If there were ever hope for this thing. This. If there were ever hope for it. I wonder what it would do. There is something gone from the will to climb the staircase of the words. The words are many, and the steps are many, and steep, and the way up is high and leads far away. There is eventually a question of How do you know? There is this emptiness beneath. Oh, but. How do you know? This is where we’ve gone now that we go there. There are so many other ways your life could have turned out. But here you are, at your local public library, listening to “Grantchester Meadows” by Pink Floyd, writing this thing. What do you have to say for yourself? “Well.” And that is enough. Apart from the culling of the field of late thoughts flourishing in the flora, there are alternate routes to the fair. Some travel there with earth-blackened bare feet. Some come up to the tree line and see out and just breathe a while. There is nothing lost for them. There is nothing lost. Do you wait, now, on the edge of a thinning blade, inside? Does it come up to become you, this pain? All this everyday? Are you journaling? What does it mean? Yes and now. Have itself along the way.

Because, man, I do not pretend to know you. But you are going on all the time. It is apparent now. Running the earth. Doing away with the relativity of time. Experiencing life together with yourself. Having this song play in your headphones while you write. Nervously sipping on a whole-milk vanilla latte. Loving the taste. The taste. Loving the taste. Looping back again. Becoming seen. By yourself? No, yes. Becoming seen. There is an intro to a song here that is going on. This latest one is “Atom Heart Mother.” If there were ever a way to tell what was going on, would you use it? Hello. There is a frequent glitch inside the scene. Can you tell now? Hello. There is a scene. Letting go of itself late in the goings-on. Tell me what you mean by that.

Wonder

Given over to the governance of time. What is this that is here and where is it going and what is going on, this time? There are books we can read. Some of them we read, some of the time. You cannot really judge. Cannot point any fingers. There is nothing to be gained. There is no judgement you could make with any sense to it. No. Though sometimes nothing make any sense, in a way. And there is the ability to wonder, yes, but not all the time, and not so well sometimes. There is the judgement on the ability to make time. Not to make sense. But it is there sometimes. and we wonder. And I know. There is a part of you still out there in the places of your memories feeling good feeling bright but also feeling bad feeling dark and there is the shade in the light and the light round it hot and there is a place to sit down and maybe rest some in the light of day and take on forever the ongoing sense of yourself being born there. Not to wonder too much, but every page you’d ever write is yes a part of your novel. Every little scene. Alternate perspective. There is a wonder, there. I know. You come on you take on another voice a new-but-the-same persona with a new name that sounds almost the same but is not. There is the ability to write, sometimes, a little bit lucid, so its sounds are kind to the reader’s mind and the eyes have a soft gaze and land directly on the words in the light. And a wonder there. Can it be helped? Can you land on the space you were just at when you landed here? Oh, now. I know. It is not always so soft sometimes. There have been many times many chances to do or say the right thing and still many times you perceive as having done or said the wrong thing, and having gone through with it. There is a wonder where we are going and what is to do with it. There is a wonder where we are now and what it means to be there; it is static and motional. There is is a “there,” there. There is a want to change the blankness into something and to know that nothing is never really necessarily what it seems, always deeper possibly. But with shallows and depths and things. Do you wonder why?

There is an attempt to write something that will land in a kind way to the reader’s mind and make them wonder. There is an attempt to write.

Feeling good about your own work—your own words—working it out in your heart that you feel they all ought to be written down in a book somewhere, though you may be wrong, it is strange. You cannot always tell. There could be something there. There could also not, but after a certain point the question is not if there is not something there, but rather how much of something is there. And what you can do with it. And how, and so on. But the questions sort of circumvent themselves, and make way to nothing and become what they are.

The Faith

Keep the faith. Just give yourself a little permission, now, to feel good about something you’ve done, for once. I’ve written a few pages for my fiction workshop and I’m happy to have done it. I’m not too proud of the words on the page, but, at the same time, I am. I am excited sometimes to just be alive. To just be able to read a few words and to write. I got the first two books of Cormac McCarthy’s The Border trilogy yesterday, from the used-book store. I love the way his writing seems to have more so the voice of a story than the voice of a narrator. Or maybe both. I don’t know. I just love the way it’s so refined, and well done. My professor today said, “Writing is rewriting,” and I really appreciated hearing that. I love the concept that it can be made better. That it can be refined or purified. Into the voice of the story or whatever. I was feeling broken down today, and just now, reading back the thing I wasn’t too proud of, back home, I’m feeling a little better. I’m wanting to affect a good kind of change. I think that in large part that’s kind of what creation is: just changing things. Nothing into something. Etc. All that mess. I think, you can find something in that. It can really be good. If you let it be. I believe in that. Yes. Keep the faith.

