Patterns

So today I went pillaging. The original plan was to put up another piece of KotB, but after spending some time poring over the outline – which is abundant – I decided to leave it to fill the coming week.

I have an email address from many years ago which is mostly inactive. It actually shunts to my current address. I’ve never bothered to cancel it because it’s full of relics and I’m too lazy to sort out what I would want to keep. I thought it might be interesting to pull forth some moist specimen and pin it to the dissection table.

There’s some dark product in there. Things were not quite as I remembered. Some of these memories persist more strongly than I would have predicted. They recall pain or, worse, pain inflicted on another. It’s difficult to know how one should handle memories like these. They are defining and important, certainly. Instructive. They catalogue mistakes I plan to not make again. At the same time, what good can come of opening old wounds? It’s not as if I can track all these people down like a Nick Hornby novel. Who the hell would want to? There’s a statute of limitations on seeking emotional catharsis, and I’m glad for it. I can think of quite a few faces I’d hate to see at my door, mostly because there’s only so many ways you can say, “I know, you’re right, I’m sorry.” Some of you may be reading this, in which case please understand that I know, you’re right, and I’m sorry.

It must be a question of temperament. Most people I know don’t feel some sacred compulsion to analyze every facet of their past. It is enough to make choices, to recall those choices, and to proceed under the auspice of result. Perhaps it’s because, looking back, I don’t see a pattern. Despite my best efforts, I have not been able to create an acceptable narrative through which to define myself. I have been too many people. I have held too many contradictory beliefs. I have said too many wonderful and horrible things. Whenever I attempt to explain the particulars of my life I am left feeling that my audience has failed to appreciate the scope of what happened. I am both better and worse than they now believe. My solution? More words. Words and words and words. I back the truck up and just bury them alive in all my language.

I considered a poem I had written at seventeen. It’s clumsy, but the precision of metaphor is undeniable. It’s also one of the few pieces I still have from high school. I would periodically suffer through maudlin fits during which I would destroy everything I had recently written. The recipient sent it to me many years later, for which I am thankful. I just can’t bring myself to drag that out. It’s been through enough.

I considered the final break-up letter of my last serious relationship. What a jagged enterprise. It’s beautiful and tragic in precisely the correct proportion and I couldn’t even read the whole thing. That shit’s still raw. Not the girl. It’s not about the girl, that’s the crazy part. It’s the letter! The letter too accurately recalls my exact psychological state, which in turn evokes that state. I would like to think that it would be imprudent to loose such a thing into the world, but in reality it’s just too personal, even for me.
Let’s talk about evocation, instead.

A term I plan to someday define properly, it made me remember a piece of paper I found a few days ago. I am guessing this is from about 2005. It contains four distinct sections, presumably unrelated. At least, I hope they’re unrelated:


Evocation // involves the set of all object properties which create subject reaction. It is, specifically, the process by which one discovers/decodes these reactions, and the willful and deliberate act of symbol use to manifest, or “evoke”, predictable and desired subject-based outcomes.

Imagination is the most potent and least understood human phenomenon.

Empathy is a hindrance to communication as often as an asset. Aggravated concern for the position and comfort of the listener detracts greatly from both attention and message precision.

Have you ever seen two retards making out? It’s like a civil war field hospital. It’s like watching a calf being born.


I know, right?

It’s possible that some of that previous madness may end up lashed to the post for your amusement eventually. Not today.