friends,

in case you haven't noticed, my attempt at a more public blog has moved here:

normalstream.blogspot.com

it is in that cycle of the artist that i must now say that while i do not regret anything written on "everybody works", it would have perhaps been better for me to keep these words private. Normal stream, though still understandedly vague, is a public experiment. it contains a lot of unfinished short stories, novel ideas, and other things i feel like sharing. i have decided there are certain things of which it shall not contain, past sins, perhaps, grievances, words which have taken my own life and shamelessly blasphemed the God who continues to give me mercy in my infantile wandering. I know you may not understand the disjointed nature of the enterprise, but i encourage you to read them. I'm going to try to make them healthy. Do not hesitate to feedback (if it is really feeding that i am doing :) )

the struggle here is internal- in which i perpetually feel that inside of me there rages a monster. but this is not some satanic grotesque typically associated, but a beautiful articulate. i ask myself- "what is to be my life's work?" because i am ready to pour everything. ive narrowed it down, yes, today, but it seems as though tomorrow it will widen out again. in times when nothing is certain, i fumble over what i am supposed to be doing while the clock still ticks towards judgment day, and i am scared that i will be judged by my achievements lack thereof.

but still, i must write my manifesto. i must trudge on in the blink of nihilism, on the verge of feeling, like God, as though i am attempting to create ex nihilo. but is it to be a manifesto of nothingness? i find a cycle like the Judges- the thought occurs to me that at some point all of this struggle to create will be synthesized into some epic being that will win from me its independence. i keep feeling as though in some moment of transcendence all of my artistic efforts will magically transcribe themselves onto a permanent page and thus be entered into the great historical canon of human art. most importantly, i will reap the satisfaction of knowing that my message has been broadcast into space, and i have received an intelligent reply. it is legitimate. i feel as though ive found my calling, and i am ready to get to work.

but every time i start, i get depressed. i suddenly feel incapable of writing anything. then i criticize my own method of validation by artistic achievement, and i decide to just be. i decide to perhaps never write again. and i decide to be ok with myself if this happens. i decide to not attempt to "force" writing. so i dont write.

then i start to think- "what is to be my life's work?"

It is fascinating to me the dichotomy in which Hawthorne choses to portray Arthur Dimmesdale. In the public sphere, he is a pastor so beloved by his congregation that literally every occasion in which it is even remotely suggested that his sheet-white conscience may actually be stained with the mark of passionate disobedience is met by immediate and optimistic justification by the public, even when the scope of such a suggestion permanently associates him as the adulterous partner of the town's known whore and absent father of her bastard daughter.

But instead of being relieved that his sin continues to go unnoticed, Dimmesdale is all the more angry and upset. Each time he attempts to dethrone himself as this spiritually endowed mentor/prophet, his self-deprecation preached from the pulpit only furthers his status as a uniquely humble individual in the eyes of the public.

Is this behavior not the ironic opposite of a human public so infamous for making accusations against innocent men? Most men that hold any form of public office take great pains to be seen as innocent, yet the public never fails to dig up some sort implicating evidence.

Dimmesdale wishes to be seen by the public in the same way that he mistakenly chooses to see himself- as the greatest of sinners and most hideous of men. He is Faust, and strives perpetually to bring about his own damnation. Ironically, however, the public refuses to damn him, even when the sun shines brightly on the scarlet letter in the middle of the public sphere.

"It is a curios subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and spiritual life upon another; each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his object. Philosophically considered, therefore, the two passions seem essentially the same, except that one happens to be seen in a celestial radiance, and the other in a dusky and lurid glow."

i had a dream last night.

i was standing in line at a fast food restaurant when she walked in. i was wearing my glasses and my blue jacket, and when she saw me she cowered in that way that she does, and she muttered something like "O you look smart." No "hi." No "how are you." Her social nervousness caused her to forget the salutation, even when the person she was addressing hadnt seen or talked to her in over 6 months and lived in a different part of the country.

Unable to deal with the situation, she ran out of the restaurant. I meanwhile, found myself in a state of complete shock at all this, so much so that i suddenly discovered i was in the front of the line, and turned around to see the lady at the register yelling at me for holding up the line.

I, too, ran out of the restaurant, but discovered her nowhere to be found. I got in my car and called her, pleading with her to let me buy her a cup of coffee. She agreed, and we setup to meet at this coffee shop. So i drove to the coffee shop and waited. She doesn't show. I go home angry and depressed.

The next morning I wake up vaguely conscious (a dream within a dream) of some noise in the house last night. Taped to my dresser I find a note from her elaborating on her recent life. But the note is multiple pages long, and contains more than just words. She drew all these little pictures and shapes in the margin. And interjected between her ramblings about her goings ons are random little quotes that meant something to her.

