“He got to bed at last, and slept inert, relaxed, in a sleep that was rather stupor than slumber, a dead night of stupefaction shot through with gleams of anguish”
– D.H. Lawrence
Don’t Put That Hate On Me
img by Azurushka
I think lots of people (even Simon,who knows me well) would initially respond to the question “Is Elise a cynic?” with a resounding “Do bears shit in the woods?” It’s understandable. I am not a very nice person, often assume people aren’t as intelligent than me and I love a good conspiracy about the capitalist patriarchal overlords pulling the strings behind everything from shampoo commercials to the gentrification of inner city night spots. Despite my arrogantly caustic persona, I am not, in my heart of hearts, a true cynic.
Though I have my doubts about the intellectual capacities of the swarming masses, I do not doubt that human beings are generally good, community minded creatures. I think at their very core, people want to be loved, and they want to be surrounded by people they love. To me, the fact that guilt and shame are among the most common negative emotions experienced by human beings is sign that we care deeply about the way others see us, and we genuinely want to add value to (or at least not detract value from) our small corner of the world.
I don’t know if it’s because I am a teacher, and so work with developing humans day in and day out, but my default position in an instance of insult or injury is always to give the alleged “perpetrator” the benefit of the doubt. “Grace before judgement” has been my mantra for a few years now, though I wasn’t always like this. I used to react angrily rather than respond rationally, but I have seen too many of my colleagues scold students for their disheveled uniform, only to have it revealed to them by a superior that the 13 year old’s mother has taken herself interstate for the fortnight, leaving him with AUD100 pizza money and no tutorial on how to work the washing machine.
Situations like this occur every day. The rushed and apparently “rude” waitress. The bus driver who sent the puddle spraying across your new coat, leaving you soaked. The housemate who hasn’t done their rostered chore again. The coworker who didn’t complete their share of the project, making you look like a fucking idiot in front of your manager. The cynic assumes the the worst: these are all examples of deliberately hurtful actions borne of inherent selfishness or defiant disinterest in anyone else’s needs. I don’t know if it’s “idealistic”, but I truly believe that most of the times when people upset us, they just have five million things going on in their own lives, and we just happened to get in their way at the wrong time on the wrong day.
I do think I am an idealist in that I always try to see the good in people. Not everyone can be highly intelligent, competent, perceptive, charismatic and generous. There is a reason why those traits are admired in great men and women throughout history: they are rare. The vast majority of people are just mediocre, and that isn’t a bad thing, it’s just a human thing. You don’t have to be friends with anyone you don’t like, and even your friends aren’t faultless. Everyone has something beautiful about them, it just may not be as obvious and golden. Seeing the goodness in others makes my life better too. When people whinge about everything and only focus on the negative aspects of their world and those in it, the person who truly suffers is the whinger. When someone consistently disappoints me, I just do my best to avoid them. I don’t need the negativity of being constantly shitty with their inability to be better.
My dad used to tell me, “If you meet one jerk a day, the world has plenty of jerks in it. If you meet ten jerks a day, then you’re the jerk”. I think that is good advice for the cynic. A cynic assumes the worst in people, and cannot accept any goodness or beauty without the caveat of an assumed ulterior motive. It must be an exhausting life, to be constantly reading between the lines like that. They are missing out on the myriad genuinely kind and lovely moments of humanity. Cynics do not realise that by believing in essential selfishness, they are just as ugly as the underbelly they are constantly convinced is lurking just below the surface of things.
I write tonight knowing that the blows and buffets of the world may one day lead me to believe that it is an awful place, full of awful people. I hope I can read over this post and be reminded of my (perhaps deluded?) idealism at this moment. If that dark time does come, I hope these words will make it clear that things are, actually, all right. I just need to move beyond the disappointments which inevitably occur in the crazy realities of a human life.
Topic #34
“Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.”
– George Carlin
Instead of Diamonds
image from arefin03 at deviantart
my darling,
I’d like you to let
the light dance
off the bottled shelves,
glittering back at the
glint in your eye as
you explain
the intricacies of
your opinions on
nouvelle cuisine.
To Hell with trinkets!
