Cage-E-Bee

It occurred to me today that it's possible to never truly meet your partner until they've made the decision to leave you. That only when they're gone can you get an honest understanding of who they are. No more barriers to emotion at that point. No more pleasantries for your benefit. No more suppressed feelings or squelched criticisms. Once that decision to leave is made, every bruise you've inflicted on their ego, every slight, every unspoken frustration, becomes the foundation on which all your future antagonistic encounters are built. It's disturbing to think that I was living with this stranger in my life for over a year. It's even more disturbing to think that I had such a terrible effect on her. It certainly didn't feel like I was doing anything against her interests. I tried to be a good partner to her. Apparently I failed.  

I'm trying real hard to understand how one can create such animosity in another person simply by existing as one's self. I made no attempts at deceiving her as to who I was. It never even occurred to me to do so. In fact, I was always compelled to share with her my life and who I am. Isn't that what relationships are all about? How does one come to the decision to live a lie just to please another? And how is it that they cannot understand the disastrous consequences of that choice, when the weight of their lies become too great to bear? What the hell is wrong with people?

Earlier today I was looking over some old photos from the early 20th century. They were nudes mostly, beautiful young women in the prime of their lives; lovely, young and vibrant. I sat there for awhile, admiring these beautiful examples of femininity, when it suddenly hit me - these people are all dead now. Their porcelain skin long ago turned gray and winkled, their gorgeous locks of hair turned white and fallen out, their tomb stones most likely covered in moss and weeds, no longer visited. Yet, there they were on my monitor screen. Still young, still beautiful.

How unnatural photographs are. I don't say that as an insult. Just an observation. Photographs defy the nature of our existence, holding moments in time beyond their natural course and preserving impressions of people and events beyond their relevance in reality. For the bulk of human history, the concept of capturing a moment in time forever, like a photograph does, would be considered nonsense or witchcraft. Nowadays such a thing requires nothing more than the press of a button on a camera body. We are constantly immersed in warped realities, shuffling us back and forth through time and space with the flickering of light or the stains on an emulsified piece of paper, distorting all notions of reality.

Perhaps this is why most of us find it difficult to live in the now. Visions of the past are constantly vying for our attention, distracting us from what is going on around us. We in the so-called "modern world" no longer follow the traditions carried on by aboriginal peoples. For them, the past is resolved with special ceremonies meant to honor abstract concepts of previous generations, long since removed from the majority of their daily lives. We choose to hang on to our long gone people forever, mingling images of their lives and with ours, until the two become an illusory world where the passage of time never really leaves anything or anyone behind. For some, the endurance of the past in our lives seems to foster a sense of immortality. Perhaps that's the whole idea of the thing. Preserve those who came before you and maybe you'll be preserved too when you're time has gone.

It's curious to think about how long we can keep that going.

Wow, look at that. 2000 people seem to have cause to look at my stuff. That's like an entire town in the mid-west all wanting to see shops of lizard beauty queens and car illustrations all at once. You guys all deserve a cookie.