YONAH TAUBE

“You know how you let yourself think that everything will be all right if you can only get to a certain place or do a certain thing.
But when you get there you find it's not that simple.”
Richard Adams, Watership Down

24 October 2011

I MADE THE GRAVEST OF ALL HUMAN ERRORS: I TRUSTED.

NEVER... NEVER AGAIN.

“…sanity involves a certain measure of impersonation, … for the sake, first and foremost, of one’s own convictions.” "I don’t know if I can face this. You know. The party and the ceremony, and then the hour after that, and the hour after that." “… overtaken by a sensation of unbeing. There is no other word for it.” “There is a beauty in the world, though it’s harsher than we expect it to be.” “I remember thinking to myself: So this is the beginning of happiness, this is where it starts.” “We throw our parties; we abandon our families to live alone in Canada; we struggle to write books that do not change the world.” “But there are still the hours.. One & then another, & you get through that one & then, my god, there’s another. I’m so sick.” “…these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult.” “The world, this world, feels suddenly stunned and stunted, far from everything.” “I want streets at night, wind and rain, no one wondering where I am.” “…a kiss at dusk on a patch of dead grass, and a walk around a pond as mosquitoes droned in the darkening air.” The-Hours_00.07.06 “… without playing any particular part beyond that of the willing observer.” “What does it mean to regret when you have no choice? It’s what you can bear. And there it is… It was death.” “We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep.” “Dead, we are revealed in our true dimensions, and they are surprisingly modest.” “I wanted to write about all the ways we might have died.”
"But there are still the hours, aren't there? One and then another, and you get through that one and then, my god, there's another."
The Hours Michael Cunningham

"I'm ungrateful, you call me ungrateful? My life has been stolen from me."
"I'm living in a town I have no wish to live in...
I'm living a life I have no wish to live..."

"To look life in the face, always, to look life in the face, and to know it for what it is... at last, to love it for what it is, and then to put it away."
Virginia Woolf

2013,1 January: EW

Mon.14.January.2013: 3.08 It’s to be another night with-out sleep. Common. Usual. Not at all un-expected. In fact, this is the way it’s all become. I love this old house. It seems to know, to understand. It’s gone dead-quiet, quite dark and rather cold, in spite of the furnace running. Winter comes in and makes this its home now. Be-fitting, really. Quite be-fitting. It’s a place where Life draws out of a Soul, like an early morning fog drifts by, enshrouding all in a marrow-gripping chill that can’t be escaped… visible, palpable and inescapable. One sees it coming, knows full-well what it does, but surrenders to it, solely because there’s no-where to go, no means of avoiding it. One looks to find another in the mist, but all the world’s gone… disappeared in a massive, all-devouring grey. Calling out, all that can be heard is the dullness of a voice, absorbed in the darkness, becoming nothing more than a whisper… and then dying into silence… just silence. And all the while, the fog thickens and becomes heavier and heavier still, until finally, there’s nothing to be seen, nothing to be heard, and only the cold dampness penetrating deeper and deeper until the body becomes part of it, one with it, and all simply, calmly, silently drifts on and nothing is left in its wake. There is nothing, nothing at all to be done to avoid. No battle to be fought and won. In the reality, the realisation, there is only surrender.

They are a disappointment you know… friends. It’s what they do, what they are meant to do, what they intend to do, always. We grow up being told, convinced rather, that they are there and will be there for our convenience, our aide in time of need, whether trite or over-whelming. But that’s not what it is, really. No. Not in the least bit. You see, it’s rather very much the converse: We are here for their convenience. It’s so that they can experience a sense of self-fulfillment, value, worth, a purpose for having been born and for being still alive. Much like family you see; parents aren’t particularly gifted with any special talent. They simply do what it is to ensure the continuation of their own self. They nurture only as much as is absolutely necessary to be certain of the survival of that which they have created, by no momentous talent or investment of any part of each, save a few organic bits that are produced for just that purpose anyway.

How queer it is, when given thought, that the very surge of carnal pleasure involved with the creation of that bit of stuff, that infant child, that extension of one’s self is, in all probability, commensurate with the sense of self-satisfaction of witnessing the actuality of having succeeded in having propagated one’s self. That is how it is with family, and, as such, with friends… and perhaps spouses as well, as I think on it. We do not take friends into our lives. Rather, we rejoice in the having been “taken” into their lives. It’s all a matter of simple acquiescence. They are, with our surrender, afforded the opportunity to experience the pleasures awarded themselves when, having bestowed upon us some token of brotherly love or something of that sort, some “thing” or another, the base carnal pleasurable sensation that fills their being when accolades are out-pouring from those perceived as either peers or, in best circumstances, superiors. It’s much the same as being presented a Nobel Peace Prize for having produced the ultimate “world peace”: Not done for the sole purpose of simply having accomplished a task necessary to all, rather, to be able to stand, in the sight of all the world, and accept, no, take, some tangible bit of something that, when seen by all around, gives credence to the accomplishment. There is fame involved, the aggrandizement of the soul, the ego, if you will, and that is, essentially, the entire purpose of achieving world peace and, in a microcosmic sense, taking on and giving aide to a friend. It is particularity successful when the effort and investment in the entire affair is absolutely minimal, having little or no effect at all on one’s own being, causing absolutely no inconvenience what so ever. What has been done, or given, is of no real consequence, and, as easily as it was given, it can be removed. The other may or may not be devastated, but that’s not the issue, the point, the consideration. What is tantamount to all is that the giver has been made whole, that self has experienced a sense of value, worth and perhaps, some degree of omnipotence, of standing equal to and parallel with the gods. That is, for each and all intent and purpose, the very essence of friendship… what it does for and contributes to the self, not the other.(Mon.14.Jan.2013)

Friday, 1 November 2013, 20.48/8:48pm Today came the notice: Storage at Storage Post, Ozone Park NY is now at Auction. The North Country Winter is coming in strong and I’ve nothing appropriate to wear for that. I’ve been ever so hungry these past weeks and my 32-inch-waist trousers no longer stay up with-out a belt and several layers of shirts and sweat-shirts to hold them. My eyes are sunken and so too, my general mood. My hands and feet are always cold from circulatory troubles. My stomach is always either churning or I’m nauseated. My head is a constant throb. I have no desire to brush my teeth which is causing troubles of its own. It’s been almost a year with-out steady income. I’m forever falling asleep when alone, sitting. And it’s all been a general, hurtful, painful, depressing disappointment all told. So tonight, just now, I’ve opened ALL of the pages that have been on this Journal… ALL of them. Indeed, this is the Grand Fuck You. I don’t care any longer. You know? Others never cared whether or when they hurt me. Not a single one. They’ve all been quite candid. And when I said ANYTHING at all, it was misunderstood, misconstrued and turned against me. So I kept almost all of my Life and feelings to myself… save for these Journal entries. But not any longer. Here it is… ALL of it. And I don’t care. – If there’s anything after this, “another side”, a “home on God’s celestial shores”, whether it be in Heaven or Hell, I look forward to seeing you all there… with the Truth. Meanwhile… it’s Fuck-all for now… and Fuck You for Eternity.

Thu.7.Nov.2013:09.14 Some things, some events, some memories will just NEVER leave us.