Tabula Rasa

Part 2 of 3

The not so sweet smell of failure lays heavy upon me. Or is it “lies”? I can never keep them straight. I wonder also if it might be better nowadays to say “on” than “upon.” People now like things simpler, more streamlined. “Lies heavy on me.” No, “upon” is better; it feels more like an actual thing like a cloak laying (or lying) on my shoulders. Upon my shoulders. Yes, that feels right. Come to think of it, I guess maybe “heavy” should be “heavily.” English is such a strange tongue! Well, anyway, I don’t want to get bogged down in things like words. Words can kill you—not literally, but in the sense of killing your momentum. Still, I need to consider these questions seriously, because I have some serious possible projects under way.

I say all this because today so far has been a day of signal under-achievement, “signal” in the sense of meaning exemplary. Does anyone use “signal” this way, anymore? English has been changing quite drastically even in just the last few years. I haven’t seen “signal” used this way in a long time, and I’ll bet not many people do it, anymore. But there’s no way for me to capitalize on such a bet, so I will probably remain a failure: a signal failure. Like so many expressions in English, that one can be taken two ways: as exemplary failure, and as failure due to not heeding the warning signals in life. Well, either way, I’m all in. And that’s okay; I hang no head in shame, I wring no hand in regret. In fact, leaving the donut shop, I feel strangely energized by this feeling of failure, in the sense of feeling like I have a clean slate in front of me. “Tabula raza”: onward and upward, accomplishment still achievable, clear signals ahead!

A young man in flipflops flips by, flip-flip-flip. (Or maybe more of a plip-plip-plip.) He runs for a bus, somewhat risky in those skimpy things, but the bus moves out into traffic, and even though it is stopped by a signal, the driver is bound by the rules not to open the door, and so the flip-plip boy must wait. Now that’s what I call signal failure. I want to laugh loudly, for him to hear, ha-ha, failure boy! But that would be inconsiderate. Seattle people are so goddamn nice. So I go on, considering as I go how I might turn today into a success. And success in our society means one thing: money. I’ve never had much talent for making money, and I hope today might be the day I devise an idea—or ideas!—which could turn that situation around. I would like to retain this feeling for at least part of the day, which yawns before me like a whale’s mouth.

The street hums with the sounds of business, at least some of which must be successful, and I walk on, letting the energy of business and success penetrate my rather thick skin. I come upon a line of wet spots on the sidewalk. They are shiny and sinister looking; did someone do a little “business” here during the night? “Business” means so many things, and chemical analysis might prove interesting, but that’s not my line, so I keep on.

But then, something startling! A swallowtail flaps (flips?) across the busy street. Of all things to see in this busy city, it seems like a minor miracle, a visitation. What joy in those yellow wings: sheer joy of life, if only we’d see! Me, I see, but does anybody else? All these cars and trucks plowing by, the little yellow wings beating hard, trying to keep pace. It makes me almost want to cry, but of course I don’t. Crying on a city street can be taken as weakness, and displaying weakness on a city street is dangerous. There are eyes watching for just such weakness.

I read recently that Bill Gates is going all out to eradicate malaria and AIDS in Africa. I’m sure most people would consider this commendable. Only, what will all the saved ones do for a living? Work for Microsoft? Start new software companies? And also, what will the wildlife of Africa do? This is a serious matter now, and you see lots of articles about the extinction and killing off of elephants and lions and so forth. I like animals (one reason I tried to get a job at the Audubon) and I suppose I shouldn’t say this (shouldn’t even think this), but sometimes I find that I have more sympathy for the animals than for the humans who are crowding them out of their home. I guess this would have to go under the heading of Questions We Dare Not Ask.

Another question is, what would happen if Bill Gates or his minions could hear my thoughts? (It also occurs to me: maybe they can.) What would happen if they heard me doubting the malaria-AIDS eradication programs? You have been overheard thinking negative thoughts about Mister Bill Gates. Please cease and desist. Otherwise, you will be arrested and sent to Africa to help eradicate malaria. Have a nice day. (Only, they would probably prefer to say “detained”.) Oh, yes, there most certainly are forces out there in the upper-echelon who would be only too happy to “detain” you, especially if they sense weakness. Or failure.

