Losing the plot

Reader, I have a tendency to get lost. I get on these kicks where I deconstruct the fuck out of every little thing, and do you know what the result of that is? Nothing makes any sense.

I mean, sure: the world is random and chaotic, all “meaning” is human-manufactured and ultimately a mirage, etc. But is it productive to think about that incessantly? No. It is not. In fact, it is sort of idiotic.

Case in point: last night I was in bed and my lips were feeling uncomfortably dry, like on the verge of chapitude. There was lip balm on the night stand; I just had to reach out for it. Instead, I lay there for at least five minutes, wrestling with whether or not there was any point in getting the lip balm. Like, did it really matter if I put lip balm on my lips?

I finally just did it. And guess what? There was a point. OBVIOUSLY.

Lately, I’m bringing the same spacey nihilism to what we in the industry call “the blogging game.”

Here’s what happens. I think:

Maybe I’ll write a post about how Mr. Pistol bought a paper shredder and now he is obsessed with shredding paper! Haha!

Uh, what? Never mind.

Okay, so instead I’ll write about how certain pop songs (see the Shangri-Las) are like drugs, and the sad thing is when they stop working and you walk around feeling like there is no magic in the world, until along comes the next one (see “I’m Waiting For the Day” off Pet Sounds), and it’s like a fucking miracle.

But how I can write about that without relying on a bunch of faggy adjectives and metaphors? Even if everything is meaningless, still: I’m not an asshole.

Okay, so what about the time we went out on the pontoon boat with Mr. Pistol’s family, and Uncle Mr.-Pistol’s-Namesake kept trying to find the white sand beach, and I knew he’d never find the white sand beach, because nobody ever finds the white sand beach.

Except, Jesus: isn’t that the same post I always write?

So, I write nothing.

Which isn’t any great tragedy. Blogs are different from politics or art or human life, in that everyone agrees that they really are pointless.

*

On Sunday, Left Hook and I were at Youpers, and we were talking about exactly this. About how if everything is equally meaningless, every endeavor is equally worthwhile, which is to say, not worthwhile at all, so one might as well just pick something and do it. Ya know?

“Listen to us,” Left Hook said. “We’re totally, like, philosophers.”

We laughed, and got spectacularly drunk. Our drinks were free, and Andy played “Waddlin’ Around.” For us. For us. It was our own little heaven, Sunday night MFABFF-style.

*

Mr. Shaky told me about this guy who makes sculptures out of grains of sugar. To paint them, he uses a brush made from a fly’s hair.

“What?” I said.

“I’m not lying,” said Shaky.

The next day, he sent me an email with this link. “I told you I wasn’t lying,” he wrote.

Still, I say, what?

And yet: why not?

by Pistol Whip | 27 June 2007 | meta | Comments