Or, the 'Monty Effect'.
So today, in spite of my conviction that I'm internally shepherding a kidney stone from its point of origin to its inevitable point of departure (wincing as he types), I decided that I needed to take myself to the gym today. Well, the excruciating pain isn't constant, and after I spend about half an hour in the morning, feeling like I'm being pincered in the groin by burning tongs, and think I'm going to pass out from the intensity of the pain, it kind of starts to wane a bit, to more of a feeling of just bearable discomfort.
And I thought, maybe exercising will... oh, I don't know -- do something? Oh well, it doesn't really matter -- I got my gym bag together, threw a load of wash into the machine, and then drove to Summit. With a shopping list in my pocket, for on the way home.
It was after the workout, when I was getting ready to shower, that this 'Monty Effect' made itself most evident. Usually, I'm more or less alone in the locker room, if only because I can schedule my workouts for the times when the gym is least busy. But today, there were more men about than is usual, and most of them seemed quite content to be walking around naked, with their towels thrown over one shoulder. I guess I'd better get used to this, I thought, if I really end up doing this play for which I just auditioned.
But of course, what I really want to do is to look at all of these men. Not necessarily because of some erotic urge (the standard 'keep the gays out of the shower room' plaint voiced by so many straight men whose self-esteem, in my opinion, is far too high), but simply because naked people are so... interesting. In the locker room, however, there's a kind of 'I can't see you' rule -- so, we can acknowledge there's someone else there, by not bumping right into them, but not by making any sort of eye contact, whatsoever. Even though I suspect that all the men there, straight of not, sneakily want to know what other men look like without clothes on.
As I was finishing up my shower, drying off and getting ready to weigh myself, I noticed a little old man, perhaps in his early 80's, making his way through the tiled hallway, back toward the lockers, and I had another of my little frissons of death-centric anxiety. Which unspooled itself something like this...
Just a little while ago, I was writing here about the Buddhist concept that 'there is no story' -- that the idea of my life unfolding in a coherent narrative is a form of self-deception, and that by shedding this error in thinking, I might be able to find a more basic detachment from the confusing illusions of human existence. Or something like that.
But, looking at this naked old man, I found myself wondering what he lives for -- what he looks forward to, what he hopes to do or see or experience, even as the statistical probability of his imminent death continues to mount. Because I see a difference between 'there is no story', and 'there hasn't been a story', and 'I don't want a story'. (This made more sense to me while I was driving home) It may well be the height of silliness, to think that, every day, the things I do and the things that happen to me will conform to some sort of neat narrative. But at the same time, I can't ignore, I don't think, the narrative that my life has already made of itself -- and aside from such improbabilities as an eighteen-wheeler loaded with chickens crashing through my living room wall, or a meteor landing on my head, or, in some random vein of which I've never been aware, an aneurysm bursting, isn't it fairly reasonable to expect a kind of temporal symmetry, as life continues to unspool?
As life continues to unspool. This is the choking point for me, which the naked little man more or less mutely punctuated. I auditioned for a play, partly to find out whether or not I might still have the requisite and desirable skills that I once enjoyed, as an actor. And, of course, partly to find yet another way to humiliate myself publicly. I've been holding myself back, from making new artwork, partly because of space considerations (I guess I could start storing new work in the chimney, for a week or two, until it's filled up), and partly because I feel that I've misled myself, for my whole life, about what actually comprises an artist's life, and how few of the legitimately talented artists among us are fortunate enough to be able to afford to nurture, nourish and promote their own works.
But I find that, without even an illogical and illusory sense of the future, I feel useless and stupid, like a bipedal cow, waiting in line for my turn in the abattoir. There's only so much laundry I can do, after all. (Although, given the size of our home, I could easily devote scores of hours a week to its proper upkeep...) It's not as though the creative spark has completely died out, by any means -- I'm just choking with frustration at my seemingly intractable dilemma of needing more space.
So what I thought of, today, was this: how about I allow myself to make some of the masks I've been imagining -- I've been reading books on New Guinea again, as it happens -- and take these masks with me to the bi-weekly critique group, and when the evening's done, tell everyone that, if anyone wants one of these things, they can have them, because I can't take them home with me? Which will feel worse, I wonder -- the amazement, and greedy clamor for possession, or a stunned, awkward silence, and the sight of these works stuffed into the kitchen trash can?
(I wonder if, in part, the reason I haven't sought more immediate help, regarding this suspected kidney stone, is that I secretly believe that this is the kind of pain that I deserve, that this is the kind of pain I should always live with, that this kind of pain most clearly illustrates how I truly feel about myself? I say this now, because the idea of abandoning my artworks seems so lacerating, and yet somehow so satisfying, in as painful a way as is possible. It's as though this degree of self-loathing somehow gratifies me, and proves that all my detractors -- my parents mainly -- were right)
The little old man toddled by, and I took an inward tumble, as it were. What do I do with myself, until I'm dead? What do I do with myself, when it seems clear that, no matter what I do, I'm not going to have the dreamed-of successes that propelled me (to a degree) when the possibility of notable achievement seemed at least somewhat more likely? I feel like a candle burning in a room with drawn window curtains and a locked door, and no one is ever going to come in to take advantage of whatever light I might shed.
Ah, but the drier has stopped, and I've got white clothes to fold... Opposable thumbs -- gotta love'em.
© 2013 Walter Zimmerman
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