Dear diary,
Does life proceed by decades; are ten-year intervals the segments of our “worm that dieth not”? Let me consider this idea . . .
After my first decade of life, I was an ice pillar. At that age, I had already become the fear that has centered my existence.
After my second decade, I was obsessed with the fad of rap music: that was my only concern; all I desired was to listen to rap and create my own rap tapes. I only liked recording with my friend, who was my one partner in our two-man group; I was interested in the studio aspect of rap, whereas live shows utterly turned me off. I had stage fright, so I planned on never performing live: instead, I would have my brother Paul learn my lyrics and go onstage and pretend he is me, and rap my raps alongside my regular rap partner (who incidentally was eager to perform live shows); and since we would implement this solution from the get-go, nobody would ever figure out that the real me never appeared in public. So that was how my life would go, to my twenty-year-old mind: I would have a successful career in rap music, despite being a shy recluse.
When my third decade landed, I was trying to quit the rap habit and in love with literature. Not bestsellers: classics. Also, experimental poetic writing like Dada and Surrealism. I was worried because although I had written reams of text, it was all trash because it was rap; I had never yet written anything bookish. So my goal became to write my first scripture before I turned thirty. And I ended up doing that. I was not concerned about earning money from literary work, because all the writing that I loved most was done by people who never got paid for it. Rather than get rewarded for writing, my literary heroes get punished. Walt Whitman lost his job for making Leaves of Grass; Herman Melville’s life was ruined by Moby-Dick; Emily Dickinson was doomed to obscurity and solitude because her contemporaries labeled her lifework “not poetry.” I’ve also always admired the Hebrew prophets, and all their writings got them killed. I could go on . . . Franz Kafka . . . William Blake . . .
When my fourth decade approached, I had finished my collection of masterpieces (that’s how I thought of them), which I called “Self-Amusements.” I had achieved my goal, and my thoughts about the future were relaxed: I wanted to enjoy an early retirement, because what I had written was satisfying to my taste. I still agree with this assessment, by the way: when I look back on those two volumes of Self-Amusements, I conclude that I accomplished something better than I even dreamed was possible. So, why not rest on my laurels, after a job well done? I knew that I would always love to write, so I began to keep a diary in public, online, using a blog site; but the words that I put there were just low-grade rambling for the sake of passing the time, nothing serious.
Now that the next decade is ending – I ask myself: Did I successfully retire? The answer is no. If repose was my goal, then I screwed up bigtime. Instead of enjoying life and writing nothing beyond the diary, I ended up churning out a bunch of pseudo novels – a set of fourteen. What happened is this: At a couple years into this recent decade, the authorities told us global citizens that there was a deadly pandemic. (Writing this in hindsight, I now ask: Was there any such thing? What happened, exactly? It feels like we were tricked by some secret powermongers who execrate humanity.) At the time, that’s what we all thought was the case: a killer virus was on the loose, lurking behind every atom of air, waiting to end all life. This threat caused me to panic – I feared that the Internet itself would break down and become no longer available; and since I had, till then, contributed all my most recent compositions to my diary, which existed only online, I made it my priority to transfer all the writing that I had contributed to that weblog into book form. To secure a physical copy of all my e-text. If this action seems mad, I repeat: I was panicked, under the influence of lies from on high. So, anyway, once I finished that task, I stepped back and surveyed the result, and I was shocked at the amount of writing that I had amassed from all my aimless journaling: the diary ended up filling multiple volumes in print. I then said to myself: “Why continue adding to this already bloated blank? If, by simply scribbling a little each day, you can accumulate so many books; then wouldn’t it be better to add variety to your oeuvre, by contributing to other formats? You haven’t written any novels yet – why not try that? You can diary just like normal, but compose your daily thoughts in a way that feels like an ongoing narrative rather than an informal letter. So that’s what I began to do. And that’s why I called them “fake” novels, in the end: they’re not really novels; for true novels are plotted out beforehand, all sorts of hard labor goes into developing their characters and events – mine are careless imposters. (I love them for being so, by the way; and I hope futurity does too. For who cares about past writers who are stuffy and punctilious? We desire wild men like Shakespeare and Cervantes.)
My point in writing now is to reflect on this most recent decade of life. I feel the need to confess a sin. I should not have published those novels. Maybe I should not have published my diaries either. It might have been a better idea to select only the best parts. Also, I should not have published my essays and lectures. And I should not have rewritten the Bible. I should have remained true to that initial impulse after my Self-Amusements: to retire. Sit in a lawn chair, smoke cigars and drink vats of brandy.
Or I should have joined the army: that’s what I should have done. I’m told that the army is a place to build a career. So I should have built my career in the army, and then when I retired, I could be a respected citizen. Everyone respects an army veteran. I would have a uniform, and all those insignia patches, with extra pins that symbolize various honors: all proof of my courage and diligence, loyalty, hard work, trustworthiness, bravery, self-sacrifice, and excellence in leadership.
If anyone objects to this by saying “But the army is bad: they do bad things,” I say: Grow up. Everyone’s bad. Everyone sides with badness nowadays. Get with the program. What are you, some sort of goody two-shoes who’s never committed any atrocities? Why don’t you go and work your job as a soda jerk at your local convenience shop; meanwhile, I will land a helicopter in a jungle and shoot my machinegun. We’ll see which one of us has more friends, after the smoke clears from the battlefield. I count hundreds of enemy soldiers dead from my bullets – what’s your score? Oh, it looks like you’re pouring me a free drink, to commemorate my victory. Thank you; this beverage is refreshing, because I earned it with guts and glory.
Why is it always a jungle, I wonder. Didn’t we fight on open fields, in the olden days? What is it about jungles that attracts my country’s current army? Maybe my country is bordered by jungles, and therefore that’s where intruders are most likely to attack. Yes, my country is surely surrounded by thick jungles.
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