Gym teachers have it made. I have already written a lot today – letters and such, but perhaps I just can’t help myself from the musical rhythms of typing. I do hope that I will give myself the time to write with eloquent cadence in the future, but that can stray away from the clarity of simplifying complex ideas.
The first thing to mention is that when I was student teaching, I stumbled upon some Greek Philosophy. I bought The Basic Works of Aristotle for 25 dollars at the hospital bookstore yesterday, where it is resting with my bookshelf I read from when I sleep on the floor. The anecdote of Greek Philosophy that I heard was that the Greeks believed that to suffer is a lower truth than to commit suicide. If you are living in suffering, you are not only contributing to your own prolonged pain, but it creates sadness and confusion to those around you.
I have suffered diligently for the past three years. I just renewed my lease this May, and although there have been many wonderful memories in this apartment, the majority of my life in this epoch has been one of pain and sadness – a continuation since the age of fifteen, also with many wonderful memories interspersed. Some that make me so happy I could cry.
But I’ve finally surrendered my pain. I decided that a small increase in my medication was necessary. When you have a few suicide attempts just laying around your house – multiple letters, knives with blood on them, plastic bags with rubber bands around them – something may not be in unity with the universe.
I don’t think the world is any better for Kurt Cobain killing himself. Maybe I wouldn’t idolize him, but I don’t think that is what he would have wanted anyways, along with DFW, or Sylvia Plath. They were tortured people who understood that suffering is not the end goal of life.
Since this adjustment, I feel much better. I heard someone this week say that two weeks ago they were planning an assisted suicide, and yet today, they were the happiest they had ever been in their entire life. Yeah, relatable. I asked if they were bipolar and they said no, but they happen to take an antipsychotic alike me.
I think that this change gives me room to breath, and if you would like to comment on how my writings and poetry go to hell from hence forth, by all means, I’ll die for my words.
That all being said, life is good. You have to remember that I should be dead. And as interested as I am in death, I am on this side of the the river. And as hard as life is, it is not death, so best to not be preoccupied with something until it happens. Let me focus on life, and then perhaps you will not wonder of my death, and I won’t spend the afterlife trying to resolve this incarnation.
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Being that I am done writing Eleven Stories for 11:11 and corresponding with an independent publisher, I thought it wise to reach out to two people who have characters based on them in the stories. Both experiences went well. One of them being an ex, it was very quick to see where we left off. It made me realize that perhaps the reason I have a narrow view of love is that I have not been with many partners and can not compare what a healthy relationship is with the few I have had. It is good to wait to find someone with who you have a mutual understanding of life, the universe, and everything.
And it brings into view that yes, the past five years of my life have been to impress my ex-girlfriend. No smoking. No meat. A masters. All of it was just a cry for approval from someone I made up in my head more than I ever knew. It is nice to enjoy a hot dog, watch a movie on the couch with ice cream, and smoke the occasional cigarette. Because it is who I am, not who I think I’m supposed to be.
I understand that I am a risk. Professionally, romantically, mentally. But I am good risk. The first Tarot card I ever pulled was The Fool. And the fool has a double 00. And the number 0 can be put at the beginning or end of any deck. As I did with in Ten Zen by Ben. All the stories appear in chronological order besides Depressed as a Clown which was written first, and which I put at the end, which numerologically speaking, makes sense.
It is unclear if the fool will fall or fly.
The Farmer’s Market started and I’m driving a van this year. That’s cool. I love the farmers market. It is so wonderful to interact with a plethora of people, and be outside five hours a day. What a gift. My goal is also that it will recalibrate my sleep schedule, being that I am working three days a week instead of two. And I substitute taught today for a Gym class. And really, allowing myself to breath, it was beautiful. I got to play Lupe Fiasco, Frank Ocean and Sia for the boys while they played badminton. It was so nice to see them flow with the music and turn from brutes who fight and fence, into dancers, hiding their enjoyment while arguing over if the birdie was on the line while they screamed the N word at each other. Then I watched the wiffle ball game with old-timey baseball organ music playing like I was on the streets of New York in the 1910’s.
It may appear that I lack ambition of some sort. That I am happy to be the lowest common denominator is society. A gym teacher, substitute. I am not here to say that aspirations, wealth, and prosperity do not interest me. I am here to say I have a less travelled path. But it is my path. There is something about reclaiming my life that is very redemptive. I understand that I am a risk, but anyone who wouldn’t take a risk on me, in my eyes, is a fool.
Ben Bonkoske 