Deep in my throat, I sound my inner horn for the Brooklyn Avenue crossing, hmmm…hmmm… The resonance feels good on this slate-gray morning. The horn-hum has been with me at various times in life; it was inspired by hearing trains and ships as a child, and I have come to I consider it a primal vibration, a beacon tracking my position in space and time as time moves through the day and the Earth moves through the universe. Trains, ships, fog, universe: I sense them all, moving through me, and me through them.

On the subject of trains, I’m considering going down to the tunnel at the King Street Station and watching them for a while. Philip Roth, the esteemed author, put this particular bug in me this morning at the donut shop when I was reading through one of his stories and came to a passing reference to a train. I hoped he would follow through and say more about the train, but he didn’t; he left me hanging, and the upshot is, I have a sudden yen, which I did not have when I left the apartment earlier, to see trains. Most people don’t see trains in their lives, but when my schedule permits I sometimes like to go and lean on the latticed iron railing above the tunnel and watch the trains slip beneath the city: the shiny silver passenger cars, the grimy, smoke-belching freights, chug-chug-chug. They disappear into the great, black hole and pop out somewhere else. Even as a grown adult, I still find that fascinating.

As I consider my three options for today—going to Audubon to ask again about a job; going to the library to do research into donuts and society; and going to the tunnel to watch trains—I consider that we need a word for three things. “Both” means two, it would not work for three. It hits me at once: “Throth”! I feel my heart beat with the knowledge that I have just invented a word. But—so far—I have no means of capitalizing on this invention. Being able to capitalize on our little day-to-day innovations—“monetize” them, as people say now—would mean no longer being a failure, not just for me but probably for millions of other people. But inventing means patenting and patenting means hiring lawyers and doing paperwork and waiting and very likely spending more than the piddling little invention—if it can even be called that—will ever monetize. This is probably for the best; I imagine the whole system would be gummed-up to the point of immovability if such patenting and monetizing of transient inventions were simple. There has to be a line.

I once had a friend who told me, “You need to get serious.” I knew what he meant, but only in a vague sense. That is to say, I had no idea what “getting serious” physically entailed, beyond finding a job and making money to live on. And it turned out to be that the finding and making hung me up and contributed to my (signal) failure. Doing both of those things is not a simple business at all. My parents were well-meaning people, but they did nothing to groom me for success, and I was left more or less on my own, which turned out to be a bad mistake.

So much goes wrong when people, even well-meaning people, make unjustified assumptions. They assumed that, naturally, I would find my way and be a success and maybe make it into the upper-echelon. Well, surprise! I have learned that there is nothing natural about it; making money and getting along in the world are things some people take to naturally, whereas others need to be educated to those things. I was naturally made to be more of the dreamer type, and not given the proper training in getting along in the world, nothing much has been able to turn me away from that path, not even the various warning signals. Still, I see nothing wrong with dreaming; I’m sure that Bill Gates did his share of it, and so does every other successful person. Of course, he also applied himself very diligently to the point that he has a total stranger wondering if he might actually be watching him. That’s not paranoia, that’s modern-day reality.

My friend of long ago moved on into success, so I heard. Me, I found another friend: a fellow named failure. I admit to myself that I’ve come to consider failure my baseline. A friend, even. Being a failure teaches many lessons (ha-ha, folks! I got no success-training, but I sure have gotten failure training!), and if you embrace failure, the world stops being so frightening. Having gotten over this hump, I can say truthfully that I’ve been getting damn serious these days about my paperwork and various projects on the docket, such as researching and writing a definitive book or at least an article on donuts. When did anyone last read something about donuts? Exactly; there’s a niche, there, waiting for me to fill it. Sorry failure, but you’re not the only sausage in the deli. Say, there’s another lesson!

