On the Ever-growing List of Grievances
♠
“He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.”
…of life, of love, of pleasure and happiness; of grief, of hatred, of anger and malice; of the signs of changing seasons and the ongoing rush of age; of terror, of beauty, of truth, of decay; of forgotten corners, the forgotten peoples; of cool summer evenings, of warm winter days; of bigots and racists, of faggots and chinks; of the bottom of your toilet bowl, your sock drawers, your sinks; of sewers and land-fills, of plains, of mountains; of calligraphy, of paintings, of your television screen; of the covers of books and the pages between; of all these things (ever-growing is this little list of mine) of all those others that have not made it down in ink; but above all else, of life and of what you think.
Onward! Forward moves the day. I have woken up ravenous and there is a pain deep in my belly. Filled-up, fed up, I must wake up again, only to discover that it is too cold in my bedroom, my sheets are sticky with sweat, my feet smell and there’s an uncomfortable drumming in my head. Would that a dreamless sleep envelope me, would that the too-bright sun coming through my curtain-less windows turn to a moon, and soft light and darkness assuage—if they could—an existence misspent on hate. But no, the hour is trickling by: I must shower, I must shave; the dictates of decorum and presentability are the first irritations in store for the day. I prepare myself, I steel myself for the coming irritations—they fly in through the windows, drip from the taps, they reek in the toilet bowl, the bathroom floor, and the kitchen sink. I range my irritations about me like generals and yes-men; I thread them on a knife-sharp string and let them jangle on my chest, shard-like, colored-glass gaudy, pretty but painful, hateful, grim.
To war, then. To war…
* * *
…like an eagle I descend from the peaks and find fodder to eat. My grief is my castle, someone once said, though I would prefer it another way: my hate is my tower, from where I survey the surrounding plains. And not a single thing escapes my world-weary eye. I exit my house, I lumber forward, gaining volume while the irritations clink-a-chink, tingling like wind chimes in a particularly viscous wind. Slow walkers, overfull trash cans, dog shit: it makes me billow and churn, these offenses to the eyes—the eyes! the eyes!—and I concentrate harder, never forgetting—never—tallying each one up in my mind.
Such collections, such hobbies, need a fitting storage space. The sheer quantity of my collection would demand a silo or a warehouse, a landfill, perhaps outer space. Instead I store them in my head, counting out numbers then things, lists upon lists upon lists upon lists; I store them in my face, each a different curl of the lip, each a different grimace, a shaking of the head, a spit. And when I return, heart hardened by yet another glaze of hate, I jot them down on the little scraps of paper with which I decorate my walls, like tapestries. Then, from my bed, before I go to sleep, I whisper each offense to the surrounding darkness (which grows) and lull myself to sleep…
* * *
…mornings are particularly hateful. Your mind is alive and newly awake; each and every sensation is alive with pain. Never mind objects or people in your way, for there is the ever-present knowledge that the day will be long, that yet again your faculties and patience will be tried, and for all that, that the mind might be too weak to take it in stride. So the birds outside my window sing songs riddled with spite, the children on their way to school yell curses and get in fights, the beggar at the subway asks for change with rage, and the subway turnstile rejects my card, and I have to pay again for another useless item, a hated tool, and I tell myself to breath, to billow, to inflate, if only to get through the next two to three moments, if only not to make a fuss, make noise, scream, shout, murder, rape.
I am not physical, though, I never reach outside myself. The fundamental notion, the essential element of this hobby, these lists, the only method by which I may persist in the pursuit of my goal, is to travel, shade-like, through life. My shadow is my weapon, darkness my friend, my body is useless, my capacity to inflict pain, nil: to sit in darkness here, hatching vain empires, twiddling my thumbs for dreams that never come: that is my way. And still, I feel unsatisfied with this, for my shadow is too short, or not wide enough, and I think, with time, in time, I could expand, become like that cloud, demon-wrought, tower-high, lumbering on from dawn until dusk—wherever there is light would be my place—only to rest but for a nighttime’s darkness, with mighty wings outspread, dove-like, brooding on the vast Abyss. And when the day begins, reinvigorated, I unbar the gates of night and of darkness, and proceed out into the world. And observe….
