Flickering Animal

For a blog entitled "Bright Animal Rampant" (an optimistic gesture), I haven't written very many optimistic posts. I don't know that this one will be much different... but of course the important thing is to keep going, to process, to move through the procedure even if the present is unpleasant.

It seems dangerous to me to acknowledge weakness or vulnerability overmuch. Or darkness, for that matter. Because to me, what is dwelled upon grows. This places me in a tricky spot because I want to admit to sadness, dejectedness, occasionally swarming misery. Who wouldn't. But when I say it, or find those who say it for me, it's like saying You've Won. Another reason why I was hesitant to embrace "OK Computer", which lately seems like a really good microcosm for most of my emotional gestalt. If I listen to these songs of icy dislocation, keening desire, sleepy helplessness, of course that's how I feel. But do I want to bring that into focus? It's like naming a demon-- in doing so, you conjure it up. Better, maybe, to keep it only ever on the periphery of your vision. You know it's there, but if it's never in your face, you can only ever move around it. Parallax. Or some such.