puzzles remain

I really would like to know the source of my current apathy. Is it my pain at having my hopes dashed? Is it the new drug? Is it the lessening of the old drugs? Is it the lack of anything worth engaging with?

I went into this business thinking if I understood others I might understand myself, and I was wrong.

Anyway so I thought I’d try to finish my serial killer book. Got frustrated pretty quickly. The issue is unreliable narrator. Almost immediately after giving the reader a bit of “evidence” the book discounts it, makes it nonsense. The killer is manipulating the investigators, nothings is true! Of course this is part of what makes it a compelling story. It also makes me want to throw the book at the wall, which I can’t do because it’s a god damned digital copy.

Oh, and I just made the connection that the author and the killer share a first name. Subtle, really subtle (sarcasm). Best use of italics in a novel I’ve seen in the last decade though, which is an honorable distinction.

But I have games, and none of them grab me. I have stuff to clean, but I lose interest, I want to go sit down again almost immediately. I’ve had an energy drink and a cup of coffee and I still just don’t want anything.

and so being frustrated I tried taking the book apart. As the son of a librarian (new character details, huzzah), I know a little about how to take a book apart. I usually don’t use them, wanting to consume books as the author intended. But if the author fucks with me enough, well I feel entitled to take their work apart and try to get the answers I’m looking for.

But this time it didn’t work. Which either means the answers aren’t there or they are hidden exceptionally well. I don’t have the energy to find out which, but I’ll get to it. There’s a sequel to this blasted book, so even the ending is a massive mislead. IDK, something about everything being fog, nothing being certain reflects a truth of my life that no book has managed to capture better and so I feel required to read on, as though the answers to the riddle of my own fate lie hidden in the pages of these blasted novels.

I’ll also add, before I go into my part two; it’s a beautiful day, and 1 that means I could take to my dog to the park, if I hadn’t of done that yesterday. Two that means I could ride my bike. I don’t have an excuse for why not that, I just don’t want to bad enough.

Part 2; I am the void

as the song says; “Now it’s over I’m dead and I haven’t done anything that I want, or I’m still alive and there’s nothing I want to do.”

or in my own words; act like it’s intentional, no one can tell the difference

After writing the above bit, bleeding out my angst at my existential lack of drive, I realized that I don’t feel bad, I don’t feel at all in fact, and that’s kind of the goal I was shooting for. That’s the best anyone can get. Because if you get to feeling “good”, then you have to live with the pendelum swings the other way, back over to bad, back and forth the pendelum swings and you don’t have much control over that.

Feelings are a trap, a pleasant one, a honey trap perhaps. I really think the soviets, particularly the KGB were onto something with their approach in the 1940s and 50s; most men of importance are egomaniacs, easily manipulated once the right levers are found. Meanwhile, I’ve spent my life removing my levers whenever I find them. Good luck predicting me, even I struggle.

So I worked on the dishes a bit, not because I wanted to, but because it needed to be done. Here in a little bit I’m going to work on my bracelets, same reason, something needs to be done, laundry, and in that change into my workout clothes which means by and by I’ll go work out. I can mechanically achieve what I need to, and with practice that might be a better way of living my life.

No joy, no grief, no pain, no laughter, just a cold uncaring being who might well feel again, given the right conditions, but doesn’t need to.

Embrace the void I say. The void is a far kinder friend than any outside it, the void has a place for anyone willing to surrender to it.

Maybe it’s just for a few days, or a season. I don’t know, it really is astounding the things I don’t know. What I do know is that it’s the defense least penetrable of any I have assessed.

Part 3: and the bloom is off the rose

There’s no such thing as a perfect killer. I keep saying so, and I keep being proven right even in fiction.  My serial killer novel ended up with him being undone by his own hubris. Okay, we know he survives for another novel, that’s one thing, but he as much as admits that his plan was undone to the teenage girl who did it.

I mean, it was something we said back when I worked in the psych ward, don’t make a teenage girl part of your plans in the first place, and it’s something I’ve generally lived by.

But the guy waxed on and on about being SO BRILLIANT…… and in the end he wasn’t. It reminds me of Hannibal Lechter, everyone thinks HE’s brilliant too…. he’s arrogant, and well educated, but brilliant? I think that’s stretching it. He’s surrounded by people willing to play publicist to him. So he’s good at PR, big deal, lots of egomaniacs are.

It wasn’t just the teenage girl, it was pretty much everyone we met in the book he had a bad read on. The police captain he wanted to frame for his crimes especially. Seriously, psych 101, if you say to someone’s face more than once “I’m manipulating you”, they’re going to start second guessing their decisions. This guy is supposed to be decades ahead of everyone else? He’s decades behind in psychology.

Plus he needed help from people on the inside, weak move, stupid move. Those people are bound to be less clever and get caught, and when they get caught they’ll give the game away, which of course happened by and by. If you work with others, they have to be equals, of nearing your abilities and competence, or they aren’t worth bringing on.

Anyway I’m rereading for the detail now. Another sign of sub par, if the book had been properly gripping I wouldn’t have been struck with the urge to rip it apart. I don’t think we’re dealing with an amazing author though. An interesting author, maybe, but not a generational talent by any means.

The Sculptor: A Novel by Michael Aronovitz if you care to read it.