Clean is a deceptive word. It implies a situation which in all reality, at least on a microscopic or submicroscopic level, does not actualize what is signified by the word "clean." At least for me, clean could typically in most situations be defined as, free from "x," where "x" represents any number of things. But it implies a liberated state, or an inviolate state free from some other agent or entity. For example, my room is clean, or free from mess (x). My hands are clean, or free from germs. Even religiously: my conscious is clean, or free from sin and guilt. However, imperfections always abound. Germs that don't smudge and smear or leave a mark still remain outspoken denizens of our epidermis; dust still gently caresses some hidden surface of even the most immaculately cared for room; the repentant pronounced clean still harbors some unholy ambition, grudge or discontent, lurking in the shadow of her righteousness. The alcoholic pronounced clean still struggles against a vociferous need for the substance, although the voice of addiction - even if not succumbed to - can be deafening in the absence of its demoniacal ambrosia.
So within this understanding I am clean of the most recent SNAFU to have touched down on indigenous soil. Clean in the same way a room cleaned by a recently scolded five year old is clean (toys thrown haphazardly under the bed, dirty clothes sequestered in the recesses of his closet, while his hamper remains lonely). It is a state of greater liberation than the former, yet the woods have not been cleared yet, and though the woods be eventually cleared the landscape will most surely always be dotted with trees, housing the occasional grove.
So requiem may be the wrong classification for what this is, as the word is tied to death and a funeral. This is more like a forced farewell with a body part, whose presence I may still feel long after the amputation. I realize as I write this I am speaking of more than one thing. The essential ingredient, if the recipe is to turn out any shade of tasty, is belief. Even if forced and at first contrived, there must be the conviction that one is UTTERLY clean, and will remain so. I do recognize that vestiges of both diseases which I am referring to will linger in waning (or perhaps at times waxing) strength until I die. In all honesty I doubt, as do those close to me, whether this will last. That is, however, a sentiment I cannot afford to entertain or play host to for longer than the time it will finish me to write this enigmatic invective against the craft and my most cherished SNAFU.
Something must replace the absence. As humans our experience is marked by things that are, not by things that are not. It is impossible to come into contact with nothing. The root of the word "being" (as in human being) is "be," which is a verb and therefore an action, or something that is done. Linguistical semantics aside, if one is filled with a certain something, and that thing is surgically removed, it must be replaced (I see that there are problems with this thought, as we don't put something back in when we take out wisdom teeth or an appendix, so I restrict the range of this metaphor to my present topic, though it be veiled - and no, I am not writing about pornography), because we cannot house absence. I am not sure exactly what a black hole is, but if nothing does exist I imagine it exists upon similar principles as does a black hole - it sucks in and nillifies neighboring matter. So I feel the most recent spot in my life must be filled, by something. This post, which few if any may read, is meant to be my companion for the time I write it so I do not traverse these first few steps alone. Even thoughts and creative endeavor may fill the empty nothing, which is something.
3 comments:
This was an excellent read. I really appreciate the thought that although it may occur to us in our struggles that those things of which we have rid ourselves of may return, it is not helpful nor healthy to entertain such thoughts. If we expect to fail how can we ever succeed?
Kenneth Burke would argue that is is in fact what we don't have or do -- the negative -- that greatly influences us. This is because language is, in essence, discussion of things in terms of what they are not. A symbol (a word) stands for something other than itself -- what it is not. A chair is a chair because it is not a table, a desk, the floor, or the walls.
But it is very true that the negative is not a natural thing. The negative does not occur in nature. Something is always something, never just not anything.
We've created the negative in the nature of our language.
Kenneth Burke. A wonderful read.
oh sam...what would the world do without your brain?
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