A Trilogy; "Please Forgive My Trespass..."

"Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of sharing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than its worth."

Mary Smich

I was reading someones blog recently from a survivor adorned with gratitude, accoutered as such with trinkets of cliche' glibness. Banner slogans with all too familiar wisdom delivered convincingly with waxing pride and certitude as the piece swelled. The lack of humility was only surpassed by its triteness and questionable intention. Has my cynicism grown so acerbic, that I'm compelled to diminish the experience of others going through the same thing I am? I'm not questioning their sincerity, I have a problem with the tedious language they employ. My glass is neither half full nor half empty, in fact, I don't have a glass, and it did not come in a box.

These metaphors oversimplify the magnitude of misfortune and the crisis that ensues as a result. Maybe I have the wrong disposition for this disease. This Cancer, this disease that isn't a disease, defined by the wreckage and the toll it exacts. I know how hard that is to confront, but increasingly we speak to one another in code. A synthesis of euphamism and idiom, that doesn't express emotion, lacking sensitivity,and bereft of real meaning. I understand its attempt to impart encouragement and optimism, and maybe that's enough? Not for me. When did it our words become so pedestrian in its own banal sanctimony? Next we'll be communicating in grunts and short bursts of mono-syllables, or worse still, remarks condensed and pre-recorded, then numbered 1-? on the key pad of our phones. Isn't that like texting now? digital-phonetics, I hope not! We've all invoked this kind of pithy logic before; I think I was at an AA meeting!


I'm not sure I can abide the sensibilities that only allows for two choices. Life is rarely either/or. Where's the romanticism of a myth with its parable of hope for transcendence. I want to discover meaning and embrace its symbolism and nuanced interpretation I can identify with; exultant in the possibility of retribution, resplendent with fabled sacrifice and august faith, executed with uncompromising determination and force of will against an apocalypse of principle, a struggle that inspires ones conviction and ultimately salvation.


I want my epiphanous moment. A story that comes with door prizes, dolls and talisman, colored beads. I want to rejoice in superstition. Voodoo is more inspirational than the volume of a glass of... What's in the glass? I better not have to climb out of a box to find out! Is there alcohol in it? I'm on a special diet and I'm still undergoing physical therapy.


Why should any of us deny ourselves the luxury to wallow in our own self-absorption and acquiesce to everything that is disconsolate in us, whatever that may be; when the glass is ostensibly half empty? It's therapeutic and why can't I refill the glass later! Fear and loathing is how I measure acceptance. Denial must be characterized first to thwart its pall. Despair and anxiety is the Rubicon we all cross to find sanctuary. I'm searching for unassailable authority for guidance. I don't want my ambivalence besieged, surveyed or measured half full or half empty by amateurs who don't see that these choices require a little more introspection than that.


False contentment in abstraction has been tantalizing to me, to us, jenel and I. Fraught with expectations and hope, we overlooked the obdurate laws of matter for just some microscopic concession that wouldn't involve any apparent sacrifice of principle or physical law. We weren't asking to win the lottery, but hope nonetheless, is for gamblers and fools. We must avail ourselves instead to expose that which constrains us and confront the beguiling violence that threatens our survival. I don't think the tears I've shed over that assault will fit in that glass. I've just had my back against the wall of annihilation, there won't be much reconciliation from me about my propriety and I like my attitude just fine.


For this I've been rebuked that "I must be careful how I project my optimism, there are some who take exception if they don't think you are doing it right". I've become suspicious of those who suborn compromise and extol approbation in a glass, like some all-purpose elixir that never works, but we keep buying it. Well thanks for the prayers, but I don't have much patience for those who proselytize "That which doesn't kill you, makes you stronger..." Nietzsche is dead and gone. I don't feel stronger, it's not purifying, it's not enabling. Where's the meaning! It doesn't make me a better human being! Just somehow marginalized and invalidated.


The problem with metaphors; they don't come with directions. So they're misused all the time.




"We shall not cease from exploring, at the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started I know the place for the first time."

T.S. Elliot


I almost titled this "vicissitudes", because it describes the manic frequency of my disposition from high to low. I tried to interpret my depression; it was the first time I had experienced it. Each part of the trilogy will be published over several days and will end with an epilogue I thought was appopriate. T.