I thought of the term “lives of emotional consequence” a couple years ago to sort of describe a certain kind of volatile life that stays entirely cognizant of its station for the majority of it’s existence no matter what happens. So when things happen to them, they actually happen. Furthermore not only are there consequences, but one must be aware of the consequences occurring as they happen, therefore creating more consequencesTo steal a metaphor from Vonnegut’s novel Mother Night, he describes Nazis as having been people who "grinded down the gears of their brain" in order to commit atrocities, or even just to make it through hard times of mental, emotional, and social dissonance.
Someone living a life of emotional consequence would not do such a thing. If they are the hand that commits evil they won’t rewrite themselves to be the victim.
I have often seen people grind down their mental capabilities to the point that they can’t feel anything, they become uncurious about the true nature of literature, they can’t write a song about what is really in front of them, their conversations stab at me grossly. You grind down enough mental capabilities you lose empathy through reasoning your way out of it. We bomb children in Palestine because of it, tech workers gentrify countries because of it, mothers turn their back on their children because of it.
Of course one cannot carry the pain of everyone in the world constantly in their hands, one cannot blame themselves for every horrible thing that happens. But there are a thousand things we can do. Even just to torture yourself feels more productive than to talk in dissonances with reality. To live in society and produce more neurotic tortures. Social tortures that prove your inadequacy in relating the condensed immensity of your spirit to people who have cut themselves off from their whole to ignore that starving feeling, all to serve their propped up image.
I do not think that people who don’t live like I do are bad people. I think it’s more likely I am doing it wrong. But I’d rather be myself than a fake amalgamation of propped up confidence, getting mad at every ex lover, cursing my parents, cursing the system that I benefit from for the small cuts it does unto me and not cursing the system for the heads its chopping off, for the bluebirds it swallows whole like a grotesque rabid dog. Being a sorrowful beatnik is my station in life. When the goodbyes happen they really hit me. I will always be caught between the tour and the camp to the benefit of any angels watching me. Love hangs like streetlights on the draw bridge over head. When it pulls open you pass through into the next darkness.
To be a good artist one must live a life like this. Even if just for a year. You can make 10 years of amazing art from 6 months of experience. If you live these lives and feel alienated from those who don’t, often you try to collect others like you. Artists and writers and critics and well read individuals searching for the truth with a similar rigor. From these people you will get your first dose of love in your life and your first dose of heartbreak. To know there are other laws of the universe than gravitation and electro magnetism. how things get pulled apart. Whether its by committing unforgivable actions causing exile, whether its someone deciding to grind down a gear or two in order to connect with the large instead of the small they were used to, or simply when it all becomes too much and we all isolate ourselves into our dumb apartments and barstools and psych wards.
What do you do if you don’t like anything enough to keep the ball in the air for more than 20 minutes every couple days? Get on an anti depressant? Do those work? Who am I to speak like I am weathered? I have weathered some things I suppose. But nothing compared to migrants who become happy and excited people regardless. Maybe this is a conversation about alienation within the oppressor population of the world. I cannot know everything. A life of emotional consequence is searching for a true home and not contorting the mind to settle. And hopefully if one finds it, it cherishes it as much as one can. And hopefully when home disappears again as homes are prone to do, life can stand it.
The afterlife is a call to home. “Nothing but a stranger in this world”
My boss said in an interview with some small publication that if you really hate yourself you’d let yourself get killed by the most horrible way of dying, the grotesqueness of old age. Watching your body fall apart watching your mind fall apart watching your world fall apart.
Those who kill themselves are acting in love of themself, they don’t want themselves to be in pain anymore.
Of course us watching the jumper cry out “please nothing lasts forever it will get better soon!” And we are right. But the jumper is also right. It is true that the pain is unbearable and to end pain by any means necessary feels preferable. And we cry out to them half because we want this person to eat fruit so good that it makes them smile just from how fresh it is, we want this person to be around so they can laugh at an insane little dog in Montreal shaking some chew toy so aggressively back and forth that you can’t help but cry laughing, we want this person to be around to wear novelty bolo ties, and listen to Ravel, and be satisfied from cleaning a room, even if they can’t enjoy these things now maybe they will soon.
But we also cry out because we don’t want to scrape their body of the floor, carry the pain of another death, we wonder if the person has any obligations that they have to fill, can’t let them get out of their debts too easy, or that if anyone in the crowd needs the jumper more than the jumper needs them. Not because the person jumping doesn’t need anybody more than anybody down below, the truth is that they haven’t met anybody here who fills the need they have. And there is no solution to this alienation. The jumper walks back in. They try to understand those who came before them who felt the same way. Because they are not alone in their feelings, but they are alone in their life. They are not special. They are just far away with no signal. Craters of broken glass in empty city lots if you can believe it.
I enjoyed sitting at the bar last night. A good wooden bar that felt satisfying to press my body into. And watching the conversations swirl into the open mic. I enjoyed it when the person I was talking to got up to talk to his band member and I got to feel awkward about what my next move should be, so I just stared into the stained glass lightbulb over my head. I used to have one like that in my childhood bedroom. I let the light swirl around corners of my eyes and drank one beer which would soon make me forget all the words to the song I was gonna sing in 20 minutes.
I wondered if I looked lonely like I was trying to invite someone over to me by sitting there. Yes I didn't want to be someone who always needed someone else to approach, the labor of maintaing the socialization between people. But even more so I didn’t want to be seen as someone always needing someone else to approach, of taking the people around me who are brave for granted. While hilariously also not wanting to interrupt anyone there who was already in conversation. So I put on a face like I was content with my pondering of the stained glass lightbulb and waited to catch the eye of my friend Matt. I got up and hugged him and we talked about recent happenings. And I like him. He is like me. He goes home like I go home.
