Billions of texts and blogs zip across wires and radio waves every minute. This tiny little voice in the wilderness, trying to make itself heard among all the other forest sounds (and yes, a tree does make a sound when it falls in a forest; it'll scare the bejebees out of you when you're standing 50 feet away, hearing the little pop-pop sounds of wood separation before the cracking sounds get your full attention, while limbs tear down neighboring tree limbs during the tree's descent and then the whoosh-THUD as the tree hits the ground and sends you running for no particular reason), a human voice that silences all the birds and sends the squirrels scampering. Although I may be sitting in the forest today, on this warm and sunny morning, breathing in the spores of wet earth and looking at the tree buds reaching for the sky, sneezing and laughing at the thought of the chattering woodpecker above me saying, "Jupiter bless you*," in his own way, I sit here with any number of the billions of electronic mini-billboards saying, "LOOK AT ME! YES, I EXIST!"
[*Ode to Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire]
According to my notes from last night, this blog entry would have announced the pre-release of my new book, "The Mind's Aye." Of course, now it does, doesn't it? I would have outlined the book's storyline, discussing the deconstructive dadaism of its form. I would have presented an excerpt from the first chapter not yet posted.
Instead, I find myself in reverse, backing up to previous blog entries to clarify statements misunderstood by readers. To you, reader/emailer, as anonymous as you can be in an email to me that contains your IP address (but I won't tell everyone else where your IP address indicates you live), I have already admitted that I believe I'm an intellectual snob but that is not the same as calling myself a misanthrope. To be sure, yes, I did imply that everyone leads a boring life. However, I included myself in that assessment. I was celebrating humanity, not accusing it of something untoward. It was a statement of fact, a recognition that we upright primates, with overdeveloped brains and well-developed vocal cords, keep adding more and more synaptic connections and by doing so, project that neuronic network outward, expecting the historically recent byproduct of neurochemical processing - our collection of thoughts - to have some meaning, despite the nearly opposite up-and-down fluxuation of our equally-influential hormonically pheromonic processes. Thus, in our competition with each other for food and shelter, we create this vastly overbuilt anthill we call civilization to accommodate our contradictory need to be unique while gathering en masse to show solidarity. If we really think we're human beings, then we should act like them -- let's content ourselves with our thoughts (no matter how boring they may be at times; after all, life is repetitious so what's the matter with repetitious thoughts?) and quit feeding our hormonic need for instant gratification.
To the other reader who sent me a rather pornographic email, I thank you for your consideration of my needs. But when I referred to autoerotic thoughts and masturbation, I was making a literary reference, not a literal one. It is my literary writing that gets me excited and wants me to write more, not the erotic writing of others that literally makes me "get off," as you suggested. I thank you, too, for offering to send me photos of yourself, but I will only delete them so save us both the few seconds of Internet time and keep the photos for and to yourself.
Oh boy, this adventure in blogging is not what I expected. I thought blogs allowed me to post my thoughts in virtual space so I could access them anywhere there was a power grid and wired/wireless connection to the Internet. In other words, convenient access to a metaphorical journal. Instead, I'm discovering that the world of experience is not a figurative one. People from all walks of life can and do read what others have blogged about. Not only that, but the readers' view of life filters what writers are trying to say.
The sky is clouding up and I can't decide if I keep shivering or go back to the house... No Internet access from here to my wireless router so I don't know if it's going to rain but this morning's forecast didn't mention wet weather. What do you think, Mr. Gnat? Do you have any clue about atmospheric conditions? No, I didn't think so. Ooh, there's the sun again. Mmm... There it goes away again.
Enough. The wind's picking up. I'm going back to the house to look at my new novel.
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Okay, I'm back. Let's see. Here are my notes for the blog entry I intended to write:
- Next blog entry - the announcement of my book, "The Mind's Aye"! Post excerpt.
- John Updike
- The Exorcist
- Playboy in the closet
- Swingers down the street
Here's the excerpt of the first chapter I planned to post:
The best way to tell the truth is to lie.
About the rest of my notes. You see, I grew up in a fantasy world called Suburbia that many others before me have praised, including John Updike. Like all fantasies, there's a dark side that looms on the edge of one's view, including the thoughts that despite our suburban fortresses, we're susceptible to the unknown forces of evil perpetuated in this age by religio-moral tales like "The Exorcist." But what is suburbia? Is it reflected in the stack of Playboys that fathers hid in their closets? Is it just for show? After all, down the street from me in my perfectly average, middle-class suburban neighborhood, other kids showed me Polaroids of their parents getting together for swinger parties (group orgies to those of you who aren't familiar with the term "swinger"). I saw children with bruises and bumps that their "loving" parents gave them with curtain rods. I saw upstanding citizens abuse alcohol and drugs (prescription, nonprescription and organic).
Like creating the concept of suburban safety, people read novels to momentarily escape reality - another trick to overcoming the stresses and strains of daily living. I look from the other direction - life is the escape from the stresses, strains and boredom of my daily thoughts.
My latest novel will not provide you an escape. Instead, "The Mind's Aye" shoves daily living in your face, complete with the inane, repetitive thoughts of people. A novel celebrating boredom, lovingly written by me, for me.
Why did I write this novel? Because I understand what this life is all about. I have read all the philosophical and religious dogma spouted by my ancestors and other humans around the world. Sayings by religious figures who were human (or might have been human) like Gandhi, Buddha, Mohammed, Jesus and Confucius. What did they all tell us? They repeated simple truths:
Have children. Take care of your family.
That's it. Anything else and we turn ourselves away from reaching our full human potential. So all this talk about rescuing our global economy, saving the whales and stopping global warming is a smoke screen covering up what should be plain to see. Many of you already know this and have done a great job, even if your insistence on seeing the truth is biased and skewed toward one religion or another.
No matter when we discover life forms on another planetary body, we are still members of the currently labeled species, Homo sapiens. We can talk about anything else, painting lavish pictures of alternate universes, alien species, and life after death. But each of us is still flesh and blood. Therefore, do yourself a favor. Admit to yourself that you're one human being. Then, celebrate that fact because no one else is you. For instance, I'm celebrating the fact that my boredom is mine and no else's. So, too, your boredom is yours and no one else's. And by extension, it's okay to have boring children and a boring family. We all do, if not to ourselves, then at least to someone else.
And that's how we'll turn this economy around, by having children and taking care of our families. Not by filling our lives with junk to try to make our lives look less boring than our neighbors'.
Well, I said more than I planned to say but that's me. Happy in the wisdom that being myself is boring. I know it sounds odd but I'll say it anyway. Have a boring day - it's the best kind of day you can have!
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