Inertia

The flesh between my left shoulder and neck is hiding, deep down inside it, a pain which refuses to surface. It’s an enemy without shame, it won’t face me like a respectable lesion or scar, it’s somewhere down there like two entangled veins fighting for freedom, and no matter how I sit, twist, or turn, it won’t go away. I’m staring at a tube light and listening to gospel music. It’s a band called Third Day. I like the vocalist, and of course whoever wrote the music. It’s good. Just got drunk, and smoked more than 20 cigarettes.

Another day of my life wasted in doing whatever it took to escape whatever I had to do. I think the pain’s from resting on my left shoulder all the time while I lie down and work on my computer. I hope it culminates in a permanent disability, so that I get appreciation for the smallest achievements, and become a hero every time I go and take a piss on my own. That’s insensitive. So are all the other rough edges that life knocks you against.

Why am I so bitter? More importantly, why am I using metaphors which require me to taste myself? Being confident of your abilities, being satisfied with what you have, and being hopeful for the future, are things you can’t fake. They all have a common core. I don’t know why I said that. It must be true. There’s something common to all those things. It’s what people call being happy. I used to be happy, when I was ignorant and self obsessed. But I still am, aren’t I?

I’ve found another place to hide, where I can temporarily find comfort. If I rest my head on my left arm, so that my armpits touch the bed, it doesn’t hurt so much. Inertia is a bad thing. It’s against free will. If I could, I’d be somewhere else right now, in a place where the commonplace was not so significant, and the insignificant not so common. I’ve lost the clarity in thought that I had when I started writing. I’m back to thinking what sounds good and what doesn’t. It’s different from checking your grammar and spellings. It’s inertia. It’s the desire to remain in your safe zone, and not step out on a limb by saying something that sounds absolutely absurd. But that’s the thing about profundity. It takes the absolutely absurd and makes it into something that sucks everyone around into a corner from where they can see everyone else. That makes no sense to me now, but it did when I thought of it, so screw you!

I’ve decided to dream now. I’m at a rock concert for and by handicapped people. In particular, people who had their left arms removed because of the pain in the flesh between their left shoulders and necks. The next performer is famous for single-handedly, managing to sing, play the guitar and the drums together. There was a pun in there that wasn’t put across as well as I would have liked to, but then who am I to judge? Seriously, if I suck as a writer, it incapacitates me to judge any piece of writing, even my own, and if I’m great, then it doesn’t make any difference if I like it or not because greatness is achieved at the mercy of the ungrateful ‘un-great’.

I don’t like this band anymore. Just that one song is pretty good. And like all other songs that you would like to hear forever, it’s the shortest song on the album, and has a riff stolen from some other song. If somebody steals music from someone and makes it better, or more suited to the particular situation, why then am I biased against it? Why do I treat it like I’d treat a woman scarred by some accident? How would I treat a woman scarred by an accident? I’d be afraid of offending her, and afraid of developing any sort of attachment towards her. I forgot that I was supposed to be dreaming. All the one-handed female amputees are also blessed with scars on their faces now. They are placed strategically in the concert hall like landmines. Their scars are staring invitingly at me. There is some degree of perversion of something in there somewhere. There is a picture of R.D. Burman on the ceiling, and after each performance, the performers start singing “Aaj kal paaon, zameen par nahin padte mere…” and float towards the picture and get sucked into it. This is total crap by any standards. I’m quitting dreaming. My dreams are not fun anymore, and they are not dreams anyway. They are just bits of candy given to appease the soul trapped within the limits determined by inertia.

Inertia is thought I’d like to dwell upon for a bit. There’s a pun in there as well, but I don’t expect anyone to find it. Inertia is a quality of the matter a body is composed of. Inertia of something intangible like the soul, on the other hand, can’t be as simple. But it must obey some of the basic rules. For example, if you add something to the weight of a body, it has more inertia, so as I grow and add so many thoughts to the composition of my soul, it must get heavier, and less inclined towards motion. This should explain my ability to experience life at its rapid pace during childhood, and the subsequent slowing down of a heavy soul preparing for its ultimate state of rest. This line of reasoning of course assumes that the thoughts are heavy, which in light of all that is written above, seems highly unlikely. So thoughts are mass-less bubbles that emanate from the soul and fill up the surroundings. Now why must I glorify thoughts as harmless cute little bubbles? Fine, we’ll look at thoughts as the soul farting. But that isn’t the point. The point is that if thoughts aren’t adding to inertia, then what is? What is it that makes me heavier everyday? Whatever it is, how do I get rid of it? How do I get my constipated soul to take a dump? Drink lots of water. In terms of this crazy analogy, the analogue of drinking lots of water must be something that is vital, life-giving, and runs through the entire system. Sounds a lot like sex, but if sex was easy to come by, I wouldn’t be wasting my time by sitting here and writing a blog now would I? There must be something else.

Yes. I have it now. Passion. Passion of any kind. If I can get myself to be passionate about anything at all, then I’m through. I’ll be so light that I’ll be able to fly. But passion is not a permanent solution. Writing this blog is a result of some degree of passion, but I’m sure it’ll be months before I ever find the same passion again. I guess I mustn’t seek permanence in anything. Permanence is a result of inertia. So I’ll win my first battle against inertia by not doing whatever I’ve been doing so far. In this case, writing this blog.

I guess for old time’s sake I could squeeze in a few more words for my friend inertia. Let inertia rest in peace.