The abdication of something. I’m not succeeding. I’m not happy with being sober. I just want to light a bowl, right now. Get high so badly. Something in it makes sense. I got to get back to what it takes to lull. There is not a lot to do. The mind makes its own sentences; they don’t always make sense. My sickness is fine with me being where I am right now. I don’t like where I am. Maybe that is a good sign. Being uncomfortable. I don’t know. I just don’t want to be in my mind any longer without the help of something. The reason I like weed so much is that it reminds me of how profoundly interesting the mundane aspects of life can be. It makes me want. I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to be back home. I want to do substances with my friends. I don’t want this. I cannot be comfortable in my skin. It would seem. I cannot stand this.

Something must be ascertained. It is not what you think it is. There are books just full of these things. It is really found somewhere. I’m not all too sure, though, that it makes too much sense. I don’t know. I just know it’s somewhere. You get going over this hump where just about all you really want to do is write. And you begin to write and, to your chagrin, it’s not working well, and who knew, and now you really just don’t know. But there is something which must be ascertained, and it is not what you think it is.

The Golden Damned seems to be something like an experiment with producing a text that gives zero care for the reader. It’s almost a kind of insult. I’m not sure. But I do enjoy making things that want to entertain, that deliberately communicate in such a way where it secretly can be told that there is attention to detail and care, for the reader. I want to produce something that will cause rapture, but who doesn’t. A lot of the time I don’t feel like a writer because it seems like I’m playing this game where I’m thinking of writing and not actually writing. Or I’m journaling basically about writing but not actually doing the thing. I’m even journaling about how I’m talking about writing but not doing it. It’s too meta. Something. I can’t get at the core of the thing, which is to write. I just need to write the project that gets at the thing, but I don’t do it. It’s frustrating, and the solution is right there in front of me, yet I don’t solve the problem. And I have only myself to blame. Isn’t that just too much? Damn. I don’t know. I ought to write, because you’re never really ready. You have to do the thing even when you can’t do it well. You just have to do it. It’s sort of like a quest, in a way. The unprepared hero must trudge into the fray. I’ve hit an impasse and I need to move on.

I’m not really sure who I am. Maybe more interestingly, I’m not really sure why I care to know who I am. If it’s even possible. There is a sense of me, at times, I get from the world, but mostly not—mostly I am left somewhat wondering which way I am. Is it maybe because I imagined myself as a background character that I ended up like this? I sure hope I can become more of a person. Right now, I don’t know what. I maybe somewhat do feel like myself. I think maybe that is because I am writing.

The problem-thing about The Golden Damned is it’s the cheap ash. It gets shoveled off the edge like it’s nothing. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t get thought about much while it’s being written. It isn’t so much channeled as much as it’s contrived nonsense. If I’m going to contrive something, I’d at least like for it to be something I can say I tried hard to write in order to effectively communicate or something like that. I’m not sure. I ought to try to write a story or something again. I’m not sure. There is a system I want to find of my own accord. Everything seems vague and shoved out to the aether. I am trying to piece together shapes with a watery glue when I shouldn’t need it. There is something strange about having the ability to use basic language and then not knowing quite what to do with it or how. You have to find your own way. I believe that. I just need to find my way, and I think that comes through writing, probably. But a more deliberate, thoughtful writing, I think. To stick consistently with thinking about a single thing for like a half hour. To not stray too far from the purpose. To find the purpose and follow it through. I want to find that. I really do feel it’s the way.

The Fear of The Will to Strike

In many ways no one will understand you. That is to be taken in stride. A part of being a human being alive. There is time, though, to follow through with your dreams somewhat—however aware of their presence—and to watch as what you make is brought into the place for which there is reason to alight things. And to alight. It can truly be beautiful, I believe, should you allow it to.

For much of me there is a fear of the will to strike. While the iron is hot. While whatever is whatever, whatever. But you get I hope my drift, a bit, here. There is reason to act on the impulse which sees there is a way when there is a way.

I have a lot of writing I want to do. And a novel I want to work on. I won’t get anywhere with that if I spend all my time worrying about what I’m doing. This is where that “Do or do not; there is no try” comes into play. At a certain point it becomes a channeling, a dictation, a flow state of symbols. It ought to, anyway. You have to let the work take over you. You have to die and be reborn. That is at least part of it, I think. I feel like I’ve died. And maybe I’ve been born again. Either way, I’m not the same in some part of myself. Maybe. I just wish I knew better which way was the right one to go. But I am alive. I ought to cherish that and create. That is what I think I’ll do, now. Thank you for taking the time to relate.

