Dumb and Empty
Ursula K. Le Guin thinks I am being very silly.
My worst days are empty ones. Devoid of inspiration, nothing sticks; my head is like shitty old fly traps, glue dried out. There are no flies in sight. An obsessive streak in my personality, I've never done well with moderation or patience, craving only to be consumed, to consume. Eat, eat, be eaten. Swim, drown, swallow as much salt as I can before dragging myself to shore to cough it up. Let the madness pull me under me as I fling myself from one beast's mouth to another's. What am I if not something to devour? Who am I if I do not imbibe fervently? Clipped to a line and hung out to dry, you might as well drain all the blood from me. Some days I worry I will be undeservingly destroyed by the madness I crave. The little Ursula K. Le Guin that lives in my mind is starting to eye me suspiciously, about to tell me how silly I am being. I’m not ready yet, I need to be a bit more self-indulgent. She knows this and waits. I am worried about my work again, if it’ll ever be any good, if I’ll ever be any good. I read what others write and sink - waring with my enjoyment is the sick gnawing feeling that I will never be enough, that everything I put forth will fall limp. Torching any lingering objectivity or sense, Jealousy and Fear, the delicious twins they are, burn through me. A part of the process, I think, I can do nothing but embrace them, the old friends. We know too much of each other to let go. "Never enough, never enough, never enough," they sing, the notes stretching painfully across the ravines etched into my heart. I cling to my thesaurus like a lifeline. Washed up at 23, unoriginal and empty, a vessel for everything else, anything but myself, ideas flow through me, none of them my own. I will never have a thought or feeling that is solely mine. There is comfort and anguish in that. I should be studying more. Sometimes I have it in me that I have never worked hard for anything in my life, I only lie to others and myself. I haven’t tried hard enough, never given enough. I should have given more to be better. I should’ve sold my soul the first chance I had. It’ll only hold me back now. Too many little beasts asking to be fed. If I haven’t accomplished all I can by now, then what am I worth? Am I behind, has my potential fizzled out by 23, left me destitute and scratching at the earth to take me back? Ursula opens her mouth. “Not yet!” I scramble. Just a few more minutes. She sits back slowly, a soft smile gracing her lips. This is absurd. Dumb. But my head itches, whispering "what if it isn’t? What if you've wasted your life and are left barren?" It's nothing short of insidious, I've barely even lived yet. Perhaps I shouldn't take this too seriously, I could just be in my luteal phase or maybe the sky is once again empty of its moon for the night, leaving the stars to pick up the slack, asking them to be brighter than they were ever meant to be. So what if I fail? I have and I will again. Success is arbitrary and elusive. Unreachable. It’d only breed complacency in me anyway. I still pick at the skin on my fingers on the bus till I bleed. This Substack is nothing but a half-true diary. Overly indulgent. Junk. “It’s okay if people don’t read it,” I whisper. “At least it’s out there, out of my head.” But I want to be read, I want to be known so badly. To be understood and seen and known and loved and oh how frightening it all is. Read me, please read me. Don’t know me too well. Ursula looks at me with an air of endearment, as one would a child who is still learning. I am being very silly, we both know this. Still, she waits for me to tire myself out. She waits for me to learn. I just want to be good so badly. I like to flip through eBay sometimes, looking at vintage Coach bags and silk dresses. I could be her, I think. One day. Delete delete delete. Too many sentences, too many clauses. Kill your darlings. Murder a part of yourself with every little tap of that key. Voices swirl, too many chants in my head, too many refrains, none of them right. All wrong, all wanting more always. I want to taste something. Something new and spicy, something to dance across my tongue, to twist around my teeth and soak into my throat. I listen to Fiona Apple while I write this. 19 was too early for me to have anything. Not a prodigy but prodigal. Not slow like honey, I rush too much. Running with no destination, flying towards nothing, simply needing to move. Sometimes my fingers get so cold I can’t feel them. It could be the peak heat of July and they’d go numb, feeling like ice. Like death. Ursula shifts, still waiting. If I didn’t know her, I’d think she was getting impatient. I'm getting there. I do love. I love so much. I am missing the love. Perhaps it is not obsession I crave, but an intense love that I haven’t found again yet. But it is love, the obsession. Love of something that matches the well of my chest, something to pick up the hands of my heart and dance a flurry, sweeping skirts across the floor in a wild yet gentle bacchanal. Ecstasy coming in the form of embrace. It’s all delicious, full and sweet, like the taste of late summer figs. Time moves on. The sun comes up. The early morning fog in my windows makes me feel like I live in the sky. Nothing below and everything above, soft mist masquerading as clouds, blurring out the harsh rays of the sun. Not dumb and empty, simply waiting. Nothing is grey, I am just melodramatic. I do miss the feeling of consumption, but waiting is a part of the process. I just don’t like it very much. My little Ursula K. Le Guin grins. She is right, of course, pain is colourless, mundane. Joy is harder, better. She’s often right. I hate it when she’s right - it makes me feel so foolish and self-indulgent that I burst out laughing at the absurdity of myself. It’s better when she’s right. I clutch my thesaurus like it is the greatest treasure. Take away the anguish and it all really is quite funny. I may have listened to a bit too much Fiona Apple today, or at least listened to Tidal one too many times in the past few hours. I’ll move on to Simon and Garfunkel - the Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme album - and be better in no time. “A Simple Desultory Philippic” somehow does wonders for my mood. João Gilberto’s Amoroso also helps. My friend recommended the album to me, my friend whom I should text soon to thank them and tell them I miss them, my friend whom I love. My little Ursula laughs with me, reminding me that my emotions are far too suggestible, shaking her head at how often I forget that. I'll light a candle tonight. Dab some jasmine perfume at the base of my throat and wear clothes so large they just skim my skin. Maybe let the Pacific swallow me for but a moment. The teeth will come back to nibble at the tips of me. Something will ask me to dance. I will gulp down the world again soon enough and the moon will hang low in the sky, watching. Inspiration floats in and out and it is much more interesting to enjoy the process. It is much more interesting to be happy.
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t kick ‘em, join ‘em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” - Ursula K. Le Guin, The Wind’s Twelve Quarters, Volume 1.
