tenpercentme

So I've been reading a lot of Leaves of Grass on the toilet. I don't know why. I just take it in with me, and flip to a page. Coincidentally it the Norton Critical Edition so there are all sorts of essays and criticism that are included. Today, I walked into the bathroom as usual, at my place of work, one of my places of work, and I sat down to flip to a poem. Then I remembered, or thought I had remembered one of the essays included in the so and so, was by Whitman himself. Flipping to the back, I turned to the name of D. H. Lawrence. I have never read a single book by Lawrence, but I can think back to one titled Sons & Lovers. On the toilet, Leaves of Grass in hand, I begin to read the essay. "Whitman is the greatest American poet..." it starts out, or something like that. Interesting. I keep going. "Yet and still we do not trust him..." Now I am genuinely interested. I understand what D. H. is saying though I could never have articulated it in an essay. "He affects himself with his mind, and therefore all spontaneity is lost..." or something to that affect. There is a large window next to the toilet. I am so touched by these words, so in unison with the thought expressed, that I lift the fucking book to throw it through the goddamn window. That would be spontaneous, and I feel it. My work is so-self conscious. So stemming from my mind, which has subjugated my own emotional experience. My emotional reality. This is why I love my closest friends, they act from an emotional place, not an intellectual place. They complement me.

The subjugation of my own emotional reality could be, so far, the definining conquest of my life and character, and I am striving to overthrow my own dictatorship. How can I do it without breaking this guy's window though? What is acceptable behavior for a man committed to overthrowing his own mental dictatorship? This is not something new. I have been struggling with these thoughts for a year... or more. More. Now they return to me with new language and new inspiration. I do not want to shatter Christopher's window, but goddamn, I must... I must overthrow this reign of mental control, this affectation of my emotional center. And once I let it go, I am never going back.

Am I brave enough?