_____
_____
Year Zero (again)
_____
_____
_____
1. In 1977, when Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, broke ground in perfectly understandable ways, there was a call to vacancy and nihilism that the feelings of the world were beyond the realm of appropriate, what with Simon & Garfunkel being considered “rock n’ roll” by the mainstream culture. There was a demand in the air to create a musical and cultural “Year Zero” and return to a purer aesthetic while at the same time criticizing the current culture to such a degree that nihilism seemed like the only ground to stand on.
_______
Having first heard the Sex Pistols’ album in high school, when most of my age and beyond would have heard them first and where the most properly fit to remain, I had also discovered the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, starting incidentally with his manuscript The Will to Power, possibly not the most appropriate introduction, but a girl I had a crush on was reading it and wanted to have something to talk with her about.
______
And I appreciated the simple, solemn cover of the book.
______
_______
2. The similar paradox of punk is how it takes the philosophy of nihilism, of not caring, as a platform to perform the very act of caring an actual lot. This categorizes the punk as a faux-misanthrope, by his sheer attempt to find an article of change somewhere in his DIY-aesthetics. A true misanthrope does not demand change, being content with his own lines of disgust as enough. But by slathering his landscape in a vast hatred based in a hopeful optimism, land mines of disgust planted by each simple chord (though covered up with the affront of his squeal, as warning) the punk creates a vacancy where the body once was only to be demandingly filled by the body, again; this time, screaming anew.
______
______
3. Sometimes I find my own ways to return to a Year Zero. In some cases, each day creates the want, the need, to start over, knowing full well that such a thing is impossible.
______
“Those that do not remember the past are condemned to blah blah blah…”
______
Now, by taking those words to heart, it implies that remembering is the same as learning from (which is often how this quote gets misrepresented). This is not the case. Memory is not the same as the past, nor does the usual activity of remembering requisite a sense of condemnation if it were to land back in our laps.
______
Most, who still can, remember to relive, to be relieved of the burden of the now. There is no usual wish for doom, quite the opposite in fact.
_______
George Santayana was, perhaps, a perfect misanthrope.
______
_______
4. I rise awake each morning to the tune of an alarm that once made my mother think our ship was sinking.
_______
I hit the snooze button, partly to regain my dreams in a way that I might use, and partly because the sheer alarm of the alarm makes me feel fresh, each time it goes off, each time I hit snooze again to start the day at Zero.
_______
You could say that the sound of my alarm is the same as the loud squelch that came out of 1977 and later, only appropriated by the general culture to mean the same thing to one another.
______
To my mother, born in 1950 and a general child of the ‘60s, it means we’re drowning.
_______
To me, it means starting fresh.
_____
______
5. I start over each day, not because of a previously mention notion that my current state is bad, but because I can. I claim a distance from myself that allows me to dream the previous me away and awake finding a new instance for freshness, immediately forgetting the previous day, or days, in a way that allows for fluid thought to be instilled like a morning cup of tea.
______
At my desk, in the morning, I have a multitude of differing varietals of tea, not wishing to continue the same sensation each morning, but still wanting the option of remembering the taste of each on my tongue.
_______
The one constant I keep is the addition of two packs of Equal brand sweetener, which I was raised on, out of habit.
________
I can appreciate it’s lack of positive health accrual, but I do not care.
_______
If anything, I’m a man who demands the habits that will kill me.
_______
________
6. I hold myself up by one arm, pulling my penis out of my pants in order to pee in the bathroom. I can still smell the remnants of the previous days deodorant, a brand that I have held on to since first needing it.
________
The combination of morning blood flow and the scent of my underarm, makes me hard and thus difficult to pee.
_______
The things that we are are the things that we like, and hence, the things we desire all the same.
________
I had been told, early in my perspiring years, how this scent was both sexy and gave me a smell that was all my own.
_______
I heard this, thinking it true, even while knowing it was the same brand my grandfather wore, choosing it for that very reason, but telling the respondents that it’s just a simple spice that smells old.
_____
______
7. Starting from Zero each day does not make for an easy breakfast.
_______
It’s an optimists chore, coupled with some sort of seasonal berry in the cereal each day.
________
I refuse the notion that fresh fruit will make the day any better. I count my carbohydrates and count these in the negative.
_______
Likewise, I count the bran flakes floating below them just as much a carbohydrate, even though they are the kind I know I need.
_______
I wash the bowl and put it back in the cupboard, awaiting another morning without comment.
_______
_______
8. When someone says “vacant”, they tend to refer to something, a feeling, that they simply aren’t aware of. The lack of awareness leaves an emptiness in their perception, which is then termed vacant.
_________
People, like lots themselves, can be vacant and yet still full of something that they may not have been intended for.
_____
Who chooses the intention of the lot is a personal decision alone, even if there is a general rule that is guided by most, full of moral appropriateness and regard that the misanthrope will all but always refuse.
______
Don’t tell me what to do.
_____
_____
_____
_____
_____