I look around for her, but she is nowhere to be found.

my subconscious self wishes to construct some sort of fairy tale.

in the dead of night is when all the assholes come out, and they drive your buses, and they always make you late because their fatass thinks that a coconut tastykake at 3am is precisely the thing that is going to keep them going. so they stop at the gas station that is no more than 5 minutes from 30th Street (after already leaving New York 30 minutes late).

all this happened after he pulled over the bus a separate time and threatened to call the police on an asian student after he accidently (and harmlessly) decided to walk down the front steps of the multi level bus.

ive had a thing for normal people lately.

let me tell you some normal things about me:

i have lot of friends that i sincerely love and engage in mostly normal relationships with

i drive a normal car

i have a normal job

i am relatively normal for a 22 year old white post graduate

ok thats it

we're into the wandering realm of the season of death, and i shall say how death brings her beauty- in falling leaves. but even more, in welcome brisk nights where you underestimate your bicycle ride, and you are cold.

we fill our bellies with warm things. we reap the fruit of the land in the season of harvest, then we sit around the fire and reap the fruit of good friendship. we give thanks, and it is good. and yet we remember those who have not the means to engage in such heartwarming activities, and we pray for their peace and prosperity.

we wind away, ever casually, towards the dark black night of winter, asking God, who is ever present so deep inside our hearts, to grant us peace and mercy until the long shadows disappear, and we find ourselves once again inside the garden of Eden, as children, not lonely, no, but rejuvenated again by the light of the life-giving rays of spring and the purpose-giving work that is before our hands.

who is the man who makes the music?

we might never know

i realized tonight that i dont think its really possible for aaron to stop talking like aaron. and i know how i do it, its crazy, and i dont want to admit to it or draw attention to it, some things just need to be. but i thought for a minute what it would be like to sit down at a table across from myself and listen to myself rant about some utterly ridiculous thing and struggle to get out phrases that i only half understand myself in my attempt to materialize my very abstract thoughts.

the conclusion that i came to is that i am completely ridiculous. i dont talk in normal terms. i dont think in normal terms. or perhaps i think exactly in normal terms. it is quite possible that even the greatest extent to which we are convinced of our own anomolies is actually bullshit- im no different than anybody else.

sitting across the table, i would say "who is this guy?" in a specific tone of voice. i would also probably say something like "you're nuts" or some similar quip like that.

but im tired of talking about myself. what about you? you matter. what are things you believe to be unique about yourself? im sure you have some. they're not bad. do you struggle with perception too? are you too hard on yourself? self-deprecating?

alright

tonight there is only home, an open window above my bed, and the exceedingly calming and familiar spiced air of an October midnight silence in rural Chester County.

i am invited to rest.

theres a clock ticking down to the zero hour at which point i will become, whether self-prescribed or other, a full grown man. full grown men are by definition good, and full grown men act a certain way, mainly, full grown men do not damn themselves. they are capable of accepting salvation.

it is not necessary for you to be this way. we're growing up, and im tired of your cursing. im tired of your smoking and your drinking. and im tired of your depression and your sophisticated concrete slabs. im tired of this rambling academia and its nuclear-powered agenda of deconstruction. im tired of existing only in the world of ideas while simultaneously ignoring the world of action. im tired of doubting God when his entire creation is displayed before me each morning, whether in the trees of my neighborhood or in the people that constantly surround me. im tired of pushing people away. its time to be a father now. and i will let myself be fathered, and i will make peace with my tradition. its time to move to the country, get married, quit the band, committ to someone/something, be a father and a husband. its time to work on a farm. its time to love and make music which inspires peace and goodness and avoid music which draws attention to its own state of helpless apathy, brought about not as the product of some divine scourge but solely by the lies which we have believed about the extent of our helplessness in the world. its time to stop being so hard on myself. its time to be ok with never writing another song for the rest of my life. im tired of you loving the sound of your own voice.

ive played the role of the lonely intellectual wanderer for a while now, and im ready to engage in the kind of relationship that will quiet many of those fears forever. for now i will wait patiently.

today i was forced, through a set of external circumstances, to put to bed a particular part of my past that i was not necessarily prepared to let go of.

goodbye

so for those times when i dont feel like dabbling with an alter ego, i thought maybe id create a real blog, you know, a normal one, where i could talk about cool stuff in a normal way, and it would be me, and you wouldnt have to second guess yourself.

and these two parallel things would represent different things, because i would want them to, and set them up in such a way as to make the one more experimental/stream of consciousness (here you are), and the other more normal, more straightforward you know? i like normal people and sometimes i just wanna talk about what im listening to, but come on should that really be on the same page as my crazy rants? this is not business, people, ok? you probably just want to hear a normal voice by now, someone you can trust.

so its coming, as soon as i have the motivation to create it, a normal blog that is. and perhaps you can tell me which you like better- or, even better, you can choose which one you want to be the actual representation of me, and roll with it.

im far more normal in everyday life anyway. ive created these people, remember?

holy holy holy

Lord God Almighty,

all thy works shall praise thy name in earth and sky and sea.

only thou art holy, there is none beside thee

perfect in power, in love and purity.

geez, just look at the evolution of a man's consciousness.

and i love the feeling, i love the feeling.

and allow me not to make any specific references. names- my name? aaron daniel mcgarvey. do not allow any part of myself to influence myself please. do not allow, say, the fact that i have been in love to influence my campaign office please.

im running for office, didnt you know? but im not going to let my private self influence my public self.

