I’m posting blogs, especially ones about food, this week. Notice I said blogs and not vlogs. I’m feeling more and more anachronistic as time goes on, as I’ve not shifted over to producing video content. I enjoy seeing the words emerge on the screen as my thoughts find their way out of my fingertips and into not only my eyes but the eyes and minds of others. I would never say the video medium is any easier as all one needs to do is watch the evolution of a popular YouTuber, and you’ll see their early awkwardness give way to a comfort that came with practice. While I could venture down that road, and I have considered it often, I’m reluctant to do so for the amount of work it would take.

When I sit down to write, there is no consideration about my environment for aesthetic reasons; lighting doesn’t matter, mic placement is irrelevant if my hair is messy or I have food in my teeth, and there are no readers that would pick up on those things. If I’m inspired while driving I can simply dictate a note on my phone and send it to myself via email for inclusion at another time. If I recorded video, people would notice the change of clothes, different times of day and night, or maybe differences in my beard and hair. So, my conclusion is that I’m essentially lazy. While grains of truth thrive in that realization, I’d say that, more to the point, I’m a control freak. You may see my mental blemishes in mistakes that get by my world-class editor (a.k.a. The Wife), but for the most part, I hope that I’m sharing a well-groomed snippet of thought.

That doesn’t change the equation that maybe I have a low readership because I won’t jump on the YouTube or TikTok trains. Then the question is, “Do you need readership?” Affirmation is a funny, stupid little creature that laps at your face to make you feel good, while rejection suggests you drag your knuckles back into the cave from whence you crawled. I tell myself I write for myself and my wife, and that’s largely true, but I also write for some mysterious person or other who hasn’t been born yet. There was a time when I explained my writing as notes to the future that went beyond a 140-character text message. Then I asked just who is it that would review a trillion hours of video to make sense of what had been recorded. My thinking was that artificial intelligence would fare better with my longer semi-coherent missives to extract an arc of who a person was than analyzing 100 videos released while a personality was trending as a viral phenomenon. I think that was wrong-headed.

Why wouldn’t an AI just dissect those trillion hours of videos by looking at location, time of day, colors, text, emotional context, number of viewers, comments, and the rest of the meta-data to build a far more in-depth image of what the average of it all might have meant to the people of the early 21st century?  So, not only am I working anachronistically, but my thinking is often stuck in archaic modalities that reflect a time of my life when I couldn’t imagine a digital future. How, then, does this pit a child born in the last ten years to the person who turns 85 in the year 2050?

Will I jump on the bandwagon of modernity? Nope, not in that regard. Writing at this point is right up there with eating, sleeping, breathing, and shitting. It’s something done because it sustains life. As I write that, I can’t help but think that this very act is like some excretory process where words drop out of my mind like so many turds from my bunghole. Maybe hitting publish is my way of wiping myself clean after making these messes.

I want to believe I need to return to some of the things I used to do, but I’m running into some deep-seated ambivalence that is nearly impossible to define. Being home is different, meals are different, shopping is different, traveling is different, most everything seems different. I went to the dentist this morning; that was different. Being here at my favorite coffee shop, other than the masks, is possibly not different enough. I’m feeling as though I’m trying to shove something I used to know into the present by being in the familiar.

As I searched for an environment conducive to writing creatively, it dawned on me somewhere along the way that, no matter where I ended up, I was still with myself and that just because my location changed, the inside of my mind hadn’t. Of course, I can trick myself when out in the world, as writing about a place creates in me an illusion of something else influencing me, but it’s still my filter from whatever inner dialog I’m working with. Maybe the inspiration when visiting a cathedral, a canyon, a forest, an ocean, or a monument is that I have a moment of focus without the trappings of the familiar, but how this works in allowing me to convey anything of interest must fall back on what I bring to the exercise.

So, when I’m struggling to find words and ideas that paint a picture of where I think I’d like to be, I try to figure out what might be the impediment. Here at the coffee shop I’ve visited countless other times, it could be that I cannot return to the familiar. It might be that I’m struggling with only 3 of us ten people wearing masks in this small environment. Or could it be writer’s block? I’m gonna say that I seriously doubt it is the latter because when I give myself the challenge to capture something of my thoughts, I’m usually pretty good at noting something just as I’m doing this very moment. But this is not what I want to write about, or so I think.

Well then, what do I want when I go out to write? I want the same thing all writers who sit down to write are looking to do: I want to discover. Maybe what I’m trying to explore cannot be found in the past, and this particular place represents a time in my life when things were seen differently. Like so many other aspects of life that required adjustments as I’ve grown older, is my ability to discover being stymied by the overly familiar?

