You have to pull all the weeds, clear
away the rubble and the trash that came in on the wind.
To pull a weed, you have to know which ones are weeds. When clearing away the decaying piles, you have to know what to keep, what rusted engine part might come in handy one day. You don’t know all of these things perfectly. You do know them better with experience, with study.
To pull a weed, you have to know which ones are weeds. When clearing away the decaying piles, you have to know what to keep, what rusted engine part might come in handy one day. You don’t know all of these things perfectly. You do know them better with experience, with study.
Your garden will not grow all at once and
not every sapling survives winter. Not every bud will
blossom. You’ll probably want a foundation for your house, and it
would be wise to draw up some plans before you begin
construction. In reality, you probably can’t build it alone, and
you might have to fire your contractor along the way.
Everyone you know is a fucking
asshole. No one understands you, and you are completely
alone. Also, everyone is kind. They get it, and they are totally
there for you. You have to filter though the advice and opinions.
You have to listen for your own voice beneath the static of the
chanting pundit or the caring friend. You must own up to who you
are, not just accepting the shelves you can’t reach, but acknowledging
your ability to climb up onto the counter.
You have to find the boundaries of your
time and energy, play your cards tactfully (“yes” - “no”), knowing
nothing is black and white (“yes, but...” - “no, though...”). You
have to see what kind of fuel is in your tank. Loneliness burns
fast in a crowded bar. Running too long on anger will start a
fire. And you have to figure out how to be easy on yourself when
you break down. You will break down. And you will break
down again and again and again.
You are fortunate. Your whines are
the whines of the sheltered and well-fed, with potable water from a
fashionable pipe in your kitchen and all of the information recorded by
mankind in a device in your pocket. Also you are shattered,
suffering, alienated, confused and lost and hopelessly in need.
Your “feelings” are physical firings within your body. You are
literally in pain, literally panicking and you usually have no idea
why. That guilt for your existence is a burden for
the nations, a burden for the gods. You do your part. You have my
permission to feel like shit if shit is how you feel.
You are being manipulated. You are
being used. The subversive thoughts that crack these massive
chains need not be violent. Self-awareness is subversive.
Love is subversive when not a fairy-tale or some abstract vibe. Shock
is just a great way to make a million dollars. A riot is a great way to
kill your neighbor. We have to change within us before we’ll see a
changed world. We have to see past the guilt, the denial, that
keeps us in an abusive relationship. We have to see corruption
beyond a war on terror, grief beyond a door we’re not certain we
locked. These things are in the open now. Let’s keep them
there. Let’s go deeper.
You’re going to have to stop thinking
only of what is wrong. You’ll have to take that wrong and flip
it, figure out its opposite, turn a not-thing into a thing. And
when you’ve searched for and decided on the antitheses of that cozy
object of loathing, you must break it apart. You have to map out
its components, the individual pieces that are necessary for that good
machine to run. Which ones are broken now? What is worn
out? What is stuck? What is clogged? Where can you find
replacement parts? What can you sharpen or solder yourself?
Where do they do repairs?
And when you’ve changed, your
surroundings will treat you differently. You’ll drive right past
that old bar on Saturday night and circle aimlessly around a city that
suddenly holds nothing for you. You’ll spray us with tears as you
release the hand of that beloved and drowning friend that is only going
to pull you under.
What I mean is, you’ll probably find
yourself camping out alone on a vast and snowy plain. You might
be on your own to lay that foundation. You may have no one to
comment to on the palette of your garden in the vibrations of that
first Spring. You’ve made space and space is nothing. It is
very cold and the walls around it are coated with dust. It is a
shitty companion. But you’re building something. Something
honest, something that will be appreciated. It’s just gonna take
more patience, more hard work.
So in the meantime, Thank you 2011.
Thanks for the laughter and pain.
Let’s crack this new one open and see
what’s inside.
All my love,
Dave
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