I miss the days when I could turn on a pop radio station and have a chance of hearing Sarah McLachlan. Now, I can't turn on any radio station at all without being inundated by some kind of agenda. No, thank you; I don't want to buy your cd, your lifestyle, your fame, or your vacuous "message." What the hell happened to that thing called "music?" (Don't answer. I only employ such obvious rhetorical interrogatives in the preservation of my last vestiges of starving optimism).
I've been catching myself saying that "I feel old" quite a lot lately, and—of course—I found myself wondering WHY. After much thought, I realize that I don't feel old – at least not physically. When I first created this blog, it was the cynic in me that opted to adopt the moniker "Mr. Blase," despite the fact that I have generally managed to find happiness even in my darkest days. Now, however, I realize that a definite cloud of real blase is rolling softly down my mental valley – if not quite yet settling. That's not the kind of irony I favor.
As the days drift by, I find myself needing more and more time alone, even to the point that I have to remind myself to make time for my loved ones. Casual acquaintances are a thing of the past; I can no longer spare such investments. I've considered the possibility that my—admittedly extreme—introversion has been deepening with age, or perhaps with the frustration borne of life's usual failures in the context of my inescapable perfectionism, but I don't believe that to be the case. Instead, I suspect that this is a symptom of a long-avoided problem for which I still don't have a real remedy: I just don't feel at home in any large group of people - whether that be a party, a city, or a society. It all feels wrong to me.
The mental atmospheres of status quo's inhabitants continue to evaporate steadily, and as the pressure to assimilate becomes stronger by way of both simple mass and self-preservative conviction, I am becoming more and more aware of my growing instinct to escape it all before I'm swallowed up and changed – before I am reduced to simply so much condensation on the brow of the social machine, to be dripped into yet another furrow behind its plow. At the same time, the avenues for a true escape have only grown narrower with every passing year, and their accessibility more strugglesome. I feel trapped. I've responded by nesting; by surrounding myself with nostalgia and sentiment at home; by aspiring to spend as much time as possible away from the sounds, smells and sights of people; by drowning myself in allegory and abstractions and using them as gloves with which I can safely handle the more emotionally-radioactive elements I encounter on a day-to-day basis, but my words—like silent raindrops—fell...
Forced isolation is no better for me than forced socialization, and all I have really accomplished in my withdrawal is a masterpiece of loneliness; my next project in life is to attempt to dismantle it, discard it, and rid myself of any sentimental attachment to it. I have too many things yet to do in life, and I don't want to do them alone.
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