Growing up I had two outlets when the blues captivated my broken mental vessel: video games and writing. I still have a love for the gaming, but it was always the writing that made me feel like I was going somewhere despite the context of my words describing that feeling of complete isolation where locomotion has long since been lost in a past unknown to my millennial generation of fending for shit jobs and supporting endless wars and corporate greed. I was an angry kid trying to figure out the justification behind human cruelty that religion and capitalism advocated, and it took me until my late teens/early adulthood to discover the futility in rising against the grain and the writing waned and the alcoholism drowned the ambition in sweet brown amber as I continued to read the classics that got me into writing not able to find my own voice thinking the voice I possessed was a shameful echo of those great that wrote before my time.
I never gave up my passion for writing, but I stopped taking it seriously during my early college years and began fulfilling my calling for meaning with materialism and the search for masculine identity i.e. how much can I drink and fuck in a single sitting...it was all done in vain. The main catalyst in my China calling came when I decided the thing lacking in my writing; it wasn't my own capacity to write something great...or profitable as us Americans say...but more so the apathy of living consumed my everyday life and I was no longer suicidal yet existentialist crises flashed before my eyes no matter what I was doing and in the back of my mind I knew writing was pointless and I outta waste my time doing anything else under the black hole sun. Beckett did a great deal in inspiring me back towards the written nirvana I once found in writing, but even that was not enough to motivate me in spending a few minutes of every day tiring my hands as my mind exploded upon the empty canvas. Even Beckett couldn't give me the push I craved in finding my own voice and once again I borrowed the voice of another in combating the written folly of discovery. I came to China to help me find my own voice hidden in the West, and last night I took my first step since I arrived here in once again being ever so fucking diligent in the NEED for writing.
Last night a coworker of mine, Justin, invited me to his place after work and I first I declined because I wanted to be alone. I have not had a single day to myself since I have been here, and thought that was really what I needed in focusing on my art. I was absolutely correct in my assumption while being positively wrong if I did turn down his offer; we listened to jazz, talked about our love of writing and discussed the works that inspired us to choose a creative passion. I read through the workings of his latest novel and it reminded me the wonders that writing once had for me. The sweet tunes of Miles Davis filled the air as I transcended back to a time when writing and music sand smooth lullabies for a manic psyche that constantly demanded stimulation and could never find peace. There was the peace once again hanging in the blanket of night as the tea was brewing and the kittens ran with nature on the kitchen foyer. We read some Ulysses and spoke of the greatness of Joyce, the man who used Greek literature as a background for the greatest love story of all time. Joyce, Beckett, Burroughs, Vonnegut..all great minds of the 21st century who never knew their place in the structure of society though found writing as a means to bitterly attack the hegemonic institutions that be and discover themselves and humanity through the humorously dark ramblings of mad folks.
Justin reminded me that I didn't come to Dalian just to be a teacher for the rest of my life; I moved halfway across the world because I needed to seclude myself from the bullshit and trivialities of contemporary American life and figure out who I truly am, and from there I once again could have a chance to figure out where my writing could lead me. I claim to be antisocial but I have spent so much of my life trying to win the favors of others and it has been quite sometime since I have secluded myself entirely from others and spent precious alone time away from the vastness of technological enslavement and wasting precious moment through scrolling the facebook...as I am updated on people who I know not who they are hoping in some bizarre way I will better understand myself. My writing will probably not lead me to a noble prize in Literature, or a New York Times Best Seller, or even a bookstore near you coming this winter, but it certainly could help me better understand the short life I've got to spend in this otherwise dismal world and from there figure out what makes me happy. For now it is being there for these kids who need a decent person to look up to and learn from, but I yearn for something greater (since we all know teaching is riddled by politics finding face between authoritarian powers and parents) as my experience molds me into a stronger person willing to take on any feat in the name of personal and societal development. The world may be bleak but its the only world I know so take for what I can gather while the time still persists.
Going on: I will call this going I will call this on; this my ode to alienation, this my creed to the inspiration forthcoming...thanks to all of you joining the excitement and thrills persistently unfolding. Cheers and the likes my friends ~Peeples
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