Heartfelt i.e. trying
When I first started reading poetry and novels and essays in HS, I assumed, in a fairly uncomplicated fashion, that if you were an articulate and powerful writer, you led an articulate and powerful life. Since I was interested in liberation, in revolution, in all the good kicks a young punk rocker hungers for, I naively imagined my heroes, both on page and stage, to be champions – and models – of a better life. And I figured I knew just what that better meant.
Now I wouldn’t say that things were –as many nostalgic nee conservative accounts of childhood have it – less complicated, but that I was deliberately simplifying in order to make sense of it all, to have a fixed order, and a fixed position in that fixed order. At a moralistic and fiery 17, it is fairly easy to be a zealous deductive scientist, and write off any “bad data” that doesn’t confirm the initial hypothesis ( jocks are monsters, war is evil, the right doc martens are a sign of nobility, capitalism and money are the devil, Salvador Dali is awesome… etc.). These theses informed every aspect of my life, from what I thought of my parents to what records I listened to, which subjects I avoided in school as well as where I hung out, the girls I liked… ad nauseum. Yet I imagined myself a fiery rebel and apostle of freedom.
A few years later, having discovered how Nietzsche went insane and kissed a horse, how Hemmingway shot his brains out, how the issue of anarchy and the dream of the collective was a little different than the Ex and Crass records made out, how most of my Kerouac-kissing dreamer friends were well on the way to post-adolescent self-destruction, how Ian MacKaye was seen drinking a beer (! – I remember this one clearly, after a Fugazi show – and that it was a shock) how cynicism and careerist posturing were slipping in to the scene, how professors could spout great opinions and still lead dreary, uninspiring lives, how each high birthed a new, and greater, low, and, first but listed here last, how miserable I still was after all these adventures, I had the sense that there was nothing left, that nothing held true, I could rely on nothing, I was alone.
And with this first taste of basic freedom, I flipped out, and wanted none of it. But there was nowhere to go (thankfully). I didn’t want to get a job, just some job, and when I tried (my parents pushed) I failed. So I went into a monastery.
And there, in the Buddhist world, again I met teachers and read texts that felt purely enlightened, pristine and clear. Wisdom and insight untainted, boundless compassion, all that horseshit all over again. So after a few years my practice – or my dream of practice – ebbed. It was such hard work, it was such miserable hard work. I was still a completely unenlightened dweeb with grand delusions of enlightenment. My new crew of hero saviors was looking more like real people – wise, helpful, but limited, and even fallible, or should I say complicated? Where to go now?
Now I wouldn’t say that things were –as many nostalgic nee conservative accounts of childhood have it – less complicated, but that I was deliberately simplifying in order to make sense of it all, to have a fixed order, and a fixed position in that fixed order. At a moralistic and fiery 17, it is fairly easy to be a zealous deductive scientist, and write off any “bad data” that doesn’t confirm the initial hypothesis ( jocks are monsters, war is evil, the right doc martens are a sign of nobility, capitalism and money are the devil, Salvador Dali is awesome… etc.). These theses informed every aspect of my life, from what I thought of my parents to what records I listened to, which subjects I avoided in school as well as where I hung out, the girls I liked… ad nauseum. Yet I imagined myself a fiery rebel and apostle of freedom.
A few years later, having discovered how Nietzsche went insane and kissed a horse, how Hemmingway shot his brains out, how the issue of anarchy and the dream of the collective was a little different than the Ex and Crass records made out, how most of my Kerouac-kissing dreamer friends were well on the way to post-adolescent self-destruction, how Ian MacKaye was seen drinking a beer (! – I remember this one clearly, after a Fugazi show – and that it was a shock) how cynicism and careerist posturing were slipping in to the scene, how professors could spout great opinions and still lead dreary, uninspiring lives, how each high birthed a new, and greater, low, and, first but listed here last, how miserable I still was after all these adventures, I had the sense that there was nothing left, that nothing held true, I could rely on nothing, I was alone.
And with this first taste of basic freedom, I flipped out, and wanted none of it. But there was nowhere to go (thankfully). I didn’t want to get a job, just some job, and when I tried (my parents pushed) I failed. So I went into a monastery.
And there, in the Buddhist world, again I met teachers and read texts that felt purely enlightened, pristine and clear. Wisdom and insight untainted, boundless compassion, all that horseshit all over again. So after a few years my practice – or my dream of practice – ebbed. It was such hard work, it was such miserable hard work. I was still a completely unenlightened dweeb with grand delusions of enlightenment. My new crew of hero saviors was looking more like real people – wise, helpful, but limited, and even fallible, or should I say complicated? Where to go now?
posted by Kyle at 3:08 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home