Ker-plunk

Always expect a shot in the dark regarding philosophical statements after you find me at the end of some kind of lengthy drive that provides me as much access to music as the miles I plug into my car's engine. And though it usually provides for a moody experience that varies as much as the landscape I travel in (always remember, please, that Soledad apparently IS where it's at), driving at night makes everything seem the same. So I guess I was on a one-track mind, which always seems comforting for a mind that jumps between anything at any time.

Getting on to the point, however, I had a lot of time to think about a conversation I had with one of my best friends in Santa Barbara. I should have guessed that at least one of he nights would have ended up in a philosophical debating of sorts.  

We came to the conclusion that we, as lame as it is to admit, admire the tortured artist motif. This idea that we pursue some idealized notion of not necessarily pain, but melancholy. That being uncomfortable leads to something deeper.  And the scary thing is, sometimes it happens to be more comforting than the happiness we experience. And I've never had any clue as to why until now.

Happiness is finite. It's what we pursue. It can't evolve into anything else. It is the closest thing to a taste of perfection we'll get.  It's in the moment. It's there. I can't tear it apart and analyze it and sculpt it into something better. And so, because of that, I'm forced to realize that there is no dwelling, there is nothing more than that happiness.

Whereas with the melancholy, it's infinite. I can see an array of possibilities from it. Because, well, there has to be something more. It has to evolve into something good, it has to be torn apart and rebuilt into something healthy, beneficial, salubrious. Ultimately, though, in all of its infinite possibilities, we only want it to mold into that intrinsic happiness we were so uncomfortable with in the first place.

I'm not saying I'm a masochist, but I think I bred my concept of the idea of "searching for more" to an unhealthy extent.

So now, I'm rooted. I'm going to check out from that melancholy for awhile. I'm going to be comfortable with that notion that I don't have to keep thinking, that I don't have to keep working at things, that I can just admire the beauty of things and not look over its shoulder to see what ought be, to see its potential.  Because, as I'm learning, there doesn't always have to be another side to the coin, there doesn't always have to be something more. There can just be it. And with just that, I can take a deep breath. That first breath after the coma. Just that moment.

That's all.

That.

Nothing else.

And with that, I am content. 

Adieu,

grant

post-scrip: I assure you, I am perfectly sane. I just like to think. Ponder with me sometime.