I am passed by a lot of people hurrying to work: men in office suits, college boys in jeans and running shoes, college girls in high boots and tights. And here comes the damn swoosh again. How many of this silly little check mark will I see today? Too many, I predict. All these advertising logos: why do we wear them? More to the point: Why do we wear them and not demand payment from the companies? Wouldn’t it be something if we could monetize that? Instead, we loan ourselves out for free advertising. I find this a troubling phenomenon, and it seems to me that, in this nation of monetary success, all who wear clothing with these logos on it are missing the biggest bet and the brightest signal of all: the potential to monetize their own bodies. Not me; I advertise nobody and nothing, and as all the swoosh-people and others go by, I ask them, silently: Is that what you’re wearing today? I wonder how much money these people are losing, wearing other people’s advertising. And then, a thought occurs to me: maybe I’ll start keeping a running tally of people wearing advertising logos, and show everybody how much potential money they are more or less giving away! I’ll bet many people would be very astonished to discover exactly how much they (I myself do not wear logos) are effectively donating to the companies whose trademarks they’re wearing. It occurs to me that I might just possibly be the originator of a new marketing revolution, here!

The thought makes my heart beat again, and I stop and open my briefcase to make notes of these last two ideas—ideas generated in the energy of this busy street full of successful people. I start to feel in synch with all these people hurrying to offices and schools. Still, I realize that I came equipped with other DNAs, and the requirement to get up and do the same thing in the same place every day horrifies me. Like dentists, getting up every morning for God knows how many years and going and digging around in people’s mouths, in the same formaldehyde-smelling office with the water gurgling and the people huddled terrified in the waiting area. This thought terrifies me in a way that going to the dentist did as a child, but I realize I’m a failure and so not a good yardstick. A good yardstick would be a true artist or self-made man, who has succeeded in making an independent life and not having to put himself on someone else’s docket. Still, it all just winds down after a while. Thank God.

As for myself, failure or not, I’ve got to come to grips with the day, meaning decide to go either to the library, to the tunnel, or to the Audubon. (I guess that should be “theither”—ka-ching! goes the cash register.) I’m not sure about the Audubon; they passed me over for a part-time position last year: froze me out solid and never even called. I’m still quite miffed about the whole episode. I thought Audubon was a sharing sort of organization, but it all comes to greed and fear, and freezing out the ones your old prejudices and paranoias tell you who will and will not fit in. Still, it’s been a few months and I think I might give it another try. There might be somebody new there, a new administrator, who would possibly be more open-minded about hiring me. I like birds.

It’s because of things like that that I’ve learned to keep my own schedule. And anyway, my schedule is such that it isn’t really a “schedule” as much as paperwork to deal with and various other things to get out of the way. The disability doesn’t stretch far; in fact, in my case, it doesn’t stretch at all, but it does grant me time to get serious about these things. I would like a job of some kind; I’m not anti-social, I like to work and be useful. (I’m also pretty good at correct punctuation.) But I haven’t had much success there. So, absence of work, for me, equals both failure and success at not having to do the same damn thing in the same damn place every damn day. I guess that might be considered “successful failure.” I don’t know; I suppose the jury is still out on that score. Still, I think my people skills are good; I would work well with the public, aiding them in finding products, answers, information, and helping them use various things. Figuring things out consumes an enormous amount of time and energy—it’s a burden that lies heavily upon us, and I might be of help, there. Moreover, I naturally avoid conflict and tension all my life, and continue to believe this a good strategy to live by, and might be of use in passing this positive approach to others. Another thing: Like the old-fashioned donut, which has leaves you can peel off and eat slowly, in discrete quantities, I like approaching life in discrete quantities. Incrementalism serves us well, whereas totalism (if that’s a word) only produces confusion and anger. I think I can help people with that.

Turning onto University Way, I enter a new zone, one with a distinctly different “vibe” from the bustling city street full of cars and buses and trucks I have been walking up. University Way—the “Ave,” as they call it—is narrow, slow, and lined with shops and cheap restaurants. I try to maintain the happy mood of a moment ago, but find that difficult. Sun, rain; left, right; up, down; success, failure. The switch clicks so easily, so casually, and yet, the consequences can be enormous, even life-changing. Better hit the right switch and obey those signals! I find a micro-nap is very useful for restoring the concentration, but they only last so long, and you can’t always have one when you want. We abuse our bodies enormously, and all this anger is the result. I think I’ll make this a central thesis in this potential project, if I can keep it in mind.

