Thinking that a snort of grappa will prime the pump in such a way I may drink red wine like the ruling class - without thirst, is a vanity. I am old and can barely afford such delusions - note to the young: don’t try this at home. To write a sentence much less an essay about a topic so deeply rooted in my own pathology is the height of conceit, an excessive aspect of pride, for I struggle with what it means to have pride in oneself - no clue but am learning how to capitalize “I.” This self-conscious affectation is mostly due to the influence of D.E. Tuppins’ jocular admonition, “after me you come first.” The painful lessons of self-respect, however, are rooted i imagine, from belonging to a brood of beautiful people struggling with their own vanities. When i say beautiful, i mean literally - multigenerational homecoming queens, swimming champions, and bomber pilots - all. My own extistence is more ambiguous - cross-eyed with a bald spot the size of a fist spanning the temporal lobe; distractingly loud for compensating from a ruptured eardrum and a weird as fuck personality by default from parsing a 3D world using a 2 dimensional monocular vision . . . I share this not as an excuse for poor behavior, but from pride at having got this far life and still be open about defects - like the conceit i will become sober from drinking grappa - an arrogance which by extension morphs into the delusion that essays on pride could be useful to those left alive amongst the last DNA strands of our species. As a proud man, I struggle to find ways to contribute to the outcome of our collective future - not based on any delusion of utility, but because that is what I have been fortunate enough to learn - “do your best, without attachment to the results”(derived from Vedic scripture)- A. Non
My aged instincts tell me if there is a spiritual force, she is feminine and very funny. For example from what i’ve learned, self-respect requires that one feel self-love, yet all those i’d model appropriate lessons for such are knee-deep in their own issues of exaggerated self-love - the pretty monster, Narcissus. If i live to be a 1,000 year’s old, nothing’s gonna change and i’m gonna be ugly as fuck on the outside, weird as fuck on the inside - and confusing as fuck to all nearby; Madame g_d, i defer to your superior forces, but know this: i’ve learned of the existence of William Blake and mean to permeate my being, my work and my attitude with his irreverence - is that okay? i find i’m proud, but not necessarily stupid; seriously Madame g_d - what the fuck do you want? I’ve done my best, and am surrounded by much beyond my best effort - hate, jealousy, cowardice, greed, . . . etc. Nor am i petitioning you for terms of surrender - my time is coming soon enough, and though i may not be at peace, i’m not necessarily not at peace - enough so to mock you as you do me - take your best shot, i did and all i got were three wives, but please guide me - i’m lost and not without heart. When i look to what I can feel good about during my time here on this one of your more innocuous celestial bodies - flat or otherwise, doubt seems to be my only companion, beauty and joy having ditched me between marriages; either 1 , 2 or 3. Still i do my best like any well meaning, hell-bent-for-leather wish-he-had-something-to-be-narcissistic-about aging man in the days of rapture looking for any excuse, lame or otherwise to feel good. . .
Dear Reader, you got this far - so you know how to read . . well done - try and teach others. Reading was one of the first life gifts that made me question the seeming absolute nature of self-loathing, that there might be more to being alive. Yet as with all things - the price of pleasure comes with a cost - in this case understanding, or more accurately a desire to understand. How is it that all the finest authors, from antiquity to today have been able to plumb the existential bowels of our kind; prepare symbols in an order that permit strangers to share awareness, yet from Hammurabi to Leonard Cohen, our finest literature has not prevented grotesque aberrations like Fukushima, Monsanto or the Donald “T” with access to power over life and death - even that of the continuation of our species? Such considerations kind of make my curious efforts at sobriety and clarity weak, don’t it? Truth is messier, for i’ve been broken so many times one more defeat is nothing. If anything, my earnest hope for some happy outcome to our collective existential cul-de-sac is nearly the height of “conceit”? How can it be possible that a want for one’s kind - people - to endure, conjures images of omnipotence, delusion or worse “vanity”? Truthfully, I essay in a desperate effort to comprehend the pitiless stupidity of our demise, that and fathom my own reality. e.g. I have lived now more than a year without a home when it seems all humanity is being evicted and threatened for its freedom, love, safety - existence. My occupation and companionship during this sojourn have been a series of portraits of remarkably complex women with varying degrees of relatedness to myself in an excessively prideful, not quite conceited effort to see into the beauty of the incomprehensible; small wonder i fantasize about a female g_d who laughs at my foibles. My last wife’s comment on her portrait was “you have to have balls to sit for Joseph.” Given her ties to the gay community, i’ve often wondered at the ambiguity of such a remark.
