wretched days and confusing hours
journal entries penned by a nobody. 2nd installment. (11/16 - 11/23 2024)
§1.
Awoke I did, thinking today was Sunday, meaning that I was under the impression that the next day would be Monday—which saddened me to no end because that meant I would have to exercise. You see, I exercise four days out of the week—Monday through Thursday—which means that those days are harder for me than the remainder of the week. I sometimes lack the motivation to do anything come Monday, sullying myself in failure and abject misery from the depths of my heart, with all that lamenting I do for the sake of my propitiation. Nothing helps, and then I lapse into judgment regarding myself and my life in general.
So often do we, or maybe just I, find that all the actions taken in our life suddenly become meaningless the moment we are stopped in our progress. We think that the temporary roadblocks to our happiness suddenly invalidate the entire chain of successes and overcomings we have had in the past. I find that most people cheat themselves of what the goodness of life really is by thinking that the inability to perform what one sets out to do automatically makes them a failure. Now, this is not a surprising apprehension—cogitations of the mind are more often biased by caprice than reason—and with so strong an emphasis on the doing of life, the conduct of progress, the advancement of our felicity, the pursuit of happiness, in short, that is so ingrained in the psyche of every American heart: the desire to not only be useful but also to prosper over our neighbor. To keep up with the Joneses is a more important pastime than our own relaxation.
We in America have forgotten how to be idle because we view idleness as slothfulness—when in truth, these two are not identical; hell, they aren’t even related. Idleness is the luxury of free time, where the hardworking man may have some hours to himself within the day to pass his many seconds in something of the sort that his mind so requires. Why do we not view it more as this: idleness is the repose we take in the fineries of life that actually make the drudgery of labor endurable. Let this not be equivocated with the debauchery of Rome or Golden Age Arabia—where the enlightened aristocracy had free rein to find themselves in rivers of milk and honey, fruits plucked by buxom beauties, and ears filled with only the most sultry of verses, the kind that incite the raising of men’s tools, and the wetting of women’s trousers.
No! Rather, the idleness I speak of is the idleness that Bertrand Russell had in mind when he wrote his exquisite essay on the topic. Idleness is what we do in our free time—free from the necessary contributions we make to society. When the time is ours, we use it to our and society’s benefit. I believe that we should strive to make the best use of this time. As a writer myself who is currently unemployed (never actually working a day in my life thus far), held up by the generosity of my dear parents, I completely understand the need for free time for us creative spirits; we who demand our genius to wander, to foray into this and that long-established enterprise, all for the sake of wetting our minds with the appetizing delights of factual information that may be used for our improvement and pleasure.
Nothing spells advancement and "getting ahead" like education. The education of a populace ought to always be the number one priority of a nation; for with that comes the enlightened minds, the intellectual class that produces the ideas, books, artistic creations, and plays that astound future generations and leave dumbfounded our posterity—to look upon our forefathers as the Italians look upon Da Vinci and Michelangelo, or as the Germans look upon Goethe, or the French Voltaire, or Americans upon the Founding Fathers. From where did these great minds derive? They were brought up in a culture that valued their interests, and their interests thus were fully supported for the sake of the nation’s felicity and enjoyment.
This is precisely why the ancient Greeks and Romans, the pre-Al-Ghazali Muslims, and pre-Christian Europe in general were able to make works of art that still subsist even today. When the morality of a nation turns more towards spiritual purity and chastity of mind, we lose that artistic fire which so prevails in every work of genius. Yes, dear reader, Nietzsche’s analysis in The Birth of Tragedy is correct: too much focus on the Apollonian stifles the creativity of the mind, brimming with ideas meant for the furthering of life. Life is more than the repetition of labor for the sake of survival; rather, it is meant to allow everyone to find what it is they enjoy for its own sake, and to pursue it for its own sake.
The sake of humanity need not be justified by reason, which is the central premise of the Dionysian: that life is meant to have some revelry, and a bit of worship in it, for our own good.
Where do we free-spirits go to when we are lost? We go to where our hearts tell us—which just so happens to be whatever our interest is at the time. We become lost, obsessed even, with this megalomaniacal idea that we, beyond all those who have come before us, shall master our craft in a manner superior to all mankind. And thus do we labor away, forgetting that time is a present thing, and find 16 hours passing without our realizing it, for our work—our craft and genius—had been hard at work for the sake of our future felicity. That we shall one day write like Shakespeare, that we shall compose verse better than Tennyson, that we shall paint better than Titian, that the wisdom and maxims of La Rochefoucauld are mere trifles compared to our insights!
All this thus said, how can one then argue that to wish to pursue this every waking second, that noble pastime of self-education and cultivation, is but a vanity when compared with the laborious repetition of some innocuous task that the managers and higher-ups are too stupid to automate or offshore? Ah yes, America, ‘land of the free, home of the brave’; the land of optimizers and efficiency aficionados; the place that is so obsessed with money, our national pastime is that of consumption for its own sake; where the American dream reigns supreme in the hearts and minds of the populace—some have even forgone their faith in Jesus Christ for the one true most-high god, money (the root of all evil, it is said by the Catholics).
The degrading acceptance and toleration of obvious lies, and the lack of interest in intellectual subjects in the slightest aside from their potential utility in making you a living—the patriotic numbskullery of it all is revolting to me. And you see how I return to that point of not wanting to do something for its own sake. What nonsense do we delude ourselves with.
It has been said that the only way you know you love something is through your willingness to make sacrifices for it, even when those sacrifices may harm you or cause you hesitation. To love something so much that you are willing to endure suffering for its own sake—that, I think, is the primary point of love. And I think that is also the primary point of life: to find something that enthralls you so completely that to live without it would be impossible.
For myself, I cannot live in a world that has no books, no art, no film, no dance, no poetry, no music, no religion—in short, no culture. I love culture. I love the things that people take for granted every day. I love the fact that I write to people on Substack with the naïve hope that they may actually like it back. I love the idea that writing for its own sake is a creative act between my mind and the paper, and that with each stroke of my pen, I come closer to understanding myself and the world in which I inhabit. I love that I may one day be heralded among the pantheon of erudite men and men of letters for my steadfast devotion in this life toward the pursuit of knowledge and goodness. I love that I can reason; that I can introspect; that I can write; that I can think; that I can suffer; that I can overcome; that I can become someone; that I can make myself great, provided I have a plan and a worthwhile pursuit. I see no end to the potential of human felicity and goodness.
I know the world at large is a cauldron of vanity and morbidity—the contemplation of which staggers the mind and brings tears to the eye. The sudden urge to drop upon one’s knees and call out to Christ; the desire to be held firmly by the grace of Allah; to reach a state of nirvana; to become like Aristotle, Goethe, or Da Vinci—learned in all aspects of humanity; to acquire a kind of rapidity of elegance that puts to shame Cicero and Demosthenes: all these things our human race aspires to—and yet we fail in nearly every venture. Dear Lord, why do we go on in such a state like this then?
