From: llama@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (sine nomine)
Newsgroups: alt.angst
Subject: how does this thing work, anyway?
Date: 27 Jan 93 06:51:16 GMT


	so tired that i couldn't even sleep
	so many secrets i couldn't keep
	promised myself i wouldn't weep
	one more promise i couldn't keep
	it seems no one can help me now
	i'm in too deep there's no way out
	this time i have really led myself astray
	runaway train never coming back
	wrong way on a one-way track
	seems like i should be getting somewhere
	somehow i'm neither here nor there
				soul asylum (as are all quoted lyrics in this)

i went wandering around tripping last weekend. sometimes i think i can
find enlightenment by turning my brain inside out. sometimes i think
all i find is lint.

"in a world like this, i just want a kiss goodbye. we are not of this
world... stuck inside this fleeting moment, tucked away where no one
owns it, wrapped up in a haze and by mistake i've thrown away. and oh
i am so homesick, but it ain't that bad, cause i'm homesick for the
home i've never had."

this song makes me think of people i know, of myself, wandering around
on this search for meaning that we never seem to find. echoes of it
exist, draw us on, keep us hoping that someday we'll understand
everything and be compensated somehow for all the pain we've gone
through to get where we are. someday it'll all be worthwhile, this is
just a prelim, a test run, a slight detour on the way home.

"how on earth did i get so jaded? life's mysteries seem so faded." 

most days it feels like everything i know is either fake or
irrelevant. or maybe it's both, and the joke is convincing myself
otherwise. i have an inexhaustible belief in meaningfulness, in
justice, in beauty. but are any of these things real? do they have any
existence as anything but pretty light-pictures in my brain?
sometimes, at 3 am when i'm lying in bed alone wondering if every
night of the rest of my life will be like this, believing that i'm
going to die by myself in a twin bed, i think the universe laughs at
me and my high-toned ideas.

"i've got a lot i've got to do just to get through the end of the day.
it hardly ever even happens, but i go to sleep the same anyway. and
you can't believe in yourself, you can't believe in anyone else, so
why sit and wait for the new world to begin?"

how can you ever tell which things are true, or does it matter? that's
my current thesis: that it doesn't really matter whether any of this
is real. if it's not inside my hamster ball, it doesn't count. the
question of how things get inside without me getting out is open, of
course. but if i just focus on what's in the ball and what's on the
path, i can make the whole mess a little more manageable. pragmatism.
decide that you can decide what matters. the only problem is, what
happens when you're wrong?

"night driving without headlights, wearing sunglasses too. looking
good but sure don't feel right; anything to be cool. doing hopscotch
with my legs tied, jumping rope in wet cement. black leather in midday
sunshine..."

but if i'm wrong, then i don't exist anymore, at least not as this
person i've decided to make myself into. i deflate, collapse in on my
fallibility, watch my masks crumble. only human after all, only real,
real blood in my veins that pours out when they're sliced open. and
i'm left with sticky red fingerprints on my surfaces wondering what
happened, who told, how they found out that i really didn't know after
all. 

"there's one thing that i know that's perfectly clear: you never grow
out of fear. but i'm growing into you...and will i ever ever ever get
over it?"

sometimes i *do* know, though. do i get credit for those days? the
times when everything lines up in front of me and fits together in
interlocking logic, can i save them up and redeem them on those days
when all the structures i've made of my chaos are falling down around
my head in huge clouds of dust? proofs of purchase of truth, like
karma boxtops and if i save up enough of them, i get enlightenment.
or maybe i just get a cheap plastic imitation with shiny paint that
flakes off after three weeks. but where do you take complaints? the
person behind the returns counter looks awfully familiar. you can't
sue yourself for misrepresentation.

--
sine | deb
i really should try going to sleep earlier.
Newsgroups: alt.angst