I’ve never had friends I would have to pander to or go out of my way to please or put a mask on when they came by. Some say you have to work at friendship to make it good. I believe just the opposite. If it doesn’t come naturally and without any effort at all then it’s not real friendship and not worth trying to keep. I did cultivate friendships, but it was always a mutually pleasant task on both sides, like one who loves gardening and flowers, and doesn’t mind having to water them, or get a little dirt on one’s hands, (listening to their problems). It washes off and is more than repaid by the enjoyment in return. Between men and women, this is not so easy.
“May 28th, 1985. …the ‘cathedral’ of my self-esteem: I felt a little sad and frustrated this morning when I reflected that I’ve spent months and months developing skills (auditing, electrical work) which I may never use again and abandon as useless ballast…What wasted time, like driving down a dead end road, lost!
“But then I defensively replied: The practice of those skills may be discarded but the deeper rewards of having mastered them always remains to prop and heighten the cathedral of my self-esteem…Something about this simile grabs me to work at it, to enjoy working at it and take pride in the work, something like a ‘Gothic cathedral’ of character…
“I wonder what degree of social distance existed between the laborers who laid the foundation and moved the heavy blocks and the artisans who carved the ornaments and the craftsmen who handled placing the most delicate and critical stones into the domes and arching buttresses and the one mastermind builder who revolved a thousand things in his head, directed hundreds and conceptualized the nature and soul of the whole, harmonized its parts, like his work force, marshalling the battle and gaining the greatest share of its fame? I wonder how inter-communicating, how brotherly these classes of the workers were and how much the sweatiest laborers (like common soldiers) reaped of the real and spiritual rewards of the completed deed?
“I wonder at them as if they could tell me of my own possibilities, because I play all these parts in the construction of myself. Sometimes I drudge away for weeks, sweaty, bowed and bent and serf-like at this work, with little consciousness of what is being raised, a beast of burden, dim-witted and tired. At other times, reading books, musing, talking with friends, I’m the artisan who fashions and chisels…And at my most contemplative moments, examining my life and writing in this journal, I am the master architect, the director of the whole…”
The pages of that journal rise in color and oratory to new heights and I take on many subjects just to embellish them. I address my own personality, friends, daydreams, my childhood, my schooling and teachers, all in a review parade. The word that best sums up these pages up is ‘florid’.
I may be transcribing to tedious lengths but there are too many gems here to ignore. The last entry I condensed from eight pages and it started with a visit to Bones.
“Bones remarked that I’d been ‘overdoing it’ for the last two years… Then he enthusiastically recalled our mutual past. I wasn’t very encouraging, answering with nods and ‘yah’ and a few remarks. I noted how one better remembers what one lived in altered states (high) when in the same altered state.
“I caught fire now and then …but was a little resentful of the way he colors and exaggerates certain aspects of those years, as if he were far more in love with them than I am currently. I used to be much enamored with those memories up until a few years ago. Since then momentous changes and experiences have distanced me from our so called ‘glory days’.
"I feel like this old set of friends, (John Fyzer came by) is like an old closet of clothes, more uncomfortable to wear as I’ve grown and they ragged from use…I’m still fond of the old and value them, as they had qualities and suited me well in that youth…But a slow and steady growth necessitates changes.
“I wondered at my growing antipathy towards a true bohemian life, which I used to embrace, though in different ways and degrees than my die-hard friends, like Larry Davis. Now I look upon much of it as a cloak for incompetence or shallow rebelliousness at best. I still totally despise the bourgeois, insect life that it defies and affronts. But I see it as a futile gesture, a first step in changing things, where too many stop and label themselves rebels, though different only in looks and gestures and futile acts, still in the same mental arena and traps as their enemy, our modern world, which no one can escape.
“They oppose and taunt the ‘lemmings’ by ragged coats and a few outward habits and ways, about as much as penguins differ. The few true bohemians (like Gerard de Nerval) soared miles beyond the scope of this Earth in their imaginations and died, forgetful of the necessities of life. Surface appearances mean nothing”.
Now I touched on a chord that sends me aloft, to soar to new heights on angel wings, but not to do it alone or lose sight of Earth and others.
“To give meaning to what is realized we must communicate the gain to others. If my climb has valuable insight, the greater the climb the better. But one man’s climb is insignificant against the mass prostration. To be significant every climber must motivate others to follow and teach the way, pass along the things learned. That opens roads to real progress for mankind.
“A dark and terrible void, a black night, a total oblivion awaits the lone voyager for all his toil. It casts an ominous chill and gloom upon his solo journey and freezes and slows the blood, poisons his thoughts, reduces him in any purpose or meaning at an ever increasing and mortifying rate.
Francis Thompson wrote this, (whose journey was truly alone, living and starving in the streets of London and dying at 47 in a hovel).
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears.
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,
“How else can one look upon a lone existence? All our efforts in art are no more than a rebellion against life, an effort to leave some lesson to others. As one soldier dies another is supplied (through children) and we fight an ever changing battle. But we fight an untouchable foe of a size and nature beyond our comprehension. Nature bore us for this war and instilled in each of us a power as extensive and indestructible as the one we fight. We call it ‘hope’.
My entry ends with this: “It’s now 8:30 a.m. and I’m sitting at the ‘Med’. I wonder how much it shows”.
As I read this decades later, I wonder what I meant by ‘it’, either my extreme weariness after so much writing or the glow of eloquence I was in. Maybe both.
