December
edition
All my life I have revered clutter. It started with my grandmother’s home. An endless sea of things.
Around the age of 7 I discovered a cache of ancient board games baking in the attic. There was one I found particularly valuable: a plastic volcano in a box. Inside it held gems of diHerent colors, nothing more. The object of the game had been lost to time, lost to...? Perhaps squirrels using the instructions as fluH for their winter nests. I can’t blame them; I would do the same if I lived above that fire hazard of a garage.
Since my days in Olga’s attic, I have observed an unfortunate turn towards the throes of minimalism. And if it is not practiced, it is internalized as acquisition-anorexia. A kind of chastity belt you wear around your home. A purity complex of the highest disorder. The main side eHect is shame for wanting more than the bare minimum, and a need to morally justify anything in excess of this allowance. A puritanical sin worthy of hellfire.
If love is a form of attachment and favoritism, then having a favorite Anything is a loving act which will be rewarded accordingly in the spiritual realm. Wouldn’t you say that God is the greatest collector of all. Verging on hoarder? How mad would you be if he threw us all away because he realized we were so useless? I would be pissed.
Many well-meaning men mix “industrial chic” and minimalism. It bears a striking resemblance to a prison cell. I suppose it is a great symbolic display of restraint. A fantasy devoid of all things fantastic. It says, “I can thrive in spite of living with an ounce of beauty or comfort.”
It is funny to think that Materialism brought on the rejection of material. The thinking goes, if it’s all just matter (no spirit) then nothing really matters. So, if you really feel compelled, throw out that family heirloom, but don’t come crying to me when a curse falls upon your first born. No, you’re right, it really doesn’t matter at all. Life’s a gas!
But what’s that I hear? The whisperings of the heart... Let’s listen closer :...tattered blanket, ceramic mouse statuette, book with pictures, special stick, blue button, shiny piece of glass I found in the riverbed...yes...I’m listening...
I recently started a job where I clean out the houses of the recently deceased. I sort what is for donation and what is pure garbage. Each job is a very intimate portrait of a life lived. When you die and I am called in to clean up your house, will I know what you valued from the bits you left behind? Or will I liken you to American Psycho?
When we come to our senses, we will return to keepsakes and amulets for luck. I think it might be a good idea to keep some of the life-debris. It could be the answer to some of our yearning.
If You Lost an Arm in the War I am Sorry
by Ben Owens
Today, I was wondering about people with lazy eyes. It would be such a tough thing to have one of those bad boys. It’s this thing where, as soon as you see it, you can’t help but keep looking—a similar situation to the one with the sun. It could be wrong to say, but I can’t help but assume it’s harder to be a girl with a lazy eye. Guys are pretty shallow in most cases, and it’s safe to assume that a lot of them would probably not be able to get over it, if you were a lady with a lazy eye.
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What if you had a shriveled-up arm or were deformed in an odd way? It’s like a million ways to look sort of messed up. And the thing that sucks about that is that, at least for me, that’s what I am going to notice right away. I can’t tell you how many times I saw a guy with some deformity, and that was the only thing I could remember about him. Then, when I go to talk to someone about them, all I say is, “Remember that guy with the funny arm?” That really sucks.
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Is it a possibility to avoid saying stuff like that? Am I the only one who does that, or do we all secretly do it? I don’t think it’s crazy to presume we all do it, and if not, then egg on my head. Most definitely, there are some people who genuinely look past something like a lazy eye or a screwy arm, but if I were a Tibetan man, I’d probably live in Nepal!
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I do this all the time if someone says something stupid too. It becomes the only thing I can associate with that person for a while. Or the inverse: if my friend Brad says something really funny, it’s all I think about for a while when I think of him. So maybe that’s okay. But, in any case, maybe I am doing a good job of making myself mostly sound like a jerk. But it is all really true. I can be really shallow when it comes to people looking funny. It’s not like I’m going to be mean to their face or anything serious. I will probably just say things I think are funny to myself about how they look or just be like, “This guy is the dumbest person I have ever met”—in my head. Better in than out in this situation.
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I am not trying to be mean. I guess I am just trying to acknowledge a habit I have had for a good part of my life. It’s funny how, when you do something for long enough, you forget if it is a good or bad thing. We lose morality a lot in our habits, routines, or even stuff we have observed to be routine, I would guess. So, even though it seems so basic, I haven’t thought about all this in a while. It seems like maybe I do judge a book by its cover, or maybe label it by its cover.
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It’s sort of like I am at a library full of books with no titles, and if one talks about Radiohead too much or has a messed-up arm, that’s what I name the book. (I am in charge of naming the books in this analogy.) It then leads me to wonder if that’s really all that bad to do. I mean, if a guy is missing an arm, that is probably a percentage of his identity or maybe the way he is identified. And what is the purpose of a book cover if not to help you identify the book? But that does lead me back to the idea that what’s on the inside is what really matters, which is really true. If a guy was missing an arm, I would be able to look past all that and hear the guy out, obviously, but while I was hearing him out, in my head, I’d be like, “Holy shit, I can’t believe this guy is missing an arm.” Which is wrong, I think. It’s okay to observe the obvious, but then you need to move on.
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I am saying all this to make the point that I guess that I want to get better. I think it would be really cool to not think about the arm at all or to forgive someone for talking about Radiohead at my house too much. I don’t think I am a shallow person by any means. I honestly think I am a pretty good guy. I just can be shallow at times. What is the purpose of life if not to get better, though? I think we can all be shallow at times. I am sure I have said something to a person at a party, and they labeled me as “the guy who said that dumb shit at my friend’s house,” and that was how they referred to me ever since.
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I can’t say I lose sleep over that idea, but it is kind of a bummer. So then I can’t imagine how it feels to be a deformed person who has to know, to some extent, that unless they really say something of note, that is all they will be to some people. Is this an unavoidable truth, or am I just thinking we are all worse than we are? Who knows, but in either case, I need to start being better.
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I want to truly keep every book unnamed, until I know what’s on the inside, in my proverbial library where I am in charge of naming the books. This is like a super basic facet of being a good person that I have overlooked in a way. So I think I will make a goal to not focus or think too much about the “arm” or whatever it is. Because even though “not judging a book by its cover” is something we learn when we are kids, I think we forget what that even really means. Trying to be nice “in my head” is something I think we could all do a little more because what’s on the inside eventually finds its way out.
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This was a pretty long way to say that, but I think I had to work some ideas out and such before I could really get to the point. I also have this friend named Connor who is super handsome and a really talented musician. The ladies love Connor. He has four toes on his right foot. I think there is a good message in there somewhere.
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