The lives of spiders repulse me. The things themselves aren't exactly aesthetically pleasing but it's more the idea of their existence that bothers me. These days I find myself doing a lot of waiting, mainly for forms of transport or for certain points in the morning where it is acceptable to make breakfast, but the problem is the overall atmosphere in which I wait. Waiting in itself is not that dull if, that is, you are waiting for an occurrence that either excites or scares you. An event which produces some kind of emotion, whatever it may be is at least producing a feeling and a thought process to occupy your mind as you wait. No, the kind of waiting I've been doing lately is the kind with a foreseeably neutral outcome. This particular brand of time wasting has
become somewhat of a pain to me. I think this is largely down to the fact that I have such an over active mind that when given a space of time in which I have nothing to occupy myself except my own thoughts leads me to think of things like the lives of spiders. Due to a recent infestation of the fuckers I've been observing them and I think it's safe to say I'd have more fun watching paint dry. My feelings of distaste for them increased so profoundly over time that I
am now somewhat enraged by their dull, parasitic nature. How can something with the potential to be deadly and so universally feared (by the most dangerous species on earth) be so infuriatingly intent on just sitting still and waiting for prey? I understand that by some standards they are 'beautiful' and the way in which they bide their time as they hunt and allow their naive prey to come to them can be somewhat admired. However from the way I see it they are just lazy. Lazy and unimaginative. Allowing a skill which they have been free to
utilise since birth create a trap for their food? If a creature simply bides it's time and relies solely on the stupidity and hyperactivity of a smaller, feebler being than where is the thrill of the chase? Where is the prowess? I think the reason I am so bothered by the spiders is because I am so much like them. I sit, and I wait for something interesting to fall into my lap, anything, and on the rare occasion it does I grab a-hold and suck the life, drain the enjoyment out of it just to try and feel something. I used to go exploring for adventure, nourishment for my soul, now I just wait for it to be handed to me. Cautiously, boringly. In some ways I suppose I am like them; I seek out the dark, I am constantly waiting, but unlike the revered arachnids of which I speak; I do not live in a structure of my own excrement.
I recently began to read a book of 'memoirs'.
The story is fictitious however it is written in the first person
and therefore when I am thinking about it I forget it's a work of imagination
and perceive it as someone's real experiences. In this book the writer, Tom, is
describing his teenage year in an all-boy's school and his clique from these
days, later on he goes on to describe his elder years as he is now retired and
divorced. As he does this he slots everything between the ages of 17 to 70 into
one paragraph. At the end of this meager description of a whole existence he
says "That however is not important to this story" and it got me
thinking; just how important will my life be to my story? Will I dwell on a
particular section of my past when I am rotting alone in a home, with no
visitors, no prospects, not even the ability to decide when I urinate? Will I
wish I had done something different, or even more daunting, everything? As
we are young we predict the likely pains and bleakness that age might bring. We
imagine being lonely, divorced, widowed. Possible children growing away from
us. Forgetting one phone call, then one dinner, then being too busy altogether and
it’s as if you’re already gone to them and in a way, you are. Having to quietly
accept the loss of status, loss of respect and dignity, of desire – and desirability
in order to ‘age gracefully’. It all must fade in the end until you are nothing
more than a collection of failed ambitions, awkward sexual encounters and
regret. I believe it’s not until the fear of death fades that the regret does.
If we truly accept death then there can be no reason to wish we had more time to
live, or the means to rewrite our lives. Only after we have come to accept that will we be no longer conscious or exist other than in memory, can we really start to
appreciate all we’ve had in our lives. Be grateful for the wife we’re estranged
from, the children who’ve grown and gone on to show no signs of psychological
damage from our parental failures, cherish the status we once had and the
respect that went with it and fondly remember the bruises and grass stains from
that weekend in Guildford. However, unfortunately, not everybody gets to that
point. The idea that the world can go on without us is something difficult to
grasp, even to the least narcissistic of us because we’ve never known it. We
did not experience the world before we occurred upon it, nor will we ever suffer
it after we are gone. It seems an obvious enough statement to make but that is
because at this age we can only think about death like something that happens
to other people. There is no other way to describe it than; unfathomable. I am
straying off course here and as I’ve already devoted a blog post to the subject
of death it is starting to worry me that I am doing it yet again. I’m just
twisted like that.
I am now sure at this point that my brain is
no longer capable of forming coherent sentences and I think it’s time to wrap
this up. I probably haven’t made any sense since I began musing over these unnecessary
subjects but at least my grammar was correct. I hear a pot of coffee calling my
name from the kitchen which either means those weren’t ordinary mushrooms in my
dinner or the kettle’s boiled. I’ll let you choose which of those seems most feasible
to you. Whatever helps you sleep at night children.
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