Munching on a slice of Hawaiian pizza and standing in front of the bathroom mirror in my head, I tell myself I live in a time when it’s more socially acceptable to be an illiterate and popular psychopath with a Rambo complex, then it is to be an emotionally mature loser who’s skilled at exteriorizing his inner life to what is usually only himself, so why not just remain in my mind for the rest of my life, where I can forego conventional love, intimacy, and trust without being ignored for it. But I’m not as anal and self-negating as I sound. There are some toothpaste spatters on the bottom part of the mirror I haven’t cleaned yet, for example, because even though they make me feel a certain cataract-like quality whenever I try to see around them to my reflection, they seem real, and mostly there to remind me not everything I know is mirage. Desire isn’t complicated. At least I don’t think it is. Case in point, before bed last night I sat all Zen-like on my cushion and just looked at my kitchen wall until I realized I was just looking at a wall and that was it, at which time I sat up and walked around the apartment a bit, trying to wonder myself back to uncertainty about which part of what I was feeling was my feet, and which was floor. You see, in pure Chris Russell stubborn fashion I just had to become the thing I was gently looking at and that was it! Which has got me thinking. I used to think I wouldn’t rest until I achieved that special validation that comes with knowing I’d transcended ordinary being and become something that repelled the prison of craving like a raincoat repelled rain. But I think now I’d rather be the kind of everyday common man who suffers alone knowing he couldn’t stop wanting if he wanted to, no more or less than the child who wishing to hide the sun from his eyes so that he can nap past the doldrums of the afternoon, eventually just gives up on sleep and decides to stay up until his eyes won’t let him anymore, won’t let him see.