Herr Pidde

It was check-in time, boarding is not due for another two hours. Travelling during the pandemic will always be harrowing, all the what ifs and possible outcomes fill your head like an avalanche. It was supposed to be overweight, it was predicted disaster. “Save your money for your wife” said Herr Pidde.

As we waited to pay for the overweight charge he coincidentally was there also, reporting to the supervisor, he came up and asked if this was in fact my wife, and he introduced himself apologizing that there had to be an overweight charge, “I need to be strict or I will get in trouble” Herr Pidde said with a jolly smile. You see, he had helped me shift the weight from my overweight luggage to my carry-on bag, two kilograms worth, which made the carry-on even more heavy than allowed. “Its overweight” I said matter-of-factly referring to the carry-on bag, Herr Pidde just winked to me and said, “No, I think its fine.” He printed the baggage check for my carry-on giving it the all clear and reuttered the words, “Save your money for your wife.”

Chaos and grief is rampant at the time of writing, those of you who were there would relate. Herr Pidde is the epitome of resisting that grief, resisting for our animal urges to turn us into assholes, resisting hopelessness and fear, ressisting our ever common air grasping in a position of power. That making other’s lives easier should be the default, genuine service to your fellow creature.

A smile, some tears, and a reminder for my future self in respect to Herr S. Pidde.

Baked

It feels as if you are laying down on an aluminium tray, immobilized. The heat slowly going up, and you are still flat on your back on that aluminium tray. Time feels sped up, you have done so little but it has been 40 minutes already. You realize this but you are still on your back and the tray starts to feel warm. You panic but you do nothing, your head floods with thoughts of urgency and danger, and yet you lie still on the warm aluminium tray. You hope for other’s sympathy, you hope for someone to open the metal and glass door, for a lifeline, a saviour. You also know you can walk away, you can leave, but somehow fail to see the point in leaving. You savor the moment, the warmth, the chaos in your brain. You reel back consciousness and let all autosensory take over. You finally feel something, at least close to something.

Now you are done, golden brown, and crispy.

Our Superposition as Characters in Our Own Stories

You are on a balcony with a view of the city, meters away from the ground. At the same time there is green all around. You fucking lucky bastard. This was what you wanted, this was your end scene. You won, but no rolling credits, just continuous existence. This makes you uneasy, your headspace trying to fill the gaps on better endings. The cliche riding towards sunset. The hero treatment. You have climbed so far but nothing has changed. And that, that dulls you. You are and are not the main character of your stories, a superposition, controlling and being controlled simultaneously. You are in control sometimes, but everything else governs your action. The fundamental of free will paradox. In many ways, free will is like free range, as farm animals you are happier but will have found out the outcome is the same with other chickens, a guaranteed demise.

“Close your eyes. Count to one. That’s how long forever feels.”

Voisez VIII: Those Who May Go Away

Having a lot creates a bipartisan feeling of gratitude and grief; knowing that you have a lot equals knowing you may lose a lot. Having a family — both biological and spiritual — realizing that that can go away, that it can cease to exist. At a younger age these same people are treated as my safety net, now you try your best so they don’t need to be anymore. Through the years my sanity was kept check by my spiritual family, my financial stability by my biological family. I no longer need be a burden to both, but remembering all that has passed, all that has begotten, all that has been achieved, it feels that losing them — however that may be — is a truly potential loss. How I have fucked up at times, passed judgement, and still accepted is the most humane that I have been treated. I believed in achieving a goal once, and that goal has been achieved, and achievement leaves a sense of emptiness that seems hard to fill, especially at times like these. Potential loss is an unrealistic idea, it is grief speculated, which logically does not compute. But the brain is wired in some convoluted way that it seems to make sense, it seems to be something to ponder on. It shouldn’t, grief is always after the fact, not to be expected. It is an inverse hope. While hope poisons the mind on speculated gratification, this does the opposite. There isn’t even a word for this that I can think of. This is obviously a byproduct of uncertainty, that is definite, a byproduct of these emotions I have been having lately. Sometimes you crave the unfeeling you had way back when, but you also can’t help but feel gracious on top of these emotions. But then it may be phantom anger, anger on things past, regret so suppressed that it resurfaces as a weird notion that can’t be described. Being so used to being angry all the time at everyone rewires your head in which that when there is no one to blame it gets stuck in this never ending for loop. The only choice now is to go forward, to glimpse back for reference sake, and to go through the motions until the next big thing comes along. Tomorrow is the day after’s yesterday. Choose gratitude, let grief be a reminder, acknowledge how your brain behaves.

