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An epiphany: this is what I do when I should be doing something else.
Case in point: right now, what I should be doing is the dishes, squelching the resentment that comes with the fact that—of the rotting heap of plates, forks, knives, bowls and glasses in need of soap and water—only about two of them were used by me personally.
In the nag-o-sphere of “should,” I should be online with my checking account now, surveying the anemic aftermath of a balance post child support and rent payments, seeing how much is left to keep the lights on.
I should be calling old friends to apologize for my radio silence and to generally catch up. I should be tidying-up that white trash embarrassment of a back yard. I should at least be finishing that book.
“Don’t SHOULD on yourself.” That was the mantra given to a dear friend by a psychologist following a then-trendy treatment path called Something-or-Other™ (they all have names, those schools of treatment, all with a little ® or ™ following). The Fazukii Method®. The LoveScience™ Way. Whatever. Don’t should on yourself. I liked it then and I like it now. And unlike my friend, I didn’t pay a penny to co-opt the slogan.
But that doesn’t mean I can internalize it.
Some of us, unfortunately to our peril, are seemingly born to defy our “shoulds” (as well as our shouldn’ts) in a passive aggressive personality knot as dense and painful as the last lumpy krick you had in your shoulder. The previous post, wherein I wallow in the nagging suspicion that I “should be doing something” about my largely cavalier if not wholly absent approach to my health was just the tip, as they say, of the shitberg. I myself missed the point. It’s not about the “doing something,” it’s all about the “should be.”
Please remember, these at times navel gazing essays have but one ambition, and it is not to blather on ABOUT me TO me. I’m looking for just one person, somewhere out there, that can relate to the confession at hand and feel better about their own, in this case, inshouldedness. At my most hopeful, that reader posts a comment that, tit-for-tat, makes ME feel better. You know the old saying: You scratch my back, I’ll suck your cock. Or something like that…
For the record, some 20 minutes have elapsed since the close of that last, offensive paragraph and the commencement of this one: my bravely having taken the time to throw out the garbage (2 days overdue) and re-stock my cigarette supply (NEVER 2 days overdue, much as I may wish). So where were we…
Should.
That bit, just above, about my letting the screen go dark while I took out the trash and walked to the corner store? I should (here we go again) have said: Excuse me, dear reader, I have to go take a should.
Now if in writing these missives I’m doing something to fill the guilty void of not doing what I should, what are YOU not doing in favor of reading them? Yikes.
The mind reels.
It is not lost on me that I have lost readership. And I should have. Should.
There’s nothing like a spate of depressing, overly self-regarding entries to accomplish that, yes yes? Overly “happy” entries, especially those concerning being in love, are all the more guaranteed to alienate. Yet while never aspiring to more hits than The Huffington Post in the first place, I have nevertheless enjoyed periods of reasonably high traffic and the reader correspondence to prove it. Those times appear to be over. So much the better (sniff sniff).
While I know this outlet to be a healthy one; it being begun as a way to keep my mind alive in a very dead period of my life; while it provides for Illuminaught a way to scrape the muck from his frontal cortex I may rely upon this outlet, this pressure valve, more than I…
should.
This is not a commercial enterprise; the content is generated for free and the infinitesimal storage required to offer it to the world is free as well. Yet as a person who has forever paid the rent by ensuring his clients’ public entireties (for your money) could be considered commercial successes, I have attempted to better satisfy with the humorous fare for which this journal had originally become so famous and appreciated by approximately seventeen people. Now, my precious Illuminaughties, by all reckoning we’re down to about three. Should I care? Should I dance for the unseen King in hopes of garnering the approval and thus the attention of my primarily imaginary following?
I think there’s some dog should on my shoe.
What I should do is stop now. But why bother? There’s fuck-all to do except the things I should, and the remains of the day are spread before me with an emptiness to rival Nero’s soul. After all, I’ve tried brevity in these pages and that hasn’t seemed to invoke critical acclaim, either.
There is no shortage of what could be credibly defined as “important” text out there. And more often than not I myself am scared-off by too many paragraphs, too many words. When it’s a struggle to hunker down for a page or five penned by the Dali Lama himself, I should manage my expectations when it comes to just how many of you survive this depth into the written rants of an imperfect, unenlightened and occasionally downright hostile writer. I should. Shouldn’t I?
There is, in fact, an affliction called Hypergraphia: a mental/emotional compulsion to write. As there are similar “compulsions” to murder, steal and molest, I suppose it’s a relatively benign affliction to be afflicted with. But today, my 6-foot rabbit, I have decided I should bring it on. Full on. Simply stated, just for a gas, I’ve decided to make this—if it isn’t already—the longest fucking post in Illuminations, evaaar. Because I’ve come to the realization that I…should.
