeding off of me, stop feeding off of me... you people atone for your own sins, you’ve had two thousand years only to get it all wrong... atone for your own sins now, I’m through with all of you." Or, maybe he did try and somebody shot him right in the face before he had the chance to speak, mutilated as a child in some colonial war.

Whether it be anger or love, human beings don’t understand either language... I’m surprised Jesus even tried, but I guess that’s what it’s like to really love, something that I will never know, to give everything of yourself and expect only to receive hatred in return.

Although not a Christian the premise that I have to atone for the suffering that I inflict in one way or another is one that I agree with (I do not know the character of this atonement). However, I do not think that this can ever be completed in this life, but it is precisely this fact, this contradiction, that lies at the source of so much human disappointment.

It’s as if all of this is over before it even had the chance to begin... And, listening to ‘the stars of track and field,’ I’ll tell you that I can hear this right now, and I don’t particularly care whether it’s right or wrong.

If there was a chance at atonement or enlightenment or some resolution to this mess of a world then there would be something to figure out, there would be a reason or a list of reasons to be here, we’d all have our own shopping lists, and there would certainly be no regrets about death.

I do not think that such a possibility exists, I think the hope that such a possibility exists is a very cruel design (intentional or not). And this phoney possibility only gives me a reason to cry and feel and shitty about things. It’s a cruel design indeed. Although I know this, and despite the fact that I am unsure about most things in my life I’m pretty convinced about this, the recognition does me no good... I am still here and all of this pain remains.

north

So writes the prophet, "the harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." This truth pained the Lord....

I think North is the best direction. South is too cosy, simple, warm.... and festering. Too much has been said about the east, it’s been overdone, however, I’d exempt the northeast, which is quite different than the east. The west is too violent, too futuristic; the souls of those who have died in a state of confusion recycle themselves in the western lands.

North is it for me. I’ve always been fond of the cold and desolation of the north... its vacancy and emptiness. It’s certainly not that I’ve any pioneering spirit, I’ve no ambitions of taming any wilderness. In fact the beautiful thing about the north is that it cannot be tamed but this won’t stop human beings from trying.

I had a friend once who liked the North too, but not like me, he wanted to claim it as his own. Nine years ago he moved to Northern Alberta and I have not heard from him since.

One January, ten or eleven years ago, he told me he was never coming back to high school and was going to live in a cabin in the woods. He asked me if I’d help him set things up. At the time his proposition seemed to me like as sane a decision as anyone could make. I mean what the hell was I doing spending my time lining up at the bus stop at 7:30 every morning to suffer but another day of pain and ridicule...

So I helped him fix up an old hunting camp, stuffed the holes and dried some wood. Every other day I’d walk the few kilometers through the brush to bring him some food and cigarettes. I did this for about a couple of weeks until one afternoon I went back only to find him gone. I don’t think I had ever seen him since... About a month later another guy I knew was miles back in the woods following deer tracks and came upon another cabin. Inside was this friend of mine and some girl just hanging out, drinking vodka and frying fish.

He was a strange man... it wasn’t even that he was a hunter, or a fisherman, or a gear head, you know the kind, I mean I knew many of those folks too, and he fit in with them less than I did. He was way beyond all of that. For him Tom Sawyer was his contemporary, a real live boy, just living in another county, and the entire world itself was a simple reproduction of our town.

He belongs in the north, but for different reasons than me. I've no objections to this, I simply want to make the difference clear, for instance, I've no pionnering mentality, I'd rather let nature be. But, I guess in the end nature always wins anyway, no matter whether it's accepted or fought. The north reminds me of that truth and so does Jeremiah.

there's nothing imaginary about it

Another day in the life, all puffy, swollen, head like a pumpkin. Everyone I pass on the street notices the fact, how could they not? A big fucking pumpkin head barreling through the snow. And, they laugh, as they should, all grins as I walk by. Once past I swear they’d be rolling on the ground in laughter if it weren’t a wet March. Bastards, and there are people I know out there too, tucking it in, puffing it up and blowing it out their ass.

As if you need more proof of the spectacle.. I’m walking alone through a half deserted parking lot not touching a single thing except a can I’ve been kicking, and I’m keeping it straight too, when off go the car alarms, one starts and then another. Even the machines are mocking me.. I’m not so vain as to think it’s a human phenomenon.

asleep in the jungle

I went to watch an Alabaman talk about Tibetan Mandalas last week. I should have known what to expect, I’ve heard it said too many times that critical analysis offers a bright career for the future. It’s cold calculation that reduces the many mysterious things of this world to the affairs of castles and Kings. I suppose it’s a good check on simple philosophical back projection, but it’s really no good to have these sophists take over.

I didn’t know he was an Alabaman beforehand. At the end of the event I asked the student of Sankara about his suppressed accent. "Oh, yeah," he said, "he’s from Alabama, I talked to him earlier and I think he’s embarrassed about it, you know, coming from there." "That’s odd," I said, "I mean, it’s certainly nothing to be ashamed of here, I guess maybe in some parts you might feel obliged to downplay it."

Anyway, this is not about sophistry or Alabama... Well, maybe a little about Alabama, in the sense that the water and earth down there had blended together in many ways to give birth to and nurture this hairy man. And, he was a hairy man, a big man too. He had no forehead, big shoulders, and hairy knuckles. This is not to say that he was an ugly man, I’ve no sense of beauty as I find most women physically beautiful and all men physically repulsive, myself included.. But he was a hairy man there’s no denying that, and as this hairy man was talking about the dark jungles in India and waving his arms about I noticed that he was also a married man. Or, he wore a ring in any case... And then that’s when the jungle faced away, I was mesmorized by that big ring sunken into his finger, wild hair as thick as my beard tangled all around it. And, I thought, wow, this man’s married, so the chances are that every night, well maybe not every night, but many nights this man goes home, takes off his clothes, climbs into a bed and has sex with some woman..... My god I thought, what a terrible sight...

I don’t understand what any woman could possibly find attractive about a man, any man. They’re vile creatures most of the time let alone when they’re all smelly, sweaty, panting, grunting pushing to get off, can’t wait to get off. It makes me feel embarrassed. We stomp through this world, aggressive, self-interested, and careless... and this and nothing more is what we have to show for ‘making love’, a misnomer indeed.

A woman told me once that this is what sex is all about for her, having big heavy men roll all over her. So be it.... through cold and frosted windows I’ve seen girls drinking warm tea and eating vegetable sandwiches, alone and happy, hidden behind a pile of scarves and mittens. I can’t help but wonder that maybe I’ve just yet to think of a better way.