Something about my writing has been bothering me for quite a while now. The sporadic nature of the beast could be at issue, but it has more to do with content and expression than anything else. I ween that the best writers in history, those who win awards or whose works are considered classics, are those that can in some way distill expeience and emotion in ways that impart clearly to the reader the same. I would like to think that at some point in the past I had achieved such, but wishful thinking isn’t my strong point. I will say that, biographically speaking, it were easier to grasp the emotive process when youth was strong in the vein; easier than it has been in the last, lets say, 10 years. I lost some undefinable thing at some undefinable point that put my writing to the sword, as it were, and it hasn’t recovered since.

This isn’t to say that I am waxing nostalgic about innocence lost or squandered youth. I’m not so wrapped in cliché that I would deign channel the spirit of Holden Coffield. I think it were probably for the best that I quit actually feeling anything for the last decade or so. If I would have continued writing seriously, all pages would have been awash in various liquors and the occasional illicit substance. There would have been one-night-stands and other “conquerings” boasted about. I can say with all honesty that I am not proud of my past, though I certainly don’t hide from it. What’s done is done. For better or worse I didn’t turn out to be the next Dylan Thomas. I could have been more productive (that is, produced a metric ton of shite), but then again I could have also not learned anything by being locked inside the page.

Recently I’ve become a very emotional individual. It’s not that I have a good cry while in line at Jimmy John’s, but rather that feeling itself has crept into my life both suddenly and unexpectedly. I’ve been known of late to grow misty-eyed at certain moments (undisclosed) and even make some sort of childish attempt to deal with the fact that I do, in fact, know what love is (even if it is unrequited). But perhaps the most devestating of these emotions has been guilt; something that I have never previously dealt on a serious basis.

I can say with a degree of certitude that my emotional life has been essentially dominated by rage and rage only. Various entities, including myself, have at times been the target thereof, but it were rage nonetheless that has defined my personality. I’m not the dry “light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel” sort who would write about quashing their rage in favor of Jesus (Oh LAWD!), because the rage is most certainly not gone and I’m still an atheist. Rather, it has been supplemented, or annexed by a new emotional start-up company called Guilt (ltd.).

I now understand age itself as a function of guilt. Certain recent experiences have nearly crushed me with the weight of guilt. This is not some sophomoric metaphor (crushed) but rather experience in and of itself. Certain songs produce such a wave of self-loathing that I must leave the room when they are playing. Some days the guilt hurts me so bad that I can’t even function; the most menial of activities become trials in and of themselves because my mind is oppressed my this emotion. I would guess that this is how Christians feel all the time (certainly Catholics), and for them I now have a certain empathy. I even considered going to confession just to talk to a priest about guilt. Who would know more about it than a Catholic priest? I’m not joking.

What brought all this on is either the fact that I’m closing in on the age of thirty or it is simply beyond my ken altogether. I would like to think that I am the cold, calculating, brilliant mind that I sometimes evince, but really what I am is lonely. And perhaps it is the loneliness that has caused all of this emotive mess. The slightest transgression against those you know, when lonely, seems a mountain.

Then again, it may be that I find myself engaging in the same activities that I was engaging in ten years ago, albeit to a lesser extent, and that in and of itself produces the aforementioned guilt. I have learned some things, apparently, but not enough. I am still me, the me that rages at himself and others, and I give myself (nor am given) any reason to change.

That will segue into another bit about why I am where I am. For now, I’m out.

-vec

Nearly nine months have passed since my last, somewhat inebriated, post on this blog. I am consistantly amazed that this page still exists, though perhaps I shouldn’t be considering the nature of the intrawebnets. The continuing existence of things in non-space are, it seems, analagous to reality. That is, things continue with or without my intervention. This blog is more like a house plant: it could continue without me, but it ceases to grow without a certain degree of assistance (that is, writing).

It is a testament to the powers of the human mind that, having re-read my last blog entry from so long ago, that I could think to myself: “Who was it that I was talking about in that intoxicated ramble?” I had, consciously or not, chosen to forget; am now forced to remember, notwithstanding a certain degree of pain. There are things that I want to write about further, but now is not the time. In the coming days, expect much from me. I will endeavour to keep you entertained with my various degrees of low-grade insanity.

Know this: The Heroes season premier is tonight, which is all that really matters at this point in time.