The Listening... how much talking I do to hear myself talk. All the while forcing my attention away from that which I should be hearing. I interrupt. I 'interject'. I destroy other peoples' train of thought.
The teachers who'd SCREAM at me to wake up in elementary school while my head was in Disneyland or some such shit... if I'd really absorbed what my attention deficit was depriving me of... well, fuck em' anyway, but you know?
But the value of paying attention... and you really do PAY attention... an attention span is as limited a thing as a bank account and every bit as easily wasted as money... what you spend that attention on adds up all the same.
There is only one thing anyone is ever given in life and that is TIME. If you're as lucky as I am you get FIVE SENSES and full use of all your appendages as well, but some of us have so much less. Think EVERY TIME you see someone with a disability of this very thing... not with pity, but with hope.
Oh, the shit I wish, I'd never seen, heard, smelled, tasted, touched, or thought. MOST of life consists of this very shitty shit. The lengths I go to distract myself from this very SHIT. Why has acid always been less FUN than all the OTHER drugs for me? It ENHANCES the stink of all this SHIT!
On that note, observation... painstaking attention to detail... as little as any one of us could GIVE A FUCK for the series of postponements that interfere with the BIG PLANS we think life SHOULD be all ABOUT is a gift. All those fucking hindrances would make life pointless if they were to disapear.
Where would any one of us be if there were nothing to fix? No mistakes to correct, no pains to ease, no NEEDS to FULFILL? Fill the blanks as need be, no debts to pay, no corrupt politicians to protest against... etc.
What do you hear right now... in spite of all that? Good music? Screaming infants? Bus Brakes? Creaking floorbards? Slamming doors? Bitchy neighbors? Ringing phones? I'm hearing all these things at present, but all I'm paying attention to is Peter Gabriel.
I'm not SMELLING the alcohol on my own breath, or the stink of my own armpits. I'm not LOOKING at the late hour on the clock. I'm just TASTING the artifically-flavored popcorn I bought from my building's vending machine and HEARING a much older Peter Gabriel than I wish to think of sing "Oh, My Head Sounds Like That." While all I touch is the keyboard under my greasy fingers and the the steel foldup chair under my bony ass.
The teachers who'd SCREAM at me to wake up in elementary school while my head was in Disneyland or some such shit... if I'd really absorbed what my attention deficit was depriving me of... well, fuck em' anyway, but you know?
But the value of paying attention... and you really do PAY attention... an attention span is as limited a thing as a bank account and every bit as easily wasted as money... what you spend that attention on adds up all the same.
There is only one thing anyone is ever given in life and that is TIME. If you're as lucky as I am you get FIVE SENSES and full use of all your appendages as well, but some of us have so much less. Think EVERY TIME you see someone with a disability of this very thing... not with pity, but with hope.
Oh, the shit I wish, I'd never seen, heard, smelled, tasted, touched, or thought. MOST of life consists of this very shitty shit. The lengths I go to distract myself from this very SHIT. Why has acid always been less FUN than all the OTHER drugs for me? It ENHANCES the stink of all this SHIT!
On that note, observation... painstaking attention to detail... as little as any one of us could GIVE A FUCK for the series of postponements that interfere with the BIG PLANS we think life SHOULD be all ABOUT is a gift. All those fucking hindrances would make life pointless if they were to disapear.
Where would any one of us be if there were nothing to fix? No mistakes to correct, no pains to ease, no NEEDS to FULFILL? Fill the blanks as need be, no debts to pay, no corrupt politicians to protest against... etc.
What do you hear right now... in spite of all that? Good music? Screaming infants? Bus Brakes? Creaking floorbards? Slamming doors? Bitchy neighbors? Ringing phones? I'm hearing all these things at present, but all I'm paying attention to is Peter Gabriel.
I'm not SMELLING the alcohol on my own breath, or the stink of my own armpits. I'm not LOOKING at the late hour on the clock. I'm just TASTING the artifically-flavored popcorn I bought from my building's vending machine and HEARING a much older Peter Gabriel than I wish to think of sing "Oh, My Head Sounds Like That." While all I touch is the keyboard under my greasy fingers and the the steel foldup chair under my bony ass.