I’d be taken by
tiny plates
carefully chosen and
shared, rubbing shoulders
as we delight in
devouring. Make me
giggle into my wine glass
and wish for
not a morsel more.
Forget the flowers,
I’d like to be led through
forests, or along the beach.
Feathered company
astutely observed and
erosion patterns explained.
Pointing and poking each
prized discovery,
show off as if you’d
scattered the stars
yourself.
Don’t bother buying
labelled leather.
Kiss me! Full, close
hard and hot
against the backdrop of
somewhere spectacular.
Slip your hand
across my skin,
exult in the sun’s blessing
and accept
my surrendered limbs.
Forget the gifts,
give me memories that
inspire absent-minded smiles
in supermarket aisles.
They excite me still,
when such days are
left to stories, and
leave me longing for
the next time you
treat me
to your company.
Topic #33
“You only truly possess that which you cannot lose in a shipwreck”
-El Ghazali
All the Way
image from ev-sta
Let me lament. If you’re going to try to cheer me up with jolly jokes and well-meaning cheek, I may as well stay home. Listen to me whinge and wax lyrical about all the injustices of this sorry situation. Languishing in my hopelessness, I hope you offer no solutions, just acknowledge the anguish and watch me wallow. I want to sup full of sorrows, weep and want and wail about everything I wish I was able to do but can’t because I’m crazy, because I’m poor, because I’m a wimp who will waste her life hurting and hating. I’ll polish off the bottle myself, rebuke any offers of help and fall asleep sobbing into my pillow, waking to red eyes peering from a puffy face. Tearing all the little pieces off my self and marinating them in melancholy, I will go all the way: quake, buckle and break under the weight of this world and my complete worthlessness in it.
Let me be elated. If you’re going to try to rain on my parade I may as well spin and sway away from your apathy. Let me throw my head back with laughter, Cruella de Ville cackle and crow at the sky with the silliness of it all. Grant me all the glitter and twinkle of an enchanted evening, made more marvelous by anticipation of fantastical possibilities, dreamed up in the hum drum of my everyday. Indulge my curiosity, let’s plunge into the unknown and seek all that has been hidden from our hearts and minds, stuck in one time and place. Oblige my exploration of every nook and cranny, my hysterical hot flush at finding things I hadn’t expected, wired with the wonder of this beautiful world. I’ll ask a million questions and seek quenching as I celebrate the over-brimming cup and go half crazy with how amazing it all is. Buzzing with the thrill of the thick of it, over stimulated and starry-eyed, I will go all the way: sigh, shriek and sweep myself off my feet with the wild admiration of everything in my reach.
Let me loathe you. If you’re going to be charming and courteous I may as well sneer from a distance, plotting your slow and painful death. Let my eyes roll back through my head in self-righteous surety of your insufferability. Receive my rage and let my wretched threats fly, shrill and insane so they shatter any semblance of sweetness you thought you saw in me. You’re completely incompetent, an utter imbecile, you’re wasting precious air by just being there, within reach of my fuming ire and seething acrimony. I want to tweak at your nerves, twist the knife and know that I’ve upset you to the bone and sinews. I’ll shriek my piece and shrug at your shocked face, full of repugnant vitriol that should never be given voice. Unleashing all that has been rabidly rioting inside my rib cage, I will go all the way: simmer, boil over and scald with the fury that I cannot find real reason for.
Topic #32
“If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start”
– Charles Bukowski
Domestic Cowardess
She could feel the fight brewing. It had begun when she walked through the door, tired and sticky from all day on her feet. She didn’t feel like eating, didn’t feel like cooking, but even as she thought it she felt the phone buzzing in her handbag. The customary call.
“I’m on my way home, what’s for dinner?”
She muttered back the meal plan that she’d coordinated, knowing if she spoke her mind, admitted she didn’t feel like cooking and eating, he’d suggest they go out, because he couldn’t be assed himself, but had to eat. She couldn’t stand the wasted groceries or extra cash for laziness’ sake. A deep sigh as her honest self slunk into a corner, she searched the fridge for each item, opened the recipe book and began preparing. She flicked the TV on to blare in the background as each element was sautéed in turn. An eye on the clock ensured impeccable timing, and he walked in the door with enough time to pet the cat, proffer a brief tirade about something just heard on talk-back radio, and sit down ready to eat.