* * *
…the graffiti on the windows, the uncomfortable seats, the jarring, rocking motion of the passage of the train, the high-pitched squeals of the wheels on the tracks; the people who stand still in subway doors, unmoving, unrelenting, and give you that look that conveys, Not only am I not moving, but I know I’m getting in your way; the people who give up their seats so a child can sit, the parents who can’t get their kids to sit still, the people reading crappy books; people who stare, people who talk too loud, people who sigh and pout and moan dramatically at any delay; people who do their hair, put on make-up, talk on the phone, people who look incredibly alone; the stupid signage, the insufferable ads, the infuriating safety stickers, the incoherent P.A.; baby strollers, bikes, oversized shopping bags; the bum's stench, cologne’s cloy, mildew’s rot, deodorant’s decoy; panhandlers and budget musicians, sudden starts, sudden stops, malfunctioning doors, blithe cops, field-trip crowds, tourists with cameras and bags in tow; silly conversations, awkward exchanges between co-workers and half-friends, racist slurs exchanged between family members, revealing snippets of people on the phone. People…
* * *
…nature never really irritates, annoys, or pains in the same way as people, as it is without motive, mute, and uncaring; no branch falls and strikes a person’s head with intent, no bird flies shitting over crowds with malice, no cloud bursts over an already rain-soggy city with a wry grin, puppies don’t pee on the floor to test boundaries. Natural things only rankle your sensibilities, your senses, if you natural state is pained. So if I cringe when there’s a light hail, an irritating shower, or if I shake my fist at a dog yelping uncontrollably, or if I want to kick the cat that hisses at me as I pass, it is hardly the natural world’s fault, though it is still nature I blame. Even if in the beginning, when there was nothing, and the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and suddenly, from on high, a booming voice cried, Let there be light! I still would have found a reason to be dismayed; that the water had been cool, the darkness well, and this light, this intruder, could only be an intimation of hell to come, an unwelcome change. Thus on days of gentle rains I hate to see the sun; on snowy days I hate to feel warmth; though I always welcome clouds in any shape, any form, for perhaps darkness, the cold and wet, the obscured and vague skyline of a particularly gloomy day, these things satisfy my sense of injustice, conform to my most natural of all states. It is when the sun comes out, too-bright (as in the mornings) or too-revealing (as when in mourning…for love, for life, for things that decay), I curse the heavens and this wretched earth, the dying of every day, and hope for a return to that antediluvian darkness, when there was no night, there was not light, there was no day….
* * *
…one must concentrate on the present, the here and now, and pay attention to details. And if I choose to isolate the things that irritate and annoy, grievances against my acutely irritable self, is it because it is the easiest thing to do? The smartest path? The best way? No, it is not quite that, but let us, for a moment, let us consider the beautiful things of this world. Let us let the muse have her say.
For there are beautiful things in this world. Oh! There are beautiful things! Sing, muse, of these more beautiful things (muse, oh, muse! A muse can only expound on the prettier things), and of laughter, of light, of the pleasures that make life “worth it.” There are the commonplace things that men love to extol and sanctify, workaday scenes for workaday hours for workaday eyes: rising and setting suns, the despondent moon, a mountain vista, the cry of a loon; simple pretties like light refracted in water, prisms creating rainbows, a child’s delighted gurgle, an unbroken stream of oil, the waterfall's look and sound, the stars, the skies, a dappled tree’s shadow, a sapling sprouting from cold, dead ground. There are many more, less observed, forgotten; the corner of your room with the cobweb that twinkles, that sways to errant drafts in a little heeded and forgotten dance; the tremors of a golden lab’s coat of fur when thunder and lightning crackle and roil and rarify the surrounding air; the moment when a cat begins to purr and arch its back, oozing pleasure and warmth into your ears; (strange things, strangely beautiful); a cuttlefish eye, the perfect symmetry of a leek, the taste of a tomato, the marbling of beef. Yet for all their beauty, these pretty forgotten things, they do not delight nor do they bring ease to my mind. I can observe these things, I can appreciate their warmth and worth, but the muse fails me in that she can only list these things and not what they imply: no water falls without terrible violence, to rocks, to plants; sun rise speaks of rebirth (again?) and sun set speaks of dying yet another time; rising saplings will only be cut down; light might make pretty colors but it also can blind; dogs shed, cats claw, cobwebs speak of dust and disorder and neglect; stars are obscured, skies hidden, rivers dirtied and dammed; forgotten scenes have a tendency to be re-forgotten; a child inevitably becomes man…
* * *
…children are heedless of social convention—at least, for a little while—and so we can see them hate and cause pain with little compunction, few moral quandaries, with actual delight. Jealousy seems natural, as even a baby will grudge another babe the suck of a tit, and later on, with a little age, the same baby will learn how to get even, how to express jealousy with a little smack, a push, or pulled hair. In essence, children I do not hate—they seem to have the surveyed the lay of the land right. It’s the adults who are worse, the adults who deserve a spanking or a scolding. Watching parents coo to their children, accommodating their every selfish need, is a warning to all and sundry, that we men and women are very greedy, that we seek to enclose within ourselves and our rights as much of the world as possible, as much as will be tolerated, with or without a fight. Wheel your spoiled kid around in a cart: he must get used to feeling like a king; ask your kid what he wants to eat: he doesn’t know, but he must acquaint himself with being opinionated; buy your child a useless toy soldier: he must learn to command invisible ranks and exercise his power over others. Tell your child that anything is possible, for we must always expand, we must always inflate, the boundaries, the borders, and the proclivities of the province of your little man…
