Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Outliers

Written 20 minutes after taking a sleeeeeeping pill. mmmmm

Outliers
We do not conform to social construct. Not the more obvious, middle of the road choices most people fall into, quite comfortably and naturally, in their early 20s. To them, it's like putting on pants. We never made that connection. And we remained undefined. And in some cases, pantsless.

We tried subculture, that tangle of weirs that awaits just downstream. All the really smart, fat chicks and the short, pimpled poets find themselves defining themselves in place they learn to accept over time. Until one drunken night you look around your dark circle of friends in some bar or basement, and the rising high lifts you out of your apathy and you feel, for the first time you can remember, that you just might have control over your life. And that you've finally hooked into a group that understands. You. Fucked up people, who are funny and talented--or at least have the desire to be talented. And there's the music and moves and shit to do. But in the moring you wake up with a hangover and every thing's gone to shit again. You are not part of this group. That was a delusion brought about by the excessive, some would say, desperate consumption of so much liquor in such s short time. Really, you were out of control. Far beyond the pale of group 2's different, but still important senses of moderation and fair play. Begone, we'll still be friends, knowing it's an act.

Drop on level. Now say to yourself that you're finally home and you grin. But you hate it all again in the morning. But we also do no fit in with the several subgroups that exist below the line of accepted society—punks, Goths, gangstas, nerds, dorks, gamers, fan boys.. There are the last outposts of belonging, slight off the center but sill cozily within acceptability. I don't have the jewelry or makeup skills, my body is not build for goth, unless you count way-too-old and boxy-shaped goth with a giant fleshy face and a corporate card. Gangstas, please. I avoid you at all costs, only because you tend to be loud, obnoxious, confrontational and easily insulted I'm not walking that minefield

Go a further step subculture and find dominatrices, TV, sex addicts, drug addicts, bondage freaks. Hay, a night out is a night out. BU theres a commitment even here, perhaps especially here. Look at tall the equipment that must be kept clean. Giant devices and complicated knots and whole dramatic why of speaking the embarrasses me.

So where are we, the outliers?

We are undefined, ill-fitting, tongue-tied, flush-faced fuckers. We travel through your valleys and mock your consistency (while smelling the flowers and stealing tomatoes). We are visitors in every sense. To you word and the commitment that constructs it. We can commit, but only for short times. We can love, but it's a strange love, maybe cerebral. We do great things in short spurts of inspiration knowing our concentration and interest each have time limits

Down here with us are some of humanities darkest. Criminals, murderous, perverts, maniacs, sociopaths, inmates. There are also artists and writers, people who would kick a dog to death or another who would lie to his own mother.

5 comments:

Cromely said...

There is a grain of truth here; the concept it strong. Almost a manifesto of sorts. The question is can it be reached without the sleeping pills?

Anonymous said...

"Reaching your head with the cold, sudden fury of a divine messenger
Let me tell you about heartache and the loss of god
Wandering, wandering in hopeless night
Out here in the perimeter there are no stars

Out here we is stoned
Immaculate."

That came to mind as I was reading. I like the concept. Sounds like the internal rumblings of Bukowski or Travis Bickle. Good stuff.

Brian Kunath said...

Thanks. Yeah, I just kinda like the name as the title for something. "The Outliers." I hear that a lot in presentations -- "that concept is kind of an outlier." And it struck me that it's a great way to describe people.

The sleeping pill was nearly incidental. Except that I didn't self edit like I have a bad habit of doing normally.

Anonymous said...

This was excellent. I identified strongly with the notion of the "Outlier". And I detect amid the lonesomness a pulse of optimism, a reaffirmation of individualism. The freedom to define yourself, which might be otherwise repressed by the group.

That doesn't mean there isn't longing to belong... I believe the tension between "I" and "us" informs who we choose to become.

MO'SH said...

This is why you remain my king of literature. Or perhaps more our witch doctor. Unknowlingly knowing. I haven't been so moved to write since the RTH days!