Have I Made Myself Clear? #4 | The Anti-Org*sm

Hi all,

To say that I’m not disappointed in myself would be to pedal a lie. I have been very busy (soon to be busier) creating and publishing YouTube videos alongside my studies and now back to weekend work - but I made a commitment to publishing this newsletter every week.

Part of the problem is that I haven’t felt that I had much interesting to say. Consumed by a revolving door of projects, assignments and footy recordings, my mind has been a little bit quiet as of late; a good thing, all things considered. The weeks between this and the last issue have been very important ones. I’ve been freshly diagnosed with a personality disorder and seemed to have experienced the highs and lows that life on escitalopram will allow me. Much to learn, always. They say it gets better.

An essay by Horses. This rivals Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar for the most apt description and understanding of depression and suicidality that I’ve so far read in my short life. It’s not a comfortable watch, opening with an explicit description of the author’s near suicide attempt — but the closing remarks have been sweet comfort to me in times when I have desperately needed it.

Sinners, the new hit horror flick by Ryan Coogler is pretty good. Did I love it as much as everybody seemed to? Absolutely not. However, I made my very best attempt to see it in a great theatre, where those are far and few between. It was shot in 70mm IMAX, and features both a widescreen aspect ratio and a breathtakingly tall full IMAX aspect ratio — only when in seen in an IMAX theatre, though, unfortunately.

IMAX is a bit confusing. Movies can be shot for IMAX but not actually be shot on IMAX. Check out this 10min explanation from the director of Sinners himself.

I don’t have too much to say, but I do want to make a few remarks about…

$20 if you can guess it.

The Human Experience!

I’ve been having some conversations, wherein I have noticed a desire — maybe even expectation — to indulge in escapism. To leave the past behind quickly. A refusal to dwell in the darker spectrum of feelings. An intuition that what does not feel good, is not.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Written by Thomas Jefferson, edited by the founding fathers of the USA and printed on the Declaration of Independence.

The idea that one’s right to pursue happiness is an inalienable one. A God-given one, innate as the right to eat, drink and shit. Is there anything wrong with this? Certainly not. It’s a lovely sentiment. But I think it speaks to a greater issue.

In the same breath of the aforementioned conversations, I have heard that people would like to spend their lives being comfortable and happy. They’d like to have enough money to eliminate financial worry, maybe even a little bit more.

They have expressed concern about my comfort and ability to laugh about my woes. And, look, to be fair, I do talk about them too much. But there seems to be a murmuring that I ought to try to get away from these things that I feel. That my psychoses and delusions are wrongs. That my nightmares and hallucinations are demonic attacks on my soul. That my… my melancholy is a curse.

And it can be. Left untreated, allowed to fester and to grow, to overcomes oneself; yes. A danger.

But, in honesty, I believe it all to be blessing bountiful. At times, I feel so deeply that it makes me wish I could slip out through its arms like a wriggly black cat destined for 60ft fall out of an apartment complex window. Yet, to the contrary, I believe I feel elation the same way, as if that wriggly black cat landed on top of a fighter jet and flew into space. The metaphor escapes me.

“Grief is just love with no home.” As shadow is to light, sorrow is an absence. One can feel no great pain when one has felt no great joy.

And I, for one, am grateful for it.

There is a cautionary tale here, of course. I’ve written before about the sweet comfort of nihilism. The road to Hell is paved with cynicism and witless indulgence in misery. Left untampered, it is ruinous. Poisonous. Acid. But, handled with care… it’s beautiful. Textured and honest. Warm and all-encompassing. Pain is not destruction, for when I hurt the most, I get lost in it. It becomes everything. I have only discovered the fullness of my love through the absence of its recipients. The pungency of its overwhelm.

I’m sure I’ve read more than once, the orgasm described as ‘becoming everything’. For an instant, one is lost in ecstasy, and in an instant, one returns to reality. And, reading back on this article, I might consider the heights of misery to be the anti-orgasm. Everything. All-encompassing. The belief that you’ll never reach the light at the end of the tunnel.

How could that not be beautiful?