It is because, despite the fact that vanity and morbidity are more common than polymaths and the successes of our achievements, we still cling to a kind of hope that lies within the human spirit. To walk upright, to no longer fear the snake, to huddle around the fire in hunger and desire the suffering to end: those vestigial traits of our origin make themselves apparent in everyday life. We do not terminate ourselves for its own sake; instead, we continue on in life in spite of it. The absurdity no longer holds sway over us. We find ourselves among the geniuses we look up to. As Emerson rightly epitomized, the immortality of human hope: “We see in every work of genius our own rejected thoughts, and thus do we see them return to us with all their alienated majesty.”
We find in culture our very humanity—the worthiest of all pursuits. We find in the philosophies and biographies of men like Emerson, Nietzsche, Goethe, Shakespeare, Milton, Montaigne, Cardano, Grotius, Erasmus, Johnson, Mirandola, etc., etc., etc., that life which embodies life itself—to live truthfully to your principles for the sake of your own genius, your own individuality—that is what it means to be human!
§2.
Back from getting the mail in all its glory; the journey was so monotonous and boring, I actually envisioned myself as Don Quixote did when he saw that windmill. I want to describe what I saw, for I thought it not a little beautiful, despite seeing it a million times—which one could say is the essence of beauty: the fact that you continue to find something great within something you have already seen before. I walked out at 3:30 in the morning on this rather chilly 17th of November in the year 2024. Wow, 2024 years since the birth of Christ—I’m shocked that the human race has made it this far, considering it was not too uncommon to find those who disbelieved in said savior either burnt to ash or strung up by a rope less than a millennium ago; and the human race itself being less than a million years old.
The first thing I saw when stepping outside, aside from the neighboring houses, was the light blue tint the sky assumed—thanks in no small part to the full moon that was overhead. I mean, wow, just wow—so bright was the moon that I didn’t even need the aid of streetlamps, in all honesty. The sky was like that of a diamond, glistening in the sun. I walked through my driveway, avoiding the dewy grass, and commenced my three-minute walk to the box. ‘Strange,’ I say to myself, ‘the night is calm and still, and yet I still see people’s lights on within their houses. Who could possibly be up at a time like this? I know the night is young and all, but you being up at this hour resembles more the nocturnal reptile than the primate. Then again, what does that say about me? I probably look like the boogeyman to them. If only they knew the reason for my sleep schedule—kept awake at the sight of books, with their barely cracked spines making me feel guilty for not having read them; while at the same time being so desirous to have read them, for it’s undoubtable that they contain some gold, some morsel of wisdom, some light-hearted sentence which will without doubt raise my mood, cheer my anguish, and fulfill my curiosity.’
As I walk further along the road, I stop to gaze at the sky like some Thales, lucky to have not fallen into a pit. The sky was clear thanks to it having already rained earlier in the day; so hard it rained, in fact, that some patches of grass within my backyard were turning brown, as if they could not withstand the onslaught of biting cold, icy moisture, and whipping wind. Their discoloration represents death, and what better analogy is there for the season of autumn, which my god-brother dubs the season of decay. Likewise, he considers winter a season for renewal—the leaves already crushed and disintegrated back into the ground, where they shall make a nice compost for the coming spring and summer season; when our hemisphere turns its oblate self back towards the light and becomes hot in the presence of the sun, so large and noble a burning ball it is.
To return to my gaze, however, the stars look picture-perfect, as their dim light is contrasted by the brightness of the moon, appearing so much more than it really is, for it is closer to us than the distant stars are to it. I love the moon, what it represents. Its same side always staring at us; although there was a time in Earth’s history where that was not the case—where the influence of gravity had yet to lock the moon in its sultry gaze, forever alluring us with its many maria. The beauty of nature is almost incomprehensible. I am as shocked when I gaze at the sun and moon as when I stare upon a blade of grass, or an ant—better yet, man itself! We are but a few octillion atoms anyway, a void of empty space, and yet, what we are, we are; forever finding meaning enough in what it is we interact with, another cosmic triumph on galactic proportions. The moon fills me with hope, for if it has been around for that long, perhaps we humans can as well.
As I finally get to the mailbox, I take my cold, chapped hands from my sweater pockets, put the key in, turn to open, and find… junk mail. ‘Awesome, just totally swell,’ I think to myself. As I collect the waste of paper and ink that is today’s mail, I proceed to walk beyond the premises of my community—which leads to the elementary school behind where I live. As I pass the pool, which one must necessarily encounter in order to get to the elementary school, I see a vaporous, fog-like substance rising from the water: steam is all it is—caused by the ambient temperature of the air being colder than the water itself, which leads to evaporation of the water, which then condenses into tiny droplets when it hits the colder air. A beautiful cycle of nature.
At the same time, as I was walking, I couldn’t help but notice that the ground was still wet. I thought it was from the rain earlier, but the actual reason was more annoying to me: for some reason, the community sprinklers were on, providing redundant water to the already shivering grass and soil. Worst of all, I couldn’t walk towards the school, for the stream of water was directly in my path. ‘This doesn’t seem safe,’ I said to myself. “Why the hell are the sprinklers even on? It rained earlier, damn it. Now I have to forgo that long and pleasurable walk for the sake of staying dry—so critical a thing when the temperatures drop below 50 degrees. Unreal.”
I was rather annoyed, but I still managed to get my leg stretches in, which, I suppose, made up for it. The air was especially crisp, and I would have loved to breathe in that cool November air—so sweet it is to me, not even taking into account the amorous scents that fill my nostrils as I pass the pinecones and spruce trees. Dear God, I am instantly brought to a state of serenity; all my troubles vanish, and I can repose in the beauty of my silent thoughts and restful walks.
I love walking for that very reason: so great is its effect on my mental well-being. I can find myself in the most harrowing of situations and instantly forget them so long as I take a long stroll through the brush, preferably while I place my eyes on my feet and my mind to heaven (the higher thoughts of humanity that bring me joy: the reflection on our scientific discoveries, our great world literature, our music—in short, our cultural heritage. The heritage that Will Durant so nobly epitomized in his 11-volume life’s work). Such is the greatness of a simple walk, a description forever to be heard and felt by all those who walk—and how else do we humans get around—but as the featherless bipeds made famous by Plato.
Walking, made even more glorious by the noble sentences of Henry David Thoreau. From Sahelanthropus tchadensis to us, we shall forever enjoy such mobility. Never take such a thing for granted, and cherish it, praise it, write odes and hymns to it, and most importantly, love it.
As I finished my stretches, I returned home, enjoying once again all the same sights I have had the pleasure of relating to you above. The wind blew in the direction I was walking back, and thus I experienced that cold force brush against my body, with whatever strands of hair stuck out from my hoodie flung upwards. It was quite a funny sight—or at least, that is what I thought an onlooker would think had they seen me walking in the early hours of the morning to get yesterday’s mail—with my hair in such a disheveled state.
Alas, I got to my front door just as my favorite part in Tchaikovsky's Suite No. 4 for Orchestra, Op. 61 "Mozartiana" (1887) played (the middle of the second movement). I turned the knob, greeted my Australian Shepherd, who is always the watchful eye, eager to see my return (I love that little beast so much), patted her on the head, placed the junk on my marble countertop, returned to my bedchamber, and thus typed out this experience in notes, which shall become the second part of my idle ramblings.