The dawn is familiar; my wife is too. I know our apartment quite well and many items in our diet, and yet these things do not represent the same kind of conflict. Let’s look at that as the dawn is always different; it’s forever shifting with the play of clouds and hues delighting my senses every time I witness it. My wife is like the dawn over the ocean, never quite the same with her fluctuating interests; subtle changes are found in her smile, and she possesses a horizon I find to be infinite, at least in its potential. Our apartment is some ways, like the Grand Canyon; depending on where you look, you might find something you’ve never seen before. Not to imply disorder and chaos, though there is an element of that, between our evolving hobbies the view has the potential to show us new things, just as searching for new foods brings us into different ethnic culinary adventures.

Is the larger problem then that I have a low tolerance for the familiar? Has it always been this way? The quick answer is certainly a resounding yes. The common and familiar is the fodder for the masses gorged on the cultural gruel of conformity, and I’ve known this for a very long time. But today is different, as though the plague has cut the final thread between me and the blind, obedient herd that best represents the status quo.

In this sense, I feel that I’ve been shoved deeper into a nomadic intellectual existence. Where our ancestors were on the constant search for that which sustained life, I require the sustenance of that which sustains the imagination. In an age where the hunt for food and shelter has been mitigated for those with access to adequate capital, and my preoccupation with media and entertainment is either gone or in hibernation, I’m now on the lookout for horizons that illuminate where humanity is headed.

Star Trek’s intro spoke of space as the final frontier; I would reboot that into “awareness is the real final frontier.” Knowledge of hyperbolic absurdity found in entertainers and politicians hardly suffices to satisfy the deeper quest of humans to find meaning, even if the unsophisticated might believe differently. This pattern recognition machine of senses evolved in the form of memories and imagination, offering people the opportunity to discover things such as art, music, technology, and the mind to examine the hows and whys of what it all means. Yet we squander our most valuable resource, time, on the petty and believe in convenient expediencies in order to not challenge our nature to change.

Just how much of the familiar is really your friend?

Why do I feel so disconnected from this old routine of taking up a spot in a coffee shop and turning on the word spigot? Maybe my mask is interfering with the neural pathway that allows thoughts to form and find an uninterrupted flow to my fingers. This being Thursday and the 4th day of a 5-day fast, maybe starvation is having an impact as it’s typically been this day that is the foggiest. Or could the entire planet experiencing this collective moment of uncertainty be a contributing factor? On one hand, I can almost see 22-year-old John floundering in what is the meaning of everything, but that version of me I thought was mostly out of sight. One might then suggest this is my long overdue midlife crisis, but I’d argue that that is like thinking I might enter a second puberty. I’m not worried about my own value in this world but have this nagging feeling that something is amiss, and this return to what had been normal is some strange facade that isn’t real.

Beyond the veil of delusion is our new normal that’s not been defined yet as it’s still rapidly or maybe glacially evolving. Thrusting myself forward, I’m out here grasping at any emergent signs I might gather in order to interpret if an order of things is observable. Tentative and uncertain is how I see much of this current situation, while the holdouts from the previous age are determined to march forward as though nothing has changed. Maybe they have it figured out somehow?

So now what? I don’t know, I just don’t know. I’ll continue sitting here in the clouds, pondering these bigger questions.

Earlier this month, I wrote a blog entry insisting it was not about existentialism, and it wasn’t, but today, maybe this one will be just about that, and maybe it won’t. I’m bored. From out of this moment in boredom (which I think I’ve alluded to being impervious to on many other occasions during these missives) I reluctantly concede that I’m experiencing the uncertainty of what to do. For six months, one week, and four days since our pandemic sequestering, I’ve been pretty good about remaining engaged or at least distracted. Today, I’m overly aware that I don’t feel like doing anything that could be done while here at home, nor do I want to venture out to find distraction there.

Yesterday, my awareness of not enjoying our place became writ large across my happiness as with Caroline at work. I was liberated to do as I please, but I found myself lost. While this past month saw us venturing out to break the long chain of self-isolation, I’m not exactly comfortable among those people who cavalierly toss reasonable health practices away in order to prove some nebulous point about raw belligerent power and a kind of masculinity arising out of our obsession with dystopian fatalism. So, though I’d like to embark on a new journey into putting these past six months behind me and exploring some new routines, I’m reluctant to be among the masses who are acting purely in their own selfish interests as opposed to empathizing with the well-being of the American community at large.

For 17 years, Caroline and I have comfortably lived in a single room, a single large open space in the form of a loft. We cherish our time together when we can be at home together, which up until March this year felt rare. If we weren’t traveling on a weekend, Caroline might be at a guild meeting or a fiber workshop. During the week, I might be at one of a few dozen locations writing, people-watching, eating, walking, or otherwise spending time away from home. When we got home, there were things to do that we’d been away from all day. When self-isolation began, our dreams of spending more time together came true. In the back of our minds, we already knew from previous experience in the late 1980s that mixing work and living in one small space is not the best idea, but a global pandemic that was forcing everyone to stop in place gave impetus to embrace the quarantine and go with the flow. So, staying at home became an extended road trip; it was camping in place and a golden opportunity to indulge our desires to spend more time together.