Reaching the bus stop, I review an incident that occurred at the bus stop outside the donut shop this morning. As I was sitting in my usual window seat I saw a woman run up to the bus stop and give somebody the finger. I think she was probably flipping off a bus that had just pulled out, leaving her, but I couldn’t see the other party, only her and her finger, jabbing suddenly into the slate-gray sky. Half the story. She was inconvenienced, disappointed, angered, but the other party doubtless had reasons of their own for doing what they did. They always do. From where I sat, inside the glass-walled cocoon of the donut shop, where the outside sounds become muted and indistinct, the woman giving the finger was a funny sight, maybe even slightly exhilarating.

People don’t often behave like that in real life: express anger so openly, the way they do on television, where actors are constantly doing things that lead to acts of violence and social disruption. Most of us in everyday life try to be polite and contained; to be otherwise is to court attention and trouble. This woman was middle-aged, tall, mousy-haired, like a housewife, maybe. Not the kind of woman you would think would dare give the finger to someone. But she did, after which she smiled (sheepishly, I think) and gave sort of a shrug to another woman at the bus stop. An apologetic gesture, but it may have only been a gesture. I shouldn’t put words in her mouth; she was obviously a scrappy woman, a woman possibly harboring a lot of pent-up anger. Pent-up anger, something we are not in any short supply of, can be very debilitating, and in ways I suspect we have only just begun to be conscious of. Many of the magazines and television programs and whatnot have been discussing “anger issues” quite a bit lately; this is encouraging.

Standing at the bus stop, waiting too long as always, I myself feel anger and sympathy with the finger-woman. For one thing, I’m beginning to feel like the day might be getting away from me. Becoming a little loose. I’m not sure if I’m quite ready to tackle this paperwork, and thinking about the effort involved in things, even “natural” things like music, and the realization that nothing is really “natural,” except maybe to exceptional (signal) people, has made me suddenly tired. To tell the truth, I’m considering the possibility of going back to bed. At times like this I try to rally myself by thinking more closely about the projects I have on my docket, and it’s a good thing that I am able to remind myself of the effectiveness of zeroing-in on small components of the whole. This is essential to avoiding the overwhelming crushing feeling that result when you stand back and try to take it all in. Then, it all gets overwhelming. Once again, it’s best to incrementalize. (Oh! I’ve possibly just invented another new word!)

Forcing myself to think incrementally, I review my marching orders, the various projects that loom most immediately, and start feeling more positive about the day. A bus appears and my thought of going back to bed dissolves (I become almost embarrassed even thinking about it) as I grow enthusiastic once more about the prospect of picking up some valuable data and other information that might help me pull some of these thoughts together. I even feel a bit of a laugh coming on when I think again about the finger-lady and wonder: what if I were to give the finger to this bus, as it approaches? I don’t, of course; the driver is only doing his job. Still, the thought of the possibility of fingering a bus I have waited too long for exhilarates me.

I’m in my seat aboard the bus, and I’m stressed out from an incident that has just happened. As I boarded the bus, there was a guy sitting with his feet sticking well into the aisle. I tripped on them slightly going by, and said, “You want to get your feet out of the aisle?” I admit, my tone was probably not the most diplomatic, but it’s hard to summon up the precise diplomatic approach when sudden provocations arise. Does one not see that sticking your feet well into a bus aisle is a likely incitement, or at least an intrusion? So, I tripped on his feet, and the guy, instead of moving the feet or apologizing, said in a very hostile, snarling tone, as if he was used to such confrontations, “I’ll call the cops on you!”

So now my heart is pounding. Call the cops, for your feet being in the aisle, causing a danger to other passengers? I didn’t say anything else, just looked at him angrily and walked to the rear. I don’t want to be near people like that, and wish they didn’t exist. However, as I feel my heart calm down, I detect a byproduct to having witnessed one and participated in two explosions of anger within the last hour: an open invitation to my further investigations of anger and anger management. Something seems to be encouraging me in this direction, and such signs should be taken seriously.

