I have an addiction to thinking about people. Beautiful and bizarre, fascinating and unusual women — they’re particularly good subjects. It’s no surprise. I am heterosexual and male.
I once wrote about a dream I had. In the dream, there was an Orwellian “Empire” that hunted people by collecting details, collecting secrets, about them. If the Empire collected enough personal information about an individual, they could eliminate that person. Mothers bundled up their children and sent them out into the world, warning them to keep their secrets, warning them to keep their silence, because “agents of the Empire are everywhere.”
At the time I wrote it, I thought the dream was about how we’d closed ourselves off to one another, how, for fear of giving others a weapon to use against us, we’d constructed walls against affection, how tactics and weaponry became necessary, simply to break through the defenses of others.
But recently, I increasingly see myself as the Empire, hungrily uncovering details about people — first, to feed the hunger of my addictive curiosity — but increasingly, in some hope of exploding their walls, of being close to someone again. I terribly miss having someone close. Someone whose thoughts, now and then, eagerly pieces together the puzzle of me. I don’t want to hide emotion and affection anymore. I want someone googling me.
And yet, as I type this, I am horrified that expressing it, those who hear it will only build stronger walls against me. No one wants more danger in their lives. Affection, closeness, and openness are danger, and no one wants that.
Meanwhile, my mind should be on The Small Talker. The movie is spiraling toward real. The storyboards are tip-toeing along, trying to catch up with the ideas I’ve already fully formed. The graphics and logos are being developed. The casting and the primary rehearsals are pretty much done. Locations need to be locked. Costumes need to be bought. Props need to be constructed.
But this week, perhaps only because everyone is away on Thanksgiving vacations, it feels like a rather lonesome pursuit. A business-like pursuit, chugging along automatically, without passion or hope for miracles. So, here I am, smoking too many cigarettes, drinking a few fingers of alcohol every night before bed, waisting away hours watching downloaded episodes of Battlestar Galactica, listening to NPR, reading books I’ve read before… and hoping for the big, cosmic change to light a fire under my ass.
Life is such a waiting game. Seizing the day seems impossible alone.
J Wilder Konschak 