or the Shark vs. the Sheep

Oh, hi!

 Alright, lemme explain what happened: …me and Andy had completely different reasons for starting this blog up. For me it’s that I sincerely love and enjoy the process of writing, and I wanted not only to get better at it, but to have more discipline and more faith in (capital p) Process. That’s why I liked the daily format, it would force me to step out of the comfort zone of writing “when I felt like it”, and make me get in the reps that anyone needs to get in to get better at…whatever.

 So after 2 months of writing a shit ton (60 pages!), I got very proud and thought that I had figured it out. I was disciplined! Hooray!

 And all of a sudden some of the luster and polish associated with putting in the hard work on something became less glamorous. Just doing the work was boring, because I knew that I could do it if I wanted to, so I started futzing around with the format. I abandoned the premises due to sheer boredom, unintentionally cribbing off a much better writer than I. And then when that ran it’s course, and I was bored with that, I abandoned another thing. I just walked away. Too busy, going through shit, just walked away. So that’s where I’ve been.

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 See that’s a thing I do. When I don’t like something, when I’ve been proven wrong, I don’t just stop. I do the opposite. I turn around 180 degrees and start sprinting. That’s what this article is going to be about. It’s about March, which comes in like a Lion and goes out like a Lamb.

 Let’s start somewhere fun, with the television show Lost (which Andy so brilliantly covered). I am personally hugely influenced by Jeff Jensen’s weekly articles on ew.com about Lost, which are equal parts brilliant, scatological, and completely uninhibited. For 5 years this guy has been digesting episodes and regurgitating articles that delve into possibly mythological tie-ins, hypothetical symbolism and inane theories as to what’s going on (sound fucking familiar?!?).

 I find that manic style completely enthralling. It’s the kind of thing you can only understand by reading it bit by bit and mulling over each separate paragraph thoughtfully with a nice cup of tea, or by chugging a coffee and sprinting through it like a kid during one of those Toys R Us shopping sprees, grabbing what you can. Everything’s a symbol with Jensen, and you always come out having gotten the Cliff’s Notes version of 10 important pieces of literature. Brilliant.

 …but. I mean, sorry. It’s sloppy writing. It’s bad journalism, horrible analysis. There’s no truth or substantiation, just a fascinating and sensationalist blast of vigor about a project. That’s it. I mean, when you’re writing 18,000 words a week on a fucking ABC television show, a lot of it’s gonna ring out as hollow.

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 Then there’s the opposite end of the spectrum, like Bomb the Music Industry!’s latest EP “Adults!!!… Smart!!! Shithammered!!! And Excited by Nothing!!!!!!!,” which hums along like the fastest funeral dirge you’ve ever seen. Seven tracks about excepting inevitability, depression, compromise and rewriting your dream to fit a more modest understanding of what the Universe is willing to give you.

 The author of this record is a close friend, and it’s been my policy to not discuss people directly in my articles, but I think I get a pass when said person puts their Art up on the internet like an unguarded livejournal posting. No offense is intended, and I truly hope he never reads this.

 It’s just that it’s at once a beautiful album and completely disappointing. BtMI! music is brimming with talent and brilliance, but always tarnished by it’s heartfelt reality. Half the songs can be summed thusly: I don’t understand why life is unfair and awkward, because I’m a good person who works hard. And to truly get why the music is so good and powerful is to suffer those exact same frustrations. My name is Diego McCafferty, and I don’t understand why life is unfair and awkward, because I’m a good person who works really fucking hard. I get that you have to eat shit at work. I get that sometimes you have to write something that makes people laugh instead of feel completely confounded and challenged. And I get that sometimes you have to let someone leave your life because it’s just…what’s happening, even though no one wants it to be that way.

 I just don’t understand why.

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 And that’s what my head is like, all the time. You ever heard of the notion of the Binary Didactic? Okay, here’s my bastardized version of it:

•  Say you have this one thing. Let’s call it the thesis.
•  Once the thesis exists, the rules of the Universe declare that it has an opposite. Let’s call that thing the antithesis.
•  Okay, now you have the thesis and the antithesis and they’re ready to fist fight. Before they do, a Philosopher wanders over and states that theoretically there must exist some point between their two opposing view points, which inherently is a new and separate thing, and that this new thing is a brand new Thesis which shall have it’s own Antithesis, and so on and so on, Thursday ad Infinitum.
•  thesis and antithesis think about this for a second and take turns kicking Philosopher in the genitals

 So me, I’m kinda like the part with all the junk-kicking. There always exists the possibility for me to take what is going on and learning from it, but for some reason it’s easier to just pick a side and say “fine. That’s the way it’s going to be.” And it’s totally stupid! I’ve written about this! I know this! Which leads me to what I learned in March:

I haven’t learned nearly enough. I am not smart enough, clever enough or compassionate enough. But I am getting a little bit better.

 See, there’s one thing that has this corny ability to cut through melodrama, depression and bullshit. For me there still exists the (capital h) Hope that I can learn to strike that delicate balance. Sharks are ambitious, ruthlessly efficient and need to constantly move forward or will suffocate. Sheep are docile and herded, responsible for keeping us warm and helping us fall asleep at night. No sane mind can keep track of running back and forth between the two as solutions. You’ll never win, just end up dying of Bonitis.

 I’m sorry I had to write this post instead of something witty or insightful or banal. I just did. It would’ve been better if we could’ve just kept chugging along at a decent pace and not lived in such extremes. But what can I say, I didn’t make up the Squid and the Whale or the Lion and the Lamb or the Sheep and the Shark.

 I just tell you that I learned about them.

-diggy