* * *
…the province of man: nations, states, political parties, cities; streets and avenues and gutters and sewers; solidarity, blind unity, fraternity, clubs; national pride, city conceit, village complacency, small-town smug; highways, freeways, parkways, beltways, roads; marriage and divorce (wooing and booing); stadiums and arenas, theaters and stages; a literary scene, an artistic movement, the grand marching parade of the human race; newspapers and magazines, gossip rags and trade papers; the internet and the freedom of speech; publishing houses, libraries, galleries, museums; schools and universities, education from pre-interesting to continuously insipid; company, department, office, bureau, cubicle; conference rooms, waiting rooms, airport lounges, bus depots and train stations; parking lots, garages, strip malls and department stores; a baseball diamond, a football field, a pitch, a rink, a court; plains, mountains, beaches, valleys, seas…our suzerainty extends to all we see, and all we can represent, be it in words, in lines drawn, in music or thought. And I would never be constrained within, for I dislike the boundaries, I can’t stand the iniquity, I would not give up my identity, to be of the province of man…
* * *
…my god, the names we use. A suzerain is an overlord is a leader is a dictator; a father, a Fuhrer, a duke, a king; we could call it something cute, like god, or the devil, archangel, archon, or coach. From this bastard language we derive all sorts of lies and subterfuges, rolling plains, a wintry mix, a dark heart, soul, worth, mind, a fix. Are we so intent on being mislead? (not I, no, not me) and why, then do we call a wandering eye lazy, a dying leaf pretty, or appetite sin? Who can say that language gives meaning, that it softens the edge of this debilitating existence? No amount of talk or embellishment can overcome this one truth, that life is suffering, that pain is incoherent, the natural state mute. So to the man who says that language is release, that it is expressive of higher intentions, of the beauty of gods, of the resilience of man, of the intimation that this world comprised of dust and shit and dirt is so much more—O muse, fail me again now!—so much more in that in this dirt lies the seeds of happiness, in this dust the promise of birth; to this man, this heedless man I say, How can you be so blind? Language is the purest expression of hate.
For every beautiful word, every word imbued with love, there is another, perhaps three or four, that can be spit from the mouth with an over equal degree of disgust. Ataraxia, surcease, super-nova, fleece; ovum, quotidian, Jeroboam, release; cyclical, empyreal, catechistic, cataclysm; aria, eidolon, aureole, surfeit; sidle, swoon, swindle, and wove; Jericho, Kierkegaard, Absalom, and Poe; of all these names, these words that I love—for sound, for texture, for effect; for the way they warble and rumble in the mouth; for the way they alter and shape the lips into a gaping hole, an astonished O! or puckered lips (as if to kiss)—of all these beautiful names I can list (and of those I have missed), there is not one that reaches an intensity of feeling, a more imperative meaning, than the words created for malice and spite—Oh! The simplest of words!—these words that indicate that all is not right. Fuck, piss, craven, shit; nigger and kike and spic and nip; gaping whore, frosty prosti, sibilant slut, practiced prick; cock, dick, ass, vag, cunt, slit; scum, japs, slime, and chinks. Then there are the words once benign, but with a cultural context, original meanings disowned and dispossessed, as with those words designed to stigmatize by sexual preference: queer, homo, faggot, fairy; pansy, butch, box-muncher, queen; who, in any other world, would consider these terms mean? Flowers and stacks of wood, truncated nationalities, private parts publicized, bodily functions made dirty—we cannot help it, oh no, we can’t, for from moment we’re born we’re taught what to dislike. Others—we’re taught—others are not all right. Let's define the terms, set up boundaries, call ‘em names and cast ‘em out. Then when we’re quite sure that we’ve gotten rid of the chaff, we can proceed to weed the weak out, separate with a finer edge, forge a better burning blade, and construct an us from them within our own ranks. And to the lord—we must, we must—give our eternal thanks…
* * *
…sins, grave sins, for we’ve come to religion. But I would not venture into that dark human heart. I prefer to stay on the edges, the periphery called night, for all the rest of our race are others, and I am overfull with spite. I say that I am one of you, but different, perhaps more, perhaps less; nevertheless I see as my one plain duty to deride and obscure your visions of purity and bliss. One cannot walk on this earth without casting a shadow, and if I choose to lumber and billow, pass slowly, on high, like a thundering cloud, then it is my shadow I have embraced, it is the deepest and darkest part. In this, perhaps, I have stolen from the religious, and I think of a demon as my image, my purpose, my pursuit. Not the demon of old, intent on inflicting pain, no devilish fiend, always smiling and always jeering, pointed tail, arrow sharp, swaying back and forth in a languidly described arc, aloof yet interested, mean and unyielding, cloven hoof cocked and at the ready to boot you in the ass into the terrible abyss. I do not think of myself as that caricature—it is far too human and base for my taste. I think of that scene from my childhood hour when there was lightning in the sky, and the golden red sunset was hidden behind a bank of darkening clouds, and my eyes were denied the sight of the dying of another terror-filled day. And I longed to be that accumulation of vapor, the dark and sinister shade, the marring blight—for you! for all of you!—I wanted to take the shape of the cloud that took the form (when the rest of Heaven was blue) of a demon in your view…
—DC