I suppose it is rather absurd for me to lament feeling lost, considering my usual schtick.

Tonight, I am up later than intended here, in this digital expanse that is nowhere in particular. I am here because I must be, and because flexing muscles is necessary to avoid atrophy, even the ones made of neurons. I also need sentence practice.

I am, at the worst times, rather prosaic.

I recently discovered I’m fond of the word Synovial Fluid; I don’t know why. It just rolls off the tongue. It is also, evidently, the fluid in between the joints of magisterially named Phalanges…uhm, fingers, and is what causes that satisfying cracking noise, when you crack your knuckles.

Synovial has all the sexy phonemes in it: Sin, o, and vial. No tortured baby cows involved. It has a nice onomatopoeia flavor to it. Fuck, onomatopoeia is a pain in the ass to spell.

I don’t know why I do things, sometimes. Other than a need. Need is ultimately something I find incredibly interesting for incredible non-reasons. First off, what is need, really?

Need is like, this illusion we maintain, well, partly, we do need to eat and shit and shit like that. But often we don’t really think about the things we really need. We don’t just need to survive; we are human; we require multitudes of needs.

We require needs that often seem more like wants. Sometimes we need to take risks. We need to walk to the edge of a jagged cliff, a face of certain doom, and look over the edge. We need to know that that cliff is sheer, and that it entails pain. We need to know that failure is a part of a possibility when jumping off the cliff.

And we need to know that, once we step off, our wings can unfurl.

Perhaps that is overly optimistic of me. Perhaps the wings we believe are just those lies we tell ourselves to keep ourselves in the comfortable anticipation of a jump.

I’m in a very not knowing mode tonight, and I’m doubting my expressions. But I’m feeling it, regardless.

I’m just letting my thoughts go, a little bit. I hope you don’t mind. If you like James Joyce, you may even find some tangential comfort in the freeness. Or Montaigne, whom I love, despite morally opposing his central thesis of failure.

When we enter the mind, are we going to a different place? Is the internet a geographical location? Am I a bit crazy, and sleep deprived. I would argue, all of the above.

I wonder what it takes to get me to be un-self-referential, and actually go with the flow. Perhaps it takes courage, or some other unidentifiable quality of honesty that doesn’t really give a fuck, and doesn’t need to deflect uncomfortable impulses because they tickle like an open nerve ending, suppurating slightly in a sphincter of pain, but inverted. An anterior position and an exposure to light.

Emptiness of a certain variety scares me. Scares, scares, double dog dares. Witches, the scottish play; tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Perhaps peut-etre est un mot prefere; Yo, I want to get those accents down. French is beautiful and that beauty is uncreate. A verb from long ago that isn’t long ago.

Why are these public? Montaigne wasn’t genuinely wandering the corners of his mind. He was precise, needle like in perambulations. His circumlocutions weren’t circumspect. He wasn’t trying to appease some sense of ego. He was trying to capture, like the best artists, that elusive moment where the past and the future join.

What happens when I want
a haiku of beauty in
this blog of no form

But that’s not a very good haiku. Haiku is visual. It arrests the sense with delicacy and sweetness.

I wonder if Basho ever got down on himself for silly reasons. I wonder if, in composing his best 16 syllable gems, he would doubt his ability, and suddenly write a series of jokes in haiku form to calm himself. I wonder if Murasaki Shikibu had a sense of humor. She comes off as a very sad individual.

Then again, she doesn’t feel the need to sit at her desk at midnight, and type out a series of thoughts that go nowhere.

But then again, neither do I.