Me is Dead; Me is… ALIVE!

How many personalities of mine have died? Over the years… I have changed so much. The old me is dead. It’s died again and again. That is one side of the coin. The other side is, I feel young, and it is still me here.
But that’s it, that’s why, dammit, I feel young because I’ve changed, again and again. Whether I wanted to or not, I haven’t stayed in stasis. Sometimes I chose change, more often that not it was forced on me. At times it seemed hard, but in the middle run it always was for the better… because it kept me young, flexible.
And I’ve died a thousand deaths anyway, Billions, more like. The greater part of the cells I am composed of aren’t the same ones that were me a month ago. I am, physically speaking, a new person. Each morning Hellstrøm the zombie awakens anew, shuffling through the day grunting at innocent passers-by who have no inkling that they too are zombies, that they are all gradually dying and being renewed at the same time by a power which they only dimly understand, if at all. ALIVE!

Nobody Knows

Nobody knows how things will go on from here. Nobody knows. So don’t worry about it too much. Do what you can to anchor yourself in this insane flood we call life, and help others to do so if you can. We’ll all see what comes out in the end, whether we want to or not.
Determinism says you do what you do because of genetic predispositions and social conditioning aka environment. But that still doesn’t mean they can determine your behavior, so go do something crazy to drive them up the statistical wall, please, if you would be so kind. Exercise your free will. Had my fill of statistics lately. I’d rather hear music. Listening to Habib Koité, Saramaya. And now Mannse Cise. Like a damned classical arrangement, if it weren’t for the African rhythms and instruments.
Do I digress, perhaps?
Ah, hell. Just don’t listen to anybody, and do what you want to do, having thought it through. You’ve only got this one life, and when it’s done, it’s done. It’s your last chance. Do it, after considering the consequences. The only thing I ask is that you don’t hurt others on the way if you can possibly help it. Don’t hurt other sentient beings. What’s sentient? you might ask. Fuck if I know, you’ll just have to figure that out on the way. I consider most dogs I’ve known to be sentient, and I’ve met a few humans who left me in doubt. Perhaps sentience is not a the right criterion anyway . . . it’s for you to decide. It’s subjective. Nobody knows.

And when your time comes, don’t take it so hard. Remember the good moments, and let them go. If die you must, then die with dignity. And if circumstances should prevent you from dying with dignity, then at least go down proud of what you have done in life, no matter how prosaic it may seem in retrospect. Wotthehell. Better than nothing.

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!

Got Nothin’

Well, that ain’t true. Too bad. Nice headline though.
I’ve got something, perhaps less than I want… does that count?
Listening to Shika Shika from 3 Mustaphas 3. It doesn’t fit the headline… won’t tell you why I am listening to it, though there is a specific reason. Some things in life will always remain a mystery, haha.

Romantics

Undying love. Unless of course you get hit by a taxi on the morrow. Or maybe cancer will get you. That’d be romantic, wouldn’t it now? Or perhaps the woman you love just stops. That’d be romantic too, because then you could live on, pining away at what’s been taken from you.
Fulfilled romantics are boring. Fulfilled… no romantics are ever fulfilled, are they? They just can’t get enough. It’s the heightening of feelings they want, and it seems as if that can only be gained through suffering. If they didn’t have to suffer for it, it wouldn’t be worth half as much. Its the suffering, the trials and tribulations crowned by ultimate victory, that makes it interesting. But the ultimate victory must always remain somehow unattainable, except of course in novels.
Suffering. Romantics are, for that very reason, insufferable. They just don’t get it. They live in a world all their own, a world separate from reality. They are victims of their own need for suffering. They never live. They need people who live in reality, but they can never quite do it themselves, poor bastards. They’ve read too many books. They truly believe there is more than the day to day, more than food, sex, and sleep. They talk, they walk, they sit, just like anyone else, but they are not of this world.

I describe myself. The crowning victory has been denied me, as yet. Predictably. There were a couple of moments where I thought I had it in my grasp, but things turned out differently. Life caught up with me. I’ve tried so hard to leave it behind me… slowly but surely I’m starting to wonder if I can ever succeed. It’s the sublime that I am seeking, that which can not be described with any words, no matter how industrious or creative the writer.
So, for the time being, I walk, I talk, and I sit. I piss, and I shit. I bleed when I am cut.

Life

Short, dark, dirty, like a winter day. Nevertheless, there are highlights. Feel the hail on your face, you little fuck? That’s life. Nothing like it, nothing sweeter than that little pain. Those tiny needles on your skin may be the best you’ll ever know.

No Filter

Y’know, when I smoke a cigarette, I roll it myself. Just the tobacco. No filter. And I roll that little mofo fat, as fat as the packaged cigs everyone smokes. Yeah, you guessed it (well, probably you didn’t, because you aren’t quite sure where this blog-post is going yet, and you don’t know a damned thing anyway), the ones with a filter. I know a few people who roll their own, but they roll ’em thin, and with a fucking filter. Each time I see how they roll the little filters in, that they bought extra, I have to laugh.

