Sometimes you just have to shut up and eat a banana. Maybe go for a walk, too. Doing so today allowed me to spare you from a long, self-flagellating blog post bemoaning how little I’ve been writing about “real” stuff on here lately. No, really– I have the crossed out paragraphs in my notebook to prove it.
It feels like going against the essence of this blog to stop and start over, on some level– I wonder if it will just attenuate the genuine thing I was going for in the beginning. But to save you time, the past two attempts (there were two attempts, actually) I made to write this today were both astoundingly negative. “Performative” is in the title of this blog after all, and bad moods aside, you don’t need to bear witness to all that. The fact that these are public makes me try to be at least mildly positive.
But I’m firmly in professional and creative ruts lately and, for various reasons, feel like a waste of space or a loser much of the time. And commenting on that in a long form blog feels wildly egocentric and pathetic, so I made a very pretty spiral in my notebook when I crossed those paragraphs out.
The truth is, the blog in general has felt egocentric in general, lately. Perhaps that isn’t a bug, but a feature of these sorts of things, since who except someone with a considerable ego would even do this in the first place? But when I set out to start writing here, I envisioned more posts about culture and current events. I’m inclined to blame burnout, a 40 hour work week turned 50 hours by a daily 2 hour roundtrip commute, and the fact that I can’t seem to accommodate more than seven seconds of thought at a time lately before my brow ridge flattens and my brain produces an internal dial tone and I pick up my phone to scroll,
for the fact that I rarely write about “real” stuff since at least the election. But really, what is there to say?
I’ve said it before: the bad guys seem to keep winning.
Why do I even do this, again?
I saw a headline this morning that Trump wants to privatize the postal service. I can’t even waste time talking about how stupid an idea that is. But fewer and fewer things are allowed to exist in America unless their sole raison d’être is to produce profit (oooo look at him, using French. Just say “purpose,” you pretentious schmuck. [hey, this blog wouldn’t be authentic without a modicum of self-hatred, that paradoxically narcissistic tendency of the ego to consider itself so important that it’s worthy of self-directed anger]).
I might be losing my mind.
But my basic point is that, if someone thought of them as a concept today and they never existed before, libraries wouldn’t be invented today because they don’t make money. The bill would just get voted down.
I’m crossing out so much bullshit today. If you’re endeavoring to read this, thank me for that– I’m saving you from myself. Keep that in mind when you see the quality (or lack thereof) of what remains; just imagine what garbage didn’t survive the chopping block. Or just curse me for writing it in the first place.
Which makes me wonder: why is it so hard to write anything lately without shuddering and erasing it? I think it’s because adult life, or at least the monotony and endless repetition of full-time work, seems like a sort of psychic thresher to me. It’s boring. It’s tiresome. It has all the bad qualities and none of the good about school, and as it is now, I make very little money because I chose to go to an arts school instead of learning to plumb, or something. Which I could still do, mind you, but I don’t, because I have soft hands and want to be a rockstar instead.
But anyway, my reactions to the boredom and monotony of such a life tend to leave me tired, grumpy, getting fat, and increasingly thoughtless. More and more, except for during quality time with the small circle of those I cherish, my heart isn’t in anything except music. What was that saying about eggs and baskets and all that, again?
The sun is out. Maybe I’ll just go out there. You should too.
matt nilsen 