The 8th Floor, At This Age

Nine Years ago but in hindsight the feeling has not change, it wasn’t adulthood or age that was the problem. Toxic environments are toxic, and it does not matter how old you have become, it still can get to you. Even when the issue is no longer financial, the gargantuan weight of understanding the reality of office politics is enough to collapse your faith in living organisms. The realization that the degree of egotistic self can reach levels unfathomable to human understanding. Self determination is tertiary to the institution that is the self contained circle jerk that is the department. Illusions are created in the most unconvincing, cheap polystyrene foam and rusted wires all painted in the colour of pale neon orange. Incompetence is obvious, clear to see, bureaucratic blinders shade the easiest options. Chaos ensues, in the name of competition, in the name of who could care less. The masterfully crafted ideas of banality and stupidity, holding up the foundation of status quo. It’ll be over soon now they keep saying, but soon is a fallible concept. Time relativity only hold true to reality, a fog wall of facade does not bend to the physics of tangible senses. It will continue, if not there, then somewhere else. This is reality, this is the idea that we will never learn, that people survive by this thread of determination. A hair-thin line of demanding their wants, entitlement to the universe that they have given their fair share, that they have sacrificed enough to get what is just. Which can be debated, as the concept of just is self serving. Just in the fundamental sense only observes the subject that claims what is just to itself. It does not care if the just for it can be harmful to others, others only can claim their own just. A contestation between self determined just between actors, the winners are those with the ability to care less about others. The ego serving the id is the most powerful tool for any living organism to control and conquer.  The pinnacle of this is to reach the point where others ego can be used to serve one’s id. It is life’s highest form of rule.

Voisez VII: Cabin Fever

Suffocating becomes a habit, the fucked up thing is being aware that nothing is wrong only to be outvoted by your brain. Its been a month and changing gears has been tough. At one hand it is awesome to have something to do, but the lack of routine destroys confidence. You can’t help but feel broken, a fraud at times. You feel guilty for something that isn’t real, your guilty of a thought, an idea that the capability trusted is fake. You’ve seen this before yet you let it consume you, and it did consume you. The sweat, the choking, the at-death’s-door feeling is a sign that you might believe it. We fake it until we make it, that is a fact. And we will fake it until reality tells us different, until there is something beyond your capabilities that you cannot fake anymore. Until then, there is nothing stopping you at the moment. Breathe, excercise, take a shit, write some shit. As easy as it comes it goes. Everything is surreal now, this is the new normal. No time for self doubt. No time for waiting. No time for letting your head wander between fight or flight. You are where you need to be as always never where you want to be. A muse, a bottle of water, a sound mind, some needs are yet to be provided but this will do. This will fucking do.

On Change

Your body tightens, heart beats faster, your head filled with helium, and your stomach bloats like a corpse. Too much change is devastating, too much unspeculated factors that physically boils your body. The unknown is still a threat, no matter how far in life you are. There is no amount of experience that readies you to switch mental gears in an instant; like gears too much friction can colapse itself. There’s an idea behind your head trying to balance all of the inevitable, to keep perspective, to hold on to logic. But everything fails once the painful train of thought lunges in at full speed whipping the wind out of your sanity.

This too shall pass, as is everything, but at that moment it feels so heavy that its like trying to hold up a fridge on quicksand. But, yeah, this too shall pass as it has always been; you’ve been through this, you know this, but still it never feels familiar. How many times has change passed here? In all of life how many times has it always been for the better? The trick is to exploit change, to mold it into what you need. Because change itself only comes when it needs to be and probably now it needs to be.

It never feels familiar, despite its familiarity. The twisted joke our brain and body plays panning in and out between fight and flight between fear and indifference. I chose indifference, but they have other plans.

Voisez VI

It has been so long you forgot it physically hurts, you forgot that it is more than some mind trick, you forgot how real it feels, you forgot that even though its in your head, you still feel it. Age does not stop it. Time does not weaken it.

She helps to soften clenched screams and inflamed muscles. Calmly soothes the tight bitten tounge. Readjusts the calamity. Renders clean dissolves rusted wings.

On Freedom

In regards to free will and the luxury of choice we will always be dangling in between “I’ve got this” and “I have no fucking idea what I’m doing right now”

Voisez V

A sense of dread stuck with a brick on the gas pedal. The motion feels like sinking, constantly, waiting for confirmation yet avoiding that moment. Assumption, speculation, possibilities, hallucinations, misinterpreted feelings. Panicked by being panicked and the cycle circles into chaos. We ride around the river for a minute. I say my words, calm does not happen. Spiraling and hovering at a fixed distance, your face keeps hanging a few centimeters above the asphalt while your body keeps falling against an invisible abyss. Memories that hasn’t happened. A dejavu, a misunderstood signal of the brain chasing its electric tongue with time reminding itself to forget, emotional synesthesia. How do souls connect, how do we feel? Electric feels intense, a deep dive in the universe’s ocean of thoughts, feelings, daydreams. Even at night, daydreams are still daydreams, in a sense night is not the end of a day, just a transition — it is just transition. Rereading paragraphs, no contextual edits, no censorship, no self imagery but a self imagery hoping that no image is cool allowing tacky to thrive. We still have that. Hoping to be cool. Relevant, but in a existential sense. Relevant to the world, to stand out in an ocean of thoughts, feelings, daydreams. A blip, a speck, a nought. A realization of blood flowing back to fingertips, to tonguetips. Anticipation ends.