We’ll see. I feel like I have quite a list on the docket as it is, and turn my mind back to the projects I have lined up, and how to best approach them. They have computers at the library, and recently I’ve been using them to screen this YouTube. The YouTube has all kinds of interesting things you can watch, things people contribute, such as old movies, musical groups, and pictures of animals doing tricks, and so forth. It’s quite a development, but I try not to spend too much time at it and I don’t watch movies or other more escapist-type fare. Still, there are things on the YouTube that are very interesting as well as sobering, things that offer possibilities for study and investigation.

One YouTube I’ve been watching lately is about Ceausescu, the awful Rumanian dictator who drained the people dry, perhaps literally. I remember reading once that he and his harpy wife actually siphoned out the blood of orphans and transfused it into their own. I suppose this could be a made-up story—“apocryphal.” There’s a good word, and one I certainly don’t get to use often. After all, Rumania—more precisely, Transylvania—is where the vampire and Dracula stuff comes from. It’s hard to imagine such evil, but justice finally caught up with the Ceausescus and shot them dead on Christmas Day, 1989.

Better late than never, and you can see the whole thing on the YouTube: the last speech before a big crowd in the capital city, whatever it is, where something begins happening in the crowd and he gets an odd look on his face, and a few moments later there’s shouting from somewhere he’s idiotically tapping on the microphone and shouting Hallo! Hallo! trying to restore order, and then to the summary court with the pathetic old wretches sitting there shaking their heads and shouting no, no, no! as the revolutionaries accuse them, and then, finally, to the big payoff: blam-blam!  From right on top of the upper-echelon to Hell. How’s that for justice?

It’s a powerful drama of modern history, available on the YouTube, which is full of powerful images. One particular image that keeps me coming back to this video is, through the whole thing Ceausescu wore that furry black Eastern Bloc winter hat that looked both jaunty and sinister at the same time: wore it clear from the big speech to the bitter end, and this final, very powerful image is him lying on the ground with the hat lying beside him. It’s a pathetic scene, but he was a pathetic man. How does someone like that succeed? Simple: people are desperate to follow a leader, even a thug like him, or some religious dogma, or some product that has a snappy logo. I think of this as I watch the scene of the crowd and listen to the strange guttural roar and try to decipher the chants, the voice of the great mass that granted and then, very suddenly, rescinded power.

It’s a sobering lesson, but I don’t want to get bogged down. Distractions are legion. (Does anyone say that anymore? “Legion” strikes me as a signally old-fashioned word.) I can just as well approach my research topics via books, and suspect this would be best. The internet and YouTube are like a quicksand, and you can very easily get sucked in. Books are more reliable and have been around much longer. I consider these options as we near downtown, and debate whether I might take the time to go down to the tunnel for a short while and watch trains before I take my place among books and papers and get my projects in order and advance the common knowledge a few more steps. It’s a liberating thought, one that reveals many possibilities and focuses them down into the ones immediately before me, so I can clear them up and move on. Plus, I have a banana in my briefcase that needs to be eaten, and the tunnel is the perfect place.

Getting off the bus, I see the angry foot-man exiting from the front door. I turn and walk the opposite direction and hope I don’t hear his nasty little voice yelling at me. I don’t, thank goodness. I consider him to be in the same ilk as Ceausescu, full of hysterical anger, ready to lash out and crush anyone who encroaches, even when he is encroaching on everybody else. Such people are a constant menace, and if Bill Gates wants to watch anyone, he should watch people like this.

Emerging on the street, back into the gray morning, I forget all about it. I’m happy to see that the blank slate of the day invites me. My thoughts and ideas are lining up nicely: ideas for articles, pieces for The New Yorker, and possibly even a book on donuts on the docket. I don’t want to get sidetracked, and I think I have the patience, which not everybody does, to follow my marching orders, which are clearly in front of me. In this, it occurs to me that I have succeeded in not only remaining here, but in opening new doors of possibility. At least, I’m not like Ceausescu: he got what he deserved. Got it in spades.