My oh my, do I feel my compositional abilities growing stronger by the day; if I were an arrogant man, I would say I’m on my way to becoming the Dumas of America. How swell it is: nothing is sweeter than having your every desire and affection met and accomplished. I shall now commence my reading of Shakespeare. I sign off from the world, effective 4:57 AM. Type another ramble in a bit.
§3.
It bothers me not a little that I write this while residing in my bed, but so afflicted am I by melancholy and tiredness—wretched trepidations and misapprehensions—that the mere sight of my computer chair is a positive poison to my soul. I have had it for nearly six years; it has been with me through everything: the good and the bad, my every triumph and defeat, every downfall and uprising, every lamentable tear and joyous laugh. It has held my frail, weak body, and my now well-built, strongly constituted one. I cannot complain, for it still does its every duty with faithful obedience, and I suspect at this point that it will last another six years easily. It’s a nice grey office chair that cost $120—money well spent. Never have I had a chair so sturdy and durable—it looks as if I barely use it, despite the fact that I have probably spent more time in it than in my bed.
But to return to my point: its sight presently frightens me to no end. This, without doubt, is because I have spent a bit too much time in it. This kills my back, zaps my spirit, hurts my stomach, and gives me an overwhelming headache which I am unable to endure unless I repose myself in my bed. My bed, my comfort, my joy; how much I love to come to her when I am feeling down, for she lifts me up, gives me hope, restores my health, and much good am I able to do having been restored by her powers.
It is the 19th of November, and I feel quite sad, for two reasons. In the first place, it is rather depressing outside currently: lots of heavy rain to come, unrelenting as it is, whipping against not only my house but my window especially hard. I find it difficult to concentrate under such conditions. This is not even to mention the blocking of the sun by those sad grey clouds, shedding their tears all over nature as if lamenting the death of their own mother—what a strange thing it is to see.
The second reason is because I have forgotten to write my journal entry for yesterday (11/18). Not that there would have been any eventful happenings occurring on that day anyway. I swear the past week has just been one repetition after another—in fact, my life for the past six years (since moving from NY to GA) feels like one big repetition: wake up, wash up, perform daily functions, go to bed, etc. Nothing new appears before me; from high school to college to lost soul—although, to be fair, I’ve been lost more or less since graduating high school, not really thinking of or caring about my future, for I had no clue as to what that even meant.
My views are very particular and nuanced in regard to what people call the good life. In the intervening year between high school and college, I more or less studied and taught myself a ton of mathematics. Then, while in college, with less time to study math, I took to reading literature, history, and philosophy—which have, from that point forward, consumed my life almost completely. I made it a duty of mine to read what I considered the Western canon of literature—which, to me, effectively meant reading all books written by men and women of genius (people throughout history noted for their wide learning and wisdom). I became infatuated with the wisdom, learning, and teachings of the entire cultural heritage of the world.
In essence, I read as many books as I could from people I thought could teach me something. I learned more from this massive undertaking than I ever did from any school: more about myself, the world, people, humanity as a whole—in short, life itself. I learned what life was about from people who had actually lived it—their common sayings and adages were more pleasurable and welcome to me than any degree or certificate ever was! I learned how to write, how to think, how to be a good friend, how to be a contributing member of society, how to care for myself and others, what wisdom really is, what it means to be an individual, and where confidence comes from. All these lessons, once unknown to me, are now like gold to me, very valuable and only increasing in value.
It was once remarked by Harold Bloom that we read against the clock every day, and as a result, it is incumbent on us to read only the best that has ever been thought or said. The reason we do this is so that we may come to know more, not only about ourselves, but also about others—there is never a closer friend at hand than a good book. It may also very well be said that the definition of a reader is someone who has more dead friends than alive ones.
There is no justification needed for reading; the pleasure we derive from it is justification enough, for who would be so foolish as to discredit books merely on the grounds that they bring us joy? I don’t believe in bad reading or desultory reading; I believe in reading as a journey, a path to self-discovery. I believe it is the greatest of all pastimes, for in its practice, one can come to discover more about themselves and move through the world with firmer principles in mind—having already read and discovered what is natural to their being.
There are only so many people we can know, and only so much time to read—which is why I say that one should take this as the ultimate principle in all of life: find within the words of others that which is already your own; and from there, collect and gather all those quotations and maxims that you found especially powerful, compiling them into your own encyclopedia of life. Man should strive to know himself, and what better way to do this than to find within the thoughts of others sentiments and natural proclivities you already hold? The greatness in reading is just that: enjoyment in the act of discovery. Make yourself the Columbus of your own thoughts—find that which you cannot help but agree with, take it into your heart, memorize it, hold it, never lose it, cherish it, love it!
But with that inspirational spiel out of the way (I swear I do this more often than it seems), I would like to now return to the topic I originally set out to write about: my journal entry. If you recall, I said I had not written my entry on the 18th, and that was because I spent that whole day reading in a very haphazard manner—from a biography on Cardano, to Carlyle, to Emerson—all in the hopes of strengthening my reading endurance and comprehension. I will likely read Emerson followed by Shakespeare after exercising today.
The only thing I hate about writing my journal out in pen is that I then have to type it all out on the computer. You see, it takes twice as long for me when I do that. If it takes me two hours to write out an entry, it takes roughly another two to type it out (I’m a slow typist whenever I type what I write). I probably would have written more had I not concerned myself with the words of other men; but their words are powerful, joyous, great—too great. In fact, I will say they are the greatest that have ever been writ.
I have recently taken a great deal of interest in the Romantic poets again, specifically Byron and Wordsworth; but at the same time, I hear a calling from Shakespeare and Milton, as if the greatest of the Romantics are in battle with the greatest of the 16th/17th-century English writers: that period which Dr. Johnson considered a kind of Camelot, the golden laurel of our language’s history. A fight between restraint and romance, between sensation and reason, between virtue and glory, between nature and material. There has, perhaps, never been such a literary transformation in the history of literature. Two hundred years may seem like a long time, but most of Europe followed steadfastly the prose of Cicero and the poetry of Virgil for nearly 15 centuries.
The English of Laurence Sterne, Daniel Defoe, Joseph Addison, Alexander Pope, Richard Steele, Horace Walpole, Thomas Brown, John Selden, etc., etc.—all of which Dr. Johnson systematized in his dictionary—was completely revolutionized near the end of the 18th century. What became the Romantic era was at once influenced by the singular genius of Goethe, what Carlyle called “Wertherism”: where people had a singular sense of connection between the passions. It was an era where the long-held traditions of classical restraint were now thrown off, leading to a kind of expression that was so much more liberating, freeing, and pleasurable—in a sense, modern.
Times were changing, not just in words and books, but also in the world. America, the forerunner to all great revolutions, had seen the subjects overthrow the tyrants. Such a momentous event coincided with so noble and grand a change in how we perceive the world and how we express ourselves in it. The world was done with traditions: Baron d'Holbach had written The System of Nature (1770), Goethe, as said earlier, had written The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), and Thomas Paine had written The Age of Reason (1794). It should also be said that the French Revolution was well underway.
