Thursday, February 04, 2010

Rilke

I am unconscious, asleep, knocked out, or just dizzy from the pills, but I am unconscious. To look at me you would not know that I am unconscious, I am sitting, fully dressed, here in front of this computer screen with my eyes wide open. My fingers are hitting the keys that are typing this little elegy to the gods, but I, myself, am unconscious. I have been unconscious for a while, I sleepwalk through a lot of stuff. I function, but do not excel. Little things bother me more than they should, perhaps because I can not seem to give the big things enough conscious thought. It is those big things that should jolt me out of my unconsciousness, but for reasons I either can not fathom, or am unwilling to share, they do not. I am even having conversations, some of which are quite long, and, in theory, meaningful all the while I am unconscious. Everyday, I get out of bed, and stagger off to make my daily bread while being, unconscious. I would like to say it is a neat trick, but it is not. It is not even fun, it is, in some respects, deeply depressing, and more than a little disturbing. To quote Rilke "ultimately, and precisely in the deepest and most important matters, we are namelessly alone" this line, this answer, sums up a great of the reason for my unconsciousness. Only the deepest and most important matters are concerning me at the moment. Not that I am some deep, philosophical thinker, I am far from it, but I have sorted, or had them sorted for me, the majority of the little things that creep into this petty pace from day to day. Once again, not that I have it figured out, but simply that the cement has mostly dried. Breaking cement is not easy, nor is it "safe". A sublime indolence has taken possession of me, and rendered me unconscious, unable to perform any task that is not beyond the pale of a three year old child. Although, the day to day stuff, in some respects, fascinates me. The stuff we all have to do just to get into the stream of life is rarely discussed. Probably it is boring to most people, but when you read a book, a biography, or a poem written by someone, do you ever wonder how did they get their laundry done? Probably not, and maybe you shouldn't, after all is it really that important where, or how, Poe got that fancy suit of his clean? Then again, maybe it is, maybe too much starch in the collar was the reason he sat down, and wrote the Raven. Sure it is unlikely, but have you ever been pissed at your dry cleaner? Inspiration comes in strange packages, and who knows if perhaps the most mundane thing in the world did not, somehow, inspire some of the world's greatest art or literature. Somewhere in those little things that make up my day to day existence there resides the germ of inspiration that lead me to write this post. It is from from great literature, but it is about the best that I can do, after all I am writing it while being, unconscious.


P.S. This is clearly written with the idea of informing you that for today, there is no hero of the day.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I caught your Shakespeare reference; it's one of my most commonly used. I think I use it when complaining in emails to my mother how boring life at college is...
"My life is a tale told by an idiot---signifying nothing."

It's hard to rouse oneself from an unconscious state of mine, is it not?

Anonymous said...

Oh lordy---that was supposed to read "Mind". See how inattentive I am to details?