make miles

I killed a frog the other week. I used a pair of stainless steel shears. I slid one blade gently into its mouth and put the other right behind its eyes on top of its head. Then I squeezed and severed its spinal column. It died immediately. Then I cut off one of its legs.

Later, I sat on the porch and talked to Sarah for a while. I told her how I read a book once where empathy was the last tattered vestige to humanity we had left, where outside of that, outside of something which, as excruciating as it may be, was ultimately indescribable and perhaps not real, or at least to our skin and to our intellect, existed miles upon miles of both flesh and steel and not a single difference between them. A lot of people saw the movie.

For a long, long time, I thought my empathy would be my savior. Empathy taught me to be human, but I fear that I lost a vital part of my humanity along the way. Feeling was replaced by knowing – knowing of limits and values. Responsibility and virtue are similar culprits. There is, no doubt, beauty in virtue, but not if virtue is a shield for breath. So, I think this is me, abandoning. Giving up on my former edifices, built with the bloody stones of others’ footsteps and stacked mercilessly upon the foundations of doubt, recoil, and limit. That’s what knowledge is, what knowledge tries to instill in the hearts of youth and our allies.

Well, fuck knowledge. I’ll take sensation any day. Tomorrow, when I wake up, I’m going to try really hard to forget my inhibitions. I don’t want to be held back by foundations anymore. I’m not going to sulk in mediocrity anymore. Tomorrow, I’m going to get really, really, excited.

And, in retrospect, when all has been said and I have prevailed, I wonder if I’ll look back on these four years and laugh. Of course I won’t, but I might want to. I’ll try hard to forget little things, wanderings, mistakes and the like. And then some day I’ll remember that it all happened – it did. Experience will be our monolith to the sky, our answer to the gods. Strangle life by the throat and you will be rewarded.

-ds