I Resist the Muses

Oh, I have all the usual fears. Invalidation of my reality, that I'll wake up tomorrow and be a teenager heading off to high school again, that no one will hear what I want to say or sing, and that I'll slip in the shower and be paralyzed for the rest of my life. I don't suppose anything is my greatest fear above all of them. Every now and then, something grips me and I am terrified, until I really think about the probability of it happening.

Really though, the big fears that gripped me in my teens are all over now. Death, disease, accident, embarrassment, public humiliation, and loss... well, I've seen most of that. Obviously I'm not dead. However, I don't struggle with any major fear or denial of it. I've seen it. Up close and personal.

I've lost my first and most intense love. I've lost cars, homes, music, manuscripts... Computers have crashed. My world has fallen apart. I've been consumed by drugs and alcohol and come out of that with only a few scars you'll ever see. What's to be afraid of, now?

I've been through that phase that sends other creative types into a massive downward spiral. That mid to late twenties thing. The "THIS is all there is" realization that serves to send such fantastic people into the abyss so young. Yeah, once you've grappled those big things, what is there to really hold onto so tightly to spend your every waking moment quaking in fear?

Oh, goodness, you'd think I'd be chomping at the bit for this one, wouldn't you? I am a fiend for music. It is my life. It is me. It is all I have in the world, at times. It is love. It is life. Some people turn to god or goddess. I just need a few instruments strumming out a melody, a harmony, something a little discordant, sometimes. I need music like others need heroin or cocaine.

It is my bliss and my need.

I suppose I could sum it all up with Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet, especially in Symphony Number Five. It has all the elements that I have found within myself. I am more than the men that surround me. I won't go with just one facet of myself to share with my readers. There really is a great deal to me. I take great pride in all the things that people will and will not know about me throughout my life.

I am pulled apart and brought back together by this Symphony. I only wish I ever had the genius Tchaikovsky had. I will not know that sort of everlasting legacy in my music, but I hope to transport one or two people into another world with modern music of my own design.

It is when I hear this song, in particular, that I know that I must stick around in the world for a while longer, and listen once more. It is music that keeps me alive. It is my religion. Daniell Dennett couldn't be more of a genius for using it as his metaphor for religion in Breaking the Spell. It is definitely the only thing that brings me Home.

Love, the great, everlasting torture of hope. Those soft creatures of the opposite sex. Or perhaps the dabbling I have done in the realm of my own sex should have offered up some kind of thesis here on which I could expound, here. However, no. There is no solution to love.

Except perhaps a personal, final solution. *smirks*

I ache to know someone in such an intimate and complete way that she would be me and I would be her. I am skeptical that this sort of thing is more than utter nonsense, though. The odds are not stacked in my favor for experiencing the sort of bleeding into someone else and then having her (or him?) bleed back into me. Only this odd distraction that fills me with sexual needs over which I don't have much control. Only the breaking of my heart when Ariel leaves for San Jose for months.

We've slept with others outside the relationship. We made this decision long before it was a nice, little internet subculture. We both just knew this wasn't the way human beings really operated.

But to pretend that the stories I've written don't come from that wish that lives deep down under the materialistic philosophy... well, I'd be a moron to think anyone is fooled by my cynicism.

And do I tell you who taught me that there might be more than the selfish seeking comfort and a warm body? Do I tell you how I lost her when I was young? Do I tell you that I wish for her so much that perhaps it is this wish that makes me think she's back in the flesh, and seeking me out?

No, probably not yet. I shouldn't admit to these things. Oh, but they are there.

Hell, if I could dig her from the ground, mostly rotted away and have her with me like that, I'd do it. *whispers "Sienna"*

I don't know what that is, exactly.  I don't think it's something that lasts forever, like the storybooks try to convince us.  Not even something as dysfunctional as the story of Heathcliff and Kathy has any basis in reality, does it?  Two people locked in on being one and the same and never quite able to do anything but provoke and anger one another - a dark play on the same idea that there is one person out there for you.  What if it isn't just one person?  What if you're missing out on the vast landscape of people that you may connect to and may fulfill an aspect of life with you, but that may not be there once you've grown old?

