Sinister: red wine and oil refineries (and red bulls, sure)

[baker,baker]

sorry in advance for the huge long senseless post, but i think 
james touched on something important when he talked about our
emotions not making us special.  i know this is going back a
bit, but i wanted to talk about it right away and didn't have
the time...

i agree with james on this, at least to a certain degree.  we've
all had times when the giant bluntness of someone else's gloom
has been overwhelming -- certainly the intense sadness or
frustration or jealousies that we feel are universal.  my
depression is your depression is his depression etc... 

i think what makes us human is our emotion -- and what makes us
individuals is the complexity of those emotions.  to surrender
to your feelings of sadness is to let yourself be washed away
into the blandest version of being alive.

however i don't believe the best escape from depression is the
one that james describes.  i agree insomuch as to say that
seizing control of how you feel is something everyone is at
least partially capable of, but thrusting yourself straight
upwards when you're miserable is like shoving the heaviest end
of a teeter-totter up into the air over your head -- it'll only
come crashing back down on you if the weight doesn't first get
shifted toward the other end.

i don't want to sound like a shrink, though.  i'm really not
trying to offer anyone advice -- i battle with depression as
much as anyone, i think, and i don't claim to be a success
story.  far from it, in fact.  childishly, i cope with my
sadness by using it as a great big magnifying lens for other
things, like music.  or movies, or art.  gosh.

...have you ever considered how insignificant music and art
would be in your life if you'd never ever felt terribly sad once
in your life?  i'm trying to think of rich businessmen with
happily married parents and luxury automobiles and how they
listen to elevator music and hang artwork with big imaginary
pricetags over their leather couches -- pleasant people who
smile because they really have no idea what they're missing. 
people who could be driving down the expressway and when
"Asleep" by the Smiths comes on over the radio, they never sigh
once, never remember listening to that song in the dark, never
feel the butterfly of old, lost love rolling over bitterly in
the coccoon of their stomachs.  they might even change the
station in favor of "smooth jazz," "adult contemporary," or
"light rock."  i feel sorry for these fellows, if they indeed
exist.

(oh, jeez.  i was saying something else though, and now i've
forgotten it...)

i was in missouri this whole last week -- visiting my father.  i
drove home late last night.  five hours in the car by yourself
on I-55 is heavenly.   i like to ride with my left leg pulled up
on the seat so i can rest my chin on my knee, and i grab the
wheel from the bottom & put my other hand on my stomach and
listen to quiet music.  i take my shoes off and watch the
stars... 

in chicago, you don't see many stars.  the air is too thick with
the dead skin off of our cars and the warm breath of our
factories making the sky steamy and dusty, like dirty glasses
that you've touched too much and then come inside out of the
cold with.  instead of stars, we have airplanes.  last time i
checked, o'hare was still the busiest airport in the world, and
we have lots of beautiful, blinking stars that race each other
around the sky.

when you get near joliet, there's this big huge factory thing --
i think it's a refinery for Mobil Oil or some such nonsense --
but it's so great, it's like this big smoking city of dingy
orange lights on skyscrapers and flames on top, like giant
candles burning.  there's always big billowing clouds coming out
of it, lazy and dreamlike...  and i know that it's supposed to
be evil -- killing the environment, choking the baby harp seals,
etc...  but everytime i see it i can't help but think, "god,
that is so beautiful..."

maybe i'm a sinner.

i just think ...  i mean, wow.  there's this beautiful and
complex cult of specific things that make up this universe, and
i think that the networkings of our own hearts and thoughts are
just as complex, and just as beautiful.  maybe somewhere inside
me there's an oil refinery that i can't get rid of.  hopefully
it's as pretty as this one.


if i were a religious person, perhaps i'd use this time to also
mention the ways that good and evil present themselves in a
world that appears from a distance to be haphazardly silent. 
i'm not religious, of course, but i do think that the metaphor
is a nice one when you're feeling a bit sad or disappointed.

the truth is that each disappointment happens in one facet of
Who We Are and What We Want -- and while the students in room
A212 are flunking their midterms, B101 is getting straight A's. 
when the bell rings they all run out into the same halls and
they mingle like red and white blood cells.  there are other
facets of you, and if you look beyond your sadness -- not
outward, but inward -- you can find a richness and depth of
color and contrast that far outshines any singular emotion
you'll experience.  you have a flavor like a deep red wine --
the bitter earth and the sweet rain and all the musics of the
wind go into your grapes.  the bare feet kissing you down and
the oak and chestnut barrels squeezing you in and the yeasts
nibbling you and the year of your release...  all of these
things are the benefactors that finance your flavor.  this is
where people are the Most Beautiful.

maybe it's crazy to think that beauty helps us much when we're
miserable.  i like it all the same.  all of you on the list
who've been writing about their sadness -- if it's worth
anything, i'd tell you you're beautiful, because you are. 
you're delicious, even when you're depressed.  "i drink you up."


love,
baker,baker



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