-19- The Self Too Aware

A reflection on the impassibility of the unconvinced self.

Never am I in lesser doubt than when I am the merchandizer of my own awareness. With my notepad, possessed, writing down each and every formula that seems to resonate with my inventory. My list is a long scratch of desolate attempts. As I go about the pass, every aisle coalesces into a neat oil painting right before my eyes - progress - only to explode into an abstract mess upon my complete passage. Oblivious, or ignorant - what's the difference? - something befouls my perception, but not enough it seems, for something else convinces me to be unconvinced by the performance of it all. I can be deceived by virtually everything except for the incantations I bear upon myself.

At the end of every circumspect investigation into my domain, I come to find a blush, words need not be spoken of what is really happening. I need only be beguiled for a brief period, enough to re-organize my shelves in a rote fashion; put on another show for the one and only customer who cares enough to keep facing up these wares, and thinking he has found some clever way to ignite a renaissance of mindful expansion. But my curse is my own suspicion.

My recordings are the only permanence I can find in this market of deception. With everything else I conclude no trust, and a deceitful presence, and in those temporary occupations I become drunk on conspiracy, or blissfully pregnant, or fatuously hypnotized - these are moments where all the stale creeks segue into an open channelway, full with intent; but, capacity overflow, cracks forming, back into segmented formation; no change except new evidence of failure. Record the findings.

I surprise myself each time, I suppose. What would be the lesson other than this: that I cannot be more aware of how fruitless the attempts at salvation always are. How many more instances must I admit to before I give up the outward catalog research? I forget that the superstore is actually barren without my stock, and meanwhile all smattered about are phantasmal products and tools. They fill you up at a distance and feed you in your weakness, but provide no nutrition for your true desires. Will you be content with malnourishment? Will you accept improperly labeled health products?

Can I be aware, but not know anything? Absolutely, yes, without a doubt. I know nothing clearer. I prefer Aristotle's line, "it is not necessary that everything that is possible should exist in actuality". Even in my conclusions of having become so aware of my trampled existence I am still of the superstition that I may have mis-targeted my capabilities. Perhaps I am the King of something, perhaps I am the slave of another, perhaps I have already come to be all that I can and ever will be, and if this is as good as it will ever get, then why waste a fuss trying to enthusiastically promote myself to some higher form of perfection? As I sit though, clairvoyance is not my game, and so instead I am playing the only one that my awareness is rendering perceivable.

To contrast Parmenides' words, “We can speak and think only of what exists". No, because I am aware of the ways in which I do not exist, and I can speak and think in twisted tongues, and convince others of my fashionable tales, even if I do no further in convincing myself. In such a way, perhaps I have become chronically unconvinced, and that is all I ever will be — convinced by my unconvincing self; aware of everything as "to be questioned."

Cursed by suspicion. A self too aware so as to be convinced by nothing, because everything is just as convincing as the next item for sale.