At The Commodore today, and a couple of ragged parkas with construction worker helmets banged through the door, not without respect, and the East Indian guy who might run a shop near here and always nods at me took a table, and after Willie again filled my usual chipped ceramic mug with bitter coffee, I found myself lighting up like a clean morning inside and writing a few words down:

Forget bitterness. And unforgiveness. And go ahead and call me a fool. But instead of remembering the bad or the cruel or the shitty end of things, I’m going to try and remember all the good things and the great feelings and the exultant beginning and warm nights and the lamp on the wooden floor at 124 Street, adirondacks in someone else’s garden, dark hair curtaining my face. And leave it at that.

Easter was difficult. After, there was great happiness. But life happened not as Easter promised, and that’s okay, because, in the end, that’s probably one of the many honourable crosses of Easter. Bear with me for sounding like a New Age Hemingway there. Anyways, life, etcetera, and I think I’ll soon be okay with life. A professor of mine, self-exiled from Baghdad, once told me that Allah was harsh and angry but also kind and so very merciful. Oh, Allah. April is the cruellest month. What is the time?  I will never lose the memory of being that happy. The happiest moment of my life, too. The pinpoint of sheer life-long happiness.

How they write that the king cried out in pain and prayed and ripped up his clothes and wouldn’t eat as long as his son was dying. After the child was buried, the king put on new clothes. His soldiers and his friends and his wife did not understand. Grief for the past is grief for something that isn’t there anymore.

So I now know the exact and true taste of happiness. And I think that is a treasure-house experience for anyone. Even wrapped around foolish and insubstantial clouds, there is always silver lining.

I tore out my heart, threw it off the mountain. Even fools are wiser. Ravens and seagulls are thick squalls around me. Wherever I go I hear the scream. My heart is drowning in the lake on the mountain. So wherever I go I ask the birds, Have you seen my heart? But they mock my words And refuse me and will not take my part. I took all my treasure and sank it in the river. Look at the fool. I wasted the only good in my life. If there was blood left to spill from my spirit I would spill it To get back my treasure from under the river. Wherever I go I ask the river, Won’t you please give me back what I failed to keep, But the water just shivers. Daytime I drown and in my sleep. I threw something priceless under the hooves. Foolish foolish. And the bitter herd rolled their eyes and laughed. They have gone like thunder And I wish I too was under their hooves. I ask the buffalo, Please take me take me take me please, Bring me to the heart I love so. But they will not turn and they run from me and they are bitter and displeased. Have you seen my heart? Won’t you please give me back what I failed to keep? Please take me please. Sad now and unfoolish. Godsakes Over the cliff and into the lake.

The goal is neither happiness nor unhappiness. It’s the unfolding of human potential. The development of that piece of the universe that you represent, as it were, even when it happens at the expense of what people call the self and their own welfare. Actually, it always happens at their expense. By feeling a lot we expand the world.

David Koker,
1944

And after my text

An “undertone” of attention-seeking? My look-at-me strategy is not working as well as I had hoped

comes this response:

Just trying to be tactful. It sounds better than “stop whining.”

I guess I have a decent friend?

I fucking hate this life. I fucking hate every day. I fucking hate waking up and I hate going to work and I hate the evenings and I hate going to sleep and I hate my dreams and I hate the future and I hate hanging out with my friends and I wish I could fucking stop hating everything but I can’t. I wish I was dead like I used to wish I was dead when I was twelve. That stupid fucking way that twelve-year old morons wish they were dead. Thirty-seven days. My heart burns worse than coals.

I want to be together more than I want to live. But my wanting is too much and also ruins everything. And the other person is too proud and too distrustful which is the same as too afraid. The easiness of being together is right there. A giant golden apple hanging right there. My fingertips can just brush the skin. So I fucking fucking fucking hate every fucking thing and nothing is ever going to change and there is no way I can convince her of anything because she doesn’t want to be convinced, she just wants to cry, and the sooner I can beat that fucking fact through my concrete block the sooner this fucking version of me will die and I can be at peace. But I don’t want to be at peace. I want her.

This day started out with a small promise that will not go away but has ended in total shit.

FUCK I AM SO ANGRY ABOUT THE REASONS WE REMAIN APART.

Ugh whatever.

YOU STUPID BANK MACHINE GIVE ME BACK MY CARD!

I’ve achieved a chancy blue-pencil notoriety among my friends, and all it took was not drinking any more.

Oh, life. And the living of you.

He’s not faking it anymore, and that means he will lose. But this is the central question of personhood: is there anything more important than being whoever you actually are? The answer is probably. But the difference is negligible.

Chuck Klosterman,
2012