When It Comes Down to It

What I’m starting to feel is that The Golden Damned is a form of meditation—more and more…. Full focus on a thing or maybe more of a “holding of space” for oneself. I feel the need to meditate more. I know that it can be good for me. Since coming off of the hallucinogenics, I’ve only had a couple flashbacks. And I desire so greatly to have that feeling again. Of an altered state of consciousness. It’s a dangerous line to toe, maybe, that level of want. To feel suddenly sucked out of a way of seeing the world and left in the flatness you started off in. To feel divested of the truth you were exposed to which while you could see it you experienced so cogently (“…, so potently”). To have something like a sense of that truth in the form of a memory but not really to know in the sense of the present. Which brings me back to what meditation kind of is for me: presence. Presence of mind. Something else. Not all too easily known. I’m not sure.

But there’s definitely something there. It feels like my gateway to understanding spirituality. My own spirituality. To having a connection. But also, I think I’m too cognizant of my want to change and that desire and not playing enough in the larger world that is life itself. I can’t fully tell. I just love that I’m able to have dreams when I’m asleep, and able to try to dream. I want to be able to reach something more, to attempt to transcend. I’m not too sure. But I love it. The being of being alive. I love it. I am so grateful for it. I should be dead right now. I’m super blessed by things.

It might seem like it’s in one ear and out the other, this supposed truth you’re getting told all the time. That is one of the scary things about being alive. There is so much you miss, and often. I’d like to explain something to myself I have no reference for. The need for the explanation comes from a place that is alive with strange incongruity. The state of not having a reference makes sense there. It is a part of the mainframe I would like to really get through. There is already enough ambiguity. I cannot necessarily make sense of any of it. And that is really the thing, at its heart. I cannot make sense of any of this. I am floating in a sea where….

            Can you imagine being pulverized? I am right now imagining it. It is slightly claustrophobic. Also, maybe a kind of a comfort in a way, like starting again from zero. If that were or could be considered a kind of a comfort. Starting again from zero. The blank page. Again. This is how I return. You can say you’re this or you can say you’re that or you can say I’m lazy. If it isn’t my gut, I don’t know how true it is. You really do have to listen to only yourself, sometimes. Not all the time, but sometimes. I feel stranded in a kind of serene way. Like there’s blue shifts overhead and around me, and I’m floating out in the ocean, and it’s nearly night. And there is this ambient music playing, over the sounds of the water clogging and clearing my ears. It is strange. I was told my story was the kind that could help people, by an older man with a sense of earnestness about him. I wish I knew more words. There are not enough in my bag to adequately explain with. Or maybe I just don’t know the right order, or turn of phrase. Do you ever ask yourself questions you never intend on answering? Will I look back on this time from a far future, somehow? Will it be better then? Is that even possible? So many undecided things I can’t come up with a reason for. Why do they even occur at all? It is beautiful.

I’m Wondering Now…

I’m wondering now about how all to reconcile the ways things don’t seem to make sense. I’m wondering now about a number of things. What to do. Working on the Writual. Nothing seems to make sense. But it is beautiful. I can hardly stand beside myself, witnessing how beautiful everything is. Terrified of how beautiful it is. In love with it, secretly. Have you heard before the expression… never mind. I don’t know. But there is surely—something more, to all of this. I am so close to the heart of the issue, I can feel it. But my eyes are averted halfway so it’s only peripheral. I must focus a little more on the what of whatever’s going on. I must continue to write, and feel it. Only then can I come closer to understanding. The babble and drain seem to be something a little cathartic. I enjoy The Golden Damned, but I think I will focus a little more in the coming ones on the narratives I propose. Let them form more organically and stick a little more consistently. Next will be The Golden Damned XVI. Anyway. There seems to be an impression of an impression of a thing in my mind. I don’t know quite what it is yet, but I am beating with my chisel at the marble so to speak. A little. I guess. Who knows. What do you think it takes to really create a good work of art? Do you think you know? I wonder.

Something I'm Starting to Realize Vis-a-Vis The Shittiness of One's Own Work

I’m starting to feel almost strangely proud of the shittiness in my own writing, which is strange—now let me explain: I’ve just dropped The Golden Damned 10, and was writing it in a coffee shop where admittedly some of my anxiety got in the way and I did not all the way focus as much as I might have on the task itself—more or less autopiloting my writing process and therefore producing especially shitty prosetry. Reading it back though, as much as I am revolted by how strangely unreadable—how annoying and difficult-but-not-in-a-good-way—it is, I still find myself almost admiring the fact that it’s as shitty as it is. As though the creation of terrible things can be a point of growth for the creator. Though I’m not totally sure. It’s just a strange sort of feeling. I’m also a bit sleep-deprived now, and am missing the plot on probably a lot of things. I think, though, that to be lost in the midst of stimuli like this and to not know things, sometimes, that that can be kind of a beautiful thing. Especially when you have enough wherewithal to be aware you’re not seeing the whole picture. To recognize your own faults and see in them the potential for overcoming those things. Maybe. Maybe I’m just tired of seeing everything in such a negative light. Maybe I want to reconcile some things. I’m not sure. But I’m not going to take the tenth The Golden Damned down, I don’t think. I appreciate my own inability, sometimes. Hindsight is a blessing. Fucking up is a blessing. Living with your fuck ups is a blessing. Maybe. I don’t know.

