Sometimes you just forget what matters. And when you do, it feels like nothing ever did and nothing ever has. It’s this strange in-between, you lose all the energy to exert positive ideas into the world and sulk. I find there are many things that bring on my anxiety. Coursework, relationships, other drivers, my messy apartment—the fact that tomorrow could be either inexplicably amazing, or utterly terrible. The unknown. The unknown is worse than the negative and the positive is better than both, but very rare.
The reason I study writing is because when one studies writing, one is actually studying life. There is no way to become a successful writer (define success in your own way—success is relative) without being analytical, and always learning about subjects that don’t seem to overtly adhere to your path.
“You see a piece of paper on the ground?” he said, his accent boiling his r’s, “pick it up and read it. It does not matter what it’s about. Knowledge is knowledge.” Amid is bald on top with a dent in the back of his skull.
“I bet there’s a story behind that,” I said when he showed it to me.
“Well,” he said, looking at me grimly, “it was an infection.” He said it as if he was disappointed that it wasn’t something greater. “That is why I say ‘gain all your knowledge now.’ When you get older, the gears will not turn so well. Sometimes I cannot find the right…” he trailed off and looked out the window, held his head in his hands, then came back. “I cannot always find the right words, I just see one and grab it, but it is not always right.” I smiled at him. “I am good at bullshitting, no?”
“Very good,” I replied.
He chuckled. “At least you are honest.”
I see Amid often in the coffee shop, but this is the first time we’ve ever really spoken. I sat across from him at a table because the others were taken.
“You’re welcome to sit here,” he said to me, “but do not listen, you do not want my negative energy.”
“We can share,” I told him.
“You do not want to share with me,” he said, smiling, and looking out the window before taking a sip from his steaming cup.
“Okay,” I said to him, “noted.” And of course, he began to speak to me on life, the world, and summarized all the things that he wished he’d done and advised me to do.
“You will never regret reading. Ever.”
Amid often just sits in a chair, he rarely reads the newspaper or a book. Sometimes, very rarely, he speaks to another man in a foreign language I can’t place. Otherwise, he just sits and looks at the table, out the window, or into his coffee cup. He is brimming with regret.
When I forget what matters, I need perspective. Sometimes perspective costs me $10.50 at the movie theatre, sometimes it costs me a couple beers and a few shots of vodka, sometimes it costs me a full night’s rest—I never know what it will cost until I’ve gained it. I only understand a sense of perspective in retrospect.
When you’re lying at the bottom of a hole it’s impossible to see over the top of it, that, unfortunately, is the truth of the matter.
And here’s an instrumental I made a while ago with a guitar, an organ, a ukulele, and a few children’s percussion instruments: Nothing Really Happens When I’m Alone
