File it under ‘odd games to play with your brain’

I’m taking at least a two week hiatus from drinking, this is day eight.

It’s a short step from Artistic Integrity to slovenly stagnation. When your heroes include such people as Charles Bukowski and Hunter S. Thompson, it’s a safe bet that you’ve got more than a passing familiarity with booze, and I most certainly do. I’ve already spent more than enough words on the positive aspects of intoxication on the artistic mind-set, and I continue to stand behind all of them.

The other night, as I was working my way through yet another large bottle of beer, I had a moment. An attempt to capture the fleeting magic of thought in words would read something like this . . .

‘Sure, I’m drunk . . . but why?’

I looked around my apartment and cast one of those frightening glances towards the center of my being. I saw dirty dishes piled on the counter, empty bottles all over the place, and the debris of a few dozen neglected notions scattered everywhere. As I finished my beer I perused some of these strange artifacts which had seen creation through some drunken rampage in the dangerous hours of night.

There’s this neat trick I’ve almost mastered, it allows you to crawl so deeply into your own head that this existence just melts away; at least the ‘important’ parts of it (important as defined by the need to continue a sustainable, respectable [and even those need their own particular understanding] mode of life).

It’s the key to unlocking a strange parallel universe where you get to move through reality at a detached distance. It’s the key to moments when you can stop and honestly consider the meandering path of your life with awe, wonder and dread.

I love it there; it’s the culturally cushioned arena of solipsistic tendencies, it’s the protective shell that I can decorate with all the bravado an artistically inclined fool can find.

The problem comes when you check the actual definition of bravado and discover that it is as bad as you’d hoped, the problem comes when you know you’re on a lubricated slide into the beating heart of futility with all your dreams as devalued currency.

Action is called for. Will-power and control are among the most fascinating tools at humanity’s disposal.

Within three-days of not drinking I was acutely aware once again that had I been born to different parents, mine could have been a medicated existence from adolescence on (and in a sense it certainly has been).

To put it another way . . .

i don’t suffer from insanity, i enjoy every moment of it

It’s amazing how will-power can spread; you grab control of some aspect of your life, and the sensation of having that sort of power only encourages its further use.

what a terrifying idea

This entry was posted on Monday, August 14th, 2006 at 9:27 pm and is filed under indiscriminate, philosophy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.