So many so-called bloggers lose steam due to what I’ve heard described, rather brilliantly, as the “Robinson Caruso Syndrome.” If you’ve ever kept an online, particularly a written-word space you know what that is: folding messages into a bottle, corking them up and hurling them into the ocean in hopes of a response. A response that rarely if ever materializes. So rather than make that pitiful outcry of “I’m quitting!” that I’ve seen others do too often and have in truth done myself at least once in this journals’ many years of existence, today I will write everything. Today I will retire, resurfacing only to impart short, glib takes on current events in a style one could accuse me of cribbing from The Onion, if only The Onion’s writers were as funny as I am.
Should I do this? Yes, I should.
There is no reason why the energy (minimal) and the dedication (Pavlovian) applied to these pages can’t be somehow better spent. “You should write a book,” so many have instructed me. “You should write a movie,” say the others. The remaining few typically scratch about for reasonable advice and say things like “You should really write… something.” All of which suggests that this URL POS ain’t quite the optimal venue.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not so enthrall of my gift that I’ve come to see this avenue of expression as somehow beneath me. Nor am I blinkered to the degree that I would become confused—as in confusing my own meager skills with those of a genuinely “great” writer. Me? I just like to chat. Without any annoying interruptions from you, frankly. And while I shouldn’t admit it, my favorite music is the sound of my own voice. But by now, even if you’re way late to the party, you’ve figured that much out. As you should.
Should.
But please, don’t should on yourself if you haven’t already.
I should commit to this now, and doing so has all the creepy elements of declaring we are quitting smoking or drinking, or are going to run five miles a day, or start meditating or eating better and that feeling is intimidating indeed; usually greeted with as much support as a New Year’s Eve resolution to stop partying when our head is hovering above a toilet bowl. That said…
I am going to write something.
And it’s not going to be available for your casual surfing here. And if there’s one whit of you that gives one shit for me, that should be good news.
Because what I “should” do doesn’t really involve the mundane. It’s not about how many vices I should abandon or how many sit-ups I should start doing. In the end, what we all should do is everything we’re able to do. And for too long, while this exercise began as and has accomplished its goal of keeping me from outright brain death, it is the equivalent of trying to piss marbles up a glass wall in a darkened room.
I should, in short, get serious.
If we intend to leave something behind for our children, for our loved ones and even for our enemies, be it known NOW that blogs, “journals” and all the wanky bullshit, word or image, that we post on our sundry social networking sites is fully, fundamentally worthless. The Cloud, as it is understandably christened, is naught but an Orwellian device that convinces us, disingenuously, that we are Doing Something when in truth what we are doing is nothing… at the expense of doing what we should.
My brother/cousin who more than once-upon-a-time called me in tears as an engineer asking for my help to enter the glamorous world of television is now a senior producer of one of the most successful reality shows running. What I told him then I will tell you, and myself, now:
It’s not about what we’re supposed to do. It’s what we should do. And if we don’t should for ourselves, there’s approximately jack-shit we can do for anybody else.
I’ll miss this venue, but only as a lazy man misses his submissive wife. And I’ll be back, here and there, to lampoon the absurdity in the daily news that even the best humor sites on occasion overlook.
If but once I’ve made you smile, or laugh, or even better cry then I am humbled and happy. Yet now I feel the circle completing itself, I sense the snake taking its tail into its own mouth.
I’m tired of jerking off when there’s real fucking to get in. And time, that bitch mistress, is bathing the back of my neck with her hot, smelly breath.
As a child, the shoulds surround and anger us. As a fading star, perhaps they can inspire us.
And at the end of the argument, isn’t that exactly what shoulds should do?
Amen.
And of course as yours always,
Illuminaught
FIN
Here's to the good shit.
Daisy
Re: FIN
should
what does it all mean?
Re: should
Fare Well
New Eels rekkid out June 2nd. I just heard a track and it was definitely recorded in the red zone of the sound board. Very distorted. An audio metaphor for our times.
I am at calamity3@gmail.com
Don't want to lose touch,
AV
Re: Fare Well
Love,
Bosha
wait a minute
Re: wait a minute
Leaving again?
Re: Leaving again?
But thank you. Thank you as Elvis might say, very much.
Shit
And you took the time to talk to me and go over the approach, the detail, even the easy let-down.
You should have just told me to go to your blog.
Meeting with former client next Wednesday, coup underway.
Cheers,
the other cousin
the other cousin
In my experience, the act of talking about the writing ends the act of writing. Sometimes you let it slip, you start talking about a story with a friend and she likes it and... poof. It's gone.
Keep your trap shut, and don't be too precious when you finally have a draft finished.
I don't want to be the first published novelist in the family. Everyone else will be dead by then.
Cheers,
the other cousin