Discrepant Awareness Alex Fleck

Here’s a poem that occurred to me the other night. I’ve been paring it down since then.
It’s more an image than a complete thought, but I quite like the premise: indifference to suffering endlessly prolonged. That’s the most captivating thing about notions of eternal punishment as expressed through legends like Tantalus’. What do they do with boredom and acclimatization? Is getting used to eternal punishment a form of torture in itself?
In any case, I hope you like it!

“Tantalus”

A listless hand
bobs up toward the fruit
and down toward the pool.

A flick of the fingers,
careless,
resigns him
to waiting another forever
until he tries again.

A friend of mine shared a Thought Catalog post that traces our appropriations of people’s personae through brief glances at their Twitter feeds.
It was pretty good.

One line stuck out. With respect to Twitter…
“It’s better than Facebook. Because at least you don’t have to see photo albums of fat people from your high school getting married.”

That struck me as particularly insightful. In fact, I feel like there’s now a common cultural experience related to obsolete Facebook friends who erupt into your current life based on your news-feed, perfectly characterized by the Thought Catalogue statement.
When I receive one of the offending updates, my own thoughts almost universally run as follows:
1. Why the hell do I have you on Facebook.
2. Wow, you’ve really put on weight.
3. Holy shit… I can’t believe you’re getting married.
4. Holy Shit! I can’t believe you’re marrying that person.
5. No, I don’t want to go to your “Stag and Doe” (whatever that is), and inviting someone who hasn’t seen you in ten years just makes you look pathetic.

Am I alone in this thought, or has Facebook and the new development of oversaturation in obsolete and meaningless friendships created a fresh phenomenon, specific to one situation? How many of these can we identify?

So I’m walking down the hall, enjoying my coffee, and reflecting on what I’d reply were someone to ask what my preferences in a cup of joe were.

“Hot and bold” was my response to this hypothetical query, to which I was immediately compelled to add “…just like I like my ladies”.
This crassness isn’t my fault. I am, after all, a product of the “that’s what she said” era. I’m conditioned to it.

Realizing right away that I couldn’t actually say that or I’d look like a reprehensible, post-frat man-boy, I automatically insulated myself from this accusation by encasing my joke in a level of irony.
The resultant quip would therefore be “I like my coffee hot and bold… insert ‘just like I like my ladies’ joke here”.

Two thoughts:
1. It’s interesting to observe how our brains work in light of cultural norms and different levels of conditioning.
2. I’m alarmed at the number of hypothetical dialogues in my head.

Today I made a mental list of every relationship or serious romantic prospect I’ve ever had and why it failed.

Upon close inspection, nine tenths of the reason most of them foundered was my own immaturity and its outgrowths.

My question: to have a real, functioning, permanent relationship, do I have to become more mature or does the strength of connection overcome that consideration?

Today I had an idea for a screenplay I want to write.
I really like this one too, but I don’t have time to put it to paper. There’s a lot on my plate right now.

This has happened before. Had I world enough and time, there are probably three or four screenplays, novels, and clusters of short stories I’d be working on.
But writing stuff is so time consuming.
If you really have respect for the art, you have to take it seriously. That means agonizing over structure and crafting every phrase into the perfect vehicle for your thoughts.

I wish I could duplicate myself for the sake of exploring every project I want to undertake.
There’d be the Alex working on his doctorate in Medieval studies. Next to him is the tea-drinking, weak-eyed novelist, Alexander. Then there’s Zander, the screenwriter, whose pages are dominated by labyrinthine notes, rough-hewn storyboards, and coffee stains.
(We all think he’s a bit of an asshole, especially since he started asking everyone to call him “Zander”, but he has some solid ideas)

Even this fantasy has its problems though. Almost immediately after wishing for my artistic duplicates, I realize that I’d probably start to mistrust them.
I’d be reading an article on Old English versification of Latin prose and glance over at Alexander. I’d ask how his latest chapter’s coming and just wouldn’t be able to resist making a suggestion or two, maybe questioning his overtly terse sentence structure.
Knowing he’s me, he’d in turn be worried that I wasn’t working hard enough or on the right track. “Have you finished sketching out your Major Field proposal?” he’d say with a smug little glance over his thick glasses . I’d resentfully turn back to my article. He just doesn’t understand the process…
Naturally, Zander would be working on his screenplay at some barely known coffee shop. Pretentious fuck. Do you really have to be seen writing something to write it?

That actually sounds like kind of a fun story that I won’t have time to write.
This post is not quite as therapeutic as I’d hoped.

In any case, I suppose I’ll just have to keep slogging through my impulses and ambitions, and the ones that lodge themselves in my brain long enough just might find realization some day.

On sex and love:
“Don’t think I don’t understand…
I mean, what can any one of us ever really fuckin’ hope for, huh? Except for a moment, here and there, with a person who doesn’t want to rob, steal, or murder us? At night—mayhap sunup—one person against the fuckin’ wall, the other, mayhap, on the fucking bed, trusting each other enough to tell half the fucking truth?
Everybody needs that. It becomes precious to them. They don’t want to see it fucked with.”
                                                                              -Al Swearengen, Deadwood

It’s awful to think of human interaction, especially intimacy, depicted this way. Still, expressed with all that raw, drunken, vicious verve, it’s compelling… if only for when you’re inhabiting the cynical extreme of the spectrum.
Otherwise it probably does one better to be a bit more idealistic about things.

“Shame and anxiety had marked Bill’s face. Already the skin was pouched and creased. If this was how he looked at twenty-five, at fifty he would bear a face pleated like the tunic of a Roman Senator. Asleep, he appeared younger. But asleep his eyes, which justified the wreck of his face, counted for nothing.”
                                                   -David Benedictus, Floating Down to Camelot

I read this passage on the bus today and wanted to share.
It sounded familiar.
In other words, I’m twenty-five and I feel old.

That’s not a bad thing though. I’m kind of excited about the record of events as they’ve engraved themselves on my face. That process feels honest.
It makes me think of another, more optimistic passage.

“Little worse for wear, but I’m wearin’ it well.”
                                                                                -Beck, “Elevator Music”