If I don't write to empty my mind, I go mad. - George Gordon Byron
She walks in beauty, like the night. - George Gordon Bryon
He has no indisposition that I know of, but love, desperate love, the worst of all maladies in my opinion. - Catherine Byron, speaking of her son George Gordon.
Did you know Lord Byron fucked his sister? Okay, technically his half sister, but still...and not just a little bit either. All the time. They had a kid together. He was also neither shy nor embarrassed about it. She wasn't the only one. Not by a long shot. Lord Byron fucked just about everybody. Men. Women. Whatever. He never, not once in his life had a successful relationship. His infidelity was the stuff of legends.
He was always pushing convention. He hated taboo. He hated societal standard. Mostly he hated being told what he could or couldn't do. He was a master of Socratic method. He had an incredible thirst for life. He didn't just want it for himself, but he wanted it for everybody, and it was his understanding that our little systems were merely inhibitors to a life more fully lived.
He was also a master of words. His poetry made him a legend in his own lifetime. He was truly a celebrity in every sense. He was skilled in the art of seduction. Men and women both wanted him. Despite his nature, his infidelity, his rumored cruel nature, his danger was magnetic. Even more compelling to the argument, now, nearly two hundred years after his death, his words still have the power to quicken heart rates, and make breathing shallow.
Most of this is common knowledge. His trysts with both the Shelleys. The mad weekend, that eventually spawned Frankenstein, and the third quatro from one of his most famous poems Childe Harold. His indifference to criticism and judgement. His seething power, that virtually overcame anyone in his presence. We know all about the many suicides, of the many women, who couldn't have him. Or those who did have him, but couldn't keep him. Two hundred years later, and the man is still a celebrity.
What is lesser known, is that he was incredibly insecure. He had a club foot, and walked with a limp. We sometimes picture him with his long black cane, but few realize that the cane was not simply a fashion statement, but was a necessity. He made famous the cast of seduction known simply as The Underlook, but what we don't talk about, is the reason he did this, is because he had a hard time looking people in the eye. You see, beneath the poetic god we have created in historical rememberence, there lies a simple man, who was pretty good with words.
I will never claim that kind of ability with words. Sometimes I luck out, and string a few good ones together, but I will never come up with She walks in beauty, like the night. Two hundred years from now, no one will know my name. I have no particular familial lust. I do my best to never be cruel. I am the exact opposite of flamboyant. I also have two relatively normal feet. Essentially what I'm saying is I am not, nor would I really dare, draw any real comparison between myself and Lord Byron.
This however, does not mean that I don't find some similarities that I'm drawn to. He knew that words have power. He learned to harness that power into something bigger than himself. Hell, he learned how to harness that power into something bigger than the western world. I can't do that. My realm of influence extends to maybe three or four people. And even then, there isn't so much influence, as...I dunno...people I know. But I do know that words have power.
He claimed the need to write, in order to avoid madness. I also know what this means. For him. For myself. I don't know that I'm crazy, and I never make any such claim. I do know though, the descent into my own particular abyss. I have danced in my own darkness, and befriended the demons in there. Those demons sometimes want to be let out to play, and sometimes it's very difficult to not let them. Sometimes they want to explode out of me, and make me different.
Sometimes I feel things unbearable, and I bottle those things up right quick. I don't talk about the things I feel. I don't tell other people, using out loud words, the things that I want to say. Sometimes I feel like if I do open my mouth, everything will just fall out of me. I am no longer a mass of skin and sinew, but rather a conflagration of concepts that can't be explained. The more I feel, the less I'm capable of communication. I can say the words "I love you.", and it is empty. The words do not tell the story, because the truth of those words...have no words. I become less, and so I lie. Or I stay silent, and all those things become the definition of me, that only I will know.
And so I write. I still don't tell my story. I still don't tell you those things that have become me. I tell other lies. I fictionalize myself. I let you believe whatever you want, because now...
Now...it doesn't matter anymore. Now I can let my pain live somewhere else. I can let my struggle, and my stupidity, and that thing, whatever it is, that defies my attempts at explanation, exist in quantum state in the part of me that is me, and the part of me that is what I've created of you, and the part of me that lives beside me, but apart from me.
I don't even care if that makes sense, because it makes sense to me, and that is part of the madness, and that is how writing makes it all go away.
So I write. I write a stream of bullshit conciousness like this one. I talk about Lord Byron, so that I don't have to talk about myself. I use the word "you", knowing that you may or may not know that you are the you I'm talking about. Writing makes it not matter. Like...at all. It's how I lie to myself. It's how I convince myself that I've told you everything that I need to, and the words have been released, and what you do with them is your choice, and my mass of fucking undefineable, can define again.
Lord Byron also knew something else I know. This is it. This. Right now. We have a limited number of tomorrows. When we get to our last tomorrow, well then...whatever we had to do, whatever we had to give, whatever was left undone, it doesn't matter anymore. You want to do something? Fucking do it. Because if you don't, you may never get to. You want to give in to temptaion? Fucking do it. What is temptation anyway? It's simply a thing you want to do, but someone else has told you not to. A parent. A teacher. A god. A concept. A societal conract that has been broken so many times, it's been rendered farce. Why? Why do we let these things dictate our action? Why? Fucking why?
You. Are. Going. To. Die. Everything you want to do, that you don't do, is a complete fucking waste. Now I'm not laying grounds for carte blanche hedonism, or maybe I am, it doesn't matter. I'm not you. I'm not living your life. But I think it would be a damn shame if you live your life by someone else's rules. Make your own. Then break your own.
I have one rule. I won't break that rule. That rule is my own, and I am lucky enough to have figured out how to do that. If I could give you only one gift in this silly sunshiney parade, it would be the same for you. To discover your rule, and to own your life.
Own your life.
And for the love of all that's holy...be dangerous.
Like...
Byron dangerous.
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