entropiccaravaggio

[entropiccaravaggio]

Freedom lies in occupation

Freedom lies in occupation

I was in a state of disarray two days ago, on March 5th. I woke up late that day, ate outside and spent much time wandering the streets adjacent to my home wondering what to do with myself and thinking superfluous thoughts filled with much falsity and fancifulness. I was confused and discontent, and continuously digging myself into a web of my own thoughts both consciously and unconsciously. Thankfully, I hadn’t any avenues of abuse and escapism, especially since I had quit video games 4 months prior and resolved to quit it at least till the end of the next school year. Thus, I simply slept for an inordinate amount of time.

Yet, in a cafe, reading War and Peace something not quite an epiphany but something close, hit me. It was towards the end of the book, in which Tolstoy describes the freedom that Pierre felt in the captivity of the French, and “those intense, joyous, irretrievable feelings, and above all of the perfect peace of mind and complete inner freedom which he experienced only during that time”. It clicked with such perfect harmony with the strings and rhythm of my own thoughts that I immediately sprung out of the cafe and rushed home to write down these words. You see it occurred to me that things we considered freedom conventionally, the material wealth to do whatever you wanted, the opportunities to not have to work and lounge about of which I have made plentiful use in my comfortable and rather uneventful life, the concept we know as financial freedom was the very opposite of what it is purported to be. The cloud of thoughts that naturally arise from an excited mind combined with a languid body was my jailor, a prison of my own creation that arose from my own consciousness. The more that I dwelt upon my options in life, the more that I considered the various opportunities, colleges to go to and arrangements in life, made various plans of this and that, barely completing one before scrapping it and beginning anew, the more these various possibilities this convergence of diverging branches in my mind became a prison.

Life cannot be thought! Life must be lived. To be completely consumed from this moment to the next, chugging down the thick Koolaid of life with all the intensity of sadness, and happiness that it has to offer. Do not become fill your mind with thoughts of acts, but become action, become singularly infused with the actions you partake in and find your occupation. Because only in occupation can your mind be free from the prison of thoughts.

[entropiccaravaggio]

A pocket full of songs, and a heart full of feels

A pocket full of songs, and a heart full of feels

There is no philosophical inquiry to be had here, I cannot give you that in this deep dark night in this deep dark universe. All I can tell you is how I feel and how I felt it.

My name is Leo, and I work as a waiter. At least, that is how I act out the play of my life. The hardest thing about working as a waiter is the fact that we work while watching others socialize and enjoy themselves. The service industry, or the caste of humans that provides the places of pleasure and relaxation that the office sitting, computer staring, nine to five working caste of humans derive said enjoyments from, is also composed people, complete with their own desires to take their fill from said pot of hedonisms. Sometimes, it can be too much—

Lubricated by alcohol, people exist in a more relaxed form in a restaurant. Words flow like beer from the tap across tables and dishes, and as blood alcohol levels rise the conversation becomes less and less about what words are spoken and more about the lips that speak them. Lips that become alluring, lips, perhaps, that you would like to kiss. Indeed, despite the humdrum nature of modern living with tv dinners and many opting to break open a bowl of ramen in front of a monitor, the restaurant remains a last bastion of humanity where men and women may break bread and experience the intrinsic sense of togetherness the act instills.

—Despite the boredom we may sometimes express in our work, despite our ice cold postmodern hearts, who can be unmoved by such a scene?!

Emotions, hearts, souls spilling over the plates and cups that is the joy and the melancholy of a waiter. Joy because I am glad to have had a part in bringing to being this togetherness, this mitsein and melancholy for I can have no part in it.

The thought occurs to me occasionally that I have lived my whole life as an observer. Others make friendships, others socialize, others fall in love while I merely watch, unnoticed, unwilling to be noticed. Perhaps, that feeling and others welled up in my heart, and my own heart poured over. My robot heart, my heart that seems to feel less human feeling than others, that can no longer cry truly, that can no longer love truly, that can only feel something akin to those things, I felt something just then.

In the Uber I called, I put on my earphones and flipped through my music. KAYTRANADA didn’t feel right. Hmm… Neither does Anderson .Paak. Ahh…

—Take a little bit of this girl…

   …I won’t waste away unless I’m wasting my days away with you…

I felt that rare sensation when a song matches the wavelength of one’s heart completely, and the two resonate in perfect reverie.

If, perhaps, my reader, you, feel lonely as well, you may take comfort in the fact that, in some sense, we are all wasting our days away with each other.

[entropiccaravaggio]

A Man of Sin

I confess, your grace,

to many a crime,

hear hear,

for I am a man of sin.

Demons and gods alike,

would tremble and squeal,

if I revealed the vile secrets

I keep hidden within.

First of all a lascivious lecher I am,

not of the flesh but of the mind.

In the privacy of my room,

I indulge in fetishes and kinks of every kind.

A very hidden pervert am I,

who hides behind a guise so very genteel.

If that were all,

I would be verily heinous,

but wait! There are details more hideous and vile.

I’m sure my crimes would shock even the most hardened pedophile.

I haven’t many friends you see,

I’m a lonely boy or so I would like you to believe.

The pathetic wretch I am.

Yet knowing how I conduct myself,

my social conditions would cease to surprise,

for not only a wretch,

but a greedy sloth I am.

Parents pay for my education,

yet I return home to pay them no mind.

Friends keep me company,

yet they too I discard in time.

I live a comfortable life,

through no work of my own.

Yet in my mind I am violently arrogant,

and think everyone beneath

a false, unjustified throne.

A useless man,

A lazy man,

A perverse man,

A greedy man,

that I am,

such,

a man of sin.