*the wanderings have ceased for know, and i have put my schizophrenic friend to bed. tomorrow we will wake up together, and we will get something to eat.

perhaps after that we shall conquer the sea.

thank you. thank you.......

there is hope for the lonely in the fields of chester county.

ill tell you where it is- its on a covered bridge that floats over the water. and if you go, please tell me first, so i can share it with you, because i would want to preface it by saying that you will feel love- particularly if you are already in love, and strong will it be for you to feel.

you can wash your dirty hands clean in the river in which there is the only sound. by you and me. but im still imagining the you with the me, because it is to you that i have bequeathed the keys to the kingdom of my heart, and this is what i spend my time imagining.

you want to know, do you? well ok. im making that up. im going to tell you even if you didnt. but then i would just be telling myself. but selfishness is the new selflessness so it ok. ok. ok.

i imagine a companion in my deepest imagination, and i say "hello lover" while she sits in the passenger seat as we drive through that peace that i was just talking about. and the incompleteness is there, but why does it come is stages? for i can be content with a blade of grass. but i will cry cry cry for the love that i never had.

but i imagine a companion. if you want to know about me, imagine that i imagine a companion for all that i do, all the time. but do not come knocking on my door asking, that is, unless of course you are the one, and im sorry dear only i can make that decision. but this is what she said.

so no judging me tonight ok? this is for me, ok. just promise me you wont judge me, and open your arms to receive me.

and may it happen in a field.

and where else was there for him to go? and how do we judge a missed connection, how do we deem it?

for my thoughts are your thoughts, says the i, but the i writes for himself.

i mean here we go round and round right? and where are we going? but this question is so modern, the old ones were better. come on, stop being such a nihilist. everything is true, and we can PROVE it. prove it prove it prove it to me. i neeed to know man.

so youve developed this fascinating appeal ever since youve left my world, and i wonder if the theory here translates into practice, if you are as mysterious as the virtual media here on the screen tells me that you are. its telling me that you are smart, and that you write, and well see that appeals to my senses, you know, because youre not dumb. god see ive been hopelessly alone for ages now and maybe you could be the one that could understand me, because my needs are just that primal. i am not super, or, as Dostoyevsky puts it, "extraordinary." I had better not deceive myself into thinking that i am one of those intellectually superior individuals who thus has a right to transgress the laws of man for the sake of accomplishing my superior agenda. for, you will say (as you should), how do we know that you are from God? where is your authority? i mean, its such a valid question.

but please, just be with me. let me hear your voice. im very alone.

i am the commander of the world inside my head, and nobody knows it but me. it is where i have gone to escape that miserable swell of loneliness that has made this summer one of the most depressing on record. for i like to think that its not my fault. i tried not to be lonely, i tried to like myself, etc. but it all bottomed out, and i think, i think i venture to say that perhaps the circumstances that led to its bottoming out were outside of my control, but what the hell does that mean? should i take any comfort in that, that the reason i am alone now is outside of my control? if i were a judge i would condemn myself. id give myself the maximum sentence (eternity in hell of course) for not getting it right.

"you didnt get it right" i would say, "you screwed up, you failed to realize such and such. you did not have this particular epiphany at this particular time, so you fail. and o yea, the reason youre alone is your own damn fault. you could've reached out to those people, but you turned them away instead. you retreated into your own little world, and the ones you did pursue were the ones you knew would not or could not love you, and you pursued them because you have this sick fascination for things you cannot have, and when they all denied you you just retreated further and further inward, until ambition was your only friend. you read books, you learned languages, you played instruments, you created art, all in an attempt to fill the vacant space of your own boredom movement that only further perpetuates your depression. you are responsible for all of the worlds evils, and you are responsible for not solving them, and you are responsible for all of the worlds questions, and you are responsible for not answering them. yet you are far too cowardly to die on a cross. in the absence of your God, you derived your self worth from your degree of self-perceived intelligence. and then, to top it off, you run through these hypothetical situations in your head where you are your own judge on Judgement Day, and, like Faust, you thrive on the enjoyment of your own viciously public self-deprecation. you hate yourself, so you play neurotic in an attempt to muddle your own identity. then you talk back to yourself so that you do not know who to trust. then you talk back to the talk backer. you say you want to travel, you need to be on the road, but why cant you realize that when you are on the road you are always alone, and all you are trying to do is run from your own loneliness. but you cannot run from it, because at any moment you may become suddenly aware that there is no one in the passenger seat.

and so, for all this, you are condemned. but do you want to know the reason, aaron, why you are condemned most of all? you are condemned most of all because in all of your loneliness, you regretted to notice the poor widow at your doorstep. you could not see the forest for the trees.

but i need, i say, i need. i am convinced that i simply cannot see the forest in isolation. it takes another.