Two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl...

I got to thinking about having no assets and just not doing the right things, though I may not be doing the wrong things either. Somewhere in there, there glimmers a light of resistance, reminding me that success is not about things and stuff, though when I think of that and the future and what it would mean for me it scares me because I fear that most people don’t judge success as I would want them to…they judge it as I fear that I actually do.

Friend: You'll be done in May, no?

Pig: MAYbe
i will have to see what shit i produced this last semester

Friend: oh god, just getter done PIG!
there are some fly hunnies around here.

Pig: nice

Friend: I went for a walk today and died a dozen times.

Pig: hahaha...thats the best

Friend: I miss home though. I would be working up north by now.
Im gonna miss that money man... oh boy.

Pig: yeah...let me tell you something, though this shouldnt affect your overall picture: each day that passes, especially with the coming of summer, I realize that there are more and more downsides of leaving fire. Of course, I don't think that I was to work there all my life, so I am content in my decision to leave. It is just that when working inside and serving ungrateful people while the sun is shining and people are out and about, well, that can be a bit of a downer.

Friend: Jono, I completely hear you buddy. I wonder what I'm doing all the time.. Stuck in a lab. I should be out camping.. It hurts my feelings to know I'm not there with some phenomenal peeps. But like you said, I we werent going to do it forever.

Pig: I guess it is all a small price to pay for a hopeful and prosperous future that awaits me...
...and you

Friend: I feel the same.. Sadly it will take me a few years until i make that cash again.

Pig: well, i feel like i need something major to happen, but i fear for wishing for that something to happen, because by letting it happen I am not in control and may be subject to something terrible happening, something that would most certainly change my life, though not for the better. I await a marvelous epiphany that never comes and i drift about with no direction...i am waht everyone warned me not to be when i was younger...haha. well...sort of...i mean, there is hope...but sometimes i feel that way. i have seen a good life for myself, but just as easily and with just as much consistency, i have seen an average life. My problem is actually doing...DOING. I know it.

Friend: Jono, Im in big trouble.

Pig: haha
why are you in trouble
hahaha
listen to us

Friend: I know, Im sick of feeling sorry for myself. A buddy pulled me aside yesterday and was like "dude, what are you waiting for" Im like mr. faded glory, I talk of all the cool things Im gonna do but dont do any of them.

Pig: yeah man...and the worst thing about that is that there is nothing that is going to happen to you, or I, that will jolt us into motion. WE simply have to do it ourselves. Amazing how easily I can say that, yet how difficult it is to DO it.

Friend: Truth!

Pig: the days of being carefree children are long gone. Also, the thought of living and dying by the almighty dollar really scares me. I used to joke about being a bum, but that shit aint cool man. my life thus far shows me no good sign that i can work well and hard and consistently for the rest of my life...that scares me....

Friend: gimme a second to vent here.

Pig: yes...vent
hahaha
do it
im sorry, i hog the bandwidth with my own sorry crap...do your thing.

Friend: I have a serious problem with conventional work, with ass kissing, with putting so much into paying to exist... I used to idolize the select few who made it by without having to do these things. Now, I realize, the fellas that made it, these writers...artists (whatever) are so lucky, they are have more ambition in their left testicle than I do in my whole body.

Pig: i hear this...loud and clear

Friend: I'm cursed by being a nice looking kid, they never work as hard.
My buddy Graham wanted to be a writer. Now, he has decided to take out a loan to buy a place outside of Toronto. He is going to be an air-traffic controller. I know he is too good for this and it keeps me awake at night. Will I eventually be ruled like this? Worry more about bills than creativity?

Pig: they had to work their freaking asses off the achieve what they have and none of it came easy...we know this, but cant seem to understand or apply it

Friend: Im fuct, and I can tell people are worried. I just dont know how to make it better at this point.

Pig: my language, man...all of it. i feel you.

Friend: Jono, I apply for Art jobs and I havent drawn a picture in a few years!! How funny is that.
Its just completely warped logic.

Pig: i listen to music and wonder why it cant be different, or better. Not in a depressed way, though it does get depressing, but in a way that just seems like a completely useless fantasy.

still, there is no shame in pursuing the arts.

Friend: This city is mental.. all you see is money.. Maybe its debt, but conventional representations of success are everywhere and they are kinda taunting me to get my shit together.

Pig: i feel doomed to a life in which i look back and say, "why didn't i give it my all."

Friend: oh dude... thats my biggest fear.. Is to be 35 and look back thinking.. holy fuck, dude! you didnt try to hard at much.

You just thought it might come about somehow.

Pig: yeah...conventional ideas of success really fuck with me because for the longest time I have been telling myself that that shit doesnt matter. But i think there is no shame in living a life that you see fit. I have a hard time admitting to myself that i will need to be part of some of those conventional measuring sticks of success in order to live the life that i want to. I would really love to hit up a monastery and devote my life to understanding, but that is not really what i want, and if i want to be p[art of the world, not in a monastery, then i have to accept some things

Friend: We arent the only ones my man. not at all, our generation thinks like this.. Or many do anyhow.

Pig: i know..i would love to write a serious book about our generation
if in fact it is any different than any other...aside from technology

Friend: Its really hard coming to terms with that.
Okay, heres one thing man.. What about waking up 40 and realizing you put so much on the line to get those things, and all of a sudden you realize they are really worthless.

Pig: I think that i can love everyone that i am supposed to love, but that if i am a bum uncle who loves and that is all...what good is that...i really get wrapped up in these absolutely terrible thoughbts...i think in the other direction too, dont get me wrong. I have seen myself as a complete success (using my own definition of course)

Friend: thats the thing though.. its nearly impossible to define success by your own terms.