This was a time for everything but restraint; this was the kind of environment Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and the rest of the Romantic poets, as we have come to know them today, found themselves in. The influence of Goethe and the two revolutions cannot be emphasized enough. This was a harrowing age, where one second you were in the repose of serenity, only for some quibble over a piece of land to turn into a full-scale war; where sheep and goats grazed alongside each other one second, only to scatter about the field in every direction at the sound of a musket or cannon blast.
Such events led to the dominant passion of mankind being anxiety—or as it was called in those days, neurosis of the nerves. Things were uncertain, food was scarce, and talk of rebellion abounded in the mouths of common folk. All was worrisome, and no hope was in sight. Such a period, naturally, lent itself beautifully to the kind of picturesque, idyllic, creative, and liberating style of the Romantics—both in prose and poetry.
For prose: Emerson, Thoreau, Carlyle, and Goethe were without question the finest examples. There were, of course, others like William Hazlitt, Charles Lamb, Thomas De Quincey, Thomas Hood, and Thomas Babington Macaulay. And in poetry, there are almost too many to count: Goethe (again), Blake, Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Mickiewicz, Schiller, Robert Browning, Tennyson, and Walt Whitman.
I would say I was trained classically (having read more works from the Renaissance than any other era), but I find myself wanting, desiring, begging even, to become more lifelike, more like myself, more powerful in my prose. I want to sound more poetical, more verse-like, more relatable. I’m searching for what is at the heart of humanity itself. Every time I write, I hone my craft, but I feel there is something lacking in it—something not fully there, something important that I am missing.
Whatever this thing is, I don’t know, but I do know that the more I seek it, the more it will call to me. I know that the more I analyze the writings of the greatest examples, the closer I will get to finding what uniqueness and relatability really are. If this be the essence of good writing, then seek I will, and hopefully, I will find it in due time.
§4.
I ate dinner about an hour ago and lapsed into the most wretched of all wretchedness: sloth. It was a broth stew with steamed carrots and pork—absolutely delicious; so delicious, in fact, it nearly put me to sleep. Luckily, I was watching a movie on Lord Byron, and his vivacity and youthful vigor—his rakish indulgences in the flesh—woke me up enough to arouse such fantasies within my own bosom. I was a good Catholic boy, perhaps too good. Of all the seven deadly sins, lust was the one preached to me the most—possibly because it is the easiest to lapse into during adolescence. I would hypothesize that the preaching against something is exactly what makes it more alluring, more obviously lubricious. Give a man venery, and he shall give you hell. Such is man, condemned by his own nature. Foolish religions! We are all marred by the nightmare of our own vanity.
§5.
It is with weighted breath and a sense of misapprehension that I do start this entry. It is the 21st of November, Voltaire’s birthday, and I hope to channel some of his tremendous writing power—it would be most useful currently. I can still recall reading Candide—a blissful four hours, a continuous stream of going through word after word, finding the next as beautiful as the last. The pacing too, dear lord, those single-page chapters; in retrospect, I would say it’s actually a brilliant way of constructing a piece of writing. When someone finds themselves getting through a book quickly, it only encourages them more to read on—I know I have certainly felt that rush of adrenaline flowing over me as I turn the pages in rapid succession.
There is lots of great practical advice on offer in that book, as well as a slew of philosophical puzzles that are most intriguing to ponder along as you follow the misery Candide is forced to encounter. I like to picture Voltaire laughing hard as he concocted yet another torture for Candide, just to prove his point that Leibniz was an utter fool: “This is the best of all possible worlds,” yeah right. Dr. Pangloss only succeeds in the end because “cultivating your garden” was really the true message of the book—to have him killed and not returned would have seemed out of place for the narrative.
It’s a brilliant internal critique, showing that the world is truly a depraved place and not the best, only to in the end say that it is the best, so long as you cultivate yourself within it: to harden your heart to evils, to shun the wretched, to love the good, to perform useful labor, to make something of yourself, etc. The core thrust may seem contradictory, but Voltaire was too clever, even for himself, in that book. Utter masterpiece.
But to return to what I had in mind at the start of naming the date, I regret to inform you, dear reader—and myself (wow, this is quite strange, addressing my future self in the present, writing my own thoughts currently, only for them to make sense in the future, wtf)—that I had not written my entry for the 20th. Or at least I don’t think I did. I swear, my sleep schedule has been so odd these past four days, I’m losing track of what day it is, as well as whether I actually wrote that day or not.
Yesterday was strange because I don’t really remember it all too well. I awoke, that much I’m certain about, but at what time I cannot recall. Looking at my entry from the 19th, it seems I stayed up longer than I remember—watching that movie on Lord Byron—and waking up after only a few hours of sleep (five hours, I think). I can recall doing the laundry before I went to bed, however, while watching a documentary on Walt Whitman. When that was—meaning the time interval from watching Byron to Whitman—I cannot say with any certainty.
What I do know, however, is that after I put the clothes to dry, and after I finished watching that Whitman documentary, I started work on a poem that I was rather proud of. I didn’t finish it in one sitting; rather, I worked on it in bed and then went to sleep with the notepad and pen still in hand. When I awoke (these were the five hours I referred to earlier), I thought it best to try to finish it.
And so, that is what I did. I worked non-stop at it for four hours, completing it around 1:30 PM if I recall (which would mean I awoke around 9 AM; look at that, I was able to trace back time—Mnemosyne blesses me). After that, I read for a delightful hour from the journals of Emerson, all the while staring at my still-open Shakespeare, which I told myself I would read but deferred for Emerson. I thought it would have been an easier read, given my affections at the time.
After that, I exercised for two hours—an hour longer than usual because I did not work out on the 19th (I work out an hour each day). I found the whole ordeal rather delightful, having made up for some lost time yesterday by doing it today. Those kettlebell swings and bicycle crunches really got to me halfway through the second hour, but my, did it feel great. There are few feelings that match a long, successful workout.
When the wind from outside is blowing through your window—that delicate, crisp November air—and fills your lungs with its cool repose and serenity, you just can’t help but smile at how good life feels in that very moment. I then proceeded to take a cold shower, all the while basking in the glory of my pumped-up figure as I looked in the mirror. One always finds themselves looking their best after exercise, when their muscles and sinews are energized and showing signs of blissful fatigue—and when the lighting is good too, oh my, look out!
Socrates was absolutely right when he said that no man should go through life without first discovering what their physical prowess—excellence in figure and form—truly is; what it is you could possibly look like, how you could feel, how much more confident you will be, how happy you will be with yourself. Undertaking such a noble pursuit as maintaining your health for the sake of your future benefit is unmatched.
Nothing beats exercise, aside from reading, in times of leisure. I would recommend it vigorously to anyone who has not done so already. Make yourself a work of art; labor for the sake of your own greatness; become what it is you truly know you are capable of. There is no one stopping you but yourself. Free yourself from the shackles of self-doubt. Become excellent through rebellion, and find yourself atop the mountain of labor and anguish, having conquered such things completely and utterly.
When I first stepped into that shower and felt the arctic cold touch my leg, I froze stiff. But I have done this so many times already that the temporary weakness is overcome by a confident and hardy embrace of the cold. Along my head, chest, and back does it pour—and, with hair now on end, I commence scrubbing and steady breathing. I get myself into a rhythm very quickly so as to ignore the pain of the stinging cold. I wash my body with Dial soap and my hair with Head & Shoulders shampoo.
