the 4th of july
moving-forwardThis was the first 4th that I’ve ever spent completely alone. It was kind of a trip — I got almost no messages from anyone, life continued as usual for everyone else in the outside world, and I felt the creeping dread as it crawled closer and closer to the start of the fireworks. In fact, I spent the entire weekend completely alone. By Sunday I was aching and restless, so I took to the streets and cycled around in the warm summer sun to let off some steam, and at least feel minimally proximal to the bustle. I did the same today, and it’s surprisingly pleasant. Perhaps I’m being too hard on myself; after all, I only became single single about 6 weeks ago, and had piled on artificial work and complexity to avoid my inner unhappiness all that time before, with some ill-advised manic episodes and their attendant consequences sprinkled on top. And yet, there is no crew, I’m spinning my wheels, caught in the tension of self-consciousness that comes with social risk and “putting myself out there”, and the false pride of thinking I’m too cool to have to go through this excruciating social ritual. I’m decidedly not too cool, and in fact, maybe the wisps of loserdom hang around my head like some noxious cloud, and others are able to sniff it a mile away, and hence why I’m where I am now.
But, for my own sanity, I’ll try to be more charitable and kind to myself. I actually think I’m doing a decent job, all things considered. It’s been so recent that my ex has moved out of my life, and there were so many unhealthy coping strategies I’d developed that essentially got in the way of fully “living” and being “present” here, that I should give myself some credit. I also kinda let myself blame her for my own unhappiness here; it was certainly a part, but not the whole story, but maybe I needed the break to get started and finally feel the drive to change something. What’s hilarious, of course, is that I haven’t gotten started, but I feel more motivated at least. Anyway, so my weekend consisted of doing absolutely nothing, biking around in the sun, reading a lot, and letting myself celebrate a little today with some cigarettes and two shots of Japanese whiskey. The smoking thing is a bit worrisome, and it really is pleasant, but the important thing I think is to make sure it doesn’t become a regular thing; if it’s something that is an irregular treat that accompanies the occasional drink, I think I’ll be OK.
So, as I surveyed the sunlit NYC vistas, I soaked in the humanity, and what I saw fascinated me. People in transit, some alone, many alone, in fact, couples hand-in-hand, families with little kids running ahead and dragging behind, younger adults with dogs squatting and shitting on the sidewalk, the occasional roving group of hip youth in some mix of black and neon. I wondered how many of these people, especially the solitary ones, felt like me: alone, seeking connection, caught in this weird tension, for whatever reason missing these foundational ingredients that give their lives joy. It was oddly comforting, but also depressing. The couples, too, I wondered about; how big were their worlds? Were they satisfied? Was there a rich cast of characters flitting in and out of their life, adding texture and color, or were they achingly codependent and comfortable in their little den, and had only just ventured out to enjoy the truly exceptional day? Has everyone just fallen inward, or am I just projecting my own state? The statistics are certainly not encouraging, and I’m very stubborn; though I’m incredibly neurotic and off-putting in my own way at times, I also can’t believe that I’m so uninteresting and un-fun that this is all my doing. Some of it is certainly my own decisions: leaving home, leaving California, packing up and moving across the country; but some of it is also larger than me: the pandemic, atomization of community in the truly virtual digitized hellscape, commodification and plundering of basic human ties with contrived sick patterns produced and spread by cottage industries and opportunists who cannot possibly justify their own existence except by resorting to the only things that matters: capital. The “friends” (should they be demoted to acquaintances? I don’t begrudge them, just a realistic assessment of need vs. capacity) here who are doing alright by themselves tend to have either been out here for a while (before the pandemic), or are from the east coast originally, or are far along enough in their relationships that it has essentially become their world, or consist of rich cliquey types who don’t really need to be working anyway, and will kind of by virtue of being monied and good-looking and having grown up in the right environments that foster a bicoastal cohesion and mobility, always have a relatively rich social life by definition. None of these people are me, and if you can’t tell, I definitely envy some of them! But so what, That’s besides the point, the point is to move forward, right? To reiterate, the takeaway from my bike tour was basically what I said earlier: maybe people are lonelier than I imagined, and everyone’s kind of figuring it out right now, and I shouldn’t feel too bad about it, since it might be much more commonplace than everyone’s letting on. Stupid social poker that it is, you have to play the game unfortunately; nobody is above it.
I read Susan Sontag’s Notes On Camp, which was interesting. I took a course in college on philosophy of literature, with a focus on irony, and I feel like I covered some of this material there; I may have even read it there! But regardless, we are definitely not “out” of the era of irony, the postmodern double-talk/null-talk/meta-talk, however much there has been some encouraging reclamation of sincerity. Many of the “peak” cultural products are still appear to be ones that deal heavily in irony. Aside from that, I’m reading What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver, which has been incredible. Incredibly spare prose, where the space fills and hums with human emotion and depth — the information by omission is masterfully transmitted. Reading him makes me feel the most alive, and I’m hoping to soak in at least a thing or two and apply it to my own work (?). Which I guess is the next thing: I think I want to be more serious about writing and creating, to at least give this thing a good “go”, since I’m out here anyway. Sontag kinda bashed on the literary crowd, understandably so in that she felt they were too stuck in their formal structures, insisting on a moral content of some variety; but having what feels like hollowed out that virulently aesthetic exercise for the better part of five decades since the essay’s writing, it might be time to revisit some form and content once again, and besides, I don’t think she really attended to the poetic higher function that literary art can play, which in its rawest form is really stripped bare of cheap morality or telos and be enjoyed as pure affect or sensation in its own right. And, aside from that, I made some more progress through Moby Dick, but that’s not anything net new, I suppose.
Aside from all of that, I’ve been really enjoying the album Public Strain by the art rock band Women.