I am most often reminded of it when I’m riding in a bus – a
charter bus with big windows. When you ride in a bus you are have this odd
removal from space and time. The non-linear continuum hums loudly and has A/C,
which is not what most physicists would suppose since, y’know, noise operates
within time. I see it through the tinted windows that I rest my forehead on. I
see it in unimportant people scraping happiness out of their free time. It’s
when I see a middle aged man in a camo hat awkwardly step down an embankment with
his fishing rod by the river to get to a better fishing spot. He’s enjoying his
free time, trying to find a little bit of sweetness in his passage of time.
Maybe he has a bunch of annoying kids, trying themselves to continue the joys
of youth by pissing away the afternoon, but now I’m just positing a reality on
such a man. I see it in young women walking down a street in the middle of the
day to enjoy the bodily things of an ice cream parlor or a quick stop at the
salon. I just see it for a second, removed from the world by a bus trucking
through the small town that we happen to pass through. This is straight
forward, name-it-as-you-see-it, DFW, Sartre, Camus, and bunch of other bullshit
writers that tumblrs like to pretend they are, despair (Did you know that there
are thought catalog girls who sign their articles Johanna de Silentio? What the
fuck is that? You think you’re the female Kierkegaards? Wait, you just write
about the philosophy of relationships non-ironically? Get the fuck off the internet.) This is despair is "weightlessness," or "smallness" -- y'know -- an existential crisis impending over their heads just waiting them to come up for air out of their small pleasures. It makes me a little sick because I know I’m taking my own notion of reality and pushing it upon
these characters that I just glimpse. The sort of sick where your lungs feel
deep and heavy and like they’re falling out of your chest.
Menswear
bloggers take pride in how they look. WIWT pictures are a great way to consult
with others about what should be worn together and how garments should work.
Bloggers learn from one another and spend time enjoying garments. It’s great.
Enjoying a hobby that is no longer considered “fruity” or “emasculating” is
something that, with our free time, we find a lot of joy and fulfillment from.
Some men are even able to make a job out of it and pursue this pursuit of
menswear aestheticism for a major portion of their lives. Sometimes I see a
WIWT picture and I see someone who takes a lot of pride in their hobby.
Sometimes I see a street style shot and I see someone who is meticulous about
their presentation to others. It seems to be a subjective happiness a lot of
those guys have. That’s good and that’s great because subjective happiness is
a sort of apex about how you should approach your free time.
But sometimes….
Sometimes I just see a self-conscious guy taking a photo of
himself, dying in the despair of his small hobby that he toys with just to save
himself from the real world. Sometimes I see a street style shot of someone who
pursues the small things, tries to make a jump into the real world of taking
about small things for a job, and can’t fill those lungs that are falling out
of his chest. Sometimes I just see a bunch of small, petty, sad men.
I’m probably just creating this idea for us. Hell, I’m writing
it. But, heh, I know you guys.
It could very well be true.
The problem with street style and WIWT shots isn’t that
they’re full of peacocks or people who want to distribute sartorial ontologies
to get themselves into a position of blogging volume, even though many people
would have you believe this. The problem is that we just are hiding from the fact that we
are so small.
Can I be happy with being small?
Can you be happy with being small?