I always start first with the chest, with my back towards the shower head, acclimating myself to it all the while, breathing rhythmically, almost poetically. From the chest to the arms and shoulders, then to the back and neck. Then ears, legs, and feet; and finally, my hair. Lastly, my face, which I clean using Neutrogena Oil-Free Facial Cleanser with Salicylic Acid, 9.1 fl. oz.
I swear I’m not trying to imitate Patrick Bateman in retelling my whole shower routine—if I were, I would have done it in a less romantic, more deadpan style. You know what? Reading over it just now, I’d certainly say this isn’t my most riveting journal entry so far: no deep philosophical thoughts, no profound ideas, no quotations from learned men of the past, no exciting details about any personal progress in my goals or life—just a man telling the world how he washes himself.
I really do hope there’s someone crazy enough out there who would thoroughly enjoy reading the details of how a poindexter washes himself. Has Emerson ever written about such personal habits? I know he occasionally recorded how much he weighed, but not how he went about washing. Did Kafka or Kierkegaard ever write about such things? How about Goethe, Nietzsche, or Schopenhauer? Tolstoy or Dostoevsky?
Samuel Pepys, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson certainly didn’t. No, those men were too sophisticated—or perhaps too timorous—to tell the world how they kept themselves clean (or didn’t). Those foolish classical restraints, dictating to the writer what is and isn’t appropriate to express in writing. What nonsense.
This is why I loved Cardano’s autobiography so much—the man shared everything. From his poverty to his erectile dysfunction, to his hatred of the people in the market square, to his messy house filled to the brim with various animals. That’s the kind of relatability I look for in a writer, and perhaps that’s why I share such details about myself. To be relatable to the common individual. To not feel like I’m alone in the world.
Our world at present seems to be a breeding ground for mediocrity and uncouthness in all manners. We have lost what it is that distinguishes us; we have all become too over-socialized, to the point of thinking every situation a hero’s journey. Why is receiving a phone call so anxiety-inducing? Why is it that so many people feel lonely or depressed? Why are suicide and phone addiction through the roof? Why must my coevals suffer? Why is it that we were dealt a bad hand by no fault of our own?
We are born into this world without consent and then told to find our way through it for the sake of ourselves; we know nothing, become nothing, and are expected to be happy with a hand-to-mouth existence for the rest of our days. If such is the state of everything, why not just call it quits now—and tell God that his biggest mistake was mankind itself? I know not what lies beyond our mortality, but what I do know is that so long as I draw breath, I will strive to become like some Adonis, like some prodigy of life; to find true fulfillment in whatever my heart finds natural to itself. As the sea always finds its natural resting position—dragged down conscientiously by gravity—so too must I, nay, WE, find our passions, know ourselves, and conquer our inequities.
The game of life we play is too short not to enjoy it, I always supposed. I find it a natural presupposition that all things strive towards their death and decay with equal rapidity, but care not, for they lack conscious awareness. But we, sickly mankind, are so aware—are so made to comprehend the world in such a way that enables both anxiety and nirvana. Our life may be as wretched and deprived, or as saintly and divine as we so desire—the question is, what are our goals, and how much suffering are we willing to endure for the sake of them?
Oh, mankind, foolish mankind! I find myself having to quote that great polymath Alberti in such a lamentable state of things:
“The ancient and famous philosopher Crates used to say that he longed to climb up on the highest spot on earth and cry out to the whole world: "Oh foolish citizens, where are you rushing to—why, plunging to your ruin? You pursue your gathering of riches with so much effort, such anxious care, such a multitude of devices and infinite labor. Of those to whom you will give and leave them, do you have no care, no thought and concern?” Let concern for one’s children come first. Concern for the things which we strive after because they may be useful and convenient to our children, let that come second.” —The Family in Renaissance Florence. Waveland Press, 1994, pg. 67.
See how we repeat ourselves throughout the centuries, and end up doing the same ridiculous things despite all of history’s foresight. So long as there are fools, wise men will eat up whatever failed venture they attempted—for the true wise man is he who learns from the mistakes of others, and by extension, the past.
In a very real sense, it’s why I got interested in literature in the first place; I wanted to go through the world with a store of wisdom and learning from past peoples and ages, for I thought it would be most beneficial to my navigating the world. In my own hero’s journey, so furnished with the maxims and adages of the past, I would be more likely to succeed in every venture I attempted, knowing already what to expect, for I have read about such a situation in a book sometime ago.
This is the ultimate wisdom of life, I presume: learn from others so as not to experience more misery and hardship than is necessary when navigating life, and never stop pursuing what it is that drives you forward and gets you out of bed every day. The rest of mankind’s so-called "universal wisdom" is just some variation and recapitulation of that exact sentiment.
I quote what I think to be an apt piece of wisdom from Francis Bacon on this exact point:
“But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or furthest end of knowledge. For men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason to the benefit and use of men: as if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state, for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground, for strife and contention; or a shop, for profit or sale; and not a rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator and the relief of man’s estate.” —The Advancement of Learning.
Montaigne, echoing this, said:
KNOWLEDGE is without all Contradiction a most profitable and chiefe ornament, Those who despise it declare evidently their sottishnesse: Yet doe not I value it at so excessive a rate as some have done; namely Herillus the Philosopher, who grounded his chiefe felicitie upon it, and held that it lay in her power to make us content and wise: which I cannot beleeve, nor that which others have said, that Knowledge is the mother of all vertue, and that all vice proceedeth of ignorance. —"The Essays of Montaigne/Book II/Chapter XII." The Apology of Raymond Sebond.
The only path to a fulfilled life seems to be in knowing the self and understanding the necessary sacrifices needed for the sake of the self. The individual is not just a static entity, a mere one-thing within the sea—the sloppish slew, rather—of the masses, of the herd of mediocrity, of the inestimable dumbasses, to use Carlyle’s term from the Latter-Day Pamphlets. The wake of death leaves an emptiness in the heart that cannot be fully filled again, but that is hope enough; to suffer through the world is our hope.
Matthew 20:16 has it: “…the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.” Those that suffer will be first, and those in leisure will be last. I make the biblical point not only for impact, but for emphasis—the world is meant for us to endure for the sake of achieving some not-so-far-off felicity. I can’t live with myself in a world where my actions and decisions are made for me, where my life is made worse off for the sake of some comfort. I don’t want it!
I shun all the money and pleasure in the world if it means keeping my principles—my steadfast resolve to always stay true and correct when in the presence of Truth herself, when confronted by Apollo and the nine muses, when met in the Library of Parnassus with all of mankind’s great sages and geniuses. I write a manifesto for humanity—to bring to light and attention this psychological black death we are falling into by the day.
This is not a game. The price of life is death, and if we wish to attain the greatest value we can, we must strive for greatness. There is an unrelenting will (the will to power), a motive force, that is within each and every one of our bosoms, which we must always ensure is lit—like how those vestal virgins keep the sacred fire of Vesta eternally burning.