The companion sonnet for this essay was to be modesty, yet according to the internet dictionary, shame is higher on the list of antonyms for pride - and once again, i’m confused as fuck. To my thinking shame and modesty are wildly divergent concepts - the latter being a laudable objective, especially in a world full of greedy people using pelf as validation of big shot status. Shame, however is a corrosive residue from poor parenting; educational indoctrination or a blunt behavioral tool for socialization into consumer fodder which like any illness is fair game for healing. The Dalai Lama said, “if you cannot help, at least do no harm,” and my old man Harold Reed Stevens said, “if you’ve got nothing good to say, keep your mouth shut”. I believe them both as well as a strong adherence to Lao Tzu who said, “what is a good man, but a bad man’s lesson; what is a bad man, but a good man’s job?” In the hostel where I have stayed for three months, a conflicted young man spontaneously kissed my neck as a woman might, except his was unbidden, unwelcome. He was consumed by his own confusion. This hostel is in a latino culture with which i have a deep bond with, even familial relationship to, coming from Los Angeles. However, given my nation’s arrogance, I also suffer American guilt by association - sort of like being an old white man in the Philippines where if you haven’t bedded every barely pubescent woman, someone who looks very much like you has. My interpersonal relationships that aren’t historic and sacred, are often tenuous, if there is a storm to be found, the “perfect” one will find me. Rather than knock this boy’s dreams to the ground and step on their oblivious throats - i moved as far away as an architectural remnant of grander days would permit, and in his conceit, he attempted to normalize his fantasy by supervising access to common areas. Witnessing this passion play through the lens of my own prejudice with a limited emotional palette i pulled out the family standby for behavior modification - extinction, or in the vernacular - shunning, “cut them off at the knees”, “pull their ticket”, “know them not”, etc . . .
Mute shunning is one of the cruelest realities one can come up against - to lose, in an instant, access to what had been moments ago considerate, positive, nurturing exchanges is shitty. I am not proud of my limited repertoire for responses to intrusion by a world which often seems to make this quiet retreat my go-to protection against behaviors i’ve found can be amazingly aggressive in their indifference to my own excessive sensitivities, but more importantly and for purposes of this essay about boundaries which i remain confused - another hot-button issue in my personal minefield of upbringing having been diagnosed, according to one professional - albeit much too late to be of much help, as the “identified patient”. Ergo, when the external world, which can be quite lazy about its own self-awareness, attempts to project responsibility onto me for realities inconsistent with what i know to be my behavior, i resist; i resist with the same fervor i rely on to examine my own copious faults, and if you think considering one’s own issues of sobriety, gender confusion or concepts of self-worth in a 5-paragraph essay is a cake walk - try it sometime. Perhaps now you have a better sense of what a proud fuck I am? This conceit is not just embarrassing, it’s dangerous, for having come from a family where vanity was a blood sport, sanctimony and self-righteousness were and remain shadow ministers to shadow emperors. Irony begets irony and obviously i’ve yet to convince Madame g_d that modesty is my ambition and humility my divine objective. This delay may be due to my shadow narcissism looking for its day in the sun, or the paradox that to properly conceive my own insignificance it is necessary that my mind grapple with the extent of those nether regions in my apparently, or delusional, expanding self-awareness.
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modest/shame
how can modest shame be opposite pride?
the dictionary calls them “antonym,“
which makes sense if from guilt one runs to hide;
is there sense in a modest battle hymn?
i sought love from one thirty years younger;
she came chirping to me, rare bird - no shame.
confused me such i thought myself stronger
instead of an aging stallion gone lame
i could feel humiliated, i don’t;
her brave heart sought logic where there was none.
when young i might have resisted, i won’t
she is keen, but must say if we are one.
i am old, wrong and too glad to say no,
if i am damned or redeemed she would know.jts 10/8/2016
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