Now, don’t think this is heading to a lament of over-exposure between Caroline and me, as that’s the farthest thing from my truth, but after six months, our hamster wheel is closing in. I also know that this is temporary, and maybe as soon as tomorrow, my brain will return to celebrating this opportunity, but right now, I’m at a loss and uninspired. Of course, there’s also the overwhelming nonsense of the game of intruding politics that seems to aim at dominating a large part of people’s lives who pay attention to current events. This is pure unadulterated gaslighting that my own stupid compulsion to witness the trainwreck keeps bringing me back to, so too many days arrive with no small amount of dread. The point here is that I have to tiptoe around online activities as I risk catching a hint of the “Outrage du jour” from a media that is desperate to hook me into a device to nail my attention for the sake of impressions and ad dollars. So maybe if I focus on writing, I can escape what I don’t want to see and instead bring my mind into compliance with an imagination that will whisk me away from boredom.

Instead, I go around in circles searching for a muse to guide me while not really looking for that inspiration but telling myself the bologna that I really want to escape this entropy. I know I’ll have a butterbrot because today is German Butterbrot Day, where the world joins in to celebrate this uniquely Teutonic pleasure of greasing your bread with a smear of butter and calling it dinner. Well, that didn’t get it; I’m not any more motivated than before besides wanting a second go-round of yummy rye bread with butter. Yeah, eating is a good distraction; maybe I need to find where on Earth people are celebrating Donut Day today.

But I called this blog entry Cascading Existentialism and not Eating To Pacify Moodiness, so just what is it that feels so out of control? The polarized American people, our politics, healthcare, education, and our concern about the environment are the major bones of contention, but racism, intolerance, poverty, and violence play large roles too. I know I cannot change even a small part of the 330 million of us who live in the United States. I cannot influence our political parties or the media that sensationalizes everything it features: healthcare is a $3.6 trillion industry that has no regard for those it serves, education panders to the lowest common denominator, guaranteeing fodder for prisons, low-pay jobs, and an absent electorate, while we flaunt international convention about safeguarding air and water quality for the sake of profits. Racism is tolerated, while intolerance of religions, sexual orientation, cultural background, and general diversity from the status quo is promulgated as anti-American. Poverty is a consequence of all of this, with violence the natural outcome of people without an ability to surmount the structural bias against those a society would like to keep outside the gate.

Hey John, how does any of that affect your day-to-day existence? Awareness is the fodder of the imagination, and if you are an artist, you should look upon the subject you intend to capture in images, or you should acquaint yourself with the various sounds and aural structures of music should you aspire to be a musician. Yet I am a human desiring to be just that, and so the condition of our society screams at me to be recognized as though I might find an inkling of how to depict a proper reflection or maybe an antidote to the wanton mayhem that institutional stupidity is wreaking upon us. Well, that’s a pretty large burden you are trying to shoulder. But I know there is no way for me to bear the gravity of such outrage, so I try in little ways to exorcise the demons of awareness through the cathartic exercise of writing, learning, exploring, and eating. It must be time for another butterbrot.

One-hundred ninety-seven days since I last took up a seat here at King Coffee and sat in public while in Phoenix. Sure, we recently ventured out of the city, but our locations were chosen for the lack of population density to minimize coming into contact with others. It was strange as my first hour being back was spent among many a familiar face curious as to how I’d been. After socializing more than I have in six months, I’m here at my computer drawing a blank as though talking with others drained my head.

Where is my focus? Maybe it’s lost in the background music I’m no longer accustomed to listening to. Is it the people-watching that I’ve grown rusty with? When I go to the store, I don’t really want to see anyone, and what I do look for are people without masks so I can move out of their way. I’d like to consider blaming this brain funk on that I’m wondering about what I might have for lunch, but that’s not really it either.

Then there’s the question of why I am out here anyway. Well, on Tuesday Caroline visited her office and enjoyed her time interacting with the boss so much that she decided that she’d start going in on a regular basis on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I wasn’t ready to go back to an empty home as I knew that routine, and at a point, I felt too isolated. That really drives home how difficult these past six months must have been for so many people who are alone.

With only 265 words written in the nearly four hours I’ve been sitting here because, of course, other conversations took place, I’m now seriously hungry and will have to accept that something insightful or even interesting is not going to flow out of me. Look at today’s photo, and you might recognize the recursive nature of what I put together; in some way, it’s a reflection of my mind falling back into itself in wondering, just what the heck did I think I’d accomplish here?