We must treat ourselves with respect; we must rely on our own genius and capacity; we must shun all efforts to make us conform—the only true conformity should be to our goals and desires. We must, in sum, become what we embody within us. The spirit does not die without first languishing in idleness and depravity. Wickedness may be a perfectly viable goal; just let it not get too out of hand. Never let a desire harm you—only let it empower you to the point of omnipotence.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the life of a Byron, John Wilmot, or Marquis de Sade. The depravity recounted about Nero and Caligula—or perhaps Commodus and Elagabalus—is wretched, but, taking Nietzsche’s view (not unlike how he saw Napoleon), these were among the strongest men in history. Their will to power, their self-reliance, their striving for the forever greater is the kind of embodiment we should all house within ourselves. NOTHING trumps the individual. Nothing. Every decision made is in respect to some desire or wish, a goal, first embodied within ourselves—which is, by its nature, individualistic, even egoistic.
The passions that drive us—to have kids, become a millionaire, get in shape, learn something new, become president, or ace a test—are all brought forth by reactions to stimuli within our minds. They propel us to formulate goals that are necessary to our well-being in a non-trivial sense. All such goals are, in an abstract, philosophical, perhaps Hegelian way, necessarily individualistic. It was once remarked that the true artist is he who knows how much of an asshole he needs to be to get where he wants in the world. He who carries a sword but keeps it sheathed shall inherit the Earth, and they who master themselves shall inherit a mode of being forever true to their character. This, I think, is the whole point of life.
But it seems I have strayed WAY too far from my original intention with this entry. I can’t help it, though; Montaigne and Emerson were the ones who put me onto this extempore style of writing. I have since mastered and beautified it, taking all its noble fruits as my own. It’s funny, too, because at the start of this, I thought I wouldn’t be able to write even two paragraphs. And here I am, page after page filled with my dribbling prattle, only worthy of a madhouse or a truly lost soul.
You see, I view myself as the writer of my people—or rather, my generation. I was born at the start of the 21st century, which, anyone my age would probably agree, seeing how we’re all cynical about the same things, is a pretty bad move. Or, to express it in our speech: “shit is mid.” It is most definitely a mid-period in history to be born in. Like, actually, I’m not being facetious about this—life is looking really rough. So rough, in fact, that I’m over here writing my life away—writing like it’s going out of fashion, like my life (which I haven’t even lived yet) is on the line, like the fate of the whole Earth is upon my shoulders.
I’m writing as if I were a second Carlyle—with that overpowering, domineering, demanding, elegantly beautiful, powerful, awe-inspiring prose. There is no one better situated in history to express the problems and dilemmas we (referring to Gen Z here) all face in this era of history—in our sweet little United States of America—than me, someone living history as I speak (listening right now to Schubert’s The Magic Harp Overture, D. 644. Shit is so fire).
I assume the person reading this is in their early or late twenties and just getting started in life. I wish you the sincerest good luck and fortune as you navigate the cesspool of modernity. There is a benighted, false benignity that pervades humanity, corrupting our every desire and want. We must rise up—or perhaps become bogged down—in the labors aimed at our life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. No one else is here to help us; we must rely on ourselves and the influence of our surroundings to get through this beleaguered rough patch in history.
Trust me, being lost and idle is not pleasant. I romanticize the notion because I am such a man, and I find it beneficial for my writing when I am at my lowest, most miserable suffering. It gives me much to talk and ramble about, as I am doing now. But in the so-called "real world" (a term I despise, as it seems to reduce life to society and occupation, denigrating and mechanizing what it means to be human), I am a nobody—a script-jobber without two pennies to scratch together. I can’t even make fire by rubbing two sticks together. That’s how incompetent I am regarding the various aspects of adulthood.
But then again, I reason that we were all inexperienced once and that the travails of life are stepping stones from which we ascend from darkness, forevermore. Writing is my life—or rather, my current dominating passion—and I don’t want this dream to die with me, to fester like a sore and run, to fade ceaselessly into the midnight of our age, which every schoolboy knows leads but to the grave.
I want to continue doing what I’m doing now for the rest of my life. My art and creation are my contributions. If I am greeted by Saint Peter at the gates of heaven (a place I do not think exists, but for analogy’s sake, will go along with), and he asks what I have done, I will lift my pen and scroll and tell him: My endless writings were the laughing stock and delightful joy of the lost souls of the world—those looking for comfort and consolation, some little tassel of wisdom in an age with so much dearth in that respect.
Anyhow, I finished my cold shower and came out feeling like Alexander the Great towering over the collapsed statue of Xerxes I. I dried off and put on my clothes, after which I was unexpectedly presented with some McDonald’s. Gratefully—respectfully, even—I devoured the entire meal: large fries, 10-piece nuggets, and a double quarter pounder with cheese only.
After that, looking as flamboyant and Byronesque as I could (I literally wore a sleeveless short vest over my dark blue sweater—I swear the world can’t contain me), I made my way to the mailbox. It was a peaceful walk, as they usually are. I was feeling really good about myself and basked in the glory of the idea that the cars passing by were staring at me with amazement and awe. My incomparable genius with the pen is not something easily obtained or found in a youth of my age. I mean, I once called myself the Dumas of America, for Christ's sake—the prolific prodigy, the Mozart of the pen, the person who can’t stop writing once they start, just as Dumas supposedly did.
I am really feeling it! I mean, I’m just doing what I do best, damn it, and I make it look so good, so easy, so fun, so enjoyable, so doable for all. Everyone can have this kind of joy in their life, and I want all of mankind to find that joy within themselves. That’s why I write, ultimately!
As I approached the mailbox, I took out the key, inserted it, and saw the most pleasurable sight ever… no mail. “No mail, nice!” I said to myself. I then walked past the school, did my stretches, and returned home without trouble. Afterward, I did the dishes while watching a YouTube video and promptly returned to my study upon completion. Then, I brushed my teeth, drank some water, took a piss, and went directly to bed.
Having gone to bed around 8:30 PM, I was really hoping to sleep until 5 or 6 AM, but for some strange reason, my circadian rhythm has other plans. After about four hours, I wake up with the inability to fall back asleep. It’s both useful and annoying—useful because I get more time to do things, but annoying because I’d like to reset my sleep schedule. Yet, my body insists otherwise. Over the past four years, I’ve had to play this bingo-fix-your-sleep-schedule game at least 70 times, only to mess it up that many times as well. I’ve never been able to stay consistent with it. I lament, but endure anyway.
After waking up around 1:30, I started typing out the long poem I mentioned earlier. I called it The Voice of a Generation, with the subtitle A Poem for Modernity. It was my attempt to blend Byron’s force, impact, gall, and liveliness with Whitman’s free verse. I thought I succeeded, but I also lamented the creation—like an artist who performs a work so close to perfection that they fear they’ll never achieve such a thing again. But, as any artist knows, that fear is utter nonsense.
Dear lord, I thought this journal entry would be no longer than five paragraphs, yet here it is stretching past five pages! The key to all artistic genius is learning to get over yourself. You must ignore the praises and epitaphs of your supposed brilliance and continually seek new, better things within your art. That’s all we can do. We cannot let our past accomplishments be the only thing inscribed on our tombstones. No, indeed, we should strive to become so accomplished and praiseworthy that even 1,000 inscribed tombstones wouldn’t be enough to honor us.