Pig: i get confused too, because i think i have a good work ethic, but school would prove that notion wrong
wow....you said it

Friend: we've just been convinced that to define successful by your own terms is fruitless.
Pig: but i thought i had myself convinced otherwise, .ike a kerouac or a thompson. but in actuality i am scared at the thought of what people think of me

Friend: I'm pretty happy by where I stand right now.. I get up, I do well in school, I do a lot of things I find important.
BUT! I have no prospects for few months down the road, no assets, and 16.25, not even enough for a good meal in the bank.

Pig: so success then depends not on me, but on others and what they think...this giant NORM

Friend: sooo, with what i said in mind, I am pretty miserable.

Pig: hahaha
ooh man

Friend: We're mental.
And like I said, we arent the only one.

Pig: i understand that with some work, which i am not scared of, that this will all resolve itself, but i want to be at that point a few years from now where i feel somewhat stable...
this in between crap is bogus

Friend: I hear you.
You know man, today I was thinking really hard.
I was on the shuttle to school and beside me was a dude with cerebral palsy, could barely move his wheelchair but somehow gets to classes everyday... is getting an education. To my left, a woman my age reading fine arts books, pregnant...
I am 25 years old and I dont even own a cooking utensil.
I just sublet, and shit.

pigger - "the posterization of an imaginary defender" bill walton says: (12:36:21 AM)
what did these two people make you think of?

Friend: I was listening to this Jay-Z song "HOVA"!
Anyhow, he's rappin about money, girls, coming from the gutter. And theres this black dude with C.palsy listening to a walkman as well.. I'm thinkin' , man, this song is for the this guy here. He'll never make money, probably wont get the girl, but he's living his life better than anyone ever thought possible for him.
And this girl, I'm in a program that lacks a bit of direction.. I could see her reading about Escher. I was thinking, I wake up every morning and worry this shit wont pay the bills. The only person I am feeding is myself.. I dont have to worry about a baby inside.

Pig: even (off topic) hove himself may seem cheesy, but imagine how hard he really has had to work to make it. nothing is easy . though, we both know this and this sits off the topic issue, though i have no idea what the topic actually is

Friend: well sure, I love the guy.(hovah) I think he's genius. But I was thinking..this dude here, he should be idolized. He's working through a disability that none of us can imagine.

Pig: good point.
i love those moments of realization...
they are good, but they dont get the shit done for uys...i think that is my problem...i understand these moments, i understand that i am lucky, but i have done very little in the way of actually doing anything with these realizations...just leaning on em really.

Pig: man...life. hahaha

Friend: its whacked.

Pig: like, WTF?

I rest my head back against the green walls of my solitary room, letting my eyes move upwards to the light that gives no answers. Back down to the wall opposite the one my head rests on, I see Kerouac and dear Piper both looking back at me, right in the eyes. I tell myself I have them hanging on the wall, with eyes piercing my own, in order to keep me in line. Kerouac: to keep me free and to keep me writing and being real. Piper: to keep me living for a last resort of love. Though, both sets of eyes see right through me.

Where are the answers? Where is my epiphany? Frick, do I have to make my own epiphany? That’s some f’d up poop, man.

Comments

[eli]

i share many of the same thoughts...almost all actually. it would have been much easier to live as a caveman, when u would have had no choice but to survive and do what you had to do. there would be no decisions to make, no standards to live up to and no definition of successful to which we feel we have to mould ourselves into. make offspring, eat, sleep and take in the still green and aromatic surroundings which must have been so relaxing when u werent being chased by a sabre tooth tiger

[tash]

it really is weird...but i think that many small 'epiphanies' can actually be more powerful than one large striking anomaly..not that you are waiting for something huge. i am not so much older than you guys...but i can tell you that things have an odd way of sorting themselves out...one day you will wake up in another bed...another country....beside another person...who knows..and these things can really change how you perceive the world around you...what the hell am i doing in ireland? why did i live in tokyo? i am the 'home body' and now i am in a bizarre world...and, you know what? life is pretty good. my job is great, but there is still a dink in every job...people litter...everyone still needs to improve on a lot of areas...but people are making their way through...happily...it sounds a wee bit frommage-ee but enjoy your time of limbo...cause once you know what to do...then it feels like you never get the time or chance to decide...to be flexible...to make changes....so the fire continues to burn...just takes a new direction...but yes, it is amazing how something so small can change or impact one in such a profound way...

one little example...we were out and about...it started raining like mad...because we had some bags, we decided to hair a cab home...on the 3rd hail, and lovely guy pulled up and gave us a lift..(incidently: he is the first person in dubin to say 'where are you from' instead of 'what part of america are you from?'...so we got to talking and we said we were living in tokyo..and he was intrigued....said things had been going really rough...and that he needed a change...and driving a taxi was good for a bit...but he needed an epiphany! we gave him the info about japan...and he said he was off! i bet he is there now...all by chance...ya wake up one morning.,..and by the time you go to bed...you have all but committed to schleppign tothe other side of the world...just cause of someone you met..by chance...i am a big believer of 'things happed for a reason'....kay....i can babble all night...but be semi-aware of the subtle offers and suggestions...one might be for you...

[michael]

I could not say it better than tasha...she was brilliant

[Jonathan]

I wholly agree with the whole bit about the many tiny epiphanies that occur on a daily basis. I guess what it is I am looking for is that wisdom/knowledge/understanding to blossom inside of me and assure me that this is how things are. I wait for the feeling of comfort within this environment to fill me. But even this seems a little useless because I don't actually know what I am waiting for or why I am waiting for it. I don't even know what IT is. I just assume most things, as we can do no more. Now, let's talk AMAZING!

[jemp]

The past is gone...

and the future isn't here yet.