Half Way Progress Report

(or: How to Have Fun with Your Most Hideous Moments)

(or: Motley Thoughts, Black Holes and Mild Exultations)

I venture into this book with closed and lifeless eyes, because I am afraid of finding in others what I dread to find in myself.

I venture into this book keen-eyed and alert, because I am sure of finding in others what I hope to find in myself.

Oops. Perhaps the chaos inside is visible. I’d better hide. But what if somebody sees me? The only thing worse than being discovered is to be discovered hiding. The mind is a crazy place; dangerous territory.

Where is the reset button on this machine?

When will amnesty be declared?

Piss and moan. Bitch and Begrudge. Poor sport.

Tonight I go out of my way to ensure that everything is just as bad as I think it is. I want to hurt exquisitely, because it identifies my uniqueness and is better than hurting without distinction. My paranoia glows with a light of its own, and Oh my, the baddies are out again tonight.

A few moments ago, I took this little depression I’m having here outdoors for inspiration. There are flowers and trees and mountains and valleys out there, and sometimes it works. Tonight it rained and my pen dried up. This problem has nothing to do with paraplegia.

My Sense of Deepest Personal Tragedy is grandly romantic. I imagine myself to be on the Very Rim of Darkness, the Last Edge of Light. Walls of Trivia confront and confound me. I am having a Wonderful time being Deliciously Morose.

Still … I once heard of a quad who bit his thumb to spasm his wrist out of an uncomfortable position. Can I spasm my psyche?

Sure. Just take a little Transmutation of Energy potion, and all that negativity changes valence and becomes unstoppable positive energy.

It starts slowly. There is a tentative, almost furtive reach of hope. But hoping, says my Internal Central Security Censor, Cynic and Spoilsport, is the most childish of sins. It’s like praying to God for candy instead of grace.

Doing is much, much easier than hoping, because you get something done. Now that’s profound. Really.

Doing can be instigated by negative events and feelings just as well as by positive ones.

Doing results from interest, attraction, hope, love.

Doing results from disinterest, repulsion, fear, hate. Is one set neurotic, yet not the other?

Doing is what we need to do.

What shall I do? A project, a prospect, a love, a life, a job, a journey? They all contain threats equal to their promise, so I constantly meet both ends of the stick head on—the joy/sorrow bleepstick of life. I’m beginning to like it.

Ecstatic rape.

A sense of humor. A sense of privilege. That’s the ticket. It’s not such a warped idea, either, this sense of privilege. Do you know anybody you’d trade lives with? Not bodies, legs, or jobs or wives, but lives? Your own identity?

Gratuitous information department: Did you know that you can become unafraid of fear? You can. I know. I’ve done it. Fear is like a headache; if it happens, it happens. But there’s nothing scary about it. Not any more. That much, at least, has been accomplished.

Lethargy and energy seem like opposites, but they actually require equal amounts of Lethenergy to manifest themselves. Do you have lethenergy? Yeth.

Enigma pie.