How could I say anything and not feel like a
shithead? Especially to you. It’s not that I’m for lack of things to bring up
to you. I have real ideas about topics that I cringe to even verbalize in my
mind. Some of them might even interest you.
No,
listen, see that pretentious fuckwad slouched in the seat a few rows to the
left? The one in the glasses and red flannel. See? Notice how he has a tattered,
used copy of The Myth of Sisyphus poking out of his backpack. Of course you do.
That’s the whole point. He probably has a blog and a tumblr too where he spouts
off poorly written, Thoreauian bullshit that he memorized to the collective wet
panties of his dozens of dipshit, artschool-girl followers, while I jerk off to
internet porn every night.
He’s
the reason that I can’t find my words...
Have
you ever known anyone who seriously suffered from depression? I mean the sort
where the person doesn’t idolatrously hang posters of Sylvia Plath and Ian
Curtis on their wall for romantic inspiration. It’s always the one’s you least
suspect. No, that’s too trite. What I really mean is it’s the ones who never
fucking talk about it.
I’ve
seen tumblr posts where the user seriously lamented having lost the creative
inspiration of depression. I’ve had a girl tell me long winded, clearly
rehearsed stories about her history of cutting—well, it happened one time. With
a tack. And there was no scar—before taking a long drag and telling me that she
really smoked cigarettes for the artistic aspect.
See
people who actually have depression often don’t talk about it out of
embarrassment. Out of fear of being lumped in with the bloggers and artistic
smokers. But it goes deeper than that. Beyond the fear of being lumped in with
them is the fear that they might actually be one of them. Standing on the
overburdened shoulders of actual thought and feeling so to create an image. In
other words, a fraud in the worst sense. And in opening their mouths, all the
words in the world could only create the most infuriating of confirmations.
And
it goes for everything. The kid with the genuine love of music hiding his
acoustic guitar for fear of every pussy chaser howling away at “In the Aeroplane
Over the Sea” out on the campus lawn. The girl with thoughtful and genuine
qualms with America’s socio-economic, political climate shutting her mouth for
fear of every dutifully liberal undergrad who ever ventured to Chomsky’s
wikiquote page. The…
What?
Yes, yes, I know, people of such pretention, fraudulence and narcissism
probably aren’t this self aware of the possibilities of their own subconscious.
It is a distinct few. In fact, I doubt that anyone in this room could possibly
be so thoughtful as I am being right now. A model of near Christian humility I
must be, and of a mind that surely needs outlet to the lowly masses so to…
Okay,
okay, I’ll stop, but you get the point. This sort of train of thought signifies
nothing whatsoever other than a new subject of narcissism and false self-worth.
The fact is that no one goes around thinking that they’re a fraud or a
narcissist. If a fraudulent narcissist had any modicum of intelligence, it
would only make sense that their subconscious narcissism would be imbued with
that same intelligence. And the very first thing that it would do would be to
send those sort of thoughts on their way to create a safety net of false
humility...
I
know! And here’s the thing, I do have genuine—or at least what I think are genuine—thoughts
on Camus and Thoreau (that flower gazing twit). If you would just let me speak
I could talk to you about culture’s shaping of our emotional landscape, bizarre
childhood fears, genuine emotional concerns, the philosophy of ethics. I have opinions
on these things, and I’ll bet you do too. But although I am unsure of whether
these things are solely fraudulent, I know for a fact that they are not
entirely genuine...
How
do I know? Well, Christ, I’ve been silently staring at you, trying to will myself
to speak for the past ten minutes (which may ultimately prove to be too long to
recover from, regardless of my charm), but the question is why you? Out of
everyone in this lecture hall why is it you that I’m trying to talk to? I
suppose we can never say with certainty, but I hope I’m not stepping out of
line in stating that, objectively, you are quite attractive. That’s the polite
way of saying that I want to fuck you. If it was merely genuine intellectual
and emotional outreach that I desired, why am I not talking to the girl four
rows up and to the left with elephant man syndrome. I’m sure that she has a
winning personality and some truly insightful ideas if I just looked past the
fiberous tumors growing out of her face. And on top of that, I enjoy being
liked and thought clever…
No,
I’m not beating myself up for it. Who fucking doesn’t like that? I’m just
saying that with such obvious ulterior motives present in every word and
action, complete fraudulence remains an always-present possibility, while the
hope of complete earnestness is an absurdity. The Underground Man became unable
to voice the pain of his toothache after becoming aware of the validating joy
he felt in his screams, and I became unable to talk to you after becoming aware
that I may actually enjoy the benefits of occasional social interaction…
Christ,
stick a knife in me, why don’t ya? Well, if you’re gonna go throwing around the
P-word then I’ll just keep my thoughts to myself. Good?
Great…
…
…
…Do you remember the dilemma of
school poops?...
School poops. Oh, come on. Remember
back in middle school, the dread everyone would feel at having to take a shit
during the school day? Well anyway at my school the dilemma of the school poop
was definitely fucking there. No, it was more of a dread. Every day the entire
school’s population would spend class after class holding in their shit because
of the fear of being lumped in with the school shitters. Those school shitters
were a gnarly bunch. They were the ones you’d see picking their underpants out
of their assholes with two fingers. They were the ones always hunched over or
holding their binders in front of their thighs when the homely, 33 year old
Chorus teacher walked by. And when they would shit, my god, they would shit
catastrophes beyond the comprehension of human bowels. Splatter jobs spitting
from the side of the bowl, nerf footballs lumbering awake at the bottom of the
bowl’s mist, segregated entities united only by membrane-like mucas strands…
Okay, okay, but it was the entire class,
every fucking one of us. We were trapped in a room of our creation, beating our
fists against a door that was locked from the inside. We gave those little
spazzes their power. And if only we had just shit when we needed to, knowing
full well the impossibility of knowing what would have come out, their power
would have been destroyed. There would have been no fear. There would have been
no shame.
Hey, how’re you…
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