Earthly

I think my goal in life is failure. Not giving up, just failure. In some small way I feel like my failure is a form of protest to everyone who believes succeeding is the only path to success. I relish in failure. Does it get me down? Sure. Does it rack my nerves and breed incessant stress? Sometimes. But in my mind, failure is the pinnacle. It is the zenith of boldness. No one likes being wrong. No one likes losing. And that’s a good thing when you’re trying to survive. But to thrive? That is reserved for dismal failure. Everytime I fail, I know myself better than before. I know my weakness. I get to know my strengths. I blanket my ignorance as I expand my vision. I want to say fuck it all to the world and their ideas about what a moral and good life should look like. What is individuality and uniqueness anyway? Doesn’t someone have some balls to fail and continue doing it anyway? Conventional wisdom tells us to stop doing what isn’t working. Then you’d never figure it out, never come up with some shining gem of clarity. Does anyone figure it out? Is there a right way? Is there a right way to live? To feel? To think? Where is the god damn originality? You don’t find it in lock step formation, won’t find it in cadent conformity. I want to disagree. I want to revolt. I want to do it my own way, on my own path, and have my own goals, my goals, no one elses. No one is going to tell me what is good for me. That’s for me to figure out. The kind words are heard and I appreciate the attempts to normalize me, but I want to live wildly. Not pander to the consensus. Life. God damn life. Sometimes it wears me out. Sometimes I wear me out. I always wear me out. Is that good? I dunno. I like to think it toughens me up. Stretches me. Forces me to grow into wide open places, forces me to contort into cramped little spaces. Our miniature lives. Out little skulls, our plush petty homes, adorned with everybody else’s thoughts, accessorized with everybody else’s needs. But my will is a razor. No. More cutting edge: a laser. Pure energy, a beam of protons that illuminates and cuts through everything simultaneously, that generates warmth and pierces into the open sky, across the universe. Until it lands on some object, some obstacle just waiting to be decimated by my energy. How to be original? I’ve abandoned society, their illusory ideals and dreams. They’re intimidating. Foreboding. Oppressive. The victim. The victim. The victim. Struggle generates strength. You struggle under the domination, or you struggle to dominate. Both mentalities yield some good. I bullshit. I bull shit and I bite and write. Do what you love? Well I love expressing myself. I may not have a Phd. I may not have awards. Accolades extolling my achievements. Pretty gold stars or pins and ribbons to wear around, to flaunt my success, to affirm my worth, to communicate my value. I could care less about that approval. I don’t need dirty little hands fixing material merit to my work. I can do that. Feeling is the most original thing we possess. Not thoughts. Feelings. Those wormy squirmy gushes of life. God knows none of my thoughts are original. But my feelings? You’re god damn right they’re my own. And I don’t need anyone telling me my feelings are wrong. I want to figure out why they’re wrong, for myself. I know I’m blind. I know I’m deaf. I don’t need crutches. I can walk and move around just fine. Let me grope around until I’ve felt what’s around me with my own two hands, until I’ve found the light and can see with my own two eyes. I appreciate the pain of bumping into obstacles. Scraping my knees. It’s apart of the play, part of the adventure. And life is one big jungle gym. A massive forest for me to hang and swing and climb on, to carve my own home from, a place where I can spin my own cocoon, with my own web of words, and dig my own burrows deep into the earth to crawl about and explore. I like the dark damp places. That’s where all the secrets lie. In the mud. The dirt. Under the verdure, beneath the variegated vegetation carpeting the surface, deep inside the womb, mother earth, where all things lose their unique form and become one. Pretty things never stay pretty for long. They all get beaten and pulverized into bits, they dessicate and decay and die. Then they return to the earth. With the dirt. With the mud. With all those creatures that make it their home. I’m one of those creatures. The sun draws forth life from the mud, creates dazzling distinctions from the nutrient soil; yet unsavory organisms misplace their roots and foible their footing, lose sense of where they came, from the unity under it all; then the sun becomes the enemy and its rays rot and ruin the beauty. The earth preserves, it retains the essence of all things; it is the heart that springs forth the beating life. Let me bring the light into the world, not vice versa. Let me extend into the earth, not into the sky. Let me beat onward. From dust to dust.