NEEDLING

Into the world... right in the middle of it. Concentrating on getting out of this mess. What have I done so far? Not much, but not bad. Not to praise myself, but I’ve had almost no panic attacks, just little ones here and there which were taken under control within minutes. Minor paranoiac trembles which were analyzed as such within seconds of their attempts to put me into a fit, or send me into a ball next to the couch closing all the shades. I was capable of applying cold logic, emotionless reasoning telling myself in plain language what was happening, and within minutes I was back to normal mental grounds with the ability to think and make decisions based on reality rather than basing myself on over-the-top emotions which create thunderous frights in my heart and confuse my brain into a paranoiac havoc of on-the-defensive everybody-is-after-me syndromes. In two words: life is going about nicely, and I am slowly but surely climbing towards my goal: Independence. I’d always thought that I could find personal independence via the road of laissez faire. A sort of Henry Miller, Charles Bukowski, bum about existence. I’ve tried it for several years right here in the states, by default since when I lived here before I couldn't work legally, and then tried it in the spirit of socialism in France... And I’ve come to the conclusion that this is not the road for me, that I am either not strong enough or not smart enough to find freedom and personal independence via this path. The path of the lonely monk traveling with merely a sack over his shoulder, living from the pitance he can salvage on the streets. Well... that’s romanticizing a little. Exaggeration is my middle name. I’ve never even been there. I’m definitely not strong enough to purposely place myself in such a situation, though I’ve wasted countless hours daydreaming about it. I’m too much of a materialist. I cannot, however hard I try, get rid of all my stuff. There’s always a couple boxes of books, seven to be exact, that’s how many I sent to myself before leaving Paris, not counting the suitcase full of books I carried with me on the plane, that I simply cannot bring myself to part with. The wandering Monk fantasy carrying only the frock on his back, a rope for a belt, a little sack of herbs, a little bottle of whatever flavor of fire water, eau de vie, is distilled in the region he’s traversing, and one book. Well... maybe two. The Bible, old and new testaments, and Francois Rabelais’s complete works. Or rather, Rabelais and Leaves of Grass. Every money usurper / launderer and misery seeker has a bible on his shelf, usually right there where all who are unfortunate enough to walk through his door can see. That’s an easy book to find, no need to burden oneself with it. But Rabelais’s work in the original French with complete notes on each page. That’s a bit more difficult. Even Whitman, in some of those Antarctic landscapes of the mind and soul which we call here the Bible-belt is not so common. If one had to choose a book, a book to read for the rest of one’s life, Leaves of Grass would be as a good choice as one could make, I think. There are other books of course. But I digress... I’ve chosen a different road this time. Maybe I’ve made the right choice, maybe not. Finding personal independence through financial independence, meaning finding independence from the dependence on the seeking of basic needs - food and shelter, though in my case booze is also a biggy - through the gathering and investment of both material needs and financial activities. Will this work for me, or will I only achieve work for the sake of working, work at baseless and meaningless tasks only to find that I have to work at even more meaningless soul stamping tasks just to keep my head out of the water, the credit drowning, the financial travesties of regular Joes trying to survive. I’ve got to give it a shot. I’ve never believed in it, nor have I ever believed that any of it matters, and in so doing, simply because I didn’t care, I have often been branded as being extremely lazy. So now I am throwing myself in this all too American way of life: Work at meaningless soulless tasks for the sake of making money and finding financial independence. An American adventure, based by default in my pocketbook rather than in my heart. The American Way, or shall I say: the American Dream.