I think about this constantly, that persistent worm of self-doubt gnawing at the back of my mind. No matter how excellent my prose, verse, or style may become, the worm will always pester me with endless comparisons: this guy, that great woman. It is what it is! We must only seek to become better: to fail, to try again, to fail again—but to fail better next time. That’s all.
After typing out that poem, I cleaned my rug using a new vacuum I got (it cleaned my rug so damn well, and it’s so easy to use—honestly a godsend). After that, I read Emerson’s journals for an hour. Then, I started writing this very journal entry, which I have been laboring over for three and a half hours but have just completed (at 1:39 PM).
§6.
I had really considered whether there was anything worth writing in today’s journal entry. Sometimes I feel like my life is so boring that even the greatest prose and explication cannot redeem my lackluster narratives or daily musings. Is that true, though? Can excellent style alone really fail to carry you through the dense fog of writer’s block—or, in my case, the uncertainty over whether what you write (no matter how good) is relatable enough? Is it powerful enough? Have I ensured that there is something in my writing that would make the reader happy they spent the time reading it? My mind often says yes, but my heart tells me otherwise.
This is the dilemma I face presently, grappling with the possibility that I may have been too ambitious in deciding to write weekly journals. I suppose some people have no trouble writing daily, but I find I only wish to write when inspiration strikes—when I truly have something to say. When I write as I am now, it feels like it never goes beyond mere trite musings. “Who the hell would really read this?” I often ask myself in such moments. Then again, I said the same thing yesterday and still managed to write an entry nearly 5,000 words long.
I don’t think my issue lies in my ability to write, my style, or even my willingness. It’s simply a lack of inspiration. I should confess here and now that I am not a natural writer; I never was, not even as a kid. Writing is more of a way to decompress my mind—a kind of therapy—and it also happens that I cultivated within myself a deep appreciation for literature. In a very real sense, my writing is an attempt to exercise that love I feel for books and the great works of other authors. I’ve developed my own canon of literary works, a good portion of which I’ve read, and from there, I’ve practiced daily to hone my craft as best I could.
I aim to write what I hope are truly great (or at least decent) sentences that people would enjoy. It never comes easily, but I’ve found a way to write prolifically regardless. I know not whether this is a curse or a blessing, but for now, I’ll just go with the flow.
I always found it more noble to suffer for something you love than to endure something you dreadfully hate. I suppose I already wrote this much, so maybe one would think me not so zapped of inspiration—rather, as one of my friends said to me, it’s merely burnout. “You force yourself to do too much,” he said. “Ask yourself what is the end goal you wish to achieve with these entries. Why do you write when you do not feel inspiration?” he asked me. I said in reply, “Because, like an occupation, writing (for authors and natural writers at heart anyway) is something we cannot live without. We have to do it or we get angst—we cannot stop it, even when we have nothing to say. We would rather scribble on than not write anything for the day.” All these arguments I brought to him, and he still seemed unimpressed. “A real writer would never complain about the leisure they have to write; they would just write.” I was somewhat taken aback by this statement of truth said by him, for I’m used to him giving me the witty one-liner that actually has no substance to it; but this was different. I could tell for once that he was actually engaging with what I was saying, and at once had comprehended precisely what my plight was, and gave me some good advice—like all good friends should do.
“But why do I write then?” Ah, there’s the rub: a real writer would not need any justification. But if that’s the case, then one could as easily say that they need no justification not to write; and there is a very perceptive precept in that, namely, that to write and not write are sort of the same thing. One expresses itself through the mechanical act of writing or typing words on a page or screen, and the other perfectly expresses itself in the inaction of writing—the senseless void that is just that, a meaningless attempt at conveying the mind. Perhaps I’m starting to sound a bit too post-modern in my interpretation of my misery, however—that sounds like something Samuel Beckett would say. He was once asked, you know, what his plays really meant. He replied, “What do they say?” I laughed so hard when I heard this, because it epitomizes my attitude towards writing without inspiration precisely. They mean what they say they mean. Then again, Beckett purposefully left the central themes and meanings behind his writings unexplained, so as to allow the reader to come to their own interpretation. I suppose I would like people who read my writings to find whatever meanings and connections they see within what I say—even if what I say is without any meaning or purpose at all, merely idling my time away in the world through the process of writing, all in the hopes of being found relatable and useful to those who are going through some rough patch in their lives, which is precisely what got me interested in literature in the first place. That is ultimately how I want to write and will always try to write in such a way—all the while constantly shifting and evolving with the passing years, finding myself new forms of expression each and every way.
Writing, like life, is about change and evolution; one does not write the same as they did when they were 5, nor are they likely to write the same when they are 85. I find there are two types of writers: those who can write without inspiration, and those who cannot write without inspiration. Now, unfortunately for me, I find myself in neither of these groups. For I can write without inspiration, but I can also write with it; it then really just becomes a matter of mood and circumstance. Right now, for example, I have no burning fire or passion in my heart—I suspect because I’m rather tired, and my sleep schedule is all over the place, making it really hard for me to write with any serious alacrity and pleasure; I rather find myself at present writing (to use an old-fashioned analogy) through steam alone. I feel like a really competent chatbot right now. Like, no lie, the text I write right now would probably pass the Turing test. What am I going to do though? The laborer does not stop simply because he is tired—he knows he has duties, reputations, and people to protect; he knows full well he cannot afford not to do what he does not want to. This man must forgo the temporary pleasure, and sacrifice the present desire, for a more bountiful gift later down the road. This is the essence of capitalism really; we perform some task, exchanging our time, labor, and skills, for the sake of payment in the form of a check or cash. I don’t think it a humane system—I think it rather degrading and exploitative really—but such is the present system the world has adopted. I highly doubt the child of a peasant farmer in medieval Europe was just as excited about their prospects. We all live presently in a constant state of stupor; seeing that things are clearly wrong economically and materially (the inability to afford housing and the skyrocketing inflation of everyday goods), but we can’t put our finger on why we suffer in such ways. The world doesn’t know, and most people don’t care enough to change it—so long as they can scrape by with mere subsistence alone. But even this is under attack, and hence the problem; people would rather rely on bureaucrats, who couldn’t care less about them, to change the system they benefit from. You’re asking the mime to talk in some very real sense, and it’s not helpful.
This world seemingly has it out for all of us; none escape from the talons of misery, it seems. I am no different. Here I am pouring myself out onto the page, only to find in the end that this is mere vanity, a worthless charade that benefits no one, for my words and expressions are really just void substitutions for how I feel. I have always taken the position of the optimistic cynic; I’m optimistic because mankind is, I think, capable of greater good than evil, and I’m a cynic because I don’t see how what I say would really help in any way. Is this a contradiction? Perhaps. It just might be. For why write at all then if you feel nothing you do will change it?
