Existential Angst

The I In Me They Never Bothered With

Jay Leonard Schwartz Defying Expectations, Poetry & Prose , , , , , , , ,

The I In Me They Never Bothered With

 They see my gender.

They see my color.

They see the clothes I wear.

But …

They want to know my ‘likes’.

They want to know my contacts.

They want to know my religion.

They want to know my income.

They want to know my sexual preference.

They want to know my political affiliation.

They want to know my citizenship.

They want to know my heritage.

They want to know my family and lineage.

They want to know my genetic code.

They want my body.

They want my soul.

They want my spirit.

They want my blood.

They want my conformity.

But …

They don’t want my mind.

And they never once even ask my name.

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A Life Saver To The Poor Souls Drowning In Bile Flavored Kool-Aid

Jay Leonard Schwartz Defying Expectations , , , , , ,
“To ‘choose’ dogma and faith over doubt and experience is to throw out the ripening vintage and to reach greedily for the Kool-Aid.” 
– Christopher Hitchens
“When we do not expect anything we can be ourselves. That is our way, to live fully in each moment of time.”
– Shunryu Suzuki

 

We often ask ourselves who we are. We search. We find. We lose grasp of ourselves … and then we look some more. We develop a sense of our identity from patches of notions steeped in whimsical memories of long ago … or in razor-edged fragments of experience we have gained over the years. We assemble ourselves and then behold our grand psyche … or our refined psychosis. We really have no clue and eventually attack ourselves for our own ignorance.

I like t think that I used to know who I was, long ago … long before I could sense others. Long before they would reach out with their claws and talons to whisk me away far from myself … far from my nature … far from my true being. Poor me. Poor poor pitiful me.

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Dancing On Broken Toes

Jay Leonard Schwartz Poetry & Prose, Uncategorized , , , ,

Dancing On Broken Toes

 

How easily do our airy flights of fancy escape the gravity of our mundane lives.

We reach with dreams of fickle laced lightness for that which lies beyond our corporeal grasp.

The ‘what ifs’ come with practice, spring-boarding from disillusion and delusion.

We hang ourselves on a whim, a promise, a commitment … a figment of our imagination.

We dance. Our toes break.

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Full Tilt Gravity

Jay Leonard Schwartz Defying Expectations , , , , , ,
The artist is still a little like the old court jester. He’s supposed to speak his vicious paradoxes with some sense in them, but he isn’t part of whatever the fabric is that makes a nation.
– William Faulkner

 

Warning: The following prose makes no sense and has no socially redeeming value. It is not a reflection of anyone and is merely a refraction thereof. Read at your own risk and make of it what you will. Drinks are not on the house.

Some people are forever hell-bent on defying the laws of gravity. Yearning to turn the world on its end, they exhibit a penchant to disengage from the established order of things, the firmament on which lie the foundations of society.

They seem to thrive on chaos, embroiling themselves in one adventure after another. They soar … they crash … they burn … they rise again and fly sideways … smiling.

They are brilliantly stupid. Sublimely ridiculous. They make for perfect nonsense. Don’t question them and you’ll get many answers. They talk too much and say too little, hiding an encyclopedia of intent. And yet, they mystify you with their paradoxical nature. They are train wrecks in slow motion pulling into the station according to their own schedule … right on their own time.

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The Impetus Of Impediment

Jay Leonard Schwartz Defying Expectations, Occupy Karma , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
What is the nature of the luxury which enervates and destroys nations?
Are we sure that there is none of it in our own lives?
– Henry David Thoreau
As beautiful as simplicity is, it can become a tradition that stands in the way of exploration.
– Laura Nyro

 

I lie in the living room, a song in my head. My guitar sits across the room, silently resonating a song from long ago. It yearns for something new. It beckons me to come and create something more than I can, at present. I stare at it with loving disdain, unmoving and unmoved.

Yes, yes, it often seems like the hardest thing to do is that which we know we ought to do but which requires effort: our labors of love so to speak. Due diligence suggests we apply some elbow grease and put our backs into the matter at hand. Conventional wisdom says nothing about waiting for the ‘perfect time’, however. 

It comes to pass that we reach a point where we realize we need more, oh so much more, to sustain our passion, enhance our vision, nurture our idealism, and facilitate our expression. At this point, we begin to wrestle with the contention that it’s not enough for us to rest on our hollow laurels or innate talents. And so with reluctance, we knowingly resign ourselves to the reality that we need to transform ourselves in order to thrive. Yet, agreeing in principle is one thing … doing is another.

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Dialing For Rejection: Just Say No

Jay Leonard Schwartz Defying Expectations , , , , , ,
It ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe
It don’t matter, anyhow
An’ it ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe
If you don’t know by now
– Bob Dylan (Don’t think twice, it’s all right)

Do you find it hard to say ‘no‘? By the same token, how easy is it for you to accept rejection? In reality, these are two sides of the same coin in respect to how developed your ’emotional intelligence’ is … and perhaps how stable you are as an individual. Now to be honest, if you are already questioning your stability, then you might as well question that of society’s, as well … as I often do on this blog.

