Sic Semper Tyrannis

Words, Words, Words

Sorry it’s been awhile since my last post, my darlings. I’ve been consumed by a thought:

Should I write stuff for the blog just to write and give people something to read?

How long can I/could I write with nothing to say? By which I mean, “I wonder how long I could say things in typed form but not really have any meaning beneath the words.” Or to put it another way: does there really have to be a message beneath the medium?

I can come up with words to write, form sentences and string together remote, disparate thoughts until the cows come home. I can do all that and still not really communicate anything.

It would be akin to window dressing. You know how those tiny old clothing and vintage shops in the small town of our collective unconscious have those antique-looking mannequins that are just an impaled torso with no arms or head? It would be like that. Yeah, imagine one of those dummy torsos supporting a velvet shirt or chemise or “blouse” or “top” or whatever feminine word you use to describe it. The oddity of it, the novel mystery of the little anachronistic garment might draw you into the shop. But then, once you cross the threshold into the curious little room, you would be horribly disappointed by “instead ofs.” Instead of coins from faraway places, or dusty, varnishey-smelling hutches and sturdy two-ton colonial writing desks or ancient farming tools from the Depression. Instead of a wonderfully idiosyncratic, graying shop owner. Instead of ancient European postcards and unmbrellas. Instead of toys and papers and books and copper thises and avant-garde, 60s plastic thats. Instead of all of these bohemian, well-used and forgotten, weathered treasures to think about and admire. Instead of all of that, you would be greeted by a blank, cold, nothingness.

An empty, shop-shaped void.

Or is the empty space a curio of its own?

And that’s really the interesting thing about expectations, isn’t it? Does the person with no expectations also experience no frustrations? Walk into that shop with no assumptions about what you will find and…is the void a disappointment? All style and no substance? All icing and no cake? Form but no function? All sizzle, no steak?

Also with expectations and lack thereof, there is a converse problem. The person who rolls through life expecting nothing, harboring no dreams or hopes, never gets to experience the thrill of something wonderful in his or her head coming true. For there was never "something wonderful" there in the first place.

Turns out I have a bunch of words I can use to say nothing.

Fooled ya.

posted by Mike @ 1:28 PM