“Well,” I say to myself (thanking myself in my head that I actually asked myself a question I would have asked myself anyway), “I would say that there is nothing else effective I think I could do. I already told you earlier that I was not a natural writer—in truth, I don’t think I was a natural anything aside from conscientious in wanting to know things. I was always someone who followed what I was told; I loved to please people, I was a people pleaser. I was not naturally creative, artistic, literary, or interested in anything that was intellectual—I was always just told to value those things because they were useful things to acquire in life. And I was also one to go with the crowd to fit in, rather than let what my interests were take hold of me. In short, my childhood consisted of being told things, but not told why I was being told those things, aside from getting the long-trodden-out ‘because it’s good for you’ or ‘because I told you’ nonsense.
It took a really long time for me to find what it was I was interested in, truly, and which I really wanted to pursue for its own sake. Once I found that, like with the rest of my foiled interests, I pursued that fully and with great effort; and it just so happens that what I really found interesting was writing, and literature in particular. And thus I wrote and read, and wrote and read, and wrote and read, until I became proficient in this most useful of arts.”
I would recommend anyone who isn’t a reader to at least pick up a great book from the classics (Homer, Virgil, Byron, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Milton, Emerson, Goethe, etc.) and see how you feel in reading such works—I can almost guarantee you, you will come out of the experience with a completely changed aspect; you will consider things in life you never have before, you will never take for granted the beauty that is so obviously embedded within words and expressions, and you may even find yourself a new passion for your life which you will be eternally grateful for. Reading allows one’s mind to expand, to consider new perspectives, to grow in confidence, to take on the world, and to take command of your life by the advice you may find within the stories of other people. Every great work of literature speaks from the heart to the heart of the individual—it is an individual-to-individual experience. The lessons that you draw from each and every story then become your own, and at once you comprehend the power that lies within the narratives we construct, how they positively affect our lives, how they allow us to endure suffering, how they allow us to maintain faith and hope in a better tomorrow—all these things are impossible without first establishing within your mind a kind of appreciation for these values. In short, the world becomes open to you in new ways which you never would have expected it to.
But I wish to return to the original point I wanted to make, if I can even recall that, for I know for a fact I have rambled on longer than I wished with that digression; but then again, what is more beautiful than letting the mind wander here and there in writing—one gets a firsthand view of the author wrestling with their ideas in real time, and often, if the prose is good enough, will find a slew of great sayings, expressions, and maxims that would be beneficial to the reader. I believe the point was about writers who can write without inspiration and those who cannot. I am a mix of the two. Writers who can write without inspiration seem to me to resemble some kind of shell with nothing in it; they can write, maybe even excellently perhaps, but it will never have the same emphasis and power as if it were done with inspiration. Sentence after sentence may be produced, but in what way does what is being conveyed actually change the heart, water the eye, or move the soul? It seems to me a very hard thing to do: that is, to write sentences that have a poetical or imaginative quality to them without drawing on either a period model of just that, or to receive from the muses a burst of output that really supplies the reader with that kind of connection—the connection and understanding of imagery and emotion, two key aspects of writing.
Now we come to the side I find myself more in sympathy with, those who cannot write without some inspiration; we may not write as much, but we write better—more impactful and elegant are we who write only when we have been blessed with some profound insight or idea that we otherwise would not have writ about.
Unfortunately for me, however, my hands are getting cold, and I no longer wish to continue on with this writing—not that it has become boring or hurtful to me, but I think I have said enough. I started this entry with nothing to say, and here I am, rambling on still—forever to eternity, it seems! I have to say, it was enjoyable. I found that in writing it, many ideas came to mind, ideas which may have never seen the light of day had I not decided to write despite the fact that I wasn’t feeling up to it. Maybe all the advice about growing your audience through ‘just writing’ has some aspects of truth in it. I suppose that is all we writers can do: write even when you don’t feel like it, because it’s damn sure better than sitting in your chair in sloth, wasting your time scrolling. The ultimate cure for writer’s block, I found, is simply to write the first thought that appears in your mind and run with it; and I found that the best alternative to writing is reading. I think these are the only two pieces of advice any aspiring writer really needs to hear.
§7.
A dreary mind creates dreary days. I awoke at the start of this new day, not refreshed, but in lament that my health had not restored itself with the passing of hours in that most beautiful of unconscious states. Sleep was touted by the ancients as a chance to see the spirits of the gods and our forefathers within our dreams, and I have had none of it, either today or yesterday. I awoke with those same deeply engraved bags, suggesting I have been hard at work in the waking hours of the day and night for longer than I really have; in truth, I have, for the past 5 days, tried my best to sleep at a reasonable time, in hopes of restoring my sleep schedule to some regularity—all without success. It’s the most annoying thing ever, it really is. I ate, did the daily chores, sat and thought, studied some Italian, and washed my face and teeth—one would think such a day is pretty ideal, and I would agree, if it wasn’t for the fact that when it came time for me to slumber, I was denied it. I went to bed rather early, at 8 PM, in hopes of sleeping 7–8 hours, to rise at 5 or 6 in the morning; but, alas, as I have already mentioned, I have not succeeded in so simple a task, for my circadian rhythm allows me no long repose.
I wake tired, after only 4 hours of sleep—as if that were enough for me to function fully on; and then, forced against my will, I go through the rest of the day like some eternal buzzkill, angry at the world, shaking my fist at the sky, cursing God, and wishing death upon myself. I fail at even this task, however, and so I give up the attempt, and make it a goal of mine to simply stay awake until my body forces me into deep sleep—and I mean truly deep sleep. It’s strange too, because I would like for my body to agree with me when it comes to sleep, to rest well, to wake without worry of the coming duties and daily tasks; but it seems it has other plans, for it rather insists that the schedule I have going is optimal for me, when it clearly isn’t.
I have tried multiple times before to actually achieve this kind of strange Übermensch-type schedule; where one sleeps 4 hours only and remains awake for the remaining 20. But now, when I don’t wish it upon myself, I find myself in it. This seems a recurring dilemma in everyone’s life; good things occur when they least expect it, as do the bad. Should sleep have been kind to me, it would have allowed me some rest till at least the cracking of dawn, but no, I don’t receive such a gift. Rather, I am now condemned to move throughout the day like some zombie—forced to receive the everyday arrows of outrageous fortune and to endure them while at my most irascible, when the power of my rage rivals that of Achilles. Woe to the one who receives the scorn of my stare, the contempt in my voice, and the biting canker that is my ignoring of them.
You know what, at this point, I do not wish to sleep; I cannot ever sleep. This is the end of this wretched journal entry. I can only hope in the coming days that this anger will subside, and I can be returned to a tranquil state—hopefully after finally having received sufficient sleep (more than 4 goddamn hours). In the meantime, I shall continue to study Italian and pray that I find the strength within me to labor through the day to the point of exhaustion. Then, alas, my head shall hit my pillow, and all will become serene when I wake having slept a full 8 hours.
Don’t expect these entries to get longer than 1500 words. Despite not writing for a day, my burnout from it has still not subsided. I need more time at the wake of my powers so that a resurrection may occur in my name, and I can return to write for everyone with the fullness of my powers. Until then, don’t expect the elegance of Proust or Dumas; expect, rather, cheap—garbage, really—imitations of it, where I am not my own but, rather, an artist copying the work of another.
Good day, wretched self (written 11/24 at 2:06 AM, supposed to be written at the end of 11/23).