Desanimania

There’s a few things that get me going in life. Crashing waves, pretty girls, and the imminent future that is the compounding idea of happiness viewed within the conflicting scope of tranquility versus purpose. Really, it’s like an equation. Crashing waves against pretty girls equals an ironic fate- one which is hip and derivative and is a bloody cold steak and drips down my chin and falls to the floor and I see my eyes hiding behind a toothy grin in the red reflection; it’s staring back up towards me with utmost precision. The truth erupts from my chest.

And so I was asked a question

There are almost seven billion people on Earth (and pages of Google suppositions re: how many of those are met in an average lifetime.) In its ongoing growth, technology offers steady and innumerable opportunities for our generation to 'make friends.' That being said; do you feel a large audience/network online can detract from interpersonal communication? Does social networking strengthen the links between individuals and societies - or is it potentially corrosive? (Oh the irony of my e-query.)

The only thing corrosive about this is the acid building up in my stomach as a result of the pent-up stress my body has been dealing with due to the long amount of time it took me to answer.

Krystin, 

As with any forwrd change in interpersonal communication, there will always be Luddites (as, at least in my mind, the only positive changes are a result of increased personal affluence which only seems obtainable via increased technology) and naysayers who hold true the puritanical notion that what once was was heavily better.

Today, I believe we more or less call them hipsters.

Before the internet, we talked on the phone- those where the good old days: when you actually had to hear someone’s voice. Before the phone, we wrote letters- those where the good old days: when you actually had to sit down and put effort into what you wanted to say. Before letters, we actually had to go to the person and tell them what you wanted to say- those where the good old days… I think you get my point.

What I’m saying is that the concept of worthwhile relations seems to be fluid and the idea of genuineness isn’t necessarily concrete. When two people share enough to establish a healthy connection between themselves and that connection grows, there’s your friendship. Maybe it’s not as corporeal as things used to be- maybe we are venturing towards a society where humans live as gaseous states in hyperbolic chambers- but I think the satisfaction that can be achieved via emotional or intellectual solidarity will still strongly exist and will still elicit the same feelings that is always had. 

I hope that helps you out.

With dearest regards,

Blake

What is Sadness?

A glass can be made so that, in the right light and juxtaposed against the right background, it looks as if nothing is there. Imagine one like this; a tumbler, moderately tall with thin sides and a heavy base so that it will not slide and, if clenched tightly enough, would shatter, cutting into whomever was so oppressive. The sides are curved up at the ends like a tulip. It is so clear, the only evidence of it’s existence is the refraction of light, or more tellingly, the refraction of the reflection of light back towards your eyes and if it sits on a granite counter top and you float directly above it looking down, to the dim-witted (or busy or unconcerned), it is invisible. Peering downwards, the stone will seem slightly larger and askew. From a parallel view, whatever is behind it will seem slightly to the left or slightly to the right, depending on how far away you are and at what angle everything seems to be situated. The glass is a portal for which reality passes through, but not without the slightest adjustment. The physical image of a glass isn’t really important, rather I just wanted to establish a shared concept. For now- for us- the glass exists. In my mind, I see an old fountain ink pen hovering above it. The pen is carved from jade or stained ivory and is what I imagine being used by a British expatriated accountant during the infancy of Africa’s colonization. It is more of a relic, but, for whatever reason, it has been dipped into an inkwell and the black dye drawn up into it the way a syringe will steal blood. A single drop of ink rests on the tip and it is very dark and the light creates a reflection on it so it looks like an oily tear. It is a tapered black pearl that precariously sits on the edge, like way I used to sit on the diving board when I was a child, dangling my legs off the edge, fully knowing that it was too high for me but also too proud to come back down, waiting to be saved by my mother. It flirts with the pointed brim, asking to be pushed off, begging for some sort of jiggle or shake to uproot it and send it careening down towards the pool or water below. And then it is. It is shook and it falls, an midnight bullet silently screaming towards the target below: without constraint or purpose, the ink questions existence. When the ink hits the water in the glass below and it’s force breaks the surface and the tension is released, it spreads in all directions, a murky consumption like black fire overtaking a home, like an ever expanding billow of smoke that confines. There seems to be no compromise. Even the smallest bit of ink will turn a much larger body of water black. When it hits, it is vicious and chaotic, spiralling in fractal patterns- a pervasive force that feels compelled to poison all that it can, a villain fueled by the mindless drive to obscure, to control. Once the ink enters the water, it is only seconds before an evidence of purity is erased. There is no evidence of struggle, no record of the internal battle waged. There is only a single glass sitting, filled with abyss. And to me, this is Sadness.