What am I missing out on?  Staying here with Ariel, when she shows up in my life, is lovely.  It isn't enough, though.  And I've relegated the softer side of myself that I've associated with love and emotion to this girl in my brain.  It's to her I look when I feel the softer stirrings for people I may never have, too.  People have come into my life in a steady stream since I started having my work produced to the public.  The general idea is that since I write mostly of men and women falling in love forever, that this is who I am.  As I said on my profile page, though, that is not me, either, as I don't write from my own truths very often.  As much as I indulge in Ariel's soft curves and her snotty sense of superiority, I do not believe we'll grow old together.  There is a history I've had with men, too.  I don't prefer either sex over the other.  There are things about men I like, and there are things I like about women.  They don't overlap very much, but love was never a gender-based decision or feeling or whatever the hell it ends up being, in the greater scheme of life.

I don't feel myself trustworthy with love, and therefore, I will not be bringing any children into the world.  That is a type of love I don't trust myself with, either.  Whatever people think they believe about love, I"m not seeing them fulfill their promises in marriage and to their children.  I won't be joining that world anytime soon, either.  Call it the Peter Pan Syndrome if you like...

But does any of that have to do with Love?

I'm not interested in arguing that point.  I'm more interested in experiencing my life without pounding it with questions like this.  It makes it easier to deal with the day to day.

But if you press me, maybe I'll tell you what I hope about love, one day.  Maybe the day after I find out whether she's really out there or merely in my head.  Until then, I fill my life to the fullest it can get.  I'm not placing my life in the hands of the fantasy.

My older sister, Gretchen, has two kids. I watch them live such predictable lives, and though a part of me bitterly despises the normality, I envy them. They seem to believe they belong in this world and in life without question. They all go to church, they fight the usual family fights over cars, money, and the teens' boyfriends and girlfriends. It's all so easy for them, even when it's not fun. Things always work out, and cycle back to regular problems. Her family doesn't like me very much. The kids are old enough to think I'm just some weird old guy (even if I'm not as old as their dad, I'm still old to the teens.) None of them seem interested in my life or my work.

My younger brother, Stephan, is only slightly older than her kids. He's just graduated high school. I watch him, and I know that he's just like me, except without the "gifted" tag. He's not joining the family life the way my sister did right out of high school. He's not really trying at college, and yet he's not going to end up in the same situation I was in. He's got a job, and seems okay with it, as long as it doesn't interfere with his daily bar hopping.

I care about Stephan a lot. He's not quite a brother to me, because there are just under ten years between us. I watch him to see what I might have been like, had I not been born with my talents. He doesn't let me get close to him, though.

Mom and dad are still married. They bicker sometimes. They sit quietly at the breakfast table and read newspapers. They don't show us much of themselves. They were very normal parents. They got to church when the mood strikes them. They didn't spend a lot of time thinking about it, though. They showed no interest in whether I was confirmed or not. My sister did everything exactly as instructed. My brother behind me rebelliously declared his lack of faith. I did neither. I don't know what I think about God, yet. My parents didn't really seem to have any opinions about it, either. I think they just carried on tradition more than had any real faith. I don't know. They're both extremely private.

Growing up, they laid down the rules for me, put me into a tough school, and filled up my free time with activities. I didn't spend much time with them. I hate to say it, but I just don't know these people that I'm related to.

I just don't know them at all. My extended family always lived across the country. We visited a couple reunions over the years, but those people are complete strangers. So, my family consisted of five people who barely knew each other.

crossposted to soulvoid

From here, you'll see me in a guise I share not often with everyone else. Be warned that occasionally I'll address issues that will seem familiar. Treat it all lightheartedly, and I'm sure we'll all get along just fine.


crossposted in </a></strong></a>soulvoid.