“It needs more salt”
She could sense the storm coming. Felt sick as she looked at the food in front of her, thinking of the time that could have been spent on something that didn’t leave her feeling soulless. Another example of something she’d done for him that, in the end proved and meant nothing as he scraped his plate, eyes on his phone, no questions asked, no anecdotes offered. She took their plates to the sink.
“I’ll do the dishes in the morning.”
She didn’t want them done in the morning, recalled the squalor of blearily scooping yoghurt onto meusli, meat crusted ceramic half-soaking in the sink. It wouldn’t take long and it would make the next morning a little smoother. She turned the tap on.
“No! Don’t you do them, I said I’d do them. I just want to relax for a bit, I’ve been on my feet all day.”
She could feel the flicker and spark against the fuse, explosion imminent. Exhaled deeply and acquiesced to walk away from the pair of plates, handful of utensils and single fry pan that wouldn’t take long to take care of. She left little pieces of herself stagnating in the sink and seeking the solitude of her study, sat down and set out paper and envelopes. She began to draft a cheerful note to a far off friend, recounting something special they’d shared an age ago.
“Aren’t you going to spend some time with me?”
She stared at the paper in front of her, felt him reading over her shoulder, the oppression of the pressure to play sweet and nice. No one had ever known her as sweet or nice, but to avoid the anger and the arguing and the accusations, she would walk away from what she wanted to do, and watch the night die as they stared together into a screen, not speaking, but him satisfied to have his arms around her empty shell.
She was scared of his shouting, afraid that it meant she was faulty, worried that if she wasn’t keeping him happy it meant she was selfish and rotten and would ruin everything. The aching was a part of her every day, her eyes were dull and heart cold. She couldn’t breathe anymore. Lifeless because she’d learned to let him win, and become a coward who’d rather lose her spirit than throw herself into the fire.
Topic #31
“Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.”
–Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare
The Legend of Ol’ Son
So, this one time we were sitting around, a little sideways. The eclectic collection of couches had sucked us in and the stupid movie we’d all enthusiastically selected was blaring away. We were safe from the thick humidity of the spring night, thanks to the heroic efforts of a recently not-quite-fixed air conditioner which was struggling to keep the tiny room cool against the heat of half a dozen bodies. The ash tray betrayed the endless tokes and the haze that still hung left no doubt of how well the devil had made use of our idle hands.
We’d been lazing around for the better half of an afternoon that had long since lolled into evening. Tummies were grumbling, aching for something more substantial than the chips and Easter chocolate we’d munched on as the sun set. Any suggestion of making the kilometre trek to the smorgasbord of delicious eateries in our little fishing village was quashed by our red eyes gazing helplessly into each other’s, seeing the mirrored lethargy which was preventing us from mobilising our heavy limbs.
At the very moment when it seemed that all hopes of having dinner were destroyed, we heard the door clang at the bottom of the stairs.
“Nelly’s home!” I declared, and in my delight mustered the energy to rise from the cushions to swing wide the door. As he rounded the corner on the staircase, the sight of his towering frame ascending the stairs was almost too good to believe. He was laden with a gargantuan carton, and though leaden eyelids can make standard things seem fantastical, there was no denying the smell of his burden wafting warmly into the little living room.
The room erupted as he entered it. He had brought his merry band of pranksters not just a pizza, but a pizza one metre in diameter. It covered the entire makeshift coffee table and its glistening mozzarella was reflected in the gleam of our hungry eyes. He had catered for all dietary requirements and we dived in, devouring slices of obscene proportions, oil slicking our chins and fingers. We grinned at each other as we gulped it down, thanked Nelly a thousand times for this legendary feat. No one had called to say we were hungry, he’d never been asked to feed the masses. He simply shrugged and bit into his own doughy slice. He had been out all day and was heading home to those he loved, and on the way he’d thought we all might like something to eat.
INTENSE//APATHY 