The Gristle Brand

The theme of this blog, if there really is one, is writer's block. So many of these entries begin with an ode to its terrifying power that I think it'd be fitting to name it as the official mascot of Neue. But once I get past the Homer-esque invocation to my muse, I can rev up the blood-rusty chainsaw that is my mind and really go to hell with it.

I wrote a poem about Randy Savage for
a women's lit class once. I got an A.
Should I feel guilty about that?

Power. That's what it's all about, isn't it? What and where it is, and how to get it. It's the question that's become me in the recent nights, the all-consuming issue sitting unacknowledged at the center of every interaction or word spoken. My quest for physical power has wrenched me toward the testosterone side of the force, and with that hormonal backdrop comes a certain perspective. I'm losing my ability to empathize with people I see as weak. Strength can be any number of things: money, power, intelligence, sociability, looks, pragmatism, cleverness. I want it. All of it.

There's something unspeakable about the drive for conquest. The manly men of the world decry that their machismo is vilified by a society they consider 'feminized,' but I think ambition's just become tacitly encouraged rather than openly so. But in the grand Victorian model, that which goes unsaid in polite society creates an undercurrent of obsession. I worry about revealing my desires, as I endeavor to maintain a well-balanced, genteel persona. Machiavelli said, when asking the question of whether it was better to be loved or feared, that it was best to be loved and feared. A Gordian solution to a philosophical problem: truly, he was a man after my own heart. So perhaps my conflict is a false one, another one of the self-made roadblocks on the toll road to Powerville.

The punchy ending to this would be some sort of revelation about the nature of desire, or how inherently unachievable the goal of true power is. Maybe some sort of rumination on how the lust for control mirrors the pursuit of my fellow alcoholics. This isn't one of those entries. I'll continue studying, going to the gym, and attempting to mack on girls. I say this with the sublime resignation of one who has discovered a universal truth: what else is there?