There is this moment when you sit at the end of the table at the memorial dinner party for a dead friend and you realize you have nothing at all to add. That you are completely isolated for the moment.
You sit and you ponder and you think, “Why am I here? I have no reason at all to be here. My connection had become tenuous at best, months of no communication, my friendship consisting of a obliterated connection to a woman I still miss smelling and a vague similarity of social identity that I’ve struggled to destroy over the past two years. I have nothing to add.”
But you do it anyway because you’ve been asked and you think that’s what you’re supposed to do. You blindly follow the conventions. You’re supportive and stoic. You’re sad and carefree. You tell tales of your silly life because you have nothing better to say. Christ would bitch slap you and call you pathetic. Buddha would kick you in the balls and laugh with glee.
You remember moments, brief and fleeting, where there was connection, you think that maybe it, everything, for some tiny moment years ago was aligned and all was right with the universe.
You remember laughing. You remember making others laugh.
You remember feeling like you were home for the first time in your life.
Maybe that’s all you’ll ever get. Home never lasts. The world turns. Life moves on and leaves you wondering what the hell just happened. Life is a series of memories of things you’ve lost.
The bluebird in Bukowski’s heart comes out at 2 AM after two bottles of wine. Your song comes out at 3 AM after a four bottles of wine. Chris Doyle paints with light and color at 4 AM after six bottles of wine and nothing much makes any sense at all.
you know why you were there. don’t lie to yourself. damn bluebird.
Unwritten rules…. all societies have them. This includes uncivilized cultures, animalds, birds, reptiles everything lives within a society with an established code of conduct. Not every living thing is coerced into submission. But, those that live on the outskirts of their society, the outcasts never find the happiness of those who acquiesce in order to fit into society. All societies require certain customs be adhered no divergence, there is normalcy, which as you say, forces us to “..blindly follow the conventions”. Often with eyes wide open we play along with things we hate or do not want to be involved with just to be part of the larger picture of life. But does this constitute a sellout of beliefs or is it we all really crave to be part of a larger group. I still can’t figure that one out. Quite often to resolve the inner self-reproach I’ve gone along with convention, yet done something to rebel against the situation. Example: forced to go to a funeral parlor, wearing a skin tight spandex top, black stockings, mini skirt and thigh high boots and flirting with a multitude of men. Which then puts you back on the outskirts of society while you are fulfilling your obligations.