“Sometimes it’s hard to know what to do.” Charles Bukowski
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What do we do when we don’t know what to do? That’s not as stupid as it sounds. It’s the Universal Conundrum we’ve all faced at one time or another, and it’s what I’m facing today.
You know the effects, the days when passion flames out, desire dries up like a desiccated desert mud hole and inspiration refuses to ignite. Indeed, what to do? Nothing or something, anything?
I hear you now. Get a pen, a pad, make a list, you say. Maybe the ashes of inspiration will spark to life. It’s a start. But why not just kick back, chill out, hang loose. You know the synonyms. The mood will pass. What are you afraid of, a guilty conscience?
I sit looking out of the window at a miserably wet day. There’s not much to do but sit around the office killing time. For born slackers, killing time takes less effort than blinking the eyelids. Even making a phone call requires too much effort. Simply thinking about nothing works just fine.
Now killing time might qualify as ‘nothingism,’ but it’s not nihilism. Look at it this way…it washes the brain clean, squeezes the soul’s sponge, unties stomach knots, unwinds the nerves and is better for you than booze, though not necessarily preferable given a choice. But it’s not 5:00 yet.
Killing time has one rule: let go. No Pharisaic constraints, no yoke of the woke dictates. You’re the boss, no critiques to endure, and the noose of guilt hangs empty on the gallows. You’re free to stroll in the metaverse of virtual reality where imagination trumps reality (note the lower case ‘t’).
But Utopia doesn’t exist, and we can stomach only so much of this nirvanic mental state before boredom sets in. Then the internal wheels begin to spin, breaking the deadlock of inertia. Not all bad, since killing time can also include activity, but definitely not chores. Chores are curses imposed on us by you-know-who.
Suddenly a flash of inspiration flares up. Call on a miracle, make something alive again the Voice whispers. But what? The flash sorts through its options.
And then another brain flash occurs. It’d really be cool to make the ‘60s alive again when love was ‘free’ and music was freeing. But alas…besides, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ‘Free Bird’ has flown. So, I’m back to reality. Miraculously, another idea materializes
I sort through the bone yard of hundreds of old business cards to see if there’s flicker of life left in any of them. It’s amazing the miles you can travel, the places you can go and the memories you can resurrect by rummaging through a stack of old business cards.
Like old photographs, the cards open windows of yesterday and doors once entered. Some are now closed permanently, and you can still hear them slamming shut when you left. A few remain open to your call or knock, and others continually swing both ways with little effort.
If you’re a metaphor freak, old business cards and photos are your playground. Their rectangular shapes remind me of graveyards where there was once life, but which has now moved on. Only thing missing is a vase of plastic flowers.
Others remind me of failed experiments, dreams that died with the passing of the card. Some bring a smile, others a blank stare. But all of them remind me of some event and relationship that was created, some ephemeral, others permanent.
Enough of nostalgia for one day. I decide to construct a business-card pyramid for the hell of it. Maybe it will reveal a comatose bone that still has life left in it, or some useful metaphor.
I build away, one card at a time. It grows till it covers half of my desk. I stare at the creation, looking for revelation. Nothing. Exactly what I expected. Nothing lives in a dusty old pyramid of business cards. In retrospect, perhaps I should have constructed a Cross. There’s the metaphor.
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Killing time is the antidote to the Universal Conundrum. And if you plan on digging through your own bone yard, remember: some bones need to remain buried.
Bud Hearn
March 14, 2022