Summer 23'

The Death Rattle

There’s a housing development right next to a lake. The lake is next to a driving range. The driving range is across the streets from a decent restaurant and an indecent bar. There is 1/2 mile of undisturbed lakefront where you can jog, fish on the sidewalk, or walk your dog. Enjoy a picnic on a bench. Or whatever the hell you’d want to do while taking in the pleasing aesthetic of the communal watering hole that is the lake.

Across the street from the housing development, on the opposite side of the lake, there’s a drug store. And next to that, an auto body shop. Then there’s a pizza shop right next to that, a hellish spot that shares parking with a liquor store. Ironically enough, on the other side of the pizza shop, a stand-alone liquor store. The name of either I know not. It’s hard to tell if the stand-alone one is still open, those in search of drink seem to pass right over it like rain on a duck’s ass. Sad to see one business get devoured by another, in real-time no less. But next to the stand-alone liquor spot, about 100 yards away, there is a used car dealership. And across the street from that is a beauty salon, which shares a structure with a dog grooming place. The funny thing is, the two enterprises were developed independently of one another. I always thought (and maybe secretly wished) the two would team up, and play up the whole, “Haircuts with your pooch,” type-a gimmick.

Then there’s the big-ass Unitil building, the power company. Keeping the lights on while their entire property emits enough light pollution to block out the night sky. There’s another dose of irony there, the ones supplying the damn power got the most expensive bill in town. What! Do they bill themselves?!

You go a little past the power building and you’re met with some storage units, a couple of acres worth. Lord only knows the secrets hidden in those cheap aluminum cubes. A few hundred feet past the storage units, there’s a church. And much like the stand-alone liquor spot, there is very little evidence that tells me there’s much of any prayer being heard in that house of God. Occasionally, however, on certain Sundays and Saturdays, there’s a flea market in the parking lot.

And once you’ve passed the church, you're pretty much in the center of town. Walmart mountain. And that’s not a joke name, I mean, it sure ain’t official. But if you’ve lived here long enough, that’s what you’d be calling it. The Walmart strip mall houses a grocery store, a game stop, some hallmark bullshit, and a slew of interchangeable storefronts that struggle to survive a single season.

My point is…

You can keep throwing stones down this single street, which separates two identically picturesque towns, and find every possible resource required to support “modern human life.”

To which I ask, where are all the humans? Genuinely. I don’t see them.

I see people. But not humans. Those are two fundamentally different things.

Modern human life is in parentheses for a reason, I now believe that the phrase is nonsensical.

"Fugayzi, fugazi. It's a whazy. It's a woozie. It's fairy dust. It doesn't exist. It's never landed. It is no matter. It's not on the elemental chart. It's not fucking real.” - Matthew McConaughey

Couldn’t have said it any better.

I carried a rebellious attitude in previous posts. Specifically aimed at what I presumed “modern human life” was, and how it has effectively killed the soul of the individual. That you should resist it! Put down the screens and look into the eyes of another human being. Pick up a book, and even if you don’t get past the preface or prologue, at least you have spent time not looking at a screen. You gazed upon harvested trees instead of inhaling that blue radioactive light that turns to darkness the second it’s left your eyes and enters your brain… Then permeates past the brain, down towards what vital organs you have left, and just sits there.

You know, that rebellious attitude?

Yet I sit here, typing away on my fancy 1k Mac that is too complex for me to appreciate. While fighting off this cold and hanging with the cat, with double-digit screen time accumulated from today alone, and I’m embarrassed.

Embarrassed I haven’t been practicing what I’ve preached. Embarrassed that I’ve let myself become a product of the “modern human life.” And while I’m cognizant of this contradiction of mine, I’m realizing that’s somehow worse. Accountability means nothing when action does not follow.

And if you’ve gotten this far reading, A) power to ya’. I don’t know why I began this post that specific way, in that voice that clearly wasn’t fully mine, but that’s where the blank page will go if you let it.

And B) There is no b. I just didn’t want to let this go yet.

Carry on with your day and try to be joyous.

-DT