Sloth

Most people would think that I live the life of Reiley were I not so wretched to speak the truth. As far as my immediate situation is concerned, and as far as it has been concerned for the last 9 years, it hasn't meant a toss to my destiny what I do during the day. In fact, working hard when I first arrived in this country landed me in the hospital for infectious diseases for three days, and continuing to work like a slave put me into the direct path of Martha who arrived with food for my empty fridge and money to pay a doctor to visit me for over exhaustion, yet again. It is commonly understood that I would have nothing to do with Martha were it not for the issue of money and a decisive lack of self-sufficiency in my life. I am not ungrateful to Martha but there is only so much gratitude I can display given my situation to meet her expectations. This sucks us into a repetitive and violent vortex where my powerlessness assuages her personal insecurities while breeding contempt for my powerlessness at the same stroke. This goes beyond a case of someone capricious and unable to decide whether the glass is half empty or half full. It travels into dangerous, dark psychological territory. I do not like to play the role of George but I see no other option, as I am no longer my own man. The more I soldier on, the worse things get; sort of a macabre grotesque of a complementary relationship. George challenges Martha with how much of her he can take before he snaps. It is a ghastly co-dependency wherein I have nowhere else to go/run.

I only have this little inviolate space on The Internet. And even this place must compete with Martha’s expansive sphere of insecurity as well as my poor time management. Moreover, I am insouciantly lazy. It would be wholly unfair for someone other than myself who is familiar with me to categorize me as lazy. Yet, that is the definition of my situation now. It was not always the case. The lesson that no matter what I do the treadmill bears me back is a poignant lesson in abject futility. I will not lower myself to compare my situation to Sisyphus for I believe myself neither living in Hades nor meriting the badge of a legendary figure outside of my own mind/travails. I leave such comparisons for Martha to make as she often browbeats the world, me and troubles deaf Heaven with her bootless cries.

The fact that Albee wrote about my situation so well is purely a case of precognitive art imitating life I can assure you. I used to have a difficult time suspending my belief when watching Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? until I awoke to the reality of myself lying in my bed next to the leading female character. Even my writing this private journal here is a lesson in emotional and intellectual skullduggery, betrayal and guilt. The question is: how do I cope? And the simple answer is: badly.

And the hopelessness that often overwhelms me is the prime lever of Sloth. I try to work my life around these Blog entries as a means of throwing off this cute little demon spawn. It is hard to do when the energy level is below functional normal and the opportunities for detour from the path of industry is so great. Almost anything connected with a normal life can be a trigger. Masturbation is one example.

Nothing is more destructive to my productive day than enjoying a good wank in the morning, and nothing is more compelling to fill the void of an endless day. Masturbation proffers a deceptive promise of fulfillment, which is as bogus as its guarantee of a quick practicality. In actuality, it is the satisfying effect of fulfillment that is premature and the detrimental affect of the practice that is long lasting on me.

The allure of sex, for me, is about primal control. On the one hand, being the male counterpart, I first need to exact more control on my person than my female counterpart exacts on her body otherwise the whole activity prematurely concludes. On the other hand, my partner needs to lose her control and inhibition to me. Masturbation imbalances this equation with only one hand to fulfill the whole action, as I have no counterpart but myself, and it requires my failure on that hand to exert self-control. The bodily process of sexual activity is about this sweaty-sweet struggle that concludes in a mutually satisfying climax in my definition. The fulfilling process of fucking means I master myself and I must also master my partner. To put it euphemistically, my goal is to send my female counterpart into orbit before I blast off. But when this bodily process functions as a standard procedure of mechanical release, it affectively destroys the alluring component of control as it simply empties my vessel. I then become this emptied vessel when I am seduced by my own adult desire, reducing the scope of my manhood to a daily grind of wanking myself to exhaustion accompanied by nothing more authentic than my own hand, my imagination and a choice selection of lesbian pornography.

And once that is done, I have nothing more I want to accomplish than cuddle Narcissus and go to sleep.

Sadly, this is one accomplishment I can achieve everyday in the last 9 years I have lived where I do now. Habits are hard to form in the best of circumstances. It is difficult for me to habitually write everyday, or even be routinely disciplined about other matters, and I always have a variety of excuses from a big black duffle bag of my own conscious and subconscious experience. Masturbation is much easier a habit to form since its reward is at once pleasingly illusionary and essentially need fulfilling at the most base level.

But that little sloth sure fucks up my day. No pun intended.

And Martha…? Well, it seems weird to me that anyone might not understand but a shrill, screaming, childlike and dangerous harpy-shrew is not alluring to me in bed. She is good looking and otherwise that might be alluring on it own – more so than a stack of lesbian pornography. But beauty alone is not adequate to tip the scales of my masculinity when so much else weighs so heavy on emasculating me.

To find the boy to become the man, I look to my writing. Is it a right of passage? Passage to where?