Dammit, if I’s gonna do drugs, I’s gonna do ’em without a God damned filter. Fat. And, believe you me, tobacco is a drug, baby, one of the most addictive there is. I’ve kicked tobacco twice, the second time for 14 years, and what am I doing now? Smoking a damned cigarette. Enjoying it, too. Tobacco tastes good. Especially with coffee in the morning. Or with wine in the evening, or… you get the picture. Of course, when I get drunk and smoke one after another, my mouth feels like an ashtray the next day.
What does an ashtray feel like, actually? Hmmm. In any case, not good. It’s then, drinking my coffee on the morn’, and (what irony) smoking a cigarette, a nice fat one without a filter, coughing, that I think: why are you doing this? Well, my inner voice says, because it tastes so damned good, in spite of everything.
So, what is the point? It’s this: I want to enjoy life, even if it is not healthy. Life itself is not healthy. After all, it ends in death, and what could be less healthy than that? Nevertheless, I want to enjoy it, and that means I want it unfiltered. Pure. Let it roll over me, knock me down, infuse me, fuck me over, pick me up, toss me on the mountainside in the snow, pick me up again and let me fly. I want it. I want it bad. I love it. It’s beautiful, even when my mouth feels like an ashtray.
No damned filter, please. So many people I’ve met filter their lives. They steer clear of anything that might hurt them, and thus they limit their lives to necessities and banal shit. And when, in spite of all their efforts to the contrary, they encounter heavy duty stuff, they simply tune it out. They do everything they can in order not to feel the pain. They don’t love, because love is dangerous; they might get hurt. If in doubt, take some antidepressives, is it not so?
Now my inner voice says, you do that too, don’t pretend you don’t. You don’t like pain, c’mon now, admit it, you superior little fuck. When you are unhappy, you drink. Well, I answer, it’s true, I don’t like pain. I don’t like to suffer. But I do love, and if it doesn’t work in the end I always face it, because I feel I have no choice, because I still possess at least a trace of self-honesty… don’t I? The inner voice grumbles, and says well, a trace, a trace, mind you. Well, better than nothing, I say, and besides, you know as well as I that I often revel in pain. That’s what melancholy is all about, and I think it’s really too bad melancholy is hardly accepted in todays society. Why can’t people just feel like shit, when they feel like it? Because it hurts, you fool, as if you didn’t know… my inner voice mutters on, but I can tell it’s resigned.
It knows me too well to argue any further. Fuck you, I say, giving it the last stab. Even when I drug myself to stop the pain, I do it conscientiously, without a filter, to get the full effect. I don’t go to a psychiatrist to ask for drugs to stop the pain, I prescribe for myself, and when it doesn’t work, surprise surprise, I face the shit I’ve staved off long enough to allow me to deal with it somehow.
You’re just buying time, it says, in a last effort to bring me to my senses. Just like everyone else, it says, just like everyone else… I take another slug of ouzo, light a cigarette, and tell my inner voice to go fuck itself.
I already am, it says. Fucking myself, that is.

Reminiscence

Two strawberries lie on a wood cutting board, one has been bitten in to. The man who has just bitten in to the strawberry wipes at the drops of juice that have fallen on the piece of paper he is writing on. He drinks a bit of wine, thinking that the wine has real character. He stops and wonders if he should think about his life, but decides it isn’t necessary. Another drop of wine. The strawberries are quite delicious. He lights a pipe of hashish, inhaling deeply and holding the smoke in his lungs. Recently he’s been told he may have cancer, but he doesn’t really believe it. Even if he really had it, it wouldn’t  phase him. Cancer is mostly curable, so he thinks. His chances are good. And he always has been lucky with important things. He eats the rest of the strawberry, there’s just one left.

Wine. Smoke. The fact is, he doesn’t have cancer, but he doesn’t know that. He doesn’t care, even if it turns out he will have to die… because he has children. Beautiful children that make everything whole. He knows, without thinking of it, that he can leave them and they will survive. Even if he dies he has given them power for life, strength to keep on. He is sure of it. He bites in to the last strawberry; it’s amazingly tasty for this time of year. He decides to save half for later and takes a smoke. It’s not like I want to die, he reflects. Fuck no, I want to live, and enjoy it as long as I can. Might be five weeks, might be 50 years. He grabs the bottle and pours another glass. He doesn’t know what to write anymore, so he goes and takes a piss. The children are snug in bed. He flushes the toilet by mistake, but no one wakes up. He goes and drinks some more wine, and smokes some more hashish. Half a strawberry is looking up at him from the cutting board. First more wine. Should he get some bread and cheese? No, somehow, the remaining half a strawberry will have to do. Wonderful. He eats it and takes a mouthful of wine afterwards, letting the taste mingle in his mouth. Heady.

Half on the Horse

Foot in the stirrup. You’re almost mounted. What do you actually want to do? Those are the moments where you start off half-cocked. You’re almost in the fucking saddle, but… what in hell are you doing? You know you want to go, but… where to?
Beware. Just like a smart horse, life notices when you are not fully in control, and that’s the moment when it will buck and twist under you like a damned corkscrew. It’ll throw you off like nobody’s business, and most likely you’ll mash your balls on the saddle-horn on the way down. God damn that hurts.

There you lay. The horse is calm now. Maybe it even licks your face. I didn’t mean it like that, it seems to be saying, you can get on me now, if you still want to. Sheesh, watcha doin’ down there anyways? I was just caperin’ a little, didn’t mean to catch you off guard an’ all, hehe.

Dreams of Life

Drinking in the taverns
Talking with the slatterns
Asking what they’d dreamt of being

I wanted to be a dancer, one said
But not in bed
She laughed

I wanted to be an author, said the next
Buried deep in text
Telling the stories that need it… gimme another one, will you Joe?

The third left with a john
A sweaty little Don
Before I could ask

the fourth cried… I wanted to be a housewife
That’s the life
One man, no cares

One said, with an uncertain smile, how the hell am I supposed to know
That’s all so long ago
Le’me be

twenty for a ‘job, fifty for a bang, and if you want my backside it’ll cost you a hunerd
Said the sixth, and I wondered
If she’d even heard what I’d asked

I wanted to be a whore, said the last
No future, no past
And here I am, living my dream