It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness - in short, the period was like the present period. If you watch close, history does nothing but repeat itself. Every last minute of my life has been preordained and I'm sick and tired of it.
Between the big events, the earthquakes and the tidal waves, God's got me squeezed in for a cameo appearance. What we call chaos is just patterns we haven’t recognized. What we can’t understand we call nonsense. Then maybe in thirty years, or maybe next year, God's daily planner has me finished. The Italian Renaissance penciled in for right after the Dark Ages. The Information Age is scheduled immediately after the Industrial Revolution. Then the Postmodern Era, then the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Famine. Check. Pestilence. Check. War. Check. Death. Check.
Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. Quit your job. Sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whisky, and drive fast on empty streets. Prove you're alive. Res ipsa loquitur. Let the good times roll. I mean, there's no future in anarchy. But when I was into it there was never a thought of the future. We were certain the world was gonna end.
When it didn't, I had to do something.
Somebody laid down this rule that everybody’s gotta do something, they gotta be something. You know, a dentist, a narc, a janitor, a preacher, all that... Boring damned people. Propagating more boring damned people. What a horror show. Why are we so full of restraint? Why do we not give in all directions? Is it fear of losing ourselves?
We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fear -- fear of poverty, fear of getting down-sized or fired because of the plunging economy, fear of getting evicted for bad debts. Whether you clean a stain, a fish, a house, you want to think you're making the world a better place, but really you’re just letting things get worse. You think maybe if you just work harder and faster, you can hold off the chaos, but one day you’re changing a patio light bulb with a five-year life span and you realize how you’ll only be changing this light maybe ten more times before you’ll be dead. There comes a time when you look into the mirror and you realize that what you see is all that you will ever be. And then you accept it. Or you kill yourself. Or you stop looking in mirrors.
I want out of the labels. I don't want my whole life crammed into a single word. A story. I want to find something else, unknowable, some place to be that's not on the map.
A mystery. A blank. Unknown. Undefined.
I hate to advocate drugs and alcohol to anyone but they’ve always worked for me - it’s an emotional thing. We had two bags of grass, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine and a multicolored collection of uppers, downers, laughers, screamers... Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, and a case of beer. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that it’s a form of suicide where you're allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It's like killing yourself, and then you're reborn. I guess I've lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now.
I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was - I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost. You see life is like that. We change, that's all. You see, the guy I am now is not the guy I was then. If the guy I was then met the guy I am now he'd beat the shit out of me. Those are the facts.
The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little bit more off you, until there was nothing left. A whole god-damned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidates who reminded them most of themselves. They seemed to understand something that I didn't understand. Maybe I was lacking. I just wanted to get away from them. But there was no place to go. I mean, that was me, a troublemaker, a seeker, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that my instincts were right.
There are times, however, and this is one of them, when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? If making love might be fatal and if a cool breeze on any summer afternoon can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison, there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation. It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die. I could do a hell of a lot more damage in the system than outside of it. That was the final irony, I think.
What was the point? Final summation? None.
No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun -- for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax -- This won't hurt.
~~~~~~ Post with References:~~~~~~
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness - in short, the period was like the present period.[1] If you watch close, history does nothing but repeat itself. Every last minute of my life has been preordained and I'm sick and tired of it.
Between the big events, the earthquakes and the tidal waves, God's got me squeezed in for a cameo appearance. What we call chaos is just patterns we haven’t recognized. What we can’t understand we call nonsense. Then maybe in thirty years, or maybe next year, God's daily planner has me finished. The Italian Renaissance penciled in for right after the Dark Ages. The Information Age is scheduled immediately after the Industrial Revolution. Then the Postmodern Era, then the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Famine. Check. Pestilence. Check. War. Check. Death. Check.[2]
Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. Quit your job.[3] Sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whisky, and drive fast on empty streets.[4] Prove you're alive.[5] Res ipsa loquitur. Let the good times roll.[6] I mean, there's no future in anarchy. But when I was into it there was never a thought of the future. We were certain the world was gonna end.
When it didn't, I had to do something.[7]
Somebody laid down this rule that everybody’s gotta do something, they gotta be something. You know, a dentist, a narc, a janitor, a preacher, all that...[8] Boring damned people. Propagating more boring damned people. What a horror show.[9] Why are we so full of restraint? Why do we not give in all directions? Is it fear of losing ourselves?[10]
We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fear -- fear of poverty, fear of getting down-sized or fired because of the plunging economy, fear of getting evicted for bad debts.[11] Whether you clean a stain, a fish, a house, you want to think you're making the world a better place, but really you’re just letting things get worse. You think maybe if you just work harder and faster, you can hold off the chaos, but one day you’re changing a patio light bulb with a five-year life span and you realize how you’ll only be changing this light maybe ten more times before you’ll be dead.[12] There comes a time when you look into the mirror and you realize that what you see is all that you will ever be. And then you accept it. Or you kill yourself. Or you stop looking in mirrors.[13]
I want out of the labels. I don't want my whole life crammed into a single word. A story. I want to find something else, unknowable, some place to be that's not on the map.
A mystery. A blank. Unknown. Undefined.[14]
I hate to advocate drugs and alcohol to anyone but they’ve always worked for me[15] - it’s an emotional thing.[16] We had two bags of grass, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine and a multicolored collection of uppers, downers, laughers, screamers... Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, and a case of beer. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.[17] It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that it’s a form of suicide where you're allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It's like killing yourself, and then you're reborn. I guess I've lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now.[18]
I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was - I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost.[19] You see life is like that. We change, that's all. You see, the guy I am now is not the guy I was then. If the guy I was then met the guy I am now he'd beat the shit out of me. Those are the facts.[20]
The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little bit more off you, until there was nothing left. A whole god-damned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidates who reminded them most of themselves. They seemed to understand something that I didn't understand. Maybe I was lacking. I just wanted to get away from them. But there was no place to go.[21] I mean, that was me, a troublemaker,[22] a seeker, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that my instincts were right.[23]
There are times, however, and this is one of them, when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? If making love might be fatal and if a cool breeze on any summer afternoon can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison, there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation. It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die.[24] I could do a hell of a lot more damage in the system than outside of it. That was the final irony, I think.
What was the point? Final summation? None.[25]
No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun -- for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax --This won't hurt.[26]
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[1].Tale of Two Cities, Dickens
[2]. Survivor, Palahniuk
[3]. Fight Club, Palahnuik
[4].Generation of Swine, Hunter S. Thompson
[5]. Fight Club, Palahnuik
[6]. Generation of Swine, Hunter S. Thompson
[7]. SLC, Punk!
[8]. Barfly, Charles Bukowski
[9]. Bukowski
[10]. Henry Miller
[11]. Extreme Behavior in Aspen, Hunter S. Thompson
[12]. Survivor, Palahniuk
[13]. Tennessee Williams
[14]. Invisible Monsters, Palahniuk
[15]. Hunter S. Thompson
[16]. Interview, London Magazine, Bukowski
[17]. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson
[18].Interview, London Magazine, Bukowski
[19]. On The Road, Kerouac
[20].SLC, Punk!
[21]. Ham on Rye, Bukowski
[22]. SLC, Punk!
[23]. The Rum Diary, Hunter S. Thompson
[24]. Generation of Swine, Hunter S. Thompson
[25]. SLC, Punk!
[26]. Football Season is Over, Hunter S. Thompson
I love that there are so many sources but they all tie together so perfectly. Also sends a definite message...one I so happen to be a firm believer in...
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