Writing. That’s what. I just poured over journal entries from years passed, and a large part of me was envious at the prose I could produce with such consistency. Nothing has changed, however. The fumbling boy I was is now the man I am. Inescapable traits will haunt me forever, masked by the temporary hallucinations that pleasurable distractions provide
I was a poet. Words flowed. Now, I avoid writing. I avoid it, because I avoid myself. What’s so hard about being honest with myself? With the ideas embedded within me, aching to be realized, dying to be mined from my core, so I can loosen up a bit. That’s why I write. That’s why I always wrote. Not for anyone else. Just the therapy of easing the ache.
But now? Now I think I’ve degenerated. Some combination of age, doubt, and steroid abuse, coupled with sheer neglect of the intellect for five years, has convinced me that I’m a lesser version of myself. Or, there’s a conscience that whispers deviant suggestions about my character, about my ability, about my lack of originality. There’s nothing worth saying anymore. But that overlooks why I write. I write to breath. Spiritually speaking.
There is no effort when it flows. I need it to come out of it. So many days I spend contemplating writing. This is what I’ll write about, I say to myself, and my mind constructs or convolutes these majestic or delicate or concise extensions of my soul, and I’m proud of these minor revelations, and think they may even be worth noting, worth penning to paper. But, procrastination and paralyzation squeezes my insides and I choke, figuratively speaking, and the lofty imaginings expire and evaporate like they were never there.
Or I drag this tightness around with me, and begin to berate myself for the lack of resolution to write.
Either way. I need to write.
What am I up to these days?
I’m unemployed.
I’m a mess.
My best friend fired me. That’s the most direct way to put it. Why did he do it? He couldn’t elaborate. But it was for personal reasons.
I’m living with my Mexican ballerina girlfriend, in her 400 sq ft apartment on Van Ness a few blocks from the capitol building. Sure, I have a room in Palo Alto, at my buddy’s parents co-op, but I loath being there. Not because of the company as much as the culture, the hippy culture.
**
I was wearing black boxer underwear and a green woot long sleeve shirt atop a cotton T shirt. I got up, got changed into more appropriate loungewear, treated myself to a very large pour of box wine, proceeded to cook ramen noodles, and while I was waiting for the water to boil I handedly downed a bottle of Pacifica beer. I’m back at the computer, waiting for the ramen to cool.
**
I’ve determined that the best writing is the most honest writing. And its no wonder I haven’t produced anything of merit as of late. Not to say I’ve produced anything of merit in years passed, but at least it was authentic, or half authentic. These days I just cloud my head with facts and figures and methods and theories. What is authentic living?? I cram my head full of youtube videos and podcasts, listening to Joran Peterson, Sam Harris, Joe Rogan, and the multitude of other voices that make their way into my daily desire for knowledge consumption. But it all feels rather vapid. While that’s not entirely true, a part of me feels that these quests for knowledge and understanding do edify, to a degree. But to another degree, they move me away from myself. Sometimes they move me closer to myself. But by and large, they’re a symptom of this rather schizophrenic compulsion to KNOW.
As if anything I’m learning is getting me closer to… knowing. Ironically, it’s getting me father away. I like to think that this great big tree of knowledge has but one root, and they my investigations and explorations into the branches and canopies of these subjects will yield some pattern that I may learn to live a more gratifying life by. But by and large this pursuit has been a rather fruitless one.
On the contrary. I’m broke. I’m unhappy. I’m flagellating myself daily with blatant disregard to my health. For years I feined the illusion of health as a fitness model, a bodybuilder. I was regimented and disciplined, and consuming thousands of dollars of hormones every couple months. Tens of thousands a year. I wish I could say I was lying. And so, what is healthy when you’re injecting steroids every other day? When you’re force feeding yourself food every two to three hours? I looked phenomenal. I still do, after a month of not lifting and eating terribly.
During those years, this facade of health was masking unhappiness, a need for control. I also filled it with carnal activities, such as orgies, swinging, and participating as an escort. Of course this was punctuated with relationships, which I would deam unhealthy, and usually resulted because of my extreme exhaustion for sexually deviant past times.
The relationships were thus doomed to fail.
And I spend irresponsibly. I spent woefully irresponsibly. I was a master salesman, a borderline con artist. I was making more money than I was worth, and I had everyone fooled, even myself, even though, deep down, all was not well.
Moving out to California to join my trust fund college roommate in his hobby he calls a business was reckless. I have an apartment with all the expensive furniture and art I collected while I raked in a $175,000 salary as a 28-30 year old. I didn’t pay taxes in 2016. That’s about $35,000 that I’ve been mentally avoiding for the past year and a half. I have $17,500 cash. I lost $45,000 in crypto. I owe roughly $50,000 in student loans, and about $40,000 in credit cards.
I’m a mess. A complete mess.
What am I suppose to do?
I’m living with my Mexican ballerina girlfriend, that sweet angel, that testy tempest, that tantalizing temptress. She’s a combination of my best and worst, and I love her, though I’m still not sure where things will go.
What am I doing?
William Dare 