I wrote this after having what can only be termed "a run-in with the man". I was disheartened by what I perceived as the disregard the system had for me and my situation. Bureaucrat after bureaucrat could only recite rules to me like an automaton and seemed incapable of understanding that the rules are intended to serve and not be a hindrance to citizens. It was as if they perceived me as an enemy that was to be punished to the line of the law, some of them openly driven by cold hard cash. I took a day long hiatus from school to fix the invented problem and it turns out it was a gift. I think, dear reader, that you will be able to tell when my perception changed and I understood exactly what had been given me.
one cannot fight the STATE and win...the STATE will always crush the individual, any shimmer of creativity or hope dies within the monotone grays and browns of STATE architecture, somehow always resembling prisons...it's no secret that the STATE exists to perpetuate itself...the shroud of public service is very thin and serves more as a burial shroud...i think we all know this but for some reason that escapes me we want to believe in the system...as children we fell asleep during a game of make believe and never quite woke up so we continue the game, half-awake, pretending that the machinations of the STATE serve a purpose, imagining that it is worth something, popping Valium pills when nobody is looking, lying to ourselves...the metaphor of a new day has worn its cogs and can no longer churn out any semblance of meaning...we are ghosts, specters of the spectrum...who will mourn us when we are gone, who will sing our songs, who will conjure our spirits and write our fictions, dream our lives from the ashes of the archive?
No quiero, triste espíritu, volver
por los lugares que cruzó mi llanto,
latir secreto entre los cuerpos vivos
como yo también fui.
No quiero recordar
un instante feliz entre tormentos;
goce o pena es igual,
todo es triste al volver.
aquellos dulces ojos juveniles,
aquella antigua herida.
No, no quisiera volver,
sino morir aún más,
arrancar una sombra,
olvidar un olvido.
-Luís Cernuda
I remember that the people who work for the STATE are not evil, though robotic, some without hearts of their own, they too are victims of bureaucracy. Though there are few who will write my life when I am dead, there are some. When the STATE dies, I will turn away, refuse to look, deny remembrance...I will remember the Other. We will once again become humans, individuals...We will ignore the clarion call as their monuments crumble under the weight of Our deliberate amnesia.
...
This day has been a revelation, a series of gifts and remembrances. These are some of the things I received and will not soon forget:
-a three hour drive and lunch with my mothers mother
-seeing my grandfather, suffering from dementia, smile as he recognizes my face and squeezes my hand between his
-seeing two lovers, separated by the failure of a body, hold hands and enjoy their daily visit at the rest home
-talking to my two uncles about ghosts and ghosts stories
-brief visits to the homes of my grandmothers, where memory and nostalgia run deep
-remembering why I wanted to come here in the first place
-talking to my mothers brother on the phone
-watching the sunset with my fathers mother
-returning home, kissing my wife and peeking in on two beautiful children lost in the wonderland of their dreams
Though the system dealt me a financial blow, interpolated me as a bad citizen and a rule breaker (though they are not synonyms), my journey was a long a beautiful remembrance. I don't want to be a citizen, I don't care about the system. Perhaps the last paragraph of section one is true, perhaps I will look away. Or maybe next time something similar happens I will stare the robots straight in the eye with deafening silence, I will stare until they look back and see me and until I can see them; the face of the Other.
Screen captures in order: The Chimes at Midnight, Welles; The Trial, Welles.
2 comments:
I'm glad you were able to pull the good out of our irritating situation. I'm still stuck on the money.........
I just spoke to my mother, you not only received those gifts; you were a gift to grandmothers, uncles & grandpas.
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