shelter me, oh genius word
just give me strength
Sometimes people talk about the things that they have done or are doing or plan to do as though they are watching themselves. On a screen, or from outside, or even from the inside as reflected in the mirror of someone else, watching. Not actually doing it. Not actually being present or part of the process, but simply allowing it to take place and, watching. Often this is a defense mechanism. We cannot bring ourselves to do whatever it is that is necessary at that moment, or maybe we can but we do not want to, so we pretend that we are not actually doing it, that we are an observer and will later critique the performance of that person that was so obviously miscast as ourself. It makes it easier, and sometimes it makes it possible.
I do not do this.
What I do is constantly write it and rewrite it and rewrite it in my head. I diagram the sentence in advance, as though it is a set. This is where this will go and if I move this over here then this could fit and I think that if I pull that out then this would mesh very nicely with that right there to achieve the effect that I am after. I do this in advance sometimes. I do this sometimes in the midst of a conversation or interaction. Sometimes I do this after the fact; upon discovering that things have gone horribly awry I realize that I could simply rewrite it the way it should have gone, thus it becomes. And it is done. It is printed and bound and placed on a bookshelf in my head, where I can pull it down and read it if I want to. But probably I will not.
I run into trouble when I fail to recognize that the other people involved in whatever situation it may be are not doing this as well. When it occurs to me that they took what was possibly a rough draft and had it etched permanently, a collector's edition, with the gold and the leather and the staggered payments. And I do not understand. I do not understand how they can take something that I have said and give it such weight. Because clearly, obviously, I said that in pencil. And I will make statements. I will make a proclamation, and it will sound good. It will sound real and it will sound thought out and he will think that it must be that I had written that weeks before in preparation for this, that I had worn out my white out and that was that, and that he can take it to the bank when actually I am already editing. To myself. Because I was really only trying out those words in that order, and once I put them down I saw that while the alliteration is there and the tempo is like a damn siren, it was really not what I was after at all. But between the time that I say it and the time that I realize that, it is a best seller. There is no taking it back. It's on his shelf now and what am I going to do? Issue a rebuttal, to myself? And hope that it does the trick? Half the time I do not even know where it went wrong. It was 'whom' again, wasn't it. Fucking whom, always mucking it up. But I would always, alwaysalways rather give it a shot than let the words back up. Here is what I think, man, because I have to think something and I can't not express it but the odds are good that ten seconds from now I will discover that I do not actually think that, but by then it will be too late.
This is because I write. And in writing you have the opportunity to kill those things in the edit. I talk like I write. Start to finish in one. I edit midstream. This is because I do not often read what I have written. But now and then I will receive feedback from someone saying How in the hell could you think that, let alone write that down? And I go Shit, I better go read that. Not so with speaking. It is boom/fast: out, it's gone. And it is left to me to defend it, because those are my words, my words my words, and without words I have nothing. Words protect me. Words give me an alibi. Words are there for me when I am not there for myself. I will defend my words with my dying breath, because I can, because even if it didn't come out the way I meant it initially, by the time I put enough words on top of it he will not even remember what it was I said. And I am all right with that. In these situations. If I write him a letter, right now, then no matter what I said on the phone five minutes ago I can still fix this. Conversely, but similarly, if I write him a letter right now then no matter how happy I made him on the phone five minutes ago, I can still take that away. Because that is what I do. They are not knives. Boy. They are not knives. They are armor. And I can use them in place of the real thing, if necessary, to pretend that it is not actually me, that I am not actually responsible for these actions, these decisions, that I am simply the pen by which this scenario travels from thought to being. That no matter how I actually feel, if I throw enough words on it, I can convince anyone. Even myself.
Sometimes people talk about the things that they have done or are doing or plan to do as though they are watching themselves. On a screen, or from outside, or even from the inside as reflected in the mirror of someone else, watching. Not actually doing it. Not actually being present or part of the process, but simply allowing it to take place and, watching. Often this is a defense mechanism. We cannot bring ourselves to do whatever it is that is necessary at that moment, or maybe we can but we do not want to, so we pretend that we are not actually doing it, that we are an observer and will later critique the performance of that person that was so obviously miscast as ourself. It makes it easier, and sometimes it makes it possible.
I do not do this.
What I do is constantly write it and rewrite it and rewrite it in my head. I diagram the sentence in advance, as though it is a set. This is where this will go and if I move this over here then this could fit and I think that if I pull that out then this would mesh very nicely with that right there to achieve the effect that I am after. I do this in advance sometimes. I do this sometimes in the midst of a conversation or interaction. Sometimes I do this after the fact; upon discovering that things have gone horribly awry I realize that I could simply rewrite it the way it should have gone, thus it becomes. And it is done. It is printed and bound and placed on a bookshelf in my head, where I can pull it down and read it if I want to. But probably I will not.
I run into trouble when I fail to recognize that the other people involved in whatever situation it may be are not doing this as well. When it occurs to me that they took what was possibly a rough draft and had it etched permanently, a collector's edition, with the gold and the leather and the staggered payments. And I do not understand. I do not understand how they can take something that I have said and give it such weight. Because clearly, obviously, I said that in pencil. And I will make statements. I will make a proclamation, and it will sound good. It will sound real and it will sound thought out and he will think that it must be that I had written that weeks before in preparation for this, that I had worn out my white out and that was that, and that he can take it to the bank when actually I am already editing. To myself. Because I was really only trying out those words in that order, and once I put them down I saw that while the alliteration is there and the tempo is like a damn siren, it was really not what I was after at all. But between the time that I say it and the time that I realize that, it is a best seller. There is no taking it back. It's on his shelf now and what am I going to do? Issue a rebuttal, to myself? And hope that it does the trick? Half the time I do not even know where it went wrong. It was 'whom' again, wasn't it. Fucking whom, always mucking it up. But I would always, alwaysalways rather give it a shot than let the words back up. Here is what I think, man, because I have to think something and I can't not express it but the odds are good that ten seconds from now I will discover that I do not actually think that, but by then it will be too late.
This is because I write. And in writing you have the opportunity to kill those things in the edit. I talk like I write. Start to finish in one. I edit midstream. This is because I do not often read what I have written. But now and then I will receive feedback from someone saying How in the hell could you think that, let alone write that down? And I go Shit, I better go read that. Not so with speaking. It is boom/fast: out, it's gone. And it is left to me to defend it, because those are my words, my words my words, and without words I have nothing. Words protect me. Words give me an alibi. Words are there for me when I am not there for myself. I will defend my words with my dying breath, because I can, because even if it didn't come out the way I meant it initially, by the time I put enough words on top of it he will not even remember what it was I said. And I am all right with that. In these situations. If I write him a letter, right now, then no matter what I said on the phone five minutes ago I can still fix this. Conversely, but similarly, if I write him a letter right now then no matter how happy I made him on the phone five minutes ago, I can still take that away. Because that is what I do. They are not knives. Boy. They are not knives. They are armor. And I can use them in place of the real thing, if necessary, to pretend that it is not actually me, that I am not actually responsible for these actions, these decisions, that I am simply the pen by which this scenario travels from thought to being. That no matter how I actually feel, if I throw enough words on it, I can convince anyone. Even myself.
posted by machine central at 7:54 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home