Dick Cavett:
"It's a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn't want to hear."
But that's all I want to hear.
That's all I have patience for.
I have had my fill of vapid excuses, claims about as consistent as eggshells soaked in vinegar...
...Maybe the polite generation is right, maybe this almost forced brutality is doing more immediate harm to the frail psyches of modern living...
I don't care.
I am not forgiving.
(Shoulders bent to some mundane task, or head buried in a textbook - there is always a ghost of a fist in the air, hovering somewhere above my left ear.)
I want it brutal. These faded fairy tales of egos and pride have worn thinner than the tapestries that were once woven out of unicorn's breath.
I want to hear you tell me things that sting me harder than any fist of yours could - because it's too close to home, too true to be denied.
I don't want to hesitate over that twinge of painful recognition when I am speaking with myself.
(If I can lie to myself then my very existence is utterly futile.)
I despise with fade-to-red-vision the crime so delicately named censorship not because it denies our freedom but because it saps our strength to be coddled from something more important than our speedycarsandweekendboatclubs.
I am all for sugarcoating when something occasionally and desperately tragic has befallen...
I am all for the nearby grasp of a fleshy palm to hold me up.
But western world luxury living is not the boon we tout it to be.
It is swallowing our identities in soap-opera dreams and kitchen appliances.
It is making us lie to ourselves about what we need and making us replace needs with wants and leave the all-important questions of Who We Are and Why Are We Doing This, flapping in the wind, a washed-out billboard unseen in the brilliant glare of hollywood lights.
My life doesn't belong to me sometimes, when the ghost of my ego has beat past my rational defenses, and thrown pretentious, careless phrases into polluted air.
When I become greedy.
When I forget the stunning question of what it means to be ALIVE.
Faded memories of manipulation games I played as a child, the practiced pout, the light touch of splayed fingers to an adolescent boy's arm while I spoke with them, the sober desparate voice that occasionally works on my parents, the straight-shouldered fury that worked on my agressors at school...
When you know how to listen, it's easy to discern what people want to hear, and cater to them. Too easy. It's time to move on...
That got me through the best of times, those sick and depraved golden years that were the worst of times but nothing has ever been so exciting since then...
Or so infuriating.
And in ultra-posh private school, they taught us to ignore the pain, lie to ourselves, Be Always In Control - but not in control of ourselves, never in control of ourselves...
Discipline has always meant listening to someone else.
Don't ask questions.
Don't point out unpleasant things.
Nobody likes the unpleasant.
Except me.
Me, in my dirtpile, eating mud pies and befriending anyone who'll let me pick their noses.
Because if you can see clearly enough to realize that BOOGER IS NO BIG DEAL, then I know I can say anything to you.
And I am still young and naive enough to believe that we can be better than the lies we tell ourselves.
Or maybe I read too much science fiction.
Either way, it comes down to this:
Can I pick your nose?