Fly on a wall

I'm reading, my head is in the stars, and I start to feel charged, connected, involved - some sweeping wave begins to overtake me. So do I let it? Do I throw on my trunks and get carried away? No, because it doesn't work. They call you manic and they are keen to put you back in your place when you show too much entusiasm. That's me, Mr. Enthusiastic. My name is even embedded in the word. And yet other people aside I do go crazy in my head questioning inspiration because I wonder where does it end and what's point of all that carrying on. I may feel hopelessly involved in someone else's life but it's not my life.

And I don't create anything original, because it's all been done before. I'm an unfortunate end product. I'm just as much an outsider, just as full of disdain and humor, and just as desperate to matter as anyone who's come before, but they've been out there and done it already and no good came of it except to further reinforce those traits in impressionable souls such as mine. I start thinking maybe I should have been a pop star or a poet or a painter, but it seems like a waste of time. And it seems derivative. If I were truly great I'd have come up with something completely original, but I'm not. If I can see further than some, I certainly see less than others. The world needs poets but it doesn't need an endless line of them who all say the same thing. It doesn't matter how beautiful and delicate you can make words sound.

If I lie in bed all day and count the grooves in the ceiling it's because I'm depressed and low in chemicals of one sort or other. If I jump up with a head full of steam bent on changing the world it's because I'm in the grips of a mania. If I speak precisely but with wit then I'm being pretentious or fey, possibly even delusional or self-obsessed. Borderline! But if I refrain from communicating at all, it's unhealthy isolation. If I push hard for a prestigious job and luxurious compensation they'll say I'm materialistic and shallow, so instead I try to stay authentically ascetic and it comes across as self-pitying, irresponsible, or having a case of "I didn't want to be rich anyways!" There are people clogging the streets everywhere, all around me, like a storm, but if I talk to anyone they find me socially awkward or unnervingly sincrere. If I keep to myself than I'm a scary loner waiting to stalk someone or explode and do God-knows-what.

People hate anything different from themselves. They'll only accept you if you're bland, self-effacing, have nothing very insightful to say; if you listen to them rapturously without contradicting them, work hard at a job that's not too exclusive but not embarrassingly lowbrow, go to the gym twice a week, watch the latest television dramas, have 2.5 kids and a mortgage on a pastel colored house. You have to go to church occasionally but not get weird with talk about God during the off days. You need lots of casual friends and "buddies." You mustn't read books unless they are about dieting, investing, or sports.

And you must absolutely never write down observations like these or in any other way summarize the game and point the finger, or you'll have all the fiery demons of Hell come crashing down upon your head for daring to question the way the system works. In America these days anything can be forgiven in a person except intelligence.