Back when I was in kindergarten, I distinctly remember being told “when you grow up you can be anything you want, even the President of the United States!” In retrospect, I wonder what the point of this ‘pie in the sky’ pep talk was? On the surface, it was surely to motivate us kids to succeed in life. Certainly it was to inspire us to set goals and to be all that we were born to be. Yes yes, we all know teachers are liars but …

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The Letter I Never Sent

Jay Leonard Schwartz Uncategorized , ,

Dearest Dear,

I know it’s been awhile since we’ve talked or even exchanged insubstantial pleasantries. In fact, I can’t even remember that last time your name came up in conversation. Still, I feel there are things that needed to be said even after all this time has passed. 

I know you might still be angry, or elated … maybe a bit of both. I wouldn’t know since we seem to have lost contact – neither of us taking the time to give a damn and both of us more than happy to let the distance and time to grow between us.

I’ve often thought that maybe it’s better this way. Maybe this is the way it should be. Maybe we both feel ‘off the hook’, as you once suggested … or was it me? Still, there are times when all the old feelings rush back to me … and somewhere deep inside me a subtle urge begins to build, boiling my psyche alive.

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Weed Whackers

Jay Leonard Schwartz Dadaism, Dialogues , , , , , ,

PROLOGUE:

Herb: In the known universe there are beings that never quite question their existence. They wander wildly through the underbrush of society, slowly strangling the life out of all within their grasp, including themselves. It’s senseless. 

 

DIALOGUE:

Charlie: And so it begins, our journey … our wandering.

Ivy: I wonder … will we wander in vain? Is there a point to all this creeping about?

St. John: About our destiny,  yes. And, we must have faith in our function, our purpose, our very reason for being.

Charlie: Being that you know so much about life, the universe and everything, don’t you think it’s about time we questioned our existence and that which drives us?

Ivy: What drives us is life itself. Isn’t it? 

St. John: It is! Our very existence demands we kowtow and bow to the will of what we were born to do.

Charlie: Do tell! We are slaves to our wills then … or the wills of our nature … and after we do whatever it is we are supposed to do then what happens? What then?

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Crabalocker Crabs Boxed In Sideways

Jay Leonard Schwartz Defying Expectations , , , , , , , , , , ,
Some get the gravy
And some get the gristle
Some get the marrow bone
And some get nothing
Though there’s plenty to spare.
– Joni Mitchell (Banquet)

 

They say that moving houses is one of life’s most stressful situations. With this statement I tend to both agree and disagree. However, more to the point is that it’s just a depressing affair. There are surprises, usually of the morose kind, as well as subtle disappointments, bith expected and unexpected. The ‘normalcy’ of what you have come to expect, even if defined by ‘normal standards’ as ‘abnormal’, tends to be replaced by a form of irreverent and frenzied ‘hell’ …a helter skelter of sorts that fans of the ‘Lost’ television series know all too well. Yes, I think ‘lost’ is a shade of one way of describing how I feel these days.

I really don’t know where to begin in attempting to extricate myself from this self-imposed purgatory, because ‘sideways’ is not a usual option. But, that is pretty much the way I’ve been moving through life the last 2 months or so. Shuffling to the left, shuffling to the right, I shuffle and shuffle … and then I shut down. Not one for banging my head against a wall over and over again, I’ve just withdrawn into my crabby shell and have been waiting for this state of suffocation to pass … sometimes even forgetting to breathe.

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Decluttering Clogged Clingy Clutchers

Jay Leonard Schwartz Defying Expectations , , , , , , , , ,
What lies in tatters,
trouble be known.
Seeking some wisdom,
so far from home.
It’s been a long time not comin’.
A heavy cross to bear.
A long road of spinning wheels,
leading nowhere.
– Jay Schwartz (A Pocket Full Of Holes)

It’s time denude yet another myth about life with the following reality check: life is not always what you make of it. Whoever said it was was just being pretentious. Most people who are born into poverty stay in poverty. Most people who are born into middle class households stay in middle class households … unless of course they slip into poverty. Very few really ever get ahead or even make it out alive.

It’s the truth. You know it. I know it. We all know it. Nevertheless, we feign denial, shake our heads and cry “no, no, no” and desperately want to believe that ‘change’ is just around the corner or that hope springs eternal. It’s not folks. Sticking your head in the ground like an ostrich only makes it’s easier to lie down in your grave. And, the morbid reality is that ‘life sucks and then you die’.

The poor and the homeless know one thing all too well, ‘you can’t take it with you when you go’. The rest of us, however, find ‘comforting denial’ in our possessions which we accumulate to build up a fortress of sorts in order to keep out intruding thoughts and sobering realities … until the walls come tumbling down and we take up residency on skid row. (Pregnant pause) Oh, did I mention I was moving?

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