Phaysis – Page 91 – A Frozen State of Change

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Two-thousand and Eighteen Ano Domini (whichever dominar you choose).

That’s right, we made it. Not by any choice or effort on our part. It just happened. We can’t really take credit for it. Anyway, here’s me rhapsodizing about how great the next year in my life will be, blah blah blah, but really, I’m not so positive. I’m cynical, really.

[CYNICISM INTENSIFIES]

See, instead of going to parties tonight to celebrate with other humans, I’m sitting at home alone. That’s right. I’m letting myself get hung up on friction and with a lack of inertia, looking at the Internet with a glass in one hand and a keyboard in the other. Social avoidance. I don’t mind the party, but I fear the expectation (it’s not you, it’s me). And so, without putting any effort into getting up and going to where the other humans are, I stayed here. Alone. I had invitations, but deftly avoided all of them. Phew, that was a close call.

I guess you can say I am leaving 2017 exactly the same way i lived it. And that’s a fucking shame.

Really, lately I’ve been getting called out for my cynicism and negative thinking. I really, really need to stop that, or at least be more delicate with it. Sometimes people don’t want me to talk like Grumpy Cat. I can’t help it sometimes, but really I can help it by just shutting up. Eh. I need to cull that behavior and try to stop pointing out the riggings underneath things. Sometimes people don’t want to know, and it’s not worth telling them. Anyway, enjoy this educational video to kick-start your self-examination:

I hope 2018 is better. I really do. In the grand, universal scale of things, it means nothing. Earth time is infinitesimally insignificant, and time itself is a human construct, blah blah blah, but whatever. I need to update the copyright on this site and wish us all the best. So here’s me wishing you the best. Happy New Year, from me, to you. Phaysis loves you.

Pandimensional

Social media has perverted and supplanted my ability to express myself artistically, literarily, philosophically, poetically. The things I used to say, things I want to say from the back of my soul — in the front of my mind is now installed a filter, a tuned circuit to impedance match and pipe that natural, raw sound inside into the echo chamber to get maximum resonance. To get more likes. To get more comments. To incite reactions. And not exactly for my own good end, either. Social media doesn’t actually benefit me, or you, or anybody; its sole good is for the benefit of media itself. The platforms I use have insinuated themselves into my thinking. This is death of self, really.

I had something I wanted to post 10 minutes ago, but I stopped myself. Why? Because of the reasons stated above. I can’t keep going down that straight one-dimensional line; there are so many more dimensions to this world. There’s depth and space. If I can’t see that, and remember that, and try stretching out, to find the meat, to see where the people actually are instead of where they want to be seen, then my life is shallow. Meet me somewhere, or call me out of my stupid rut. I dare you.

I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something I’m just not doing, or finding, or finishing. Satisfaction hasn’t shown her face in my door in a long, long while. I must find her. I must find you.

Cold Fire

At the end of this Christmas holiday, I had some time to be outside and feel the crisp air on my cheeks. The cold weather tonight is knocking loose a few odd memories, particularly this nugget from the year 1984 which, dare I say, is the golden age of heavy metal and hard rock.

Dokken wasn’t exactly a band I followed religiously. They were on the radio for a span of time during my formative teenage years. But, taken out of context, their lyrics are fuel for all of the Satan-rock street preachers who had screamed for our rapt attention in that era. There were so many bands out who played up the Satanic connection just to increase their magnitude and pump sales. Unfortunately, most of the kids in my world (and some adults, sadly) bought into it and thought they were the real deal; the same kind of chumps who would carve “666” into their schoolbooks and think they were summoning the Dark Lord himself.

Really, “Into the Fire” was the inner struggle of a man that keeps running back to a bad lover who burns him on every touch. Image notwithstanding, that’s basically all it is; a bad relationship that he won’t let die. But the over-the-top music production, the expensive video, and everything about the entire product screams excess, waste, and sex for the sake of itself.

That sound still sticks with me decade after decade.

And don’t get me started about “Dream Warriors” — that’s wedged so deep into my psyche, it’s soothing to the touch.

Dotted Line

It’s clear to me that my employer does not respect boundaries.

I got a missed call and a missed text from my manager, who sits in another city, saying that he wanted me to call him for our weekly 1:1 meeting, which is usually scheduled for Thursdays. I am on vacation this week and he knows it. You can bet your ass that I’m not going to respond.

He’s jabbing his finger into my lunch tray, asking me if I was going to eat that. I’m taking the time off (as upper management says we’re supposed to do) to “recharge” and “refresh” and “enjoy life”. With this company’s middle management, though, there is no such respect. Just the constant, nagging reminder that my employer demands more and more and more from me and will not be happy enough to leave me alone for 9 days straight.

Crystalline Amorphous

Had a snap cold front that made our day-long rainfall turn to sleet, then snow. Big, fluffy, slow flakes. Didn’t get any shots during the falling, but there were some accumulations of 1/4″. A respectable feat for Austin.