Weighing sort of a little bit down. Do not have all the way the total awareness as to whatever is going on. Finding you are operating on autopilot, unable to regain control of your faculties. Because something is gone where once you were able to affect some desired change. But now, having not read for real for so very long, you have come to be a little vegetated. Well do you have an answer there or not. I am waiting for the warmth to come back in. I am waiting for the door to close and the warmth to continue. Still, I cannot say. There are people moving in and out all throughout the whole room, going away and coming in, being customers, finding their coffee, finding their seats, doing things far be it from me to say the ontology of. I am just sitting here tryign to write. But what it is, I don’t know. I’ve been pseudo-journaling, saying essentially strange near-nothing while writing a good bit on the page. The vanilla latte has a good taste. The green-hooded lamp has a nice ray. And a dangling pulley switch of brass. And shines on the crumbs of the pesto croissant on a little glass plate. The woodgrain of the table visible underneath, and beautiful. Light melt of the brick away. The walls of the cafe becoming abstract skeletons in a blueprint somewhere. Even now I am doing this thing. Again: autopilot. I have no idea what I am saying, but I am saying it. And things have changed.

I used to write a certain way, and it was one in which I found I could be proud of whatever it was I was trying to say, for the most part at least. Now, after not having read for a long time, too, and having very little in a way of describing the world to myself, it feels like, I have become the late-waking cryo-stasis sleeper who’s realized something has been lost and can barely remember. Or something. I want to believe in a better thing. I sometimes do. But it is all too fleeting; I allow myself only so much time to enjoy the moments of appreciation before they are all gone.

I … .

Where was I, then? If I woke up, did you forget to tell me? I am missing the plot a good deal, now. I ought to work on The Golden Damned or something. Atom Heart Mother Suite is playing in my noise-cancelling headphones, and it is beautiful.

I cannot seem to get to the point, now. There is something in the way. I do not know what. I often have to distract myself in order to somewhat focus. Though I don’t know. If I really lent my efforts to the task, would it really make so much of a difference? How much of me is truly involved? How do you deal with it? You just have to do the thing. Central nervous flow override. It seems like. It is. I don’t know. Again, become nervous at the prospect of having to interface with the task. Put the task off for forever or simply do it—it makes no difference to time. Your life is going by, now. Time is wasting. Do not forget.

You cannot know all the ways, though I suppose maybe it is much better that way. Oftentimes I think of how cute humanity is, how nice and interesting it can be to simply be a human. Waltzing about this life on soul skates. Nobody knowing who or what you really are, least of all yourself. Though in many ways it would seem we become our actions. You cannot measure yourself against anything but yourself, it seems, at times. I want to dream and make my dreams real again, someday.

For now, I feel rather nice. I can’t get enough of Pink Floyd and these randomly assigned YouTube-recommended Jungle Drum-N-Bass mixes. I just feel so floaty among all the sounds. I’ve just gotten a pair of black Sony WH-1000XM4s, and I could not be happier. It is such a rich beautiful life, this can be. Even trying not to get too drunk off the material things. Nature itself—life, I’m convinced, is the most vivid painting. I saw it once more clearly when I was tripping balls taking a paranoid scenic walk home. Before I went to rehab. I saw how like a painting life and everything was. I just wonder at things and enjoy being able to wonder. Especially considering I should well be dead and maimed by now, with all that happened. It is slightly crazy that I am not. I suppose I have all the reason in the world to have a better outlook on things, now.

What I’ve lately come to feel is that you can’t put too much importance on every little thing—let it be important as it is, as everything may as well be, if you’d like. The world you live in quite well reflects you. So realize how good or bad it seems to be going is just within your control, to some extent. To some little extent, at least. You can make diamonds out of coal. I believe in you. I truly do.

Should I be afraid to fall? Somedays sometimes I can almost kind of feel my brain coming back online. Sometimes I think I kind of want to be sober. I know that if I relapse I will do so spectacularly. But I’m starting to really like Montana. Listening to Pink Floyd more nowadays. And it is probably a good sign. I am not too afraid to relapse whenever I do, because I know that it will be all part of my story. At the same time, I am a little afraid to relapse. I want to get my life together a little. I hope I can make it work. I know I can; it's just a matter of actually doing it. It’s always a matter of actually doing it.