Remember the unknown

Mt. St. Helens last erupted in an ash fogging the Portland skyline when I was six months old, and here she is again, still with us, still active, reminding us all of another point on the timeline. Birth, crawling, walking, education, work, retire, box/urn…the way human life is divvied up is a linear means to an end, the logical progression of one damn thing after another. Now, I don’t have the power to jump into minds or anything, but if I’m observing human behavior closely enough, it seems that, out of pure necessity (finances, kids, job), this linear perspective dictates a majority of social decisions.

Less accountable is the non-linear perspective, which I am lucky enough to be able to afford in overdose proportions. Instead of ahead, I prefer to look around, noticing mysterious socio-cultural details, partaking in seemingly unproductive activity like attempting to understand frustratingly ambiguous song lyrics or silently taking note of how the security guard in my work building referred to himself in the same breath as Nelson Mandela when I first met him. Because I often look around too often, for too long, occasionally I neglect responsibilities like finances, time management, safety, and self-discipline, often suffering consequences as a result.

Non-linear perspective has slowly but surely skyrocketed to unprecedented levels ever since I started The New Goo because it has provided a “canvas” on which I have “painted” my musings, criticisms, observations, and really awful metaphors. So I’m wondering, perhaps a little worriedly, will this activity ever stop? Will it decline, dwindle, or worse, will my linear perspective ever catch up and take over? There’s always that certain paranoia when you know you have something really, really good, and you don’t ever want it to stop. For me, it is the act of writing, of letting thoughts that flow from my head transform into some tangible physicality that I hope people might understand, maybe even enjoy.

Inactivity is not an option, because I owe it to all those writers who have inspired me, inspired other writers, and so on…to try and connect somewhere, somehow. Simply put, there’s never nothing to say. There’s never enough of a reason to look straight ahead unless you absolutely have to. There’s no reason to listen to ignorant authority figures when you could be playing all the songs that you wish could be utilized in movies, cascading through the soundsystem, striking at the most emotionally intense moments when you forget the song is unknown and remember. So I continue this ongoing discussion, looking around and doing my best to capture everything out there that should not to be missed, lost, or forgotten.