Angst

Existential angst. Fear of living, for what it might do to you. God only knows what will happen! The deepest wounds, the greatest happiness! Joy so strong it threatens to tear you right apart, sorrow so low it seeps in to the marrow of your bones and makes death seem welcome… it’s all one, the pain and the delight. Heavy duty stuff, that. Your brain will squirm under the weight of it all.
Don’t hold yourself back, dive in to it, damn you! Fuck the consequences. You’ll never get anywhere if you keep sandbagging your life. Building little lines of defense as if you could hold back a wave that defies your understanding, haha, good luck with that, old boy. It’ll wash over you no matter what you do, and you should be thankful for the fact. All that defensive behavior will just drive you in to a corner you can’t get out of, and the wave is coming… traps in every corner, every corner a trap.

There is no way for you to have beauty if you fear ugliness. You can’t live if you fear death. You can’t climb the mountain if you’ve never been in a valley. Stating the obvious, am I? Is it so obvious? Maybe it is, but human beings are really great at ignoring the obvious. And even the obvious, in its insidious way, has a thousand little permeations that will trip you up if you think about them too much. Stop thinking, let it happen.
Let the wave wash over you, though it may be full of grit and gravel. It’ll roll you tit over heal, smash you down on to the hard sand, suck you back down in to the water. You’ll struggle up out of it, the worse or the better for wear… but in any case you will be alive!

Luxury Before Necessity

I’ve moved again, moved out of your brain. I hate moving. Nevertheless, there are advantages. I’ve got money at the moment –won’t say how– and I can afford to make the new place the way I want it. God damn, it’s a bloody wonder what you can do with money. I got a ton of furniture given to me, I had to turn down half a dozen couches; I, beggar that I am, got to pick and choose. And then, for sundries, I had, for my taste, a lot of fucking money. What did I do? I bought luxuries. I bought a new headset, I bought a cool bluetooth speaker that I control with my cell-phone, I got plisse blinds, custom fit to my damned windows. Nobody seemed to have a bed left over, thank God, so I bought a bed made of oak, a good slatted frame, and a mattress that’ll last until I’m dead. Add to that cambric linen bedding. Motherfucker, you wouldn’t believe what that all cost.

Unfortunately, my lighting is limited to reading lamps. Two. Makes me go to bed early (well, unless I simply do without light, excepting the light that comes from my monitor), and the early worm, as everyone knows… I have a television, but no connection (I’ll miss those vignettes from your brain). Well, I have a connection, but I’d have to pay to have it activated. Does that count as a necessity? Not for me. Light? Ahh, I’ll get by. I have to wash my dishes per hand, no dishwasher. If I stopped drinking for a a couple months I could buy a dishwasher, but… necessity? Nah.
Drinking a mudslide, listening to Vorbei ist vorbei from Die Ärzte –it’s blasting out on the new bleutooth loudspeakers in the neighboring room– and thinking: Yeah.
Luxury before necessity. I catch myself thanking God that the level of my „necessity“ is so high. My supposed necessity is another man’s luxury. I could sink to his level, and I would still be satisfied. The fact is that I live at an incredibly high level of civilization, a level which I don’t need. I got music, any time I want, and drugs, and a bed so incredibly comfortable that it boggles the mind. Do I need all these things?
The answer is easy: No. I don’t need all that. I Love it, I enjoy it, but I don’t need it. I’d be just as happy sleeping on a palm-matt. Probably happier. Most humans are happy as long as they don’t have to fight for their lives on a basic level. Sure, they want to improve on things, that’s the way humans are, but basically their doing fine.
As I think these thoughts, further delights are awaiting me. I had today off, and I took the opportunity, being flush at the moment, to buy two expensive bottles of rosé and some smoked salmon. This is what I mean with luxury. That salmon is waiting for me….
And now comes a song that reminds me of my previous (and still) love, and I revel in my regrets, my melancholy. That, too, is a luxury. If I was looking for my next meal, I wouldn’t have time for this mental self-torture crap. And I’d probably be healthier and happier for it. Looking for the next grub, and thankful if I found it.
All this make me fearful for the way humanity is going. All these things surrounding me, the plates, the forks; what good are they? The salmon lies on the plate, enticing, lovely. The bread toasts in the toaster. It’s lovely, these are the fruits of civilization, but…
It’s luxury. And it doesn’t make a damned difference. Yes, I enjoyed buying all these things, but it didn’t make me happy. I will enjoy eating the salmon on fresh toasted white bread, but it won’t make me happy. Give me that woman back, then I will be happy. I’d gladly live with her in the meanest hovel, scraping lichens from the rocks in the winter to get through… then I’d be happy.

Hell

Being in love is hell. You thought you were suffering when you had nobody to love… just wait ’til there’s someone who you care about. Sure, you’re happy, because someone loves you, someone you love, but… you wonder. It is the fate of mankind to think. It’s our curse: a big bloody brain.
Thinking means wondering. Wondering whether she loves you as much as you love her. Wondering how you are going to make it all work. Wondering. Thinking about fucking logistics. Like: she lives in another damned town, 150 bloody fucking miles away. Driving there, you wonder about the cost of the damned gasoline. You become a mathematician… how often can I afford to see her? And then: am I crazy? How can I think of money, when I need to see her, every possible minute?

Holy shit. It’s enough to make you drink. But you can’t really enjoy drinking anymore, because you have someone who cares for you, meaning you should take care of yourself, meaning… you should eat healthy stuff, exercise, and not spend so much money on rum. No rum. After all, you don’t, oh Christ, want to disappoint her. On the other hand, she seems to know you better than you know yourself…
Oh, dear. Oh, oh, dear.
It’s the kind of thing that makes you want to dance in your socks. You need that sliding movement. You need to skid along the floor, like a damned ice skater. That’s the only thing that suits the feeling, the feeling… whooh! Crazy! Everything is possible. You’re a hawk, swooping down at three hundred miles an hour. You’re going to kill, you’re going to conquer. Nothin’ gonna stop you. Except maybe the rum, and 150 miles.
Yep.

Mushrooms, non-magic

Pfifferlinge. Butter. Salt. Pepper. The four necessary ingredients for Happiness. Butter in the pan, middle heat, cut the large pfifferlinge in half, the middle sized and small ones you leave in piece (haha little word play there, pff). Butter melted in the pan, pfifferlinge cut? Well, don’t stand there like a damned fool, toss the pfifferlinge in the pan! And when they’re in the pan, continue tossing them: I mean, with the pan. Don’t you dare take a fucking spatula in your hand, you son-of-a-bitch. Toss them in the pan, take the pan in your hand and toss those little fuckers. Oh dear, you’ve burnt your hand. That was a misunderstanding, my God, are you that drunk? You are, of course, supposed to take the pan by the HANDLE. Jesus. So anyway, now you put some salt on the pfifferlinge, and you grind some pepper on to them. I particularly enjoy a mix of white, red and black pepper. Freshly ground it must be, though, otherwise it was all for nought. If you have, at this juncture, established that you have no pepper grinder and no pepper corns to grind, you can toss the whole in the garbage (but not the pan, perhaps you will have occasion to use it in the future). If you have, however, fortunately, pepper to grind, then you’re well on your way to Happiness. If all has gone well, apart from your burnt hand, those little pfifferlinge are already done! All that remains is to eat them.
I, personally, am eating them to the tune of Money, as rendered by the The Flying Lizards, accompanied by a glass of wine.