This is going to be a different kind of entry for me. Before you go into this I need you to go to my links page and click on I-Am-Jack. I'm too lazy to program the link here, so just do it, or this isn't going to make much sense. Read the last two entries, and then come back.
Done already? Mein Gott, you read fast! Any way, some of what Jack's persona wrote struck a chord with me, and some of it, well, lets just say that Jack is giving good ol' Reznor a run for his money.
So here's what I'm going to do here. I'm going to take some quotes from the last Jack's last two entries, in no particular order, mind you. Then I'm going to write what I think about quote, out of context or not. We'll see if I can get anything even remotely meaningful out of it, which I doubt, but we might just get a little entertainment
------------------------------------
"All I feel is dead.
"I am Jack's Festering Apathy."
WRONG!!!! Death and Apathy are not emotions, they are the lack thereof (especially DEATH, which is the lack of everything). Obviously you lack of emotion has struck some sort of emotional chord in you or you wouldn't be writing about it, now would you? It's probably guilt for not caring about things the way you think you should. Most likely, however, you are probably actually depressed which to the depressed person can seem like apathy, but it is not, it is an emotion, and it's a pain. Been there, albeit more temporarily then you probably have. It is either this, or you have Mono, which also bites the ass, especially if you didn't have any fun getting it.
"There is no sense of continuity."
You aren't a comic book or a novel. (we all wish we were though, but we would mostly all end up being Crime and Punishment, which is entirely overated and boring, Tolstoy could have learned a few lessons in word economy) If you want a story I'm afraid you are the one who's going to have to write it, and trust me, you don't want it to sound like an imitation of E.A. Poe's The Drunken Years."I wanted my therapist to save me."
No amount of doctorates can do that. You have to do it for yourself.
"And I can not do it myself." Bullshit.
"After what the Antagonist did to me, I am not sure if I can ever let myself get too comfortable anywhere or with anything."
The Antagonist no longer exists, not in any way that really matters. The only reason this person seems to still have power over you is that you let him/her. You are your own Antagonist now, and as such, seem to be doing a pretty good job of sabotaging yourself, but it seems pretty obvious to me you want to hunt down the sabatour, which is, after all a part of you now, and strike him/her down (sex gets kind of funny in the psyche, but then, watch it sometimes, sex is kind of funny in the physical too). You cannot however, kill him/her, because he/she is part of you now, but there are other ways to stop the chicanery
"I do not know how to free myself. How to fuel myself."
The first thing you have to do is admit that you were never really free to begin with. We are all chained in ways that we cannot comprehend, but in this there is a sort of freedom.(do you like that, I think that's some sort of fortune cookie thought right there. It is also, however, sadly true)
"I do not have the strength. The power. The passion and energy. It seems I am constantly asking 'Where did all my energy go?'"
The answer to this question is: healing. That's where your energy is, it is trying to heal you, but it only will succeed if you let it, which means you have to find some way to mourn what you have (or think you have) lost.
"I have become a dark abandoned house.
"All the copper wire ripped out.
"Anything of value stolen or smashed on the floor.
"Resentment is a squatter here and lives amoung the broken glass, cutting itself often."
You see, even in the midst of your angst and dispair you managed to create something beautiful, although I'm not sure why the squatter would be cutting himself rather then peeling off the wallpaper with the broken glass, but hey, it's your house, tell him to get the fuck out before you call the happy pill police.
"I need a while to forget about my failures in a green warm place where nothing matters."
I wish I could tell you that this would help, but you mind is still with you no matter where you go. It follows you around like someone with a little too much of a crush.
"I am powerless, weak and scared."
Everone is, some people just won't admit that.
"My therapist asks me 'Isn't there anything you want to live for?'
"I can never give her a straight answer"
That's because you shouldn't be living FOR anything, you should just be living. Everything else is a kind of death in itself. Don't even try to live for yourself, just live, and fuck the rest.
"My spirit has been crushed, broken and eliminated."
Well, two out of three anyway. You see, you spirit really can't BE eliminated, otherwise it's not really a spirit, should you believe in such things. Spirits can get bruised and beaten down, but there are always there. Sometimes they hide though, around the corners of repressed memories and beneath blankets weaved from promises to yourself that you've long since broken. (hey, I said this wasn't going to be in any particular order)
"I want to remember what it feels like to look at the stars, with nothing else on my mind. I want to remember what they mean to me."
The external stars are overrated, look at the interior ones instead, they are much more fascinating.
----------------------------------------------
That didn't turn out anywhere near the way I wanted it to, but for lack of better things to do, I'm going to post it anyway. Jack, I just want you to know that I'm not making fun of you. I've been there and it's terrible. The humor is here to make you smile, at least for a moment.
~M
