Drowning In A Sea Of Words

Looking back over "Prometheus", I wrote a total of eight posts in 2008. The sum total of my need to express myself for an entire year was eight, fairly well written but fairly short, entries in this strange electronic map of my past wanderings. I've been thinking about that a bit recently. I've sat at my computer on more than a few occasions during 08 trying to bring myself to write something, only to stare blankly at the screen, then bang out about two paragraphs worth of dribble before I hit delete or file it away to permanent draft status.

I wondered if maybe Twitter is partially responsible for this decline. If there is a certain quantifiable amount that a human needs to communicate, then maybe I've been getting my fix in different ways than I used to. Or perhaps, I've just gotten better at expressing myself, thereby increasing the efficiency of the communication that I do, requiring less overall quantity due to an increase in quality. By all reports, 2008 was roundly declared a pretty shitty year for all involved. I certainly had things to talk about. There are approximately twenty essays I told myself I would write, and a near infinite number of other topics that I have scattered and complex thoughts about. But it wasn't a lack of things to write about, but rather an absence of that essential spark that lights the fire. The car had gas and I had places to go, but the engine just wouldn't turn over. Might be the spark plugs.

I've been feeling this way, off and on, more and more. I just have little to no interest in communicating with most people. With the exception of an extremely limited group of folks who always seem to keep my attention, I honestly couldn't care less about having any interaction with humanity. People talk and I try to make eye contact, use positive and affirming words, and respond with non-committal phrases that show I have been listening, but I don't actually give a damn about anything they are saying. Like with many things, I blame this on my job. You can't talk that much and say so little without words losing some of their magic. It feels similar to the old standard of the doughnut store employee losing their taste for doughnuts.

I've said effectively the same thing, in thousands of slightly different circumstances, for the last two-and-a-half years. I've heard thousands upon thousands of people cry and yell about what seems to be an infinite number of permutations on the human condition, (all stupid, confused, scared and angry because they refuse to sit down and really stare at the simple facts of the world around them) and I just can't seem to care any more. Humanity as a whole seems always to be repeating the same stupid mistakes over and over again and my job is to hold its hair back while it vomits at the end of the night. It's an amusing juxtaposition, but I feel like the friend watching an alcoholic slowly get closer and closer to rock bottom. I honestly don't think Society will sober up before I just have to cut the cord and walk away, for my own good.

The truly funny thing is that this is exactly what the novel I have been trying to write is all about, but by living it I find myself unable to write about it. Is that irony? Is anything? I never really know. I do know that for the good of my "sole" I need to transition to a job where I don't speak to anyone for weeks on end. Or maybe I'll just break down one day, disappear and end up in some monastery for a decade under the name Brother Richardson.

For now, if I can't write anything new, I can at least look back at the old. In that regard, I have been working on a project I started a while ago, a collection of poetry that I have titled "Lullabies for Lonely Old Men". By going back over the period of my life when words had the most power, I hope to find that missing spark plug